"Pluck" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... serious. It needs to be well told—the whole kept at a high level, if you understand me. Give Lady Calmady a great part and she will play it nobly. Let this come upon her from a mean, wet-nurse, hospital-ward sort of level, and it may break her. What we have to do is to keep up her pluck. Remember we are only at the beginning of this business yet. In all probability there are many years ahead. Therefore this announcement must come to Lady Calmady from an educated person, from an equal, from ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... coincidence here. It was design, beyond all peradventure, and design he 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. Had he not, all in the space of a few weeks, found his heart's love, ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... 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 ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... would accustom himself to the whimsies of Fortune must learn to lose as well as to win. In your behalf I will endeavour to instruct you in that part of the game, my boy. Won't you gentlemen remain to see that I pluck the ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... was equal to it. She has borrowed freely and wisely, but I am sure that this idea is many times larger than all her borrowings bulked together. One must respect the business-brain that produced it—the splendid pluck and impudence that ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... certainly a type," he said, peering on tiptoe. "Wonderful! You cast your eye upon all this crowd and at once, in a single glance, you pluck forth the type—wonderful! As to a place, that is easy. My office ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... the doctor, "they are good children every one of them. There's much to be thankful for, if one could only pluck up ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... madness, essential madness, to do. Listen, great Queen! to the counsels of a time-worn soldier, whose whole soul is bound up in most true-hearted devotion to your greatness and glory. I quarrel not with your ambition, or your love of warlike fame. I would only direct them to fields where they may pluck fresh laurels, and divert them from those where waits—pardon ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... cotton-plant, do we need to go to oracles or listen for a diviner voice than yours when thus you tell us: Pluck? ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... had fortunately been able to obtain the score of the Pastorale, and with music and costume complete the performance was an even greater success than it had been on the terrace at Bradstone. People clapped the little figure, partly for her charming dancing and partly for her pluck in trapping the burglar, so that altogether she received quite ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... force won't do. He is full of courage, pluck, and determination, and so is an enemy to be dreaded. I am going to try an ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... arena; and, when I broke his helmet-clasps, behold! he was my friend! He knew me, smiled faintly, gasped, and died;—the same sweet smile upon his lips that I had marked, when, in adventurous boyhood, we scaled the lofty cliff to pluck the first ripe grapes, and bear ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson
... ahead. As she did so, a fortunate shot cut away the gammoning of her bowsprit. We were now exchanging broadsides yardarm to yardarm, but the drubbing they had already received seemed to dishearten the Frenchmen. Still they held out, showing a wonderful amount of pluck. They had sent men into the tops, armed with muskets, who were firing down on our deck, and had already wounded several of our officers. I was standing a short distance from our captain, when I ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... they have played it. The piece of print is unrolled, and at each end tied to a horse's tail. The owners spring to the backs of the animals, then urge them in the opposite directions till the strain comes; at the pluck the web gives way, and he who holds the longer part ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... for much anywhere else, but the pluck of it, without rain for months, dew even. It's ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... fathers would have taken by force. Of such, in the early days of the eighteenth century, was Dicky of Kingswood. Had he lived a hundred or a hundred and fifty years earlier, Dicky would no doubt have been a first-class reiver, one of the "tail" of some noted Border chieftain, for he lacked neither pluck nor strength. But in his own day he preferred the suaviter in modo to the fortiter in re; his cunning, indeed, was not unworthy of the hero of that ancient Norse tale, "The Master Thief," and in his misdeeds there was not seldom to be found a spice of humour so disarming that at times ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... tranquil, and accept what chance might give him, when his father should have died. But he might at once go down to Tretton and demand an interview with the dying man. He did not think that his father, even on his death-bed, would refuse to see him. His father's pluck was indomitable, and he thought that he could depend on his own pluck. At any rate he resolved that he would immediately go to Tretton and take his chance. He reached the house about the middle of the day, and at once sent his ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... and raisins—when we had climbed to the top of the chest of drawers to pluck them from the boughs of the great trees; and he had a fig from the cargo that the rich merchants brought in their ship—the long drawer was the ship—and the rest of us had the sweets and the coconut. It was a very glorious and beautiful feast, and when it was over we said we hoped it was ...
— The Story of the Treasure Seekers • E. Nesbit
... wife came to the door, baby on arm, shaded her brows against the sun, stooped to pluck a sprig of rosemary, and turned down the orchard. The old spaniel in his barrel barked once or twice to show he was in charge of the empty house. Puck ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... successful and succeeded in capturing the political control of states, they found the money power still able by a thousand indirect influences to balk their efforts and turn their seeming victories into apples of Sodom, which became ashes in the hands of those who would pluck them. ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... that there are not many such moments of opportunity, because the days are evil; like a barren desert, in which, here and there, you find a flower, pluck it while you can; like a business opportunity which comes a few times in a life-time; buy it up while you have the chance. Be spiritually alert; be not unwise, but understanding what the will of God is. "Walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... ["Let us pluck life's sweets, 'tis for them we live: by and by we shall be ashes, a ghost, a mere subject of talk." —Persius, Sat., ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... habits and reputed delinquencies are omitted.] Having seen him in such topping spirits the night before, Mr. Casbury was amaz'd when he learn'd the death. He was found in the town ditch, the hair as was said pluck'd clean off his head. Most bells in Oxford rung out for him, being a nobleman, and he was buried next night in St. Peter's in the East. But two years after, being to be moved to his country estate by his successor, it was said the coffin, breaking by mischance, ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... reason for shame, for to them the danger seemed real; and believing it to be real, they had not shrunk, but had faced it with very commendable pluck. ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... whipped in a fight, defeated in a contest, or beaten at an undertaking, but he didn't show it or let the other fellow know it; he just kept on with a brave front and finally the other fellow quit, mistaking grim determination, pluck and perseverance ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... was in a beast of a temper to-day, anyway. Wonder what's the matter with him. He's like a bear with a sore head. He had pluck to stand up to Sawyer, though. I'd ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour
... Ruff said, "what chance that poor old lady in Weston had? No, I am not saying you murdered her. You never had the pluck. Your confederate did that, and you handled the booty. What were the initials inside that ring you showed us to-night, ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... hill, though high, 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 the ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... tiger and the goat had come together again they came to some banana trees. The tiger said to the goat: "Friend Goat, aren't you hungry? Let us stop here and eat some bananas. You climb up and pluck the bananas. Give me the ripe ones, and keep the green ones yourself." The goat climbed up and picked the bananas. He gave the ripe ones to the tiger and the tiger had a good meal. The goat ...
— Fairy Tales from Brazil - How and Why Tales from Brazilian Folk-Lore • Elsie Spicer Eells
... lack brains, or pluck either," Fenwick said. "I should have been proud of a trick like that myself. I ought to have poisoned him when I had the chance. I ought to have got him out of the way without delay. But it seemed such a safe thing to kidnap him and hide him in his own house, where we could go on with our work ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... was sure to win. If she played cards—and she had played pretty constantly—she inevitably plundered her opponents. This last alone, of all her doubtful doings, really troubled her; for her opponents had frequently been youthful, and it was contrary to Poppy's principles to pluck the ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... blue speedwell and the delicately pencilled stitchwort with its pure snow-white blossoms and delicate green leaves. It is a lovely Spring flower and very common amongst the grass of every hedgerow. We will pluck a few bits; how brittle the stem is. What curious ideas our ancestors must have had; fancy calling this plant "all-bones!" Its name, stitchwort, no doubt alludes to the plant's supposed virtue in cases of "stitches" in the side. ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton
... uttered in the face of his own Sigismonda, which is exactly a maudlin street-walker, tearing off the trinkets that her keeper had given her, to fling at his head. She has her father's picture in a bracelet on her arm, and her fingers are bloody with the heart, as if she had just bought a sheep's pluck in St. James's Market. As I was going, Hogarth put on a very grave face, and said, "Mr. Walpole, I want to speak to you." I sat down, and said, I was ready to receive his commands. For shortness, I will mark this wonderful ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... mortification, jealousy, and all sorts of pain. You cannot pluck love out of your heart ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... as well as I do, and apparently have got perplexed at the top o' the fall. 'Tis well. If the Redskins pursue, they will find the trail here as clear as a king's highway—see what a gap in the bushes they have made in their fright at the sound o' my lock! Well, well, it's not many men that have pluck to keep quiet wi' that sound in their ears, and the muzzle pointed at their heads! All we have to do now is to descend the precipice without ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains - Wandering Will in the Land of the Redskin • R.M. Ballantyne
... were tolerant enough. He was brimful of pluck, and seemed to enjoy the situation when they were attacked by overwhelming odds and had to fight hard and fiercely, such as befell more than once. And they would insidiously lay salve to his misgivings by such arguments ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... solemn business at Hanover. No dancing; no cards; no theatricals; a yearly concert at commencement, and typhoid fever in the fall. On the Lord's Day some children were not allowed to read the Youth's Companion, or pluck a flower in the garden. But one old working woman rebelled. "I ain't going to have my daughter Frances brought up in no superstitious tragedy." She was far in advance of ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... he expresses, and his words are the distillations of life. His spiritual percipience has rendered his soul a veritable garden of emotions, and with his pen he transplants these in the written page. And men see and come to pluck the flowers to transplant again in their own souls that they, too, may have a garden like unto his. His elan carries over into the lives of these men and they glow with the ardor of his emotions and are inspired to deeds of courage, of service, and of ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... 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 none to ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... thee down and write In a book, that all may read." So he vanish'd from my sight; And I pluck'd a hollow reed, ...
— Poems of William Blake • William Blake
... earthly form of which he had then seen the glorified image. The Angel spoke, and commanded him not to yield to despair: she had work for him still to do. She said that, with her help, he should pluck roses from the Gardens of Hesperus, which mortal man had never yet done. She gave him exact directions how to reach the spot where the invisible gate was placed, through which alone he could enter the charmed Paradise. Only at sunrise, upon the repetition ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... heart's bird! The screams and hootings rose again: They gaped with raucous beaks, they whirred Their noisy plumage; small but plain The lonely hidden singer made A well of grief within the glade. "Whist, silly fool, be off," they shout, "Or we'll come pluck your feathers out." ...
— Country Sentiment • Robert Graves
... be a source of temptation to thee, pluck it out and fling it away; for it is better for thee that one of thy members perish than that thy whole body should be cast into Gehenna." Give these words a literal interpretation, and they mean, "If your eyes or your hands are the occasions of crime, if they tempt you ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... than illustrations of pluck in the face of apparent failure. Our heroes show the stuff they are made of and surprise their most ardent admirers. One of the best ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... answers, as was supposed, to the spirits who afflicted them; and when the patients from time to time recovered, they furnished the counterpart by telling what the spirits had said to them. The names of the spirits were Pluck, Hardname, Catch, Blue, and three Smacks, who were cousins. Mrs. Joan Throgmorton, the eldest (who, like other young women of her age, about fifteen, had some disease on her nerves, and whose fancy ran apparently on love and gallantry), supposed that one of the Smacks was her lover, ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... hitherto got no other than harsh thoughts and repulsive words. If this "mind" really were in us, "which was also in Him," we should more frequently ask ourselves, "Have I done all I might have done to pluck this brand from the burning! Have I remembered what grace has wrought, what grace ...
— The Mind of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... the gate, a crash of falling beams and thatch behind the walls. They saw a shiny, snaky black trunk lifted for an instant, scattering sodden thatch. It disappeared, and there was another crash, followed by a squeal. Hathi had been plucking off the roofs of the huts as you pluck water-lilies, and a rebounding beam had pricked him. He needed only this to unchain his full strength, for of all things in the Jungle the wild elephant enraged is the most wantonly destructive. He kicked ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... are, Pat, and frank it is. I do not want you to go to the Gray Mill. You have been drinking—stronger stuff than coffee. Those people will pluck you, do you up, perhaps stick a knife in you. Then what will become of Angelique and the twins? Stay here a while; I want to talk to you about the twins. How are they? You have not told me a word about ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... words brought Swanson's pluck back again, and drawing himself to his full height ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... "If I had the pluck to carry out my intention," thought the old man, "Suspicion would fall first upon ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... after she had tasted the bitter-sweet of living and learned what it was that she missed; the tug of strong emotions, the hopes and fears and heartaches that are the fruits of the great Tree of Life? She wanted to pluck the fruits, be they bitter or sweet, and drain the world's wine to the dregs; and then, if life went ill, she could return to her House with something about which to dream. But now she only sighed and Wunpost took her hand and drew her down ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... for Cook's illustrious brow Pluck'd the green laurel and the oaken bough, Hung the gay garlands on the trophied oars, And pour'd his fame along a thousand shores. Strike the slow death-bell!—weave the sacred verse, And strew the cypress o'er his honour'd hearse; In ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... information which made him a readier, and possibly a wiser, man. And then, too, he was refreshed in body and mind. More than ever he was bold, alert, persistent, and resourceful. In his compact, massive frame, were stored indomitable pluck and energy; and in his heart the spirit ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... pluck thee, but never before The gold dust of thy bloom divine Hath dropped from thy heart into mine, To quicken its faint germs of heavenly lore; For no breeze comes nigh thee but carries away Some impulses bright Of fragrance and light, Which fall upon souls that are lone and astray, To plant fruitful ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... me finer lessons in loyalty, in patience, in true courtesy, in unselfishness, in divine forgiveness, in pluck and in abiding good spirits than do all the books I have ever read and all the ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... warm and delicious; so the girls carried their books and fancy-work into the beautiful gardens or wandered lazily through the high-walled lanes that shut in the villas and orange groves. Sometimes they found a gate open, and were welcomed to the orchards and permitted to pluck freely the fragrant and rich flavored fruit, which is excelled in no other section of the south country. Also Uncle John, with Beth and Patsy, frequented the shops of the wood-workers and watched their delicate and busy fingers inlaying the various colored woods; but Louise ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... to pace the room again. "And I can't go to France. It would be just the same as England. Every one would be looking white feathers at me. The only thing I can do is to go out of the world. I'm not fit for it. Oh, I don't mean suicide. I've not enough pluck. That's off. But I could go and bury myself in the wilderness somewhere where no one would ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... had had to do, without making objections, in the Far 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 had ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Dundee To where he fought and fell, And in the deadly battle-strife Had venged their leader well; And they had bent the knee to earth When every eye was dim, As o'er their hero's buried corpse They sang the funeral hymn; And they had trod the Pass once more, And stooped on either side To pluck the heather from the spot Where he had dropped and died; And they had bound it next their hearts, And ta'en a last farewell Of Scottish earth and Scottish sky, Where Scotland's glory fell. Then went they forth to foreign lands Like bent and broken men, Who leave their dearest ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun
... daughter, this bit of a schoolgirl as he persisted in calling her, she had run a race-horse in her own name? What a thing to hear! But was it an evil thing. The girl had plenty of courage certainly. Very few would have had the pluck to do it at all. Of course it was unlucky that she had not won—but, after all, that could soon be ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... by rarest luck) Is always shot for showing pluck (That is, if others can be found With pluck enough to ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... glossy black, The priest his lips began to smack, Full fain to pluck the fruit; But, woe the while! the trunk was tall, And many a brier and thorn did crawl ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... that I drop them. It is when they pretend singly to redeem life from insignificance. Culture and refinement all alone are not enough to do so. Ideal aspirations are not enough, when uncombined with pluck and will. But neither are pluck and will, dogged endurance and insensibility to danger enough, when taken all alone. There must be some sort of fusion, some chemical combination among these principles, for a life objectively and ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James
... involuntary, overpowering sensation of awkwardness; so that I always tried to avoid their seeing me. When the heat of the day had increased, it was not infrequently my habit—if the ladies did not come out of doors for their morning tea—to go rambling through the orchard and kitchen-garden, and to pluck ripe fruit there. Indeed, this was an occupation which furnished me with one of my greatest pleasures. Let any one go into an orchard, and dive into the midst of a tall, thick, sprouting raspberry-bed. Above will be seen the clear, glowing sky, and, all ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... in the direction indicated and soon descried the form of a woman seated in a large rolling chair which was wheeled by an attendant. Along the walks of the garden they went pausing ever and anon to pluck some flower or the cherries which were ripening in the sun. For a moment only Francis gazed and then, before Will had time to say her nay, she leaped off from the wagon and bounded swiftly in the ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... red with heroes' blood, Where knelt the vanquished foe, When winds were hurrying o'er the flood And waves were white below, No more shall feel the victor's tread, Or know the conquered knee— The harpies of the shore shall pluck The ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... her side. Howard, seeing her condition, had followed her in the Ark with four or five other of the Queen's ships, and was furiously attacking her with his boats, careless of neutrality laws. Howard's theory was, as he said, to pluck the feathers one by one from the Spaniard's wing, and here was a feather worth picking up. The galleass was the most splendid vessel of her kind afloat, Don Hugo one of the greatest of ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... rash hand in evil hour Forth reaching to the fruit, she pluck'd, she eat: Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat Sighing through all her works gave signs of ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... said Doctor Churchill's low, clear voice. "Don't think I fail to understand what it means for the cares of a household like this to descend upon a girl's shoulders. But I want you to know that I—that they are all immensely pleased with the pluck you are showing. I have seen your sister's lunch tray several times since I have been coming here; ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... in his mind for a quotation and found it. "If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee," ...
— The Impossibles • Gordon Randall Garrett
... her gingham dress is just the thing for running around in the woods and fields," said Mrs. Cole, who did not often pluck up courage sufficiently to oppose her own opinions to her daughter's superior wisdom. "I've seen her fixed up in white of an evening, and looking like a picture. But, as far as that goes," she concluded resolutely, "there's so much to her face, just ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... dead than alive, bleeding from a dozen wounds on the face and hands, and with the breath almost failing in his battered body. They laid him down on the beach, while the fishermen crowded round him, admiring his pluck, though they deprecated his foolhardiness, for they "knowed the squire couldn't never live ag'in it." But Le Neve, still full of the reckless courage of youth, and health, and strength, and manhood, keenly alive now to the peril of Cleer's lonely situation, never heeded their forebodings. He dashed ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen
... This worked out finely. Pluck always does. They and their captors got along splendidly, and they were not tied at night nor made to carry loads. Nevertheless, it was a tremendous journey, straight northward through the wilderness, with never a glimpse of any town, until, after a week or more, they ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... These words also are spoken for the comfort of sufferers, ver. 12. "For he shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper." Wherefore, let them that are God's sufferers, pluck up a good heart; let them not be afraid to trust God with their souls, and with their eternal concerns. Let them cast all their care upon God, for he careth for them ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... her in a happiness too great for words—the sight and feeling of this lovely garden were for the poor tired and dulled little girl, ecstasy past telling. She did not care to go running about to find where the streams came from or to pluck the flowers, as some children would have done. She just sat down on the delicious grass and rested her tired little head on a bank and felt ...
— The Boys and I • Mrs. Molesworth
... out of Darvan's chamber, he returned to his wife, and bade her hair, and go at the dawn of day to the king, her brother, and complain bitterly of Morven's treatment, and pluck the black schemes from the breast of the king. "For surely," said he, "Darvan hath lied to thy brother, and some evil awaits me ...
— The Fallen Star; and, A Dissertation on the Origin of Evil • E. L. Bulwer; and, Lord Brougham
... 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 old Galloway, for a six-months' holiday, ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... sharp: On the same thing you always harp. A bird one may not catch, Nor find a nest, nor angle neither, Nor from the peacock pluck a feather, But you are on the watch To moralise ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... an amorous Spaniard, too passionate to be admitted within his mistress' house, stood at her window. This method of philandering, surely most conducive to the ideal, is variously known as comer hierro, to eat iron, and pelar la pava, to pluck the turkey. One imagines that the cold air of a winter's night must render the most ardent lover platonic. It is a significant fact that in Spanish novels if the hero is left for two minutes alone with the heroine there are invariably asterisks and ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... his green native braes of the Nith, He pluck'd the wild bracken, a frolicsome boy; He sported his limbs in the waves of the Frith; He trod the green heather in gladness and joy;— On his gallant grey steed to the hunting he rode, In his bonnet ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... moment a messenger came from Lorenzo's mother, begging the doctor to go at once to San Polo, for that her son had been murdered and Soderini wounded to the death. It was now no longer possible to conceal their doings from the Count, who told them to pluck up courage and abide in patience. He had himself to dine and take his siesta, and then to attend a meeting ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... cried the 'Squire, who, notwithstanding age and infirmity, retained a good deal of that original pluck, which had formerly distinguished him as an officer in his Majesty's military service. "Yes, it is the devil, I verily believe; and there is no way but to send for the priest, to get him out of a house that never was troubled in this way before. Where are those sneaking curs?" as ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous
... either Whigs or Tories, and as for the Radicals, they were then out in the cold. He stood, as he himself said, on his own responsibility, and as a perfectly independent candidate. It is not too much to affirm that it was his pluck and independence that carried him through. He had little difficulty in forming a committee, including, for the most part, gentlemen of considerable local influence, and that sine qua non having been obtained, the rest was comparatively ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... verdict,' said the judge. 'The figs in truth belong to you, but you cannot pluck them without touching both the trunk and the branches. Therefore you must give your first basketful to your brother Peppe, as the price of his leave to put your ladder against the tree; and the second basketful to your brother Alfin, for leave ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... cheap and plentiful. The better type of these people is the amusing man (l'uomo piacevole), the worse is the buffoon and the vulgar parasite who presents himself at weddings and banquets with the argument, 'If I am not invited, the fault is not mine.' Now and then the latter combine to pluck a young spendthrift, but in general they are treated and despised as parasites, while wits of higher position bear themselves like princes, and consider their talent as something sovereign. Dolcibene, whom Charles IV had pronounced to be the 'king of Italian jesters,' said to him ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... heaven's stamp upon virtue. She will be equal to every chance that shall befall her, and she is so radiant and charming in the circle of prosperity, only because she has that irresistible simplicity and fidelity of character, which can also pluck the sting from adversity. Do you not see, you wan old book-keeper in faded cravat, that in a poor man's house this superb Aurelia would be more stately than sculpture, more beautiful than painting, and more graceful than the famous vases. Would her husband regret the ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... winged cherub flying past, Plucked thee, and placed 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 my worship just ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... to himself, with true marine contempt for a man who had sat on an office-stool all his life. 'He doesn't look a bit more of a swell than he used to. It is well there's some one with some pluck in the family.' ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... receipt for that popular mystery Known to the world as a Heavy Dragoon, Take all the remarkable people in history, Rattle them off to a popular tune! The pluck of Lord Nelson on board of the Victory— Genius of Bismarck devising a plan; The humor of Fielding (which sounds contradictory)— Coolness of Paget about to trepan— The grace of Mozart, that unparalleled musico— Wit of Macaulay, who wrote of Queen Anne— The pathos ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert
... against me, but that was not in his heart. He has been preaching upon the love of God; but that was not in his heart, it was between his teeth. Will you know what was in his heart?’—cries he. ‘I will show it you!’ And, making a snatch at my head, he made believe to pluck out a dollar, and held it in ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson
... saying, her rash hand in evil hour Forth reaching to the fruit; she pluck'd, she ate Earth felt the wound: and nature from her seat, Sighing through all her works, gave signs of wo, That all was lost."—Cooper's ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... times when we've been most starvin', but me father never lost his pluck or his spirits. Nayther did I. When times have been the hardest I've never heard a word of complaint from me father, nor seen a frown on his face. An' he's never used a harsh word to me in me life. Sure we're more like boy and girl together than father and daughther." ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... clear forehead. Once or twice she told me (For I remember all things), to let grow The flowers that run poison in their veins. She said, 'The evil flourish in the world'; Then playfully she gave herself the lie: 'Nothing in nature is unbeautiful, So, brother, pluck and spare not.' So I wove Even the dull-blooded poppy, 'whose red flower Hued with the scarlet of a fierce sunrise, Like to the wild youth of an evil king, Is without sweetness, but who crowns himself Above the secret poisons of ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... was possessed of indomitable pluck, and after he grew a little accustomed to the work he ...
— Dick the Bank Boy - Or, A Missing Fortune • Frank V. Webster
... men together, probably, as any in Hurlbut's division, but there could not have been more than one hundred and fifty. It was the same, I suspect, with every regiment that had been hotly engaged. The men were thoroughly scattered. Soldiers of pluck joined us who could not find their own command, and no doubt some of ours joined ...
— "Shiloh" as Seen by a Private Soldier - With Some Personal Reminiscences • Warren Olney
... Stretched his hand to pluck the bulrush, Hiawatha cried in terror, Cried in well-dissembled terror, "Kago! kago! do not touch it!" "Ah, kaween!" said Mudjekeewis, "No indeed, ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... she could go on presently without his aid, and she realized now that it was impossible. Insensibly his judgment of her softened, as if his romantic imagination had spun iridescent cobwebs about her. By Jove, what pluck she had shown, what endurance! There came to him suddenly the realization that if she had learned to treat a sprained ankle so lightly, it could mean only that her short life had been full of misadventures beside which a sprained ankle appeared trivial. She could "play ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... his tenants do it," spoke up the lawyer. "They don't have the pluck to vote against him for fear of their leaseholds. And so 't is with the rest. The only way we can get our way is by conventions and committees. But get it we will, let the gentry try as ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... has accrued to Mr. Kruger for his magnanimity and much profit for his astuteness! Great credit is also given to Mr. Chamberlain for his prompt impartiality. And surely some day a tribute of sympathy and admiration will go out from a people who like pluck and who love fair play to two Englishmen who hold that a solemn pledge is something which even a Boer should hold to, whilst self-respect is more than liberty ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... the flower!" said the old woman. "But place yourself here, and when Death comes—I expect him every moment—do not let him pluck the flower up, but threaten him that you will do the same with the others. Then he will be afraid! He is responsible for them to OUR LORD, and no one dares to pluck them up before ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... rose among them, lawless as they were; the instinct of discipline and self-government, side by side with that of personal independence, which is the peculiar mark and peculiar strength of the English character. Who knows not how, in the "Lytell Geste of Robin Hood," they shot at "pluck-buffet," the king among them, disguised as an abbot; and every man who missed the rose-garland, ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... self-confident, and accustomed to speak contemptuously of the old medical science and those who practised it. But for all that, he possessed a remarkable sagacity in the diagnosis and treatment of chronic disease. Mrs. Prentiss went through the "cure" with indomitable patience and pluck, and was rewarded by the most beneficial results. Her sleeplessness had become too deep-rooted to be overcome, but it was greatly mitigated and her general condition vastly improved. She never ceased ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... sick, comforted the aged. On she moved from house to house, no enduring foundation ever remaining beneath her feet. No sooner would she strike her roots down into a congenial soil than she would be forced to pluck them up again and find new earth to ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... people, it is very unbecoming in speaking to them to turn one's back and shoulders to them. It is an impertinent action to knock against the table, or to shake the desk, which another person is using for reading or writing. It is uncivil to lean against any one, or to pluck his dress when speaking to him, or while entertaining ...
— George Washington's Rules of Civility - Traced to their Sources and Restored by Moncure D. Conway • Moncure D. Conway
... the control of the victors. Captain Louis proceeded in his cutter up the Tiber and planted the British colours at Rome, becoming its governor for a brief time. The naval men had carried out, by clever strategy and pluck, an enterprise which Sir James Erskine declined to undertake because of the insurmountable difficulties he persisted in seeing. General Mack was at the head of about 30,000 Neapolitan troops, said to be the finest in Europe. This, however, did not prevent them from being annihilated by 15,000 French, ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... blackly upon him and said, "You take too much upon yourself, my son. This is indeed the messenger of Satan that hath you in his grip; but I will pray for you if the Lord will heal you—it may be that there is some dark sin upon your mind; and if so pluck it out of the heart. But we will talk no more; I will only tell you to rest and pray, and think not of these lights and flashes, which are never told of in Holy Church, except in the case of those who are held of evil." And he rose and made a gesture that Herbert should go; so Herbert ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... twenty ruffians, thralls of bets and "booze," Had sworn could he not win he should not lose. DARES, you see, was "Champion" of his land, And these were "Trojans all" you'll understand. ("Champion be blowed!" SAYERIUS said. "Wus luck, They wasn't Trojans. This is British pluck!") Then from the Corner fiendish howls arise, And oaths and execrations rend the skies. ENTELLUS stoutly to the fight returned. Kicked, punched and mauled, his eyes with fury burned, Disdain and conscious courage fired his breast, And with redoubled force his foe he pressed, Laid ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 January 11, 1890 • Various
... perhaps you know, with the Bosnian insurgents in the mountains. It was a tough business—hardships I should never have had the pluck to face if I had known what was before me. Then, in July, I got fever. I had to come away, to find a doctor, and I was a long time at Cattaro pulling round. And, meanwhile, the Turks—God blast them!—have ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Christmas Pelle had to get up at two or half-past two to help the girls pluck poultry, and the old thatcher Holm to heat the oven. With this his connection with the delights of Christmas came to an end. There was dried cod and boiled rice on Christmas Eve, and it tasted good enough; but of all the rest there was nothing. There ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... conqueror. Self flew back and swung on its central pivot and took command. His future, his fate, what was to become of him. Who else now was to be considered? And what was to restrain him from reaching out his hand to pluck the fruit which he desired? ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Heaths.—Pluck off the flowers and seed-pods as soon as they become unsightly, and prune straggling growth. The softwooded kinds—such as the ventricosa, &c.—do best in a sheltered situation in the open air, with means to protect them during ...
— In-Door Gardening for Every Week in the Year • William Keane
... forcibly on landing; but I have a vivid recollection of being perfectly delighted with the drive, in a light airy carriage drawn by two spirited little Java poneys, from the wharf to the house of the friend with whom I was to take up my abode. The pluck with which those two little animals rattled us along quite astonished me; and the novel appearance of every thing that met the eye, so bewildered and delighted me, that I scarcely knew how to think, speak, ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... did—for they had imbibed no liquor to give them false pluck—and, with a final curse, he whipped up his horse and drove away 'with all their teeth' to the barracks, where he left a very useful arsenal, and was never troubled by one of ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... 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 he has done he must continue to do. He must accumulate riches which he cannot enjoy and contemplate ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... that day, M. Paul and I again met. Of course the meeting did not at first run smooth; there was a crow to pluck with him; that forced examination could not be immediately digested. A crabbed dialogue terminated in my being called "une petite moqueuse et sans- coeur," and in ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... pluck ye by the ear, That ye may good doctrine hear; Play not with the maiden-hair, For each ringlet there's a snare. Cheek, and eye, and lip, and chin— These are traps to take fools in. Arms, and hands, and all parts else, Are but toils, or manacles, ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... foreign colony it became evident that, in the side of President Ham, Billy was a thorn, sharp, irritating, virulent, and that at any moment Ham might pluck that thorn and Billy would leave Hayti in haste, and probably in handcuffs. This was evident to Billy, also, and the prospect was most disquieting. Not because he loved Hayti, but because since he went to lodge at the cafe of the Widow Ducrot, he had learned to ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... officer just down from the Somme fields for a week's rest-cure for jangled nerves. "I don't care a damn for death; but it's the waiting for it, the devilishness of its uncertainty, the sight of one's pals blown to bits about one, and the animal fear under shell-fire, that break one's pluck... My nerves are ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... plough-staff. Peed, pied. Pencte, painted. Penny-wheep, small beer. Peres, pears. Perishe, destroy. Pet, be in a pet. Pheeres, mates. Pint-stowp, two-Quart measure, flagon. Plaidie, shawl used as cloak. Plaister, plaster. Pleugh, plough. Pou, pull, pluck. Poorith, poverty. Pow, pate. Prankt, gayly adorned. Press, cupboard. Propine, propone, present. Pund, ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... leave both my metre and my stomach to the gods," Horace had retorted, "if you will turn over to them your worry about Rome, and pluck the blossom of the hour with me. Augustus is safe in Spain, you cannot be summoned to the Palatine, and to-morrow is early enough for the noise of the Forum. By the way," he added somewhat testily and unexpectedly, "I wish I could ever get to your house without being held up for 'news.' ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... said, it cannot be That Bogota shall be denied Her Arismendi, too—her chief To pluck her honor up, and pride; The wild Llanero boasts his braves That, stung with patriot wrath and shame, Rushed redly to the realm of graves, And rose, through blood and ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... Thorl, the three apprentices, on their stocking soles; and, having strong and dumpy arms, pinned back his elbows like a flash of lightning, giving the other callants time to jump on his back, and hold him like a vice; while, having got time to draw my breath, and screw up my pluck, I ran forward like a lion, and houghed the whole concern—Tammie Bodkin, the three faithful apprentices, Cursecowl and all, coming to the ground like a ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... miracle that you have come back alive! We have good reason to be thankful as long as we live that you didn't miss your footing or get killed by that savage vulture. But what I wonder most at is that you could muster up the pluck for such a risky business. ...
— Harper's Young People, November 18, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... limits of his cell, wondering what the next move would be in this mysterious drama. In the Judgment Chamber he had abandoned all hope, and had determined that when the order was given to seize him he would pluck the dagger of the order from the inside of his doublet, and springing over the table, kill one or more of these illegal judges before he was overpowered. The sudden change in tactics persuaded him that something else was required of him rather ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... called him, he cried out in amazement, "Ah, Lord God! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child." But Jahveh reassured him, and touching his lips, said unto him, "Behold, I have put My words in thy mouth: see, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down, and to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant." Then the prophet perceived a seething cauldron, the face of which appeared from the north, for the Eternal declared to him that "Out of the north evil shall break out upon all the inhabitants of the land." ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... Prince Underwaves, and he saw the castle. He tried to pluck out his eye, thinking that ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... perfect power sets upon my brow this crown of naked mockery. Yet in thy breath, the swift essence that brought me light, that brought me gloom, thou didst vow to me that I who cannot die should once more pluck the lost flower of my immortal loveliness from this foul slime ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... flowers? Put your nose to every flower you pluck, and you will be surprised how your list will swell the more you smell. I plucked some wild blue violets one day, the ovata variety of the sagittata, that had a faint perfume of sweet clover, but I never could ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... lady, weep no more, Thy sorrow is in vain; For violets pluck'd, the sweetest shower ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... have been wet through nearly every day of travel since the second (inclusive); besides this, I have had to fight against pretty mouldy health; so that, on the whole, the essayist and reviewer has shown, I think, some pluck. Four days ago I was not a hundred miles from being miserably drowned, to the immense regret of a large circle of friends and the permanent impoverishment of British Essayism and Reviewery. My boat culbutted me under a fallen tree in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... quite familiar to Red Indian and to Bushman magic. Another way to dig the plant spoken of by Josephus is by aid of the dog, as in the German superstition quoted from Grimm. AElian also recommends the use of the dog to pluck the herb aglaophotis, which shines at night. {147c} When the dog has dragged up the root, and died of terror, his body is to be buried on the spot with religious honours ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... weeks, not to mention the hardships which he and his trusty men suffered on the way; but he had served justice, and Justice must be served at any cost. When the story be came known, the admiration of his neighbors for his pluck and persistence rose; but they wondered why he took the trouble to make the extra journey, in order to deliver the prisoners to the jail, instead of shooting them where he ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... arms yet support him, when the ship of this base treacherous world has gone down beneath him. Delight is to him, who gives no quarter in the truth, and kills, burns, and destroys all sin though he pluck it out from under the robes of Senators and Judges. Delight, —top-gallant delight is to him, who acknowledges no law or lord, but the Lord his God, and is only a patriot to heaven. Delight is to him, ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... nor unwise after 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
... creeper's beauty would I never blight, Nor pluck its flowers; should I not be afraid To seize her hair so lovely-long, and bright As wings of bees, and slay a ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... carried; and the Hours Snatch, as they pass, the linden-flowers; And children leap to pluck a spray Bent earthward, and then run away. Park-keeper! catch me those grave thieves, About whose frocks the fragrant leaves, Sticking and fluttering here and there, No false nor ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... and the thought of my destination braced me yet more, so that I began to pluck up a kind of spirit. In the village of Dean, where it sits in the bottom of a glen beside the river, I inquired my way of a miller's man, who sent me up the hill upon the farther side by a plain path, and so to a decent-like small house in a garden ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson |
