"Ply" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and daws to peck, You'll find four shillings for his winding sheet. He had the poet's heart and God help all Who have that heart and somehow lose their way For lack of helm, souls that are blown abroad By the great winds of passion, without power To sway them, chartless captains. Multitudes ply Trimly enough from bank to bank of Thames Like shallow wherries, while tall galleons, Out of their very beauty driven to dare The uncompassed sea, founder in starless nights, And all that we can say is—'They ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... not because it was felt to be justified; but rather, it passed unheeded. The stranger had questions to ply. ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... had to ply their trade in order to make a living, and could not serve the state gratuitously; and so a salary was instituted: every citizen who sat in the assembly or in the courts received for every day of session three obols (about eight cents ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... men pass that way. It is out of the path of the tourist. No excursion steamers ply those awesome river reaches. Across the sacred whiteness of that cathedral's imposing mass, no sign has ever been painted telling you the merits of the best five-cent cigar in the world! Few besides the hawks and the crows would see it, if ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... locker, "and begin the world bankrupt." And the same holds true during all the time a lad is educating himself, or suffering others to educate him. It must have been a very foolish old gentleman who addressed Johnson at Oxford in these words: "Young man, ply your book diligently now, and acquire a stock of knowledge; for when years come upon you, you will find that poring upon books will be but an irksome task." The old gentleman seems to have been unaware ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I passed by the river, spanned by its noble bridges, and covered with those innumerable barges in which the washerwomen of Paris ply their unceasing trade, eating, sleeping, and living constantly in their floating dwellings, I would think, with a shudder, that unless relief soon arrived, I must choose between its silent waters and ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... had taken their prowess elsewhere, and a circus had come to Madison Square Garden. Clavering had heard the roar of lions in the night. A far different crowd would stand under the arcade in a few hours, but the peanut venders would ply their trade, and a little booth for candies and innocuous juices had been erected in an alcove in the front wall, presided over by a plump pretty blonde. She alternated "jollying" and selling with quiet intervals of beading a bag, undisturbed either ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... although I think Cowan's services might do us more good as Constable's Trustee than as our own, but I will not begin with thwarting the managers of my affairs, or even exerting strong influence; it is not fair. These last four or five days I have wrought little; to-day I set on the steam and ply my paddles. ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... the secular magic pertaining to those who "go down to the sea in ships" and ply their calling in the great waters, held captive, too, by the mysterious prenatal sympathies which unite those who come of the same blood, Damaris stayed very still, sitting child-like upon the bare polished floor, while the wind murmured through ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... [ASIDE.]: Prevent! did e'er man haste so, for his horns? A courtier would not ply it so, for a place. —Well, now there's no helping it, stay ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... then, perhaps a hundred, one of the many spies who ply this town by night, ran to the state inquisitor, with information that such a nobleman (naming him) had connections with the French ambassador, and went privately to his house every night at a certain hour. The messergrando, as they call him, could not believe, ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... intervals by the grassy by-lanes that run out to the neighboring haciendas or parallel roads. At places where there is a slight elevation, the bottom of the road is worn several feet below the level by the carts which ply between Rivas and the lake. Opposite one of these, where the banks sloped at a sharp angle, we came upon General Henningsen and a detachment of musketeers resting on the right bank of the road, and halted beside them. The men were sitting under the shade of an adobe, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... midnight, there came in two little naked dwarfs; and they sat themselves upon the shoemaker's bench, took up all the work that was cut out, and began to ply with their little fingers, stitching and rapping and tapping away at such a rate, that the shoemaker was all wonder, and could not take his eyes off them. And on they went, till the job was quite done, and the shoes stood ready for use upon ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... Hurricane reached the spot and began to ply screw-drivers and chisels until at length the strong lock yielded, ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... enabled the wild bunch to saddle themselves on certain communities and ply their trade without restraint. Rustling had come to be a recognized occupation to be reckoned with; the identity of the thieves was often known, and they visited from ranch to ranch, whose owners possibly ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... sailing-ship to a huge floating hotel. Burton on his way to Mecca in 1853, when steaming across the Bay of Biscay in a vessel of 2000 tons, prophesies that sea-sickness is at an end now that such monsters ply across the ocean and laugh at the storm. How puny do they seem beside the Olympic and Imperator, at which we in our turn gaze wonderingly and think that engineering can no further go. It is amusing to find the same proud admiration in a traveller of 1517: 'Our ship was so great ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... misery of many of the stations, the universal dirt that electricity might even now abolish. You dare not drop a parcel on any British railway cushion for fear of the cloud of horrible dust you would raise; you have to put it down softly. Consider, too, the congested infrequent suburban trains that ply round any large centre of population, the inefficient goods and parcel distribution that hangs up the trade of the local shopman everywhere. Not only in the arrested standard of comfort, but in the efficiency of working also are our privately owned railways ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... blotted it out. On the day when the market is held in the open place beyond the Bab al Khamees, there is another big gathering within the city walls by the Jamaa Effina. Here acrobats and snake-charmers and story-tellers ply their trade, and never fail to find an audience. The acrobats come from Tarudant and another large city of the Sus that is not marked in the British War Office Map of Morocco dated 1889! Occasionally one of these clever tumblers finds ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... the unwary and cheat the confiding and gamble and thrive, and sniff with self-righteousness at the short-comings of others, and thank God that they were not like other men? What, to immense numbers of men, would be the value of a Heaven where they could not lie and libel, and ply ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... did wade, Oxford the foe invade, And cruel slaughter made Still as they ran up; Suffolk his axe did ply, Beaumont and Willoughby Bare them right doughtily, Ferrers ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... base of the mountains, and protected from the waves of the sea by a coral reef, which encircles the entire line of coast. Within the reef there is an expanse of smooth water, like that of a lake, where the canoes of the natives can ply with safety and where ships anchor. The low land which comes down to the beach of coral-sand is covered by the most beautiful productions of the intertropical regions. In the midst of bananas, orange, ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... issue. But this was fruitless, and we were driven again to the old point, and having once more obtained the emitted fluid, determined to fix a lens magnifying 5,000 diameters upon a clear space over which the fluid had rolled, and near to the exhausted sac, and ply our old trade of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XIX, No. 470, Jan. 3, 1885 • Various
... up to his neck. Had it not been for him we should have had to lie out all night; he sees in the dark like an owl. We've had a hard tramp." He stood steaming before the fire as he spoke—drenched to the skin, the others crowding round him, too happy for the moment to ply him with questions. He himself was quivering with an inward joy. Alice's kisses were still ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... of relief, and after a well-earned dejeuner went forth with the car into the Place des Arbres and prepared to ply his trade. First he unfurled the Hieropath banner, which floated proudly in the breeze. Then on a folding table he displayed his collection of ointment-boxes (together with pills and a toothache-killer which he sold on his own account) and a wax model of a human foot on ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... whispered in his ear, "there is promise in that young fellow's looks, Christie, and we want men of limbs and sinews so compacted—those thou hast brought to me of late are the mere refuse of mankind, wretches scarce worth the arrow that ends them: this youngster is limbed like Saint George. Ply him with wine and wassail—let the wenches weave their meshes about him like spiders—thou understandest?" Christie gave a sagacious nod of intelligence, and fell back to a respectful distance from his master.—"And thou, old man," said the Baron, ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... guile;[32] With Peggy Dixon[33] thoughtful sit, Contriving for the pot and spit. Take down thy proudly swelling sails, And rub thy teeth and pare thy nails; At nicely carving show thy wit; But ne'er presume to eat a bit: Turn every way thy watchful eye, And every guest be sure to ply: Let never at your board be known An empty plate, except your own. Be these thy arts;[34] nor higher aim Than what befits a rural dame. "But Cloacina, goddess bright, Sleek——claims her as his right; And Smedley,[35] flower of all divines, ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... quit their mooring, And all hands must ply the oar; Baggage from the quay is lowering, We're impatient, push from shore. "Have a care! that case holds liquor— Stop the boat—I'm sick—oh Lord!" "Sick, Ma'am, damme, you'll be sicker, Ere you've been an hour ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... regions of the Alpujarras, on a skirt of which stands Granada. A common occupation of the Gitanos of Granada is working in iron, and it is not unfrequent to find these caves tenanted by Gypsy smiths and their families, who ply the hammer and forge in the bowels of the earth. To one standing at the mouth of the cave, especially at night, they afford a picturesque spectacle. Gathered round the forge, their bronzed and naked bodies, illuminated ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... a cabaret. The church of the Cordeliers is turned into a school, and the octagonal tower rises out of the roof of the dormitory. The beautiful fourteenth-century church of the Dominicans is a stable for the horses of the omnibuses that ply between the train and the town. S. Martin is desecrated, so is S. Isidore. The earliest church in Arles is Notre Dame de la Majeur, near the Arenes, but it does not look its age. It was in that church that the Council ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... descent upon the carpet as if it were only a thief of color, and plant trees to shut it away from the mouldering house. All the animals know better than this, as well as the more simple races of men; the old women of the southern Italian coasts sit all day in the sun and ply the distaff, as grateful as the sociable hens on the south side of a New England barn; the slow tortoise likes to take the sun upon his sloping back, soaking in color that shall make him immortal when the imperishable part of him ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... only relative so far as she knew. No, she had made no plans—she would like to stay where she was if she could. It would be pretty hard to do everything alone, etc. As the trust officer, puzzled by the situation, continued to ply her with questions so that he might gain a clearer understanding of the circumstances, he became more and more perplexed. This was something quite out of his experience as a trust officer. He had supposed in making this call that he would have merely a perfunctory ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... necessity for the safety of the place, but which are only then possible. In order to retard the completion of the first parallel, and the opening of the fire, it is necessary to try to discover the location of such parallel, as well as that of the artillery, and to ply them with projectiles. But, on their side, the besiegers will do all in their power to hide their works, and those that they are unable to begin behind natural coverts they will execute at night. It will be seen from this how important it is for the besieged to possess at this stage ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... much wood, my man," said my father, smiling, "and we shall have to ply the axe hard ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... essay'd: "Since 'tis impossible to nod, While harping like the Delphian god, You charm our ears, stead of a nap, A batch of nectar will I tap, Which lately from Minerva came; Now if you do not scorn the same, Together let us bumpers ply." The Grasshopper, extremely dry, And, finding she had hit the key That gain'd applause, approach'd with glee; At which the Owl upon her flew, And quick the trembling vixen slew. Thus by her death she was adjudged To give what in her ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... a calamity! what will become of me? I am undone if I do not learn how to ply my tongue. Oh! Clouds! give ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... the river's brink, and leave a space of cultivable land, there the industrious Mormons have built log or adobe cabins, and converted the circumscribed domain into farms, gardens, and orchards. In one of these isolated settlements I seek shelter from a passing shower at the house of a "three-ply Mormon " (a Mormon with three wives), and am introduced to his three separate and distinct better-halves; or, rather, one should say, " better-quarters," for how can anything have three halves. A ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... time that I'm getting past. My own opinion is, they're in a greater hurry to get to market than of yore. 'Competition '—that's a cry sprung up since my young days: it used to be 'Religion,' and 'Nicholas Vro, be you a saved man?' The ferry must ply, week-day or Sabbath: I put it to you, What time have I got to be a saved man? The Lord is good, says I. Now I'll tell you a fancy of mine about Him. One day He'll come down to the slip calling 'Over!' ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... back, troops and horses were hauled across the Canal. Police to regulate the traffic over the bridge and maintain a check on the passes, without which no person was allowed to cross the waterway. Then again, the natives who fished the lake were not allowed to ply their trade except with a written permit and the presence in the boat of a soldier. This escort duty was not unpopular, for the reason that nearly every man who performed it returned to camp with several ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... were bored in the upper plank and three in the lower,—the holes being above each other, that is, in a vertical line. Through these holes the cord was passed, and, when tied, formed a powerful stitch of three ply. Besides this, we placed between the edges of the planks, layers of cocoa-nut fibre, which, as it swelled when wetted, would, we hoped, make our little vessel water-tight. But in order further to secure this end, we collected a large quantity of pitch from the bread-fruit tree, ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... year were running finely, the fishermen of the villages on each side of the river were eagerly engaged in securing their finny harvest, on which much of their winter food supply depended. As this was a mutual necessity, each party, by a tacit consent, was allowed to ply this peaceful avocation, for the most part, undisturbed by ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... his shirts and his new clothes and his trunks safe from the clutches of the waiters at the Crown Prince. But he never spoke of his journey to the Rhine, no matter how much his companions might ply him with questions. If, in school, his geography lesson was upon the Rhine country, he turned a deaf ear, for he absolutely declined to learn anything about a place where innocent persons are treated with such indignity as they meet ...
— Gritli's Children • Johanna Spyri
... was weather-wise, who made The grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spence, This night, so tranquil now, will not go hence Unroused by winds, that ply a busier trade Than those which mould yon cloud in lazy flakes, 5 Or the dull sobbing draft, that moans and rakes Upon the strings of this olian lute, Which better far were mute. For lo! the New-moon winter-bright! And overspread with phantom light, 10 (With swimming ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... and useful idiot. He could measure distances more accurately than either of the three, and could ply the saw, hammer, plane, or hatchet (Tiffles brought all these tools with him) like a carpenter. His strength and skill were so great, that Tiffles found himself gratefully relieved from the necessity of lifting, or directing. Marcus Wilkeson, ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... be needed by the doctor; about five dozen should be prepared. The gauze is cut in eighteen-inch squares. Opposite edges are folded toward one another, about two inches being lapped each time; this finally yields a seven or eight-ply strip, which is wrapped into appropriate shape about two fingers. The ravelled ends are then tucked into the roll. It is most satisfactory to divide the sponges and sterilize them ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... they come. I fancy well thy game! O to be free to marry Widow Green! I'll call her hence anon—then ply him well. ...
— The Love-Chase • James Sheridan Knowles
... "ply" for "play," I would suggest "horse" for "house." The meaning would then be obvious and pertinent. The punlet, or pun-maggot, or pun intentional, "horse and house," is below ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... me, you have seen. Steeled by a sense of my own danger, I was able to confront the woman whom I had so deeply wronged,—whom I had even endeavored to kill,—and ply her with those questions upon whose answers depended not only my honor, but ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... that such an explanation would not content her. Would it satisfy any woman? He had only to wait and she would ply him with further questions, and, if she were not the woman, would not rest until she had discovered who the other woman was. She would probably help him to some explanation of his adventure in the long run, her curiosity leading her to play the part ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... the horror of the green-keepers, and rolled past the club-house to the aeroplane, where Rodier, having finished cleaning, was regaling himself with an excellent repast sent out to him by Mr. McMurtrie. Cheers for Lieutenant Smith arose; Rodier smiled and bowed, not ceasing to ply his knife and fork until a daring youth put his foot upon the aeroplane. Then Rodier dropped knife and fork, and rushed like a cat at the intruder. The Frenchiness of his language apprised the spectators that they were on the wrong scent, and they demanded ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... several heartrending sighs, but when the schoolmaster was imprudent enough to ply him with questions in an eager, inquisitive voice, he suddenly grew silent. The other's eagerness had made him suspicious, and he obstinately closed his mouth; he would ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... instinctive. She runs, and they give tongue; she is a creature of the chase. Let her escape unmangled, it will pass in the record that she did once publicly run, and some old dogs will persist in thinking her cunninger than the virtuous, which never put themselves in such positions, but ply the distaff at home. Never should reputation of woman trail a scent! How true! and true also that the women of waxwork never do; and that the women of happy marriages do not; nor the women of holy nunneries; nor the women lucky in their arts. It is a test of the civilized to see and hear, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... not rally from the state of stupor and confusion in which the events of the previous night had plunged her intrepid spirit until the bells of the Curzon Street Chapels were ringing for afternoon service, and rising from her bed she began to ply her own bell, in order to summon the French maid who had left her some ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... not permitted to pursue their avocations or ply their trades beyond the hour of noon; then the markets, the booths, the workshops and schools were to be closed, and on the great square in front of the temple of Ptah, where the annual fair was ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the stalk with languished head. Beauty is Nature's brag, and must be shown In courts, at feasts, and high solemnities, Where most may wonder at the workmanship. It is for homely features to keep home; They had their name thence: coarse complexions And cheeks of sorry grain will serve to ply The sampler, and to tease the huswife's wool. What need a vermeil-tinctured lip for that, Love-darting eyes, or tresses like the morn? There was another meaning in these gifts; Think what, and be advised; you are but young yet. LADY. I had not thought to have unlocked ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton
... onlookers were the quick-fingered spoilers and rovers who, packed as close as dried dates in a basket by the irresistible forward press of the people, found themselves suddenly occupationless, without power to move their arms, or ply their hands. Thus held in a mighty compress, temporary prisoners with their spoils in their pockets, and cheap jewelry shining enticingly all about them, they were obliged for the time to comport themselves like ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... the right of her sex to ply any honest art in the world that might bring them either pleasure ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the muse. They do not at all reveal the business carried on within. The butcher, for example, has over his shop such elegant phrases as Great Concord, Constant Faith, Abounding Virtue. There are many pawn-brokers who ply their vocation assiduously. They tell you of their honest purpose after this fashion: "Let each have his due pawn-brokers," and, "Honest profit pawn-brokers." In the Chinese restaurant, to which we will go later, ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... it. The cord runs in a groove round the circumference of each wheel, and must be held taut in position. By turning the handle of the large wheel the three small ones are set in motion. Three hooks, attached to the axles of the small wheels, are therefore rotated with them. One end of each ply of the cord in making is looped on to one of these hooks, the other ends are attached to three similar hooks fixed into a block of wood which, when in use, is firmly clamped to the table. Further instruction in the making of cords ...
— Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving • Grace Christie
... indefatigably did he ply arguments, appealing alike to clemency and cupidity—the custom following such a course—that the landlord at length reluctantly consented, and soon after the dining-room was transformed into a temple of art; stinted, it is true, for flats, drops, flies and screens, but at least more tenable than ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... let the cry, at dead of night, Be heard, 'They come, they come!' Mid scenes of sweet domestic bliss, Pour shells of livid fire, While red-hot balls among them hiss, To make the work entire And when the scream of agony Is heard above the din, Then ply your guns with energy, And throw your columns in Thro' street and lane, thro' house and church, The sword and faggot hear, And every inmost recess search, To fill with shrieks the air Where waving fields and smiling homes Now deck the ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... the earth, though invisible, and all his angels (demons, I believe they are called in the Bible) are moving about invisibly among the people on the earth, among the people of this wonderful London, if all this, I say, be so, how long do you suppose you will be allowed, by his Satanic Majesty, to ply your trade of warner of the peoples? Why, man, your life is not worth ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... where he had heard the voice. Right in front of the ship's bow it fell, and a great wave rose as it sank, and washed the ship back to the shore. But Ulysses seized a long pole with both hands and pushed the ship from the land, and bade his comrades ply their oars, nodding with his head, for he was too wise to speak, lest the Cyclops should know where they were. Then they rowed with ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... wives. Mr. Long would tie them up by the wrist, so high that their toes would just touch the ground, and then with a cow-hide lay the lash upon the naked back, until he was exhausted, when he would sit down and rest. As soon as he had rested sufficiently, he would ply the cow-hide again, thus he would continue until the whole back of the poor victim was lacerated into one uniform coat of blood. Yet he was a strict professor of the Christian religion, in the southern ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... announced that the battle was gained, a rapid fire was heard in the direction of Quarman, showing that the Ashantees were attempting to cut off the communication with the rear. Four companies of the Rifle Brigade were accordingly ordered back, and so actively did they ply their rifles, that in less than an hour the Ashantees were put to flight. Another attack was, however, made on the right and rear of Quarman, by one of the principal Ashantee generals, but the enemy was gallantly held in check ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... France,—the Pompadour,—and he has come to New France to mend his fortunes. How he planned to do it one may guess from his career at Louisburg; but Quebec offered better field, and it was to Bigot's interest to ply Montcalm and Vaudreuil with such tittle-tattle of enmity as would foment jealousy, keep their attention on each other, and their eyes off his own doings. As he had done at Louisburg, so he now did at Quebec. The King was requisitioned for enormous sums to strengthen the fort. Bigot's {244} ring ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... and her young companion left the Southern Hotel and proceeded directly on board one of the palatial steamers which ply between St. ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... read very hard. It is a sad reflection, but a true one, that I knew almost as much at eighteen as I do now[1315]. My judgement, to be sure, was not so good; but I had all the facts. I remember very well, when I was at Oxford, an old gentleman said to me, "Young man, ply your book diligently now, and acquire a stock of knowledge; for when years come upon you, you will find that poring upon books will be but ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... a new boat, intended to ply regularly between Cincinnati and St Louis. She had made but two or three trips, but had already established a high reputation for speed; and, as is usual in such cases, those by whom she was owned ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... short space He has enjoy'd the vital light of heaven, Soft disengage, and back into the stream The speckled captive throw. But should you lure From his dark haunt, beneath the tangled roots Of pendant trees, the monarch of the brook, Behoves you then to ply your finest art. Long time he following cautious, scans the fly; And oft attempts to seize it, but as oft The dimpled water speaks his jealous fear. At last, while haply yet the shaded sun Passes a cloud, he desperate takes the death, With sullen plunge. At ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... great part of the poorer class adhere to their ancient habitations, impelled by the double motive of avoiding the cost of carrying their crops to these townships, and from thence back again to the river, in order to send them to market by the boats, which ply on it for this purpose. And to such as have not horses and carts of their own, and would consequently be obliged to hire them, a residence on the banks of the river is a saving of greater magnitude than might be at ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... to ply their trade in several tents, the outside of which showed a collection of ludicrous portraits and prints of various kinds. The purpose of this stratagem was, ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... simple meal progressed, Big Jerry began to ply the visitor with questions, and press him to talk on many subjects connected with the wide world of men; and, as Donald's natural reticence yielded to the naive interrogations, he answered with a readiness ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... the Relief Kirk, respected by all for his canny and douce behaviour, and, as I have observed before, a weaver to his trade. The cot and the kail-yard were his own, and had been auld granfaither's; but still he had to ply the shuttle from Monday to Saturday, to keep all right and tight. The thrums were a perquisite of my own, which I niffered with the gundy-wife for ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... clear fresh-water lake, in S. of Siberia, 397 m. long and from 13 to 54 wide, in some parts 4500 ft. deep, and at its surface 1560 ft. above the sea-level, the third largest in Asia; on which sledges ply for six or eight months in winter, and steamboats in summer; it abounds in fish, especially sturgeon and salmon; it contains several islands, the largest Olkhin, 32 ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... by barges towed by small tugs, and by a number of native sailing craft. A stretch of seven miles of railway avoids the First Cataract, and joins Assuan and Shellal. Above Shellal a second flotilla of gunboats, steamers, barges, and Nile boats was collected to ply between Shellal and Halfa. The military railway ran from Halfa to Sarras. South of Sarras supplies were forwarded by camels. To meet the increased demands of transport, 4,500 camels were purchased in Egypt and forwarded in boats to Assuan, ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... of chivalry, Who conquered Crete with horn and cry, For this was fain a maid to be And learn with girls the thread to ply; King David, wise in prophecy, Forgot the fear of God for one Seen washing either shapely thigh; Good luck has he ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... supply of inns; a fine church and a notable old Cornish manor-house. But all the time one has a sense that the real life of the place is the river behind these houses; even the leisurely little railway station does not seem of much consequence, though it acts as a feeder of the boats that busily ply here. Quite obviously this is no resort of mere pleasure, and it is all the more pleasurable for that; it has set itself to live sturdily, not troubling to attract the idler and the luxurious. Fowey is not ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... by Messrs. Delavan and Moddridge that Tom Halstead and Joe Dawson should be able to keep their new prize and property running for their own pleasure. On the contrary the givers of this splendid present believed that the two boys would ply under charter for wealthy pleasure seekers, thus making a splendid living. In summer there were the northern waters; in winter the southern waters. Thus it was believed that Captain Tom Halstead ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock
... on all,' then keep erect your head; Then be your arms and bodies with one motion for'ard sped: Sit firm upon your cushions all; and, when the oar is in, With one harmonious action let your work at once begin: Press your feet against the stretcher, and your legs with vigour ply, Till the ship, as swift as lightning, thro' the yielding water fly. "He who 'misses the beginning' makes his comrades all to suffer, Spoils the swing, and is a nuisance; turn him out, for he's a duffer! Having made a good beginning you must carry on the work, And until the stroke ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... first been published at London. Carey was himself Crevecoeur's American publisher; and he may well have thought as he wrote the lines quoted of Crevecoeur's earlier pigeons "obscuring the sun in their flight." Crevecoeur had by this time returned to France, and was never more to ply the avocations of the American farmer. In the interval, much had happened to this victim of both the revolutions. Though the Letters are distinguished by an idyllic temper, over them is thrown the shadow of impending civil war. The Farmer was a man of peace, for all his experience under Montcalm ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... attached and bartered for a price. There is no outrage on human feeling greater than this. We are all born of woman; and the sight of womanhood thus degraded and profaned would give us more of a shock if it were less common. The curse of God is on such wretches as ply this unnatural trade and live by infamy; not only on them, but on those also who make such traffic possible and lucrative. Considering all things, more guilty the latter than the former, perhaps. Active co-operation in evil makes one a joint partner in guilt; to encourage infamy ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... bank, which is still so absorbing and, at certain hours, when the horizon is unsullied by the smoke of pit-coal, recalls you to the days of artless toil and healthy beauty. In the boats that meet us, half-naked men, revelling in their movement, in the sun and air, sing, as they ply their oars, those songs of the Nile that are as old as Thebes or Memphis. When the wind rises there is a riotous unfurling of sails, which, stretched on their long yards, give to the dahabiyas the air of birds in full flight. Bending right over in ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... in public in women's stockings, embroidered with gold and pearls; sometimes in a personality and insolence of demeanor towards every rank and class in Rome, which made him ask a senator to supper, and ply him with drunken toasts, on the very evening on which he had condemned his son to death; sometimes in sheer raving blasphemy, as when he expressed his furious indignation against Jupiter for presuming to thunder while he was supping, or looking at the pantomimes; ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... broken beetle— Sprawls without grace, Her face gray as asphalt, Her jaws sagging as on loosened hinges... Shadows ply about her mouth— Nimble shadows out of the jigging tree, That dances above her its ...
— The Ghetto and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... way to soft concessions: Half won she takes the tempting bait; Smiles on him, draws her lover nearer, With heart no longer obdurate She teaches him no more to fear her— A pinch,—a kiss,—a kindling eye,— Her melting glances,—nothing said.— John ceases not his suit to ply Till his first finger's debt is paid. A second, third and fourth he gains, Takes breath, and e'en a fifth maintains. But who could long such contest wage? Not I, although of fitting age, Nor John himself, for here he stopped, And further effort sudden ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... devotional ladies as “the holy Nuns of Stixwold,” {154d} yet, at one time, public complaint was made that the Prioress of Stixwould had no scruples in so encroaching upon the waters of the Witham and diverting its course, that the vessels accustomed to ply on it with turf and faggots for the people of Lincoln, could now only do so at great peril. {154e} We may, perhaps, however, exonerate the “Lady Superior” and her nuns from all blame in this matter, when we remember that there was ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... which children ply their trades; the instruments with which they carry on their professions; the goods which they buy and sell in their business, and the paraphernalia with which they conduct their toy society. They are more than this. They are the animals which serve them, the associates who entertain them, the children ...
— The Chinese Boy and Girl • Isaac Taylor Headland
... of life, in action's storm, I float and I wave With billowy motion! Birth and the grave A limitless ocean, A constant weaving With change still rife, A restless heaving, A glowing life— Thus time's whirring loom unceasing I ply, And weave the life-garment ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... their design, is as careful of him as possible, so as not to lose ground. His fine, strong, steady seat, and quiet handling, contrasts well with Thornton's rolling bucketing style, who has already begun to ply a heavy cutting whip, in aid of his spurs at his fences, accompanied with a half frantic 'g—u—r—r—r along!' and inquires of the horse if he thinks he ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... slays; The hills that swell to Heaven drip With ooze of murdered men; for days The dead drift with the drifting ship, And far as eye may see the plain Is cumbered deep with slaughtered ones, Contorted to the shape of pain, Dissolving 'neath the callous suns, And driven in his foetid breath Still ply the harvesters ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson
... friend Orchis,' replied the candle-maker, 'but don't take it illy if I call to mind the word of my uncle, the blacksmith, who, when a loan was offered him, declined it, saying: "To ply my own hammer, light though it be, I think best, rather than piece it out heavier by welding to it a bit off a neighbor's hammer, though that may have some weight to spare; otherwise, were the borrowed bit suddenly wanted again, it might not split off at the welding, but too ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... globe; Farewell, the solemn-spreading robe; 1080 Farewell, the sword; farewell, the mace; Farewell, all title, pomp, and place, Removed from men of high degree, (A loss to them, Crape, not to me) Banish'd to Chippenham or to Frome, Dulman once more shall ply the loom.' Crape, lifting up his hands and eyes, 'Dulman!—the loom!—at Chippenham!'—cries; 'If there be powers which greatness love, Which rule below, but dwell above, 1090 Those powers united all shall join To contradict the rash design. Sooner shall stubborn ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... look on the ocean think of its vastness; of the many shores in many climes visited by its waves to ply "their priest-like task of clean ablution;" of cities and empires that rose beside its waters, flourished, decayed, and became a memory; of others that shall rise and also pass away, while the moving element remains,—so we to-day beholding ancient Faith, laying, in the New World, ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... Gaspereau's mouth they hurried; and there on the sea-beach Piled in confusion lay the household goods of the peasants. All day long between the shore and the ships did the boats ply; All day long the wains came laboring down from the village. Late in the afternoon, when the sun was near to his setting, Echoed far o'er the fields came the roll of drums from the churchyard. Thither the women and children thronged. On a sudden ...
— The Children's Own Longfellow • Henry W. Longfellow
... was by nature as active and diligent as Adolphus. She was a seamstress before the days of Foray and the Drummer, and still continued to ply her needle, though no longer urged by necessity. She sewed for the officers' wives, she knit stockings and mufflers for the soldiers. The income thus derived independently of Montier's ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... would prove the most formidable, the boy saw an immense jet of water spurt high into the air. Twenty feet it rose, and then descended full and fair upon his head. A mingled shout of defiance and joy told Hal that his aim had been good, and he continued to ply the hose. At the same moment eight cannon-balls, five at least of which hit him, were thrown at the harassed defender, whose helmet was now full of ...
— A Tale of the Summer Holidays • G. Mockler
... homely features to keep home— They had their name thence: coarse complexions And cheeks of sorry grain will serve to ply The sampler and to tease the ...
— What Great Men Have Said About Women - Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 77 • Various
... wire rope which hung about the smouldering shaft. The man stepped into this, the chain was passed about his waist, he was smothered in heavy flannels which were tied about him with cords; the end of a long coil of dirty, oily, coaly, three-ply twine was fastened round his right wrist, and he was swung into the smoke. The word was passed to the engine-room, the little tin pot of an engine began to pant and snort 30 or 40 yards away and the man dropped out of sight. The coal-smeared comrade ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... they were in the warm sunny days of summer. The most severe winter cannot freeze a deep lake solid, and in the coldest weather a hole made in the ice will show water beneath the surface. Our ice boats cut and break the ice of the river, and through the water beneath our boats daily ply their way to and fro, independent of winter and its ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... showed great presence of mind in maintaining the ranks of the foot, on which the horse had recoiled: he made Sir Peter Meutas advance, captain of the foot harquebusiers, and Sir Peter Gamboa, captain of some Italian and Spanish harquebusiers on horseback; and ordered them to ply the Scottish infantry with their shot. They marched to the slough, and discharged their pieces full in the face of the enemy: the ships galled them from the flank: the artillery, planted on a height, infested them from the front: the English archers poured in a shower of arrows ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... ploughing, sowing, reaping, the carrying of the corn, the storing of the grain, the fattening of the poultry, and the driving of the cattle. A little further on, workmen of all descriptions are engaged in their several trades: shoemakers ply the awl, glassmakers blow through their tubes, metal founders watch over their smelting-pots, carpenters hew down trees and build a ship; groups of women weave or spin under the eye of a frowning taskmaster, who seems impatient of their ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... floor, and which the women call a bocking, had been bought and nailed down there, after a solemn family-counsel, as the best means of concealing the too evident darns which years of good cheer had made needful in our stanch old household friend, the three-ply carpet, made in those days when to be a three-ply was a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... requires eight hundred years to arrive at maturity. To visit the forest where it is found in the Auckland district, one takes cars from the city to Helensville, a distance of about forty miles, where the Kaipara River is reached, upon which small steamers ply, taking us directly to the desired spot. Here, the busy saw-mills which are gradually consuming these valuable trees are so situated that vessels of two thousand tons can load at their yards and with their cargo pass directly out to sea. It is singular that while this district ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... infirmities did not allow him to walk, if he wished to go out he had to borrow a carriage. Why this economy? In order to have a storehouse full of garments, shoes and blankets, which he distributed gratuitously, with paternal kindness and prudence. This was a business which he never ceased to ply, in which he trusted only to himself, and with which he concerned ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... Border Minstrelsy, ascribes to the clan of Tweedie, a family once stout and warlike, a descent which would not have misbecome a hero of antiquity. A baron, somewhat elderly we may suppose, had wedded a buxom young lady, and some months after their union he left her to ply the distaff alone in his old tower, among the mountains of the county of Peebles, near the sources of the Tweed. He returned after seven or eight years, no uncommon space for a pilgrimage to Palestine, and found his family had ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... skilled to unskilled workmen. The superior intelligence of the skilled worker offers him definite advantages should he engage in these pursuits, and his actual skill gives him other advantages in the villages. He can leave his factory and go to the village, there on the spot to ply his trade or variations of it, when as a handy man, repairing tools, etc., he will make an easy living and by lessening the dependence of the village on the town do as much as the "food speculator" in worsening the conditions of the ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome
... let my bow-wow worry you, Lady Gwendolen. He presumes till he's checked, on principle. Send him to lie down over here. Here, Ply, Ply, Ply!... Oh, won't he come?" Probably Achilles knows that his master, who speaks, is ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... he asked. "Say, you a' right! You ever need yob, Vaylan', you 'ply our union! Huh?" and he laughed, and went on; and the tears welled ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... stood prancing at our gate like an Arabian, has suddenly turned sulky. He does not indeed stand quite still, but his way of moving is little better—the slowest and most sullen of all walks. Even they who ply the hearse at funerals, sad-looking beasts who totter under black feathers, go faster. It is of no use to admonish him by whip, or rein, or word. The rogue has found out that it is a weak and tender hand that guides him now. Oh, ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... emperor's far-sightedness. "Charles, who was ever astir," says he, "arrived by mere hap and unexpectedly, in a certain town of Narbonnese Gaul. Whilst he was at dinner, and was as yet unrecognized of any, some corsairs of the Northmen came to ply their piracies in the very port. When their vessels were descried, they were supposed to be Jewish traders according to some, African according to others, and British in the opinion of others; but the gifted ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... gardens, fields, ponds, reeds, are carefully represented; wild animals are introduced, as stags, boars, and antelopes; birds fly from tree to tree, or stand over their nests feeding the young who stretch up to them; fish disport themselves in the waters; fishermen ply their craft; boatmen and agricultural laborers pursue their avocations; the scene is, as it were, photographed, with all its features—the least and the most important—equally marked, and without any attempt at selection, or ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... Cupid! 'Twas ever thus your way: When maids would bid you ply your wings, You find excuse ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... one side you should heare a cry, And all that Quarter clowded with a smother; The like from that against it by and by; As though the one were eccho to the other, The King and Clarence so their turnes can ply: And valiant Gloster showes himselfe their brother; Whose Mynes to the besieg'd more mischiefe doe, Then with ...
— The Battaile of Agincourt • Michael Drayton
... she could get no further now: the chain of thought broke. Her mind took up the fragments, and formed another chain which attached itself to the lady who was kept in seclusion—to the aunt, who looked well, and yet was nervous; who was nervous, and yet able to ply her needle and thread. An incomprehensible resemblance to some unremembered voice in the niece; an unintelligible malady which kept the aunt secluded from public view; an extraordinary range of scientific cultivation in the uncle, associated ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... traveller must rely either on the steamers of the German East Africa Line, which run from Hamburg through the Red Sea all the way to Durban making the entire voyage in about seven weeks, or on Messrs. Rennie's line, which ply from Durban to Delagoa Bay, Beira and Chinde. The drawback to these coast voyages is that the sea is apt to be rough between Cape Town and Durban, less frequently so between Durban and Beira, and that there is no sheltered ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... up the river, Hudson found it a mile broad, with high land on both sides. By the night of 19th September the little Half-Moon had reached the spot where the river widens near the modern town of Albany. He had sailed for the first time the distance covered to-day by magnificent steamers which ply daily between Albany and New York city. Hudson now went ashore with an old chief of the country. "Two men were dispatched in quest of game," so records Hudson's manuscript, "who brought in a pair of pigeons. They likewise killed a fat dog and skinned it with great haste with ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... school begins at ten. Half an hour of recreation on the playground prepares for the one-o'clock dinner, and school is resumed, until four; then comes an hour and a half of play or outdoor exercise, a half-hour service preceding the six-o'clock meal. Then the girls ply the needle, and the boys are in school, until bedtime, the younger children going to rest at eight, and the older, at nine. The food is simple, ample, and nutritious, consisting of bread, oatmeal, milk, soups, meat, rice, and vegetables. Everything is adjusted to one ultimate end; to use ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... winter. What a waste this all-year system has been! If the farmer could get away from the shop to till his farm in the planting, growing, and harvesting seasons (they are only a small part of the year, after all), and if the builder could get away from the shop to ply his useful trade in its season, how much better they would be, and how much more smoothly ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... more of the particulars relating to the confinement of the colonel, I called a coach, and ordered the coachman to put us down at the King's Bench, where Mr. Clifford had engaged to dine with us. As we rode along, I began to ply my companion, to inform me what desperate offence Colonel Despard had committed, which called for such rigorous treatment. His answer was this—"He served the government faithfully and zealously, as a soldier; he advanced money for them upon some foreign ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... looking curiously across at the opposing hillsides. Black dots, dozens of them, were moving from ledge to ledge, pausing here and there to ply pick and shovel. Now and then from some one of the dry arroyos came the echoes of a surface shot; dynamite cartridges thrust into the earth to clear away the drift to bed-rock. Ford called his ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... right. An encounter with the DUNCAN would have been fatal to the MACQUARIE. There was every reason to fear such an engagement in these narrow seas, in which pirates could ply their trade without risk. However, for that day at least, the yacht did not appear, and the sixth night from their departure from Twofold Bay came, without the fears ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... this class, as contrasted with the rougher type of the Lowlands, used always to delight Mr. Hope-Scott. Over and over again, after the ladies had withdrawn from the dinner-table, he would send for a keeper, or a gillie, or a boatman, and ply them with plausible questions, that his guests might have the opportunity of witnessing the good breeding of the Highlands. John, or Ronald, or Duncan, or whoever it might be, would stand a few yards away from the table, and, bonnet ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... nation has placed me at its head; my blood is worth as much as theirs, and it is time at last that I make it al pari with theirs. I will no longer serve as a target for all murderers, and then afterward only find the dagger, instead of seizing the hands that ply it. Let me once have hold of the hands, and all the daggers ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... impatiently. "Wisdom, philosophy, these are the true treasures. There is no harm in a Latin ode after the manner of Messer Ovidius, but for the most part poets or those that call themselves such are foolish fellows enough, and keep very bad company. Ply your book, ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... are not the kind of business men who try to ruin the business of competitors by poisoning their wells, or freezing them out of business. If any other train robbers want to do business in our territory, they have the same rights that we have, and the world is big enough for all to ply their trade. Now I am going to call upon our friend, Buckskin Bill, my associate in crime, who was wounded by a misdirected load of buckshot in our latest raid, which buckshot were so ably removed from ...
— Peck's Bad Boy With the Cowboys • Hon. Geo. W. Peck
... an all too enterprising individual chartered one of the fast little Seine boats, always so beplastered with "Dubonnet" advertisements, which ply along the river between the Quai du Louvre and St. Cloud. He announced that since it was now no longer possible to reach London via the train to Havre, he would transport Americans on his little boat to England, going down the Seine past Rouen and across the Channel. For such ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... ply him with the 'Trumpet,' Humphrey; and I will put the leeches on him. What will ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... one end as shown in the enlarged sketch A, Fig. 1. Form a cone of heavy paper, 9 in. long and 3 in. in diameter, at the larger end with the smaller end to fit the diameter of the tube A, making it three-ply thick and gluing the layers together. Attach this cone on the tube A where the thread has been wrapped with glue, as shown in Fig. 2. Fig. 2 is also an enlarged sketch. Make ten pieces about 1 ft. 10 in. in length and 3 in. wide from the thin boards of a biscuit or ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... tables of the rich, and enlivens the social circles of the poor; goes with the laborer as his most cheering companion; accompanies the mariner in his long and dreary voyage; enlivens the carpenter, the mason, the blacksmith, the joiner, as they ply their trade; follows the merchant to his counter, the physician to his infected rooms, the lawyer to his office, and the divine to his study, cheering all and comforting all. It is the life of our trainings, and ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... going not out by night (candles will be perfect in that house!). My husband shall, indeed, be known in the gates, but he won't sitteth there, for home will be far too attractive. Nine to one, as always, I'll ply my trade, but before and after office hours I'll be looketh-ing well to the ways of my household and eateth-ing not the bread of idleness (except at tea!). Many daughters have done virtuously but I shall excel them all. ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... father said, that to a distant town He must repair, to ply the artist's trade. What tears of bitter grief till then unknown! What tender vows our last sad kiss delayed! To him we turned:—we had no other aid. Like one revived, upon his neck I wept, And her whom he had loved ...
— Lyrical Ballads 1798 • Wordsworth and Coleridge
... "Hush... Hush..." said Inebnit, pointing with his ice-axe to the threatening line of gigantic seracs on their tottering foundations which the slightest jar might send thundering down the steep. But Tartarin knew what that meant; he was not the man to ply with any such tales, and he went on singing in ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... acclamation, however, was not so loud or universal, but that our adventurer could distinctly hear a counter-cry from the populace of, NO SLAVERY!—NO POPISH PRETENDER! an insinuation so ill relished by the cavaliers, that they began to ply their horsewhips among the multitude, and were, in their turn, saluted with a discharge or volley of stones, dirt, and dead cats; in consequence of which some teeth were demolished, ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... carried out to sea by the river which runs so freshly and so truantly, with so strong a current of temptation, a hundred yards away from my window—I often think that the strong necessity that compelled me to do my work, to ply my pen and inkpot out here in the leafy, blue-eyed wilderness, instead of doing it by typewriter in some forty-two-storey building in the city, is one of those encouraging signs of the times which links one with the great brotherhood of men and women that have heard the call ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... noise of the oars attracted the keepers, who rushed down to the water just in time to see the boat turning a reach of the river. They hurried along the bank for some distance, shouting to those in her to stop—an order not very likely to be obeyed. So vigorously did Pearson ply the oars, that there seemed every probability of the boat escaping its pursuers. Still the latter continued ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... our course when the stars disappeared, a tremendous noise struck upon our ears from seaward, and the storm was upon us. In the impenetrable obscurity of the night, not a trace of land could be discovered; but we continued to ply our oars, while each succeeding billow ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... entire musical theory and science that had been established in Europe by the practice of generations of composers, was a convention; the Russian music, particularly that of Rubinstein and Tchaikowsky, which had sought to ply itself in accord with it, an artificial and sophisticated thing, as artificial and sophisticated a thing as the pseudo-Parisian culture of the Petrograd salons. It was their firm conviction that for the Russian composer only one model existed, and that was ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld |
