"Pluck" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with a taking face and a good deal of pluck about her—and oh, mother, I believe she is starvingly poor, and she has to earn her own living, I made her have a cup to tea and some bread-and-butter to-night, and she ate as if she were famished. It's awfully distressing. I really don't know what ought ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade
... meant very speedily to fathom. Hayden set his nice, square jaw firmly, and when Hayden set his jaw that way, you might look for things to happen. He might be over-impulsive and lacking in caution, but he had plenty of initiative, pluck and determination. Then, his face relaxed and softened. He threw his cigarette into the bed of ashes on the hearth and stretched his arms above his head. Ah-h-h! He felt like Monte Cristo. Surely, surely, the world was his. ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... remarked. "Well, I don't believe it. I don't believe you have either of you the pluck to go through life with the fear of the rope round your neck every minute. But if I am indeed a condemned man. I ought to have my privileges. Give me a cigarette, one ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... sunlight enter into the chinks and crannies. In this way I can catch sight of many a small being either on the seaweed or the rocky ledges, and even creatures transparent as glass become visible by the thin outline gleaming in the sunlight. Then I pluck a piece of seaweed, or chip off a fragment of rock with a sharp-edged collecting knife, bringing away the specimen uninjured upon it, and place it carefully in its own separate bottle to be carried ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... very kisses chill'd our infant brows; She pluck'd the very flowers of daily life As from a grave where Silence only wept, And none but Hope lay buried. Her blue eyes Were like Forget-me-nots, o'er which the shade Of clouds still lingers when the moaning storm Hath pass'd away ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... is a piece of cord knotted around the dog's neck—the loose end looking as though gnawed by teeth, and then broken off with a pluck; as if the animal had been tied up, and succeeded in setting ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... father's wont, ere I slew him with four great stones, to climb to the tops of the tallest trees and reach forth his hand, to see if he might not pluck a star. But I said: "Perhaps they be as chestnut-burs." And all the tribe did laugh. Ul was also a fool. But what dost ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... pluck my hair and line your nests with my curls! Pischt—away with you!" she flung out the crumbs ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... 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 foul bosom of that perilous stuff Which weighs ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... received, repaired to the house of the accused; and his indignation being inflamed at finding the story had already circulated among his acquaintance, he told him, with evident marks of displeasure, that he was come to pluck the same brace of crows which he said he had disgorged. The defendant, seeing him very much irritated, positively denied that he had mentioned a brace: "One indeed," said he, "I own I took notice of, upon the authority of your own physician, who ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... must build it of the boughs of thick trees; and the Rabbins have told him that these thick trees are the palm, the myrtle, and the weeping willow. Even Sarmatia may furnish a weeping willow. The law has told him that he must pluck the fruit of goodly trees, and the Rabbins have explained that goodly fruit on this occasion is confined to the citron. Perhaps, in his despair, he is obliged to fly to the candied delicacies of the grocer. His mercantile connections will enable him, often at considerable ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... you will be indulgent to my rudeness, otherwise I shall have to avoid you when I need you most. Oh, Charlotte, it seems terrible to me that I should mar through anguish the best hours of my life, the blissful moments of meeting with you, for whom I would pluck every hair from my head if it would make you happy. And yet to be so blind, so hardened! Have pity upon me. Again I promise you that I will be reasonable. Do not banish me from your presence. Extend to me your hand, and promise me that you will be my friend and ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... of Dr. Rogers. This man burst out, and bade the people beware, for 'a Priestley had entered the land;' and then, crouching down in a worshiping attitude, exclaimed, 'Oh, Lamb of God! how would they pluck ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith
... seldom, and flies fast and far till one day he is lost in the clouds. Therefore should we hold him fast if by any chance he rests for a little space upon our hand. It is not wise to neglect the present for the future, for who knows what the future will be, Incubu? Let us pluck our flowers while the dew is on them, for when the sun is up they wither and on the morrow will others bloom that we shall never see.' And she lifted her sweet face to him and smiled into his eyes, and once more I felt a curious pang of jealousy and turned ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... was some months later, when the Rev. Cyrus W. Negus himself lay dead, and all the bells of the village rang his requiem, that a friend and admirer of Samuel Shaw could also fairly recognize the mettle of this preacher who had the pluck to speak out what he believed to be his message, with every worldly reason to be silent. He had dared to defy the conventions of indiscriminate eulogy at funerals, to stand practically alone against public opinion, and to turn an opportunity of winning popular applause into an ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... Come! Pluck up your spirits and make the best of it. Look here, boy. You must bear it for the sake of the greater pleasure, the joy that will come when she finds that she was right in her belief, and in the surprise to all your friends when they see you come back alive and kicking, and all the ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... It seems to me that any one with pluck and energy ought to be able to make his way out of this country somehow; besides, from what I hear great numbers do get away, ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... the fur. You've got the advantage of me in this business, though you have been a hard cuss; for you are young and kind o' limber yet." Then, as he glanced at the discouraged youth, his manner changed, and in a tone that was meant to be kindly he added, "There, there! Why don't you pluck up heart? If I was as young as you be, I'd get convarted if it took ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... passionate of men was capable of, or that love could inspire, for him to be at last admitted to the possession of the ravishing object of his vows and soul, to be laid in her bed, nay in her very arms (as she imagined he thought) and then, even before gathering the roses he came to pluck, before he had begun to compose or finished his nosegay, to depart the happy paradise with a disgust, and such a disgust, as first to oblige him to dissemble sickness, and next fall even from all his civilities, was a contempt she was not able to bear; especially from him, of whom all men ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... extremely interested in the whole affair. He had always considered Nicholas Forrester unique, and he genuinely admired his pluck in having taken ...
— The Beggar Man • Ruby Mildred Ayres
... large apron, seated herself with a tin pan in her lap containing a turkey, and then began quickly to pluck off its feathers, laying them to dry on a religious newspaper spread on the ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... was dominated by French influence, Chaucer probably translated parts of the Roman de la Rose, a dreary allegorical poem in which love is represented as a queen-rose in a garden, surrounded by her court and ministers. In endeavoring to pluck this rose the lover learns the "commandments" and "sacraments" of love, and meets with various adventures at the hands of Virtue, Constancy, and other shadowy personages of less repute. Such allegories were the delight of the Middle Ages; now they are as dust and ashes. Other and better works ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... think not; crimes of violence and attacks on the person require more or less pluck. Do you ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... interrupted 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 his accents ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... but take the air, and pluck a few of these fragrant blossoms,' replied Monica hastily. 'I will presently conduct you to the Manor myself, and ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... disabled, Lieutenant King, fearing that they might fall into the enemy's hands, burnt them with the transports. The place was relieved by General Schofield twenty-four hours later, so that if King had patiently held on a little longer his pluck and skill would have been rewarded by saving his vessels. At about the same time, October 28th, General Granger being closely pressed in Decatur, Alabama, above the Muscle Shoals, the light-draught General Thomas, of the Eleventh Division, under the command of ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... with fatigue and oppression. While she was with me, she was under my own eye, and I assure you, my much valued friend, everything was done for her that could be done; and the accident has vexed me to the heart. In fact I could not pluck up spirits to write to you, on account ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... ashamed to tell it, replied, "I didn't want you to think that the Britishers had more pluck ...
— The Great K. & A. Robbery • Paul Liechester Ford
... foundation of Carthage. Virgil was his passion. He read and re-read him continually; he knew him by heart. To the end of his life, in his severest writings, he quoted verses or whole passages out of his much-loved poet. Dido's adventure moved him to tears. They had to pluck the book out of ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... had bought and paid for the modest cottage which she and her husband occupied. Under her careful hand it was always neat and clean; in summer the little yard was gay with bright-colored flowers, and woe to the heedless pickaninny who should stray into her yard and pluck a rose or a verbena! In a stout oaken chest under her bed she kept a capacious stocking, into which flowed a steady stream of fractional currency. She carried the key to this chest in her pocket, a proceeding regarded by uncle Wellington with no little ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... came on, and although swept by volleys of musketry reached the bamboos, which they strove in vain to pluck up or climb. In the meantime the eighteen pounders had never ceased their fire, the sailors working them steadily, regardless of the fight that was going on on either flank. Here the little brass guns did good service; each ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... and not thirty yards from the winning-post, Montague makes his effort, and for a second shows a good yard in advance; but Jim instantly replies to the challenge and partially closes the gap. But it is all of no use:—though he struggles with unflinching pluck he can never quite get up, and the judge's fiat is in favour of the pink ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... are married and left behind, who bear their children with their husbands far away in danger, who have had no real homes yet, but who wait and hope, they are very wonderful in their courage and pluck—and, most of all, everywhere, our women, like our men, wisely refuse to be dreary. There are enough secret dark hours, but in our work we carry on cheerfully, the women know the soldiers' slogan, "Cheero," and to Britain and to "somewhere on the ...
— Women and War Work • Helen Fraser
... Lord's prayer, and the general confession. How was it possible that these things could be taught too early? If his attention flagged or his memory failed him, here was an ill weed which would grow apace, unless it were plucked out immediately, and the only way to pluck it out was to whip him, or shut him up in a cupboard, or dock him of some of the small pleasures of childhood. Before he was three years old he could read and, after a fashion, write. Before he was four he was learning Latin, and could ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... children," he said, smiling gravely. "See an old child whom thou hast made happy with a toy. But we are men too soon again; the King bids thee come with me before him. And, my son, if thou wouldst please me more than by any gift, I pray thee pluck that spear-head from thy helmet before thou comest into the presence ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang
... thoughtfully, "he couldn't do that; it would be cowardly, and he's got too much pluck. He'd have taken some things, too and he hasn't ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... those tables, when the river traffic was at its height, had never been surpassed in the history of games of chance, was no exaggeration. Not a semblance of restraint was put upon the players, and experts from all over the world gathered to pluck the exhaustless supply of victims, as buzzards assemble to feed on carrion. Fortunes were made and lost in a night. Men sat down to play worth thousands of dollars, and rose paupers! They staked and lost their money, their slaves, their business and their homes. In the ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... certain proof how truly we love our dearest friend, that, after all our envy and ill-will, yet it is as true as that God is in heaven that, all the time, maugre the devil of self that remains in our heart,—after he has done his worst—we would still pluck out our eyes for our friend and shed our blood. I have no better proof to myself of the depth and the divineness of my love to my friend than just this, that I still love him and love him more tenderly and loyally, after having so treacherously ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... him shal pluck out of his roote, and the Sonne him shal disenherite, and of the Holy le disracinera, et le Filz le desheritera, ...
— An Introductorie for to Lerne to Read, To Pronounce, and to Speke French Trewly • Anonymous
... she said, barely able to control herself. "Don't you worry. I know how you feel, but we'll get along. Don't cry now." Then her own lips lost their evenness, and she struggled long before she could pluck up courage to contemplate this new disaster. And now without volition upon her part there leaped into her consciousness a new and subtly persistent thought. What about Lester's offer of assistance now? What about his ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... the bromelias, grass plantains, orchids, cacti, and in short all the parasites which formed a little forest beneath the large one, many marvelous insects were they tempted to pluck as though they had been genuine blossoms—nestors with blue wings like shimmering watered silk, leilu butterflies reflexed with gold and striped with fringes of green, agrippina moths, ten inches long, with leaves for wings, maribunda bees, like living emeralds ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... diagnosis, too. I haven't forgotten. But the boy is too proud to cry poverty among strangers. He keeps his end up like a man. To hear him talk, one would think he not only hadn't a care in the world, but that he commanded the earth. How can one help admiring the boy's pluck and—that's where my reticence comes ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... the tree We'll cherries pluck, and pick the strawberry; And every day Go see the wholesome country girls make hay, Whose brown hath lovelier grace Than any painted face That I do know Hyde Park can show: Where I had rather gain a kiss than meet (Though ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... for her, but she mustn't ever have 'em! I'd rather they should pluck me from my bones, sir! And I ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... you want with me?" he whined, for, with all his bluster, the fellow had no more pluck ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... and that he will get them when he wants them. And that is exactly what the Psalmist does here. He deposits his most precious treasure in the safe custody of One who will take care of it. The great Hand is stretched out, and the little soul is put into it. It closes, and 'no man is able to pluck them out ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... own is easier to come by: pluck out that; and 'twill serve thee and thy wife.—Well, Zenocrate, Techelles, and the rest, fall to ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part I. • Christopher Marlowe
... to him, however, when Jeffers pulled out $200, played it, and won. Then, turning to my friend, he said, "Take $200, play it for me, and I'll pay you for your trouble." He did so, and won. I laughed, and let the old fellow know that I didn't think he had pluck enough ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... knows it happened to be practice neet an' as Ike wor gooin to th' church he bowt a sheep's pluck an' tuk it wi him, intendin to tak it hooam an have it cooked for ther supper. He happened to be th' furst 'at gate into th' bell chamer, soa he hung th' sheep pluck up agean th' wall, an' then went daan agean, leavin a little lamp burnin i'th' steeple. He'd hardly getten off ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... only get Arthur Channing to go with me, I'd be off to-morrow! But he laughs at it. He hasn't got half pluck. Only fancy, Jenkins! my coming back in a year or two with twenty thousand pounds in my pocket! Wouldn't I give you a treat, old chap! I'd pay a couple of clerks to do your work here, and carry you off somewhere, in spite of ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... rounded the bend a strange sight met the eyes of those he carried. Their enemies were huddled together in terror near the brink of the tunnel from which the surging water rushed out. Some endeavoured to pluck up courage to throw themselves into the river, while the majority had turned to face the elephants. But they were paralysed with fright. A few tried to discharge their fire-arms or loosed their arrows with trembling hands. As the elephants, quickening their pace, rushed on in an irresistible ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... would be astounded and horrified to be told they were at that moment speaking about you, then you would soon be wiser than all your teachers in the sins and in the government of the tongue. And you would seven times every day pluck out your tongue before God till He gives it back to you clean and kind in that land where all men shall love their neighbours, present ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... of YOU lynching anybody! It's amusing. The idea of you thinking you had pluck enough to lynch a MAN! Because you're brave enough to tar and feather poor friendless cast-out women that come along here, did that make you think you had grit enough to lay your hands on a MAN? Why, a MAN'S safe in the hands of ten thousand of your kind—as long as it's daytime ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... have been killed," the major said gravely; while the younger officers joined in Carruthers's exclamation at Tom's pluck. "It is shameful that it was allowed. I suppose the quarrel began in their quarters. Sergeant Howden is in charge of the room, and ought to have stopped it at once. Every non-commissioned officer ought to have stopped it. I will have Howden ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... good and through evil report. The hostility which he experienced from some of the directors opposed to the adoption of the locomotive was the circumstance that caused him the greatest grief of all; for where he had looked for encouragement, he found only carping and opposition. But his pluck never failed him; and now the "Rocket" was upon the ground to prove, to use his own words, "whether he was a man of his word ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... through which we must pass, may lighten the toils, and perhaps repay us for the perils of the journey. Think not of the toils. Roses grow only upon thorns. From toil we learn to enjoy leisure. Regard not the perils. "From the nettle danger we pluck the flower safety." Security often springs from peril. From such hard experiences great men have arisen. Come, then, my young friend! mind neither toil nor peril, but with me to the great wilderness ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... "If pluck will make you win, I am sure you will carry it through, but if at first you don't succeed, try, try again; and if you haven't the money, I'll supply the capital. I know I should like to gamble. Anyhow, you have my best wishes ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... excitement than modern life gives in time of peace, even the chance to forget, had been the motives with which two or three of you, I think, came upon these scenes of history, taking all risks recklessly, playing a man's part with a feminine pluck, glad of this liberty, far from the conventions of the civilized code, yet giving no hint of scandal to sharp-eared gossip. But most of you had no other thought than that of pity and helpfulness, and with a little flame of faith in your hearts you bore the weight of bleeding ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... been over there, and Will is improving, every day. I can't see why he won't be walking a little, in a week or so. I hope so, for he's had a long pull of it, and he has shown splendid pluck." ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray
... feathers which waved gracefully in front of my face. For I was tempted—sorely tempted. The woman's words rang like mad music in my brain. Speak to her! Why not? It was the great joy of the world which waited for me to pluck it. Why not? I was not an old man, the child was fond of me, a single word of compliance, and I might step into my kingdom. Oh, the rapture of it, the wonderful joy of taking her hands in mine, of dropping once and for ever the mask from my face, the gag from my tongue! A rush of wild thoughts ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... beholds in polished cup, Or concave snuff-box, whence 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
... just a charming room crowded full of lovely things, and every one of them for sale, even the chairs. She wrote cards of advertisement which the hotel people let her pin up in their halls or offices, because they respected her pluck, and had liked Doctor James. Americans and other travellers saw the advertisements, and went to her house; so by and by Mrs. James made a success with her experiment. When most of her own antiquites were sold, she could afford to buy others, ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... in the dining-room, a lively procession of brilliant toilettes was already making its way there. Almost all the ladies of the first class came rustling in. Frederick from his seat observed that many of them had to stop for an instant at the doorway to pluck up their courage. Then, with a charmingly humorous smile, they would conquer their dread of seasickness, particularly threatening in the dining-room, and ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... O then bespoke Joseph, With words most unkind: 'Let him pluck thee a cherry That got thee ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick
... head, he continued: "I belong to the genus Prodigal Son. Would you care to hear my story? I think I should rather like to tell it you; for you are a good lad, high-spirited, full of generous impulses, eager to excel, and full of pluck. You are bound to make a success of your life if you will only steadfastly follow the path that your feet are now treading. But— forgive me for saying so—the qualities that you possess, excellent as they are, are precisely those that, unless you are very careful, ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... FORT Or, A Young Captain's Pluck. This story of stirring doings at one of our well-known forts in the Wild West is of more than ordinary interest. The young captain had a difficult task to accomplish, but he had been drilled to do his duty, and does it thoroughly. ...
— Randy of the River - The Adventures of a Young Deckhand • Horatio Alger Jr.
... within the Viminal Gate, while an attendant held his horse close by and a little apart from the crowds of weeping women who surrounded the soldiers of the dictator's escort. Suddenly he felt some one pluck him by the cloak, and turned quickly to see a young woman in the single tunic of a slave. Her dress, however, was of finer texture than that worn by most of her class, and seemed to bespeak a rich mistress and ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... tied now, and her tongue too, for the matter of that. Give my respects to your mistress, and tell her that her runaway husband and her lying maid will never either of them harm her again as long as they live. She has nothing to do now but to pluck up her spirits and live happy. Here's long life to her and to you, William, in the last glass of ale; and here's the same toast to myself in the bottom of ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... brains, and pluck, and 'go', and all kinds of things that other folks haven't. You might do such a splendid amount in the ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... and kissed her tenderly. For he had cast all doubt to the winds. No matter what the future had in store she was his, his only; it was not in man's power to part them. A glorious effulgence dazzled his brain. Her love had given him the strength of Goliath, the confidence of David. He would pluck her from the perils that environed her. The Dyak was not yet born who should rend her ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... nothing compared to the thirst for knowledge of the philosopher, the poet, the biologist, and the naturalist. I have always despised Adam because he had to be tempted by the woman, as she was by the serpent, before he could be induced to pluck the apple from the tree of knowledge. I should have swallowed every apple on the tree the moment the owner's back was turned. When Gray said "Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise," he forgot that it is godlike to be wise; and since ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw
... black. It was still time's stitchery, not his fabric. The man who was not her boy need never have seen her before to know that once her hair had been black. This was worse than forgetfulness in him; it was misremembrance. She pulled at the silver hairs passionately as though she would pluck them out and make him see her as she had been. But soon she stopped her futile effort to uncount the years. "I am foolish," she whispered to herself, and coiled her lock again and bound it in its place. "There are other ways of making him remember. Presently when he wakes again I will ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... they take steps to outwit the resentful ghost of their victim. They think that when the first natural shock of death is passed, the ghost of the ostrich pulls himself together and makes after his body. Acting on this sage calculation, the Indians pluck feathers from the breast of the bird and strew them at intervals along the track. At every bunch of feathers the ghost stops to consider, "Is this the whole of my body or only a part of it?" The doubt gives him pause, and when at last he has made up his mind fully at all the bunches, ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... with thought, then from my Pocket pluck Some friendly dear Companion of a Book, Whose homely Calves-skin fences did contain The Verbal Treasure of some Old good Man: Made by long study and experience wise, Whose piercing thoughts to Heavenly knowledge ...
— The Pleasures of a Single Life, or, The Miseries Of Matrimony • Anonymous
... pretended to be let it give up its bank and its tariff, which took enough money out of the mouths of the poor to feed all the niggers in the world. Let the whiner about wrongs quit his own wrongs. Let the accusing sinner repent his own sin. Let the people of New England pluck the pine logs from their own eyes before talking of hickory splinters in the eyes of ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... either by force or fraud, but at the same time, he felt comparatively relieved by the inactivity of Boisot's fleet, which still lay stranded at North Aa. "As well," shouted the Spaniards, derisively, to the citizens, "as well can the Prince of Orange pluck the stars from the sky as bring the ocean to the walls of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... If we had only let them alone—let them go—they would have taken a frisky turn or two, and then come sweetly back to unity! Our Blackwood writer lacks something. He wants manhood, pluck, spirit, common sense, and very common information. He is deficient in enlarged views of humanity; he cannot comprehend a tremendous struggle of principles involving the social progress of thirty millions, half of whose men at least are much more intelligent and larger hearted ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... civilities with a politeness which was natural to him, but which had received great improvements since his arrival in France. She was no less charm'd with his conversation than she had been with his person, and impatient to know who he was, made an offer of shewing him her face on condition he would pluck off his mask at the same time: but this he would by no means agree to, because still hoping to get rid of her, and have some discourse with mademoiselle Charlotta, he did not think proper he should be known by any other, who might perhaps make ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... you press me further, I will say A word to madden you.—Stand still! You stray Around the margin of a precipice. I know what pleasure 'tis to pluck the flowers That hang above destruction, and to gaze Into the dread abyss, to see such things As may be safely seen. Tis perilous: The eye grows dizzy as we gaze below, And a wild wish possesses us to spring Into the vacant air. Beware, beware! Lest this unholy fascination ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... subtle hands may pluck the strings, Making even Love in music audible, And earth one glory. I am but a shell That moves, not of itself, and moving sings; Leaving a fragrance, faint as wine new-shed, A tremulous murmur from ...
— Young Adventure - A Book of Poems • Stephen Vincent Benet
... herself nor him. By the doctor's advice, he ceased to press her to give in, to resign herself to bed and invalidism. It was best, even physically, to let her struggle on. And he was both astonished and touched by her pluck. She had never been so repellent to him as on those many occasions in the past when she had feigned illness to get her way. Now that Death was really knocking, the half-gay, half-frightened defiance with which she walked the palace of life, one moment listening ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... such fashion. She was annoyed at finding the laird not easily to be brought to her feet, and Mercy already advanced to his good graces. She was not jealous of Mercy, for was she not beautiful and Mercy plain? but Mercy had by her PLUCK secured an advantage, and the handsome ploughman looked at her admiringly! Partly therefore because she was not pleased with him, partly that she thought a little outcry would ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... work—there's scarcely a minute to think or pause— For right and left we are fighting hard for the regiment's honour and country's cause! Feather-bed warriors! On my life, be they Life Guards red or Horse Guards blue, They haven't lost much of the pluck, my boys, that their fathers showed us at Waterloo! It isn't for us, who are soldiers bred, to chatter of wars, be they wrong or right; We've to keep the oath that we gave our QUEEN! and when we are in it—we've got to fight! ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... cursed nephew, Hernan, has fascinated him, as a snake does a bird. Still, I suppose that he has the law on his side, and, as I am commandant, I cannot advise anyone to break the law. Now listen. It is no use your staying here looking at the ripe peach you may not pluck, for that only makes the stomach sick. Therefore the best thing that you can do is to come with me to get those cattle from Sikonyela, for I shall be very glad of your company. Afterwards, too, I want you to return with me to Zululand when I go for the ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... front. He was billeted in a farm with a number of men, and a sergeant. All the men, from the chaplain to the youngest private, felt a keen sympathy and admiration for the women of the farm, who were both working the land and looking after their billetees, with wonderful pluck and energy. One evening the chaplain arriving at the open door of the farm, saw in the kitchen beyond it the daughter of the house, who had just come in from farm work. She was looking at a pile of dirty plates and ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... 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 ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 344 (Supplementary Issue) • Various
... caveau spent the night? On Waterloo's plains did you dare To engage in the terrific fight? Has your penchant for life ever led You to visit the Finish or Slums, At the risk of your pockets and head? Or in Banco been fixed by the bums? In a smash at the hells have you been, When pigeons were pluck'd by the bone? Or enjoy'd the magnificent scene When our fourth George ascended his throne? Have you ever heard Tierney or Canning A Commons' division address? Or when to the gallery ganging, Been floor'd by a rush from the press? Has your taste for the fine arte impell'd You to visit ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... thought, done his best to be gracious to his sister-in-law. He had endeavoured not to be harsh to her, and had striven to pluck the sting from his rebuke. But he did not intend that she should ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... sure,' continued Benson; 'there is a dead silence, till pug is well out of cover, and the whole pack well in; then cheer the hounds with tally-ho! till your lungs crack. Away he goes in gallant style, and the whole field is hard up, till pug takes a stiff country; then they who haven't pluck lag, see no more of him, and, with a fine blazing scent, there are but few of us in at ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... had already burned so low that he could not pluck them forth, and was forced to stamp out their venomous lives with the constant knowledge that, should a single spark escape this imperfect method of extinguishment, he would still be lost. So fiercely ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... now, and nightly as I wend homeward I pluck a handful of it, gathering along with its life the tranquil sunshine, the autumnal notes of the cardinal passing to better lands, and all the healthful influences of the fields. I shall make me a tribute of it to the memory of ...
— Aftermath • James Lane Allen
... against Crinkett and Euphemia Smith. They were tried also at Cambridge, but not before Judge Bramber. The woman never yielded an inch. When she found how it was going with her, she made fast her money, and with infinite pluck resolved that she would endure with patience whatever might be in store for her, and wait for better times. When put into the dock she pleaded not guilty with a voice that was audible only to the jailer standing beside her, and after that ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... 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 ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... and perseverance as a man, the world is indebted for the light which still shines upon Eddystone. He was thirty-two years old at the time when this grand work was given him to do; but he had already shown that he possessed inventive genius, pluck, and perseverance, in no ordinary degree. He was quick to see that the two previous structures had not been sufficient in weight and solidity, and he resolved to build that which was committed to his care in such a way that it ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... hungry, is completely pacified, silenced, and put to rest; whereupon a host of honest, good-fellow qualities and kind-hearted affections, which had lain perdue, slily peeping out of the loopholes of the heart, finding this Cerberus asleep, do pluck up their spirits, turn out one and all in their holiday suits, and gambol up and down the diaphragm—disposing their possessor to laughter, good humor, and a thousand friendly offices ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... teeth from chattering, the thought occurred to me that the hurts I was about to endure and endeavour to inflict should not only save Diana from evil, but might also prove to her (and myself) if I were indeed possessed of that thing she called 'game-pluck.' ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... window and in through yours. Between the two windows I can handle him alone. I only hope we shan't be noticed, for that might prove awkward. Now take hold. That's it. When I'm through the window just push his legs outside." Panting, Kitty obeyed. "All right," said Cutty. "I like your pluck. You run along ahead and be ready to help me in with him. ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... people crowded around him, heaped presents upon him, and celebrated his sanctity by such great praises that I remember not that like honor was ever rendered to any other person. In all that he did or said he seemed to have in him something divine, insomuch that people went so far as to pluck hairs from his mule to keep ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... name, 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 consuetude of sixty years, and grasped in triumphant argument by the left ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... us be men first, and aristocrats, gentlemen, or anything else you please, afterwards. If we are not men, in the larger and better sense of the word, let there be no talk of gentle blood or lengthy pedigree. The nation is what it is through the pluck and energy of individuals who have put their shoulders to the wheel in bygone days—men who have laid the foundation of a glorious empire by sturdy personal efforts—efforts, unaided by the state, emanating from those higher ...
— Broad-Sword and Single-Stick • R. G. Allanson-Winn
... touch you close, Then stand away. I kiss your cheek, Catch your soul's warmth,—I pluck the rose And love it more than tongue can speak— Then ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... ground, and Foster laughed derisively at the notion of that clumsy beast trying to climb. But Brin had no notion of climbing. Holding his grip, he backed away, and as the tree bent toward him he took a fresh hold higher up, and so, hand over hand, pulled the top of it downward and prepared to pluck Foster or shake him down ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... floor is black! The air Is changed to vapours such as the dead breathe 15 In charnel pits! Pah! I am choked! There creeps A clinging, black, contaminating mist About me...'tis substantial, heavy, thick, I cannot pluck it from me, for it glues My fingers and my limbs to one another, 20 And eats into my sinews, and dissolves My flesh to a pollution, poisoning The subtle, pure, and inmost spirit of life! My God! I never knew what the mad felt Before; for I am ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... things hast thou done, and I held my tongue, and thou thoughtest, wickedly, that I am even such a one as thyself. But I will reprove thee, and set before thee the things which thou hast done. O consider this, ye that forget God: lest I pluck you away, and there ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... howld of a gun and do a little drilling at night—an' where's the country boy that wouldn't give his ears for a gun! An' the English Gov'mint, that could stop it all with the stroke of a pen, hasn't the pluck to ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... You see, they were such rot. The things I wanted to write about, the things I had seen and was seeing, the—the fellows like Mike and their pluck and all that—well, it was all too big for me to tackle. My jingles sounded, when I read them over, like tunes on a street piano. I couldn't do it. A genius might have been equal to the job, but ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... Take a Red Cock, pluck him alive, then slit him down the back, and take out his Intrals, cut him in quarters, and bruise him in a Mortar, with his Head, Legs, Heart, Liver and Gizard; put him into an ordinary Still with a Pottle of Sack, and one quart of Milk new from a red Cow, one pound of blew ...
— The Queen-like Closet or Rich Cabinet • Hannah Wolley
... store for them. If they have deliberately sought martyrdom, as some critics have been unkind enough to suggest, they have it now. And if their campaign, in the opinion of perhaps the great majority of the public, has been misguided, admiration for their pluck ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... though, to be sure, I have found it the silent gallantry towards women which reaps most harvest. She is, by marriage, Madame Pean, wife of a creature whom Bigot uses, and she is a note of lovely abandon which a man with half my insurgency would like to pluck an' he could. ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... care of his family. There were, unhappily, several rum-shops in Rockhaven; and in one of these, one night, after Joel had been imbibing rather more freely than usual, he got into a dispute with Mike Manahan, an Irish quarryman, who was also warmed up with whiskey. Mike was full of Donnybrook pluck, and insisted upon settling the dispute with a fight, and struck his opponent a heavy blow in the face. Joel was a peaceable man, and perhaps, if he had been entirely sober, he would have been killed by his ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic
... of egotism! This was stark male egotism,—the instinct for domination. And defendants and plaintiffs were alike in spirit, struggling for position in the game. The weaker ones—if they had the hold—would pluck at the windpipe of ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... Roman toga, so as to leave their right arms bare. The youngest among them were painted on their necks, with a bright vermilion color, and had their faces transversely streaked, with alternate red and black stripes. From their faces and eyebrows, they pluck out the hair with the most assiduous care. They also shave or pull it out from their heads, with the exception of a tuft about three fingers width, extending from between the forehead and crown to the back of the head; this they sometimes plait into a queue ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake
... which issued from the little fawn made a widening pool, and one saw the ladies of the hunt, who came to look as near as possible, pluck up their habits so that they would not tread in it. The sight of the great stag crushed by weariness, gradually drooping his branching head, tormented by the howls of the hounds which the whipper-in held back with difficulty, and that of the little ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... that I was in was foremost of all the company, and as we travelled, I being alone in the waggon, began to try if I could pluck my hands out of the manacles, and as God would, although it were somewhat painful for me, yet my hands were so slender that I could pull them out and put them in again, and ever as we went when the waggons made most noise and the men busiest, I would be working to file off my bolts, and ...
— Voyager's Tales • Richard Hakluyt
... within his breast, And there by guardian angel nurst, Thou took'st a shape of human grace, Until, a lowly flower at first, Thou grew'st the first of mortal race. Alas! if I who still was blessed When thou wast but a lowly flower— To pluck thy image from my breast, Though thus thou will'st it, have no power; Thou still to me, though lifted high In hope and heart above the glen, Where first thou won my idol eye, Must spell ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... were in every town in England, looking for work; their pitiful, plucky advertisements greeted the eye in every newspaper. The problem of their future interested General Harran keenly. He liked his boys; their freshness and pluck and unspoiled enthusiasm had been a tonic to him during the long years of war. Now it hurt him that they should be looking ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... frontier life; but he was tired of idleness; he was strong and not afraid of work, and he could learn. Colonel Zane, who prided himself on his judgment of character, took a liking to the young man at once, and giving him a rifle and accoutrements, told him the border needed young men of pluck and fire, and that if he brought a strong hand and a willing heart he could surely find fortune. Possibly if Alfred Clarke could have been told of the fate in store for him he might have mounted his black steed and have placed miles between him and the frontier village; but, as there were ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... there is. Read it an' see. If it's in the paper, it's so. Huckleberries! You ain't no more pluck than ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... eyes Bent on the earth: the unfrequented woods Are her delight; and when she sees a bank Stuck full of flowers, she with a sigh will tell Her servants what a pretty place it were To bury lovers in, and make her maids Pluck'em, and strow her over like a Corse. She carries with her an infectious grief That strikes all her beholders, she will sing The mournful'st things that ever ear hath heard, And sigh, and sing again, and when the rest Of our young Ladies in their wanton blood, Tell mirthful tales in course that ...
— The Maids Tragedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... pause before the girl could pluck up courage enough for an answer. Then, it was spoken confusedly, ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... the Atlantic to the whirlwinds of the Pacific, guiding womankind from the dark valley of ignorance, and wooing her with wisdom's lore, leads creation's fairest, purest, best into flowery dells where she can pluck the richest food of knowledge, and crowns her brow with a coronet of gems whose brilliancy can never grow dim: for they glisten with the purest thought, that seems as a spark struck from the mind of Deity. There ...
— Slips of Speech • John H. Bechtel
... no hour during the day when there was not heavy firing and generally hard fighting at some point on the line, but seldom at all points at the same time. It was a case of Southern dash against Northern pluck and endurance. Three of the five divisions engaged on Sunday were entirely raw, and many of the men had only received their arms on the way from their States to the field. Many of them had arrived but a day or two before and were hardly able to load their muskets according to the manual. ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up and to break down and to destroy it; if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... before in Virginia, and the same night to set our course for England.' In a month from their departure they recrossed the bar of Bideford, their voyage having been a disgraceful failure, yet the doings of these two miniature corsairs are recorded in Hakluyt manifestly only as specimens of English pluck, a British quality always admired, however much misdirected. Meanwhile no tidings of the ' Second colonie' and worse still, no tidings or help had the Second Colony received all this long time from England. And even to this day the echo is 'no tidings' and no help from home. This then ...
— Thomas Hariot • Henry Stevens
... and that his judgment of what was best was nearly always vindicated by the event. He was not the founder of the Virginia colony, its final success was not due to him, but it was owing almost entirely to his pluck and energy that it held on and maintained an existence during the two years and a half that he was with it at Jamestown. And to effect this mere holding on, with the vagabond crew that composed most of the colony, and with the extravagant ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... knowledge and wise discourse, and the amenities of it, and the cordial of friendship, are like words in a strange tongue. To the hard, smooth surface of his soul, nothing genial, graceful, or winning will cling; he cannot even purge his voice of its fawning tone, or pluck from his face the mean, money-getting mask which the child does not look at without ceasing to smile. Amid the graces and ornaments of wealths, he is like a blind man in a picture-gallery. That which ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... wonder. The Lords of the Admiralty, wedded to old notions, unlike the Heads of the Naval Department of the United States, were slow to alter the build or armament of the national ships. They seemed to think that success must ultimately be dependent upon pluck, and that there could be again few instances in which a sloop could be so disabled by a storm as to be unable to cope with a brig, better manned, better armed, and in good sailing trim. They continued to send slow-sailing brigs and ill-armed sloops-of-war, for the protection ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... will don my cloak Of opal-grey, and I will stand Where the palm-shadows stride like smoke Across the dazzle of the sand. To-morrow I will throw this blind Blind whiteness from my soul away, And pluck this blackness from my mind, And only ...
— Twenty • Stella Benson
... likeness was all right too. He had somehow just got hold of that ethereal look she always had had. She was hearing those voices they used to chaff her about. How she had gone for John one day, when he began ragging her about that old hymn! She always had the pluck of the devil! He frowned. She hadn't had pluck enough to stand up to her father! He would look at her picture no longer. He wouldn't think of her. She had chucked him. But his eyes were held by the eyes that he had painted; with a rush, the thought of her possessed him. She was everywhere, ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... no need to answer," Gnob piped, while Keesh struggled with the paradox. "It is very simple. The Good Man Brown would hold the Raven tight whilst his brothers pluck the feathers." He raised his voice. "But so long as there is one Tana-naw to strike a blow, or one maiden to bear a man-child, the Raven shall not ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... away, none shall help you: you shall yourself pluck out your right eye; yourself cut off your right hand: your heart shall be the victim, and you the priest to ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... they give no account of any individual spot or object or source of pleasure but the circumstance of their being there. 'With them conversing, we forget all place, all seasons, and their change.' They perhaps pluck a leaf or a flower, patronise it, and hand it you to admire, but select no one feature of beauty or grandeur to dispute the palm of perfection with their own persons. Their rural descriptions are mere landscape backgrounds with their own portraits in an engaging attitude ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt |
