"Pry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... there's no need to yell so loud. You know I've got back my hearing. What want ye with me? I'm sure I have no wish to pry into the secrets of this young man ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... of Margot's illness, and who had been the girl's companion on the misty moor. What had happened during those hours of suspense and danger? What barriers had been swept aside; what new vistas opened? Edith's own love was too sweet and sacred a thing to allow her to pry and question into the heart-secrets of another, as is the objectionable fashion of many so-called friends, but with her keen woman-senses she took in George Elgood's every word, look, and movement ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... the cogency of arguments, the force of pathetick sentiments, the various colours of diction, or the flowery embellishments of fancy; of all that engages the attention of others they are totally insensible, while they pry into worlds of conjecture, and amuse themselves with phantoms in ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... shown a better one. The same looseness of the rocks that permitted the escape of the smoke so freely, will permit, also, their being removed or torn away. We will now uncage him by digging down into his den. Ho there! my merry men below, go to cutting heavy pry-poles, and look up your crow-bars, picks, sledge-hammers, and shovels. There ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... receive her, and she will tell you some new things. Let her tell her story without interrupting her, and give close attention, and you will see she has got the lever of truth, that God helps her to pry where but few can. She cannot read or write, but the law ...
— The Narrative of Sojourner Truth • Sojourner Truth
... During the subsidence of the waters it seems that the Ark made fast there for the night, just before laying a course for Ararat; and the monkey and his wife—desperately bored by their long cooping-up among so many uncongenial animals—took advantage of their opportunity to pry a couple of tiles off the roof and get away. The tradition hints that Noah had been drinking; at any rate, their absence was not noticed, and the Ark went on without them the next day. By the time that the Deluge fairly was ended, and the Rhone reopened to normal navigation, a large monkey family ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... back in the scabbard—which there was no need to have told you, by the way. And I fancy that in telling you about my inner conflict I have laid it on rather thick to glorify myself. But let it pass, and to hell with all who pry into the human heart! Well, so much for that 'adventure' with Katerina Ivanovna. So now Ivan knows of it, ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... dreamed rich music in the rattling mills. 'Ye foundries, ye shall cast my church a bell,' Loud cried the Future from the farthest hills: 'Ye groaning forces, crack me every shell Of customs, old constraints, and narrow ills; Thou, lithe Invention, wake and pry and guess, Till thy deft mind ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... pry had been especially noted and approved by Jane. It added to the high opinion she already cherished of the four freshmen. They had been moved solely by a sense of duty to inform herself and her companions ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... prejudice is a-dying. We need not pry into the secret of its birth. Rather is this a time of jolliness and glad indulgence. For the era of rouge is upon us, and as only in an elaborate era can man, by the tangled accrescency of his own pleasures and emotions, reach that refinement which is his highest excellence, ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... impulse of my love is to dissuade you from seeking to know more. Your mind will be full of ideas; your hands will be perpetually busy to a purpose into which no human creature, beyond the verge of your brotherhood, must pry. Believe me, who have made the experiment, that compared with this task, the task of inviolable secrecy, all others are easy. To be dumb will not suffice; never to know any remission in your zeal or your watchfulness will not ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown
... pry into your private affairs, sir, but I have special reasons for wanting you to volunteer ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... he said. "It is one of my failings, I admit, but I have never gone much farther into your domestic affairs than to pry into the antecedents ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... let's lay that subject on the table for some of our night talks; and you can scold us all you like. We have a lot of work to do now, and let's forget the old pry. Now you lie down on that couch where I put you, and Leslie ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... "Never pry into the secrets of families," said Fleda. "Hugh and I have a couple of convenient little fairies in our service that ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... that the place of Receiver-General was at present too important, and would occasion too much surprise and speculation; that it would not do to go beyond a place worth fifteen thousand to twenty thousand francs a year; that they had no desire to pry into the King's secrets; and that his correspondence ought not to be communicated to any one; that this did not apply to papers like those of which I was the bearer, which might fall into his hands; that he would confer an obligation by communicating them, in order ...
— The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete • Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe
... the emperor in private. Having gained the opportunity he did obeisance before him and after repeatedly calling him "master," and "god" (terms that were already being applied to him by others), he said: "I have done nothing of the sort. And if I obtain a respite, I will pry into everything and both inform against and convict many persons for you." He was released on these conditions, but did not report any one; instead, by advancing different excuses at different times, he ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... case at once," she said; "I am afraid, if you wave it about like that, you will drop it, and I value it very much. You had no right to come into my room and meddle with my things, and poke and pry in all ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... and the mate let out more of the anchor chain. But they couldn't go very far, for the wind was so strong and the waves were so high and the heavy anchor chain held them back near the ship. When they had got as far as they could, they managed to pry the anchor overboard. It went into the water with a tremendous splash, wetting all the men; but they didn't mind, for they were all wet through already with the rain and the splashing of the waves. ...
— The Sandman: His Sea Stories • William J. Hopkins
... it slid a little bit, and then more and more, until finally it was rolling along quite rapidly. As the bank sloped down to the river like a little hill, Bunny hardly had to push or pry at all now, and a minute later the raft was ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... water which are not equalled by the greyhound on land. Why have the seals hung back? I believe I know the secret. It is the baby! No one knows where the porpoise and the whale cradle their newborn infants—it is so difficult to pry into the domestic ways of these sea-people—but evidently the seals cannot manage it, so they are forced to return to the land when the cares ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... Briggs! Why don't you manifest the power of the human intellect?" and so on, howling out ironical remarks like those; and s'posin' he kept that dog on that leg until he made you swear to pay the bet, and then at last had to pry the dog off with a hot poker, bringing away at the same time some of your flesh in the dog's mouth, so that you had to be carried home on a stretcher, and to hire several doctors to keep ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... be done according to your word," said I. "I will furbish up my exterior, and this very afternoon make my first appearance in the character of Paul Pry." ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... about again. Yes, the position was right. If she fell here, a man with a shovel could easily pry down tons of sand from either bank upon her in a few minutes. The burial might be done by himself without any other soul knowing ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... bucked centre. Two large lady spectators who had seen the Duke of Roxburgh married and had often blocked traffic on Twenty-third Street fell back into the second row with ripped shirtwaists when Violet had finished with them. William Pry loved her at ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... ashamed, Bianca!" said the Princess. "What right have we to pry into the secrets of this young man's heart? He seems virtuous and frank, and tells us he is unhappy. Are those circumstances that authorise us to make a property of him? How are we entitled ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole
... broke his rules of caution as to go on foot, past the church of San Polo, to visit the beautiful Barozza; and he resolved, if possible, to catch him on one of these journeys. 'It so chanced on the 28th of February, which was the second Sunday of Lent, that having gone, as was my wont, to pry out whether Lorenzo would give orders for going abroad that day, I entered the shoemaker's shop, and stayed awhile, until Lorenzo came to the window with a napkin round his neck for he was combing his hair—and at the same moment I saw a certain Giovan Battista Martelli, who kept his sword ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... said this, the neck of the fowl was drawn and its throat cut; and either the dead fowl, or its value in money, was given to the poor. In the evening previous to the feast of expiation, a man wishing to pry into futurity carried a lighted candle to the synagogue, and from particular appearances of the flame he prognosticated whether good was to follow him and his, or whether he and his family were to be ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... said is soonest mended,' is proverbial in quarrels of all kinds. I have no wish to pry or play mischief-maker, and, if Mr. Basil Bainrothe with his diplomatic talents could do nothing to mend the difficulty, I had no right to suppose that I could succeed better, with my ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... on being questioned as to the events of my past life, I had occasion to pry into this picture-chamber. I had thought to be content with selecting some few materials for my Life's story. I then discovered, as I opened the door, that Life's memories are not Life's history, but the original work of an ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... got to pry now," said Lilly with her little air of decision. "Who knows what treasures we may unearth? ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... out, he need only climb back out of the ravine—to her. But Blake's work was not the kind to slip or pull out. The watcher looked at the powerful figure backing rapidly down that roof-like pitch. One of the toes of the level tripod under the taut loop would easily pry the rope off the spike-head. He turned his pack around to get at the tripod—and paused to look upwards at the three tiny faces peering down over the ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... without a cap, reared above the stern, came full aboard without breaking, covered the whole boat, sweeping over her like a cuff from a gigantic hand. The Rector received the shock square on the back, but nothing, apparently, could loosen his iron grip from the tiller, nor pry his feet from the deck against which they were braced. He felt the water get deeper and deeper above his head, and a terrible groaning as if the boat were going to pieces under the strain. Then, as he came ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... where you came from, why, and when you are likely to be searched for. Now, you know and so do I that part of what they found out they wouldn't accept. Time-travel is impossible. So when you children told them where you come from they wouldn't believe it. They'd try to pry back behind what they'd consider a lie. They'd use different techniques of inquiry. They'd use inhibition-releasing drugs. ...
— Long Ago, Far Away • William Fitzgerald Jenkins AKA Murray Leinster
... to man than to be shown the springs and mechanism of any art. All our arts and occupations lie wholly on the surface; it is on the surface that we perceive their beauty, fitness, and significance; and to pry below is to be appalled by their emptiness and shocked by the coarseness of the strings and pulleys. In a similar way, psychology itself, when pushed to any nicety, discovers an abhorrent baldness, but rather ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... here until the next boat," he heard Locke saying as the victoria stopped. "I'd like to see somebody pry me loose from ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... period, it was easy to treat these questions as too transcendental, or as lying too far beyond the domain of positive science to require serious discussion. But it is no longer possible to restrain curiosity from attempting to pry into the relations which connect the present state of the animal and vegetable worlds, as well as of the various races of mankind, with the state of the fauna ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... far broke his rules of caution as to go on foot, past the church of San Polo, to visit the beautiful Barozza; and he resolved, if possible, to catch him on one of these journeys. 'It so chanced on February 28, which was the second Sunday of Lent, that having gone, as was my wont, to pry out whether Lorenzino would give orders for going abroad that day, I entered the shoemaker's shop, and stayed awhile, until Lorenzino came to the window with a napkin round his neck—for he was combing his hair —and at the same moment I saw a certain Giovan Battista ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... Dr. Quine's school at Notting Hill, Mr. Leslie passed a short probation in the provinces, and joined the Royalty Theatre in 1872, making his debut on the London stage in the character of Colonel Hardy in "Paul Pry." He subsequently visited America to play in "Madame Favart," at the Fifth Avenue Theatre. On his return to London he created the character of the Duke in "Olivette." Shortly after this, in 1882, in ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... He wanted money, and he wanted it badly, but the tailor had no right to pry into his private ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... not lax. People sniffed his smoke, noting every change in its flavor, and pressed around Judge Thayer's garden fence trying to get a look at the operations. Judge Thayer was not a little indignant over the scoffings and denunciations, and this impertinent curiosity to pry upon what he gave them to understand was ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... "By Allah, O my lord, he went up before my eyes and I am still awaiting him." Then the Captain hurried away a second time and rummaged about, high and low, and left no place whereinto he did not pry and spy, yet he came upon no one. He was perplext at his affair and again going down to the Barber said to him, "O Man, we have found none." Still the fellow said to him doggedly, "Withal a man did go within, whilst I who am his familiar here ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... from him ever since he left. I confess that I feel curious, and should be glad to hear from him—that is, of course, unless something is involved which it would be impertinent for a comparative stranger to pry into. ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... narrative. This rich vestment the hunter carried away with him. This was all the plunder his expedition afforded. Yes: there was one other article, and, to my mind, more significant than the vest of the hidalgo. This was a short and stout crowbar of iron; not one of the long crowbars that farmers use to pry up stones, but a short handy one, such as you would use in digging silver-ore out ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... his part was not wholly satisfied with what he had heard concerning the new attempt of the mysterious tourist to pry into his affairs. He every little while would spring some new question, which Larry answered to the best of his ability. Evidently Frank was trying to discover the real motives actuating Mr. Marsh when he so suddenly decided ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... pry with his cold-chisel forced this flimsy outer door away from its lock. Beneath it, thus lightly masked, stood the more formidable safe door itself. Durkin drew in a sharp breath of relief as he looked at ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... come back; he carried his hands to his face stammering: "Ah! Paparelli, Paparelli!" And muttered invectives followed: the train-bearer was an artful hypocrite who feigned modesty and humility, a vile spy appointed to pry into everything, listen to everything, and pervert everything that went on in the palace; he was a loathsome, destructive insect, feeding on the most noble prey, devouring the lion's mane, a Jesuit—the Jesuit who is at once lackey and ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... conjecture he was right. When the starved and exhausted malamutes dragged their silent burden into the Northwest Mounted Police outpost barracks at Crooked Bow twenty-four hours later, an ax and a sapling bar were required to pry Francois Breault from his bier. Previous to this process, however, Sergeant Fitzgerald, in charge at the outpost, took possession of the soiled envelope pinned to Breault's red scarf. The information it bore was simple, and yet exceedingly definite. Few men in dying ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... are sometimes sent among an enemy, to discover the state of his affairs, to pry into his designs, and carry back information. This is a dishonorable office; spies, if detected, are ...
— The Government Class Book • Andrew W. Young
... I dare not pry into my heart, I prefer to temporise, to deceive myself; I have not the courage to face the battle, I ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... big doctor thoughtfully, "while she was unconscious it took me ten minutes to pry open her fingers and disengage a rather heavy dog-whip from her clutch.... And there was some evidences of blood on the lash and on ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... me to dive into ladies' secrets; I want not to pry into other people's affairs. But, pray, how does she employ herself?—Yet she came but yesterday; ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... fastened upon her set her pulses tingling. She looked at him a moment, meeting his glance, and a light broke in upon her. Whitehot passion was in that face, passion silent as the grave, and it had made her his. At last they were left alone without the others to pry and pass remarks and she knew he could be trusted to the death, steadfast, a sterling man, a man of inflexible honour to his fingertips. His hands and face were working and a tremour went over her. She leaned back far to look up where the fireworks were and she ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... Bunch, "I'll throw a wire at my sister and tell her not to move out to Jiggersville until day after to-morrow. In the mean time we'll have to get a crowbar and pry your family circle loose from my premises. Nothing doing in the ghost ...
— Back to the Woods • Hugh McHugh
... them on all four sides before you try to pull them up. A spade is a fine thing to use to pry out a pin that is deep in the ground, and a wooden mallet is better than an axe or hatchet to drive them in with; but, unless you have a large number of pins to drive, it will hardly pay you to get a mallet especially ...
— How to Camp Out • John M. Gould
... towards her held an element of that loyal, enthusiastic devotion which an older woman not infrequently inspires in one considerably younger than herself—a devotion which accepts things as they are and has no wish to pry into the ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... upon our globe's last verge shall go, And view the ocean leaning on the sky: From thence our rolling neighbours we shall know, And on the lunar world securely pry. ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... the rule," he said. "Because the old priests did pry and peer, it was ruled henceforth that only the blind could enter the Holy of Holies." I'd swear he was smiling, if thirty teeth peeking out of what looked like a crack in an old suitcase can ...
— The Repairman • Harry Harrison
... say where he picked up this notion of his about the dead body," continued the captain. "It's not my place to pry into secrets; but I advise you to call the crew aft, and contradict the boy, whether he speaks the truth or not. The men are a parcel of fools who believe in ghosts, and all the rest of it. Some of them say they ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... his heel. "I wish I could take to that fellow," he thought, "but I can't; he's such a sneak! What the deuce was there to tremble about? Does he think I want to pry into ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... There must be something, somewhere, that will give us the meaning of a few words, and we'll use them to pry meaning out of more words, and so on. We may not live to learn this language, but we'll make a start, and some ...
— Omnilingual • H. Beam Piper
... out to field agents all over the United States, and, quietly but efficiently, the FBI went to work. Agents began to probe and pry and poke their noses into the files and data sheets of every mental institution in the fifty states—as far, at any rate, as they ...
— Brain Twister • Gordon Randall Garrett
... Arimanes, Byron's "Prince of Earth and Air." The gray figure from most ancient myth is not less real to us than Mefistofeles in "Faust." At least we clearly feel the human daring that feared not to pry into forbidden mysteries and refused the solace of unthinking faith. And it becomes again a question whether the composer had in mind this subjective attitude of the hero or the actual figures and abode of the spirits and their king. It is hard to escape the ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... had embraced his knees. He was overwhelmed by this extraordinary coincidence. 'Approach. O heaven! O Providence! It is he, behold the object of my gratitude. ... My benefactor! My son!' But let us not pry further into so affecting a passage; it is sufficient to state that Don Alvarez, after promising his protection to Zamore, hurried off to relate this remarkable occurrence to ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... Cornet Heald had, in his marriage, all unwittingly laid up a peck of fresh trouble for himself. This was brought to a head by the action of his spinster aunt, Miss Susannah Heald, who, until he came of age, had been his guardian. Suspecting Lola of a "past," she set herself to pry into it. Gathering that her nephew's inamorata had already been married, she employed enquiry agents to look into this previous union and discover just how and when it had been dissolved. They did their work well, ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... vacuum was formed by the refluence of the wave. Where a crevice is filled with water the entire force of the blow of the wave is transmitted by hydraulic pressure to the sides of the fissure. Thus storm waves little by little pry and suck the rock loose, and in this way, and by the blows which they strike with the stones of the beach, they quarry out about a joint, or wherever the rock may be weak, a recess known as a SEA CAVE, provided that the rock above is coherent enough ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... not: so I take a stranger's due." Self-love like this is knavish and absurd, And well deserves a damnatory word. You glance at your own faults; your eyes are blear: You eye your neighbour's; straightway you see clear, Like hawk or basilisk: your neighbours pry Into your frailties with as keen an eye. A man is passionate, perhaps misplaced In social circles of fastidious taste; His ill-trimmed beard, his dress of uncouth style, His shoes ill-fitting, may provoke a smile: But he's the soul of virtue; but he's ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... discovered), and F (a magazine of wit), and fair G, and H, and I, and brave old J, and charming K, and L, and M, and N, and O (fair twinklers), and I am puzzled between three P's—Peacock, Miss Pardoe, and Paul Pry—and Queechy, and R, and S, and T, mere et fils, and very likely U, O gentle reader, for who has not written his novel now-a-days?—who has not a claim to the star and straw-colored ribbon?—and who shall have the biggest and largest? ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... till Ephraim was in the pantry, washing up the dinner-things with the housemaid, I slipped down the garden to the boat-house. The door was padlocked, as I had feared; but with an old hammer-head I managed to pry off the staple. I felt like a burglar when the lock came off in my hand. I felt that I was acting deceitfully. Then the thought of Ephraim came over me, making me rebellious to my finger-tips. I would ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... ask. Although our young engineer could not imagine why Thorpe Walling had come to Newfoundland, he instinctively felt that the visit had something to do with his own trip to the island. He knew that Thorpe delighted to pry into the secrets of others; and also that he was of a vindictive nature, quick to take offence, and unscrupulous in his enmities. Therefore, as his instructions permitted him to visit whatever part of Newfoundland ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... ambition to enact the spy On fellow souls, a Spiritual Pry— 'Tis said that people ought to guard their noses, Who thrust them into matters none of theirs; And tho' no delicacy discomposes Your Saint, yet I consider faith and pray'rs Amongst ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... veterinary surgeon was sent for to attend a horse which had ripped its side open on the hinge of a farm gatepost. On arriving at the farm he found that nothing had been done for the wounded horse, but that a man was busy trying to pry the hinge out of the gatepost in order that it might be greased and put away, which, in the opinion of the Cambridge wiseacres, would conduce to the recovery of the animal. Similarly Essex rustics opine that, if a man has been stabbed with a knife, it is essential to his recovery that ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... stood over her a line of foam bubbled out of her blue lips. Her eyes were meaningless. I had frightened her into catalepsy, and I ground my teeth at my ill luck, for she could have told me something of the woman. I took my brandy flask and tried to pry her teeth apart. ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... we will stick to Knollsea,' said Ethelberta, half in doubt. 'Yes—otherwise it will be difficult to see about aunt's baptismal certificate. We will hope nobody will take the trouble to pry into our household. . . . And now, Picotee, I want to ask you something—something very serious. How would you like ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... I; "but, pry'thee, dear Ibrahim, read me this riddle: if the devil gets into water and kills, why don't he kill when he gets ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... usurp my right, Nor hold the sceptre in his childish fist, Nor wear the diadem upon his head, Whose church-like humours fits not for a crown. Then, York, be still awhile till time do serve; Watch thou and wake when others be asleep, To pry into the secrets of the state; Till Henry, surfeiting in joys of love, With his new bride and England's dear-bought queen, And Humphrey with the peers be fallen at jars. Then will I raise aloft the milk-white rose, With whose sweet smell the air shall be perfum'd, And in my standard bear the ...
— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... that over," he said. "I like to put chaps like that on a false scent. He's a Poll Pry, that's what that chap is. P'raps he'll be wanting to sell you a plantation. But now then, sir, business. Directly I tell my mates and crew where we're going—if so be as we agree—the first question will be: What are we ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... very sick?" Edith ventured to ask, and instantly the round bright eyes shot at her a glance of alarm, while the negress replied, "Dunno, misses. He keeps his 'fars mostly to hisself, and Phillis has done larnt not to pry." ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... puzzling aspect to her mind. She admitted that scientists, viewed as a genus, were objectionable; but insisted that Fern, to whose personal charms she was keenly alive, was an exception to the rule. She felt confident that so good a man as he could never have tried to pry into the secrets of God Almighty. Tharald yielded grumblingly, inch by inch, and thus saved his dignity, although his daughter, in the end, prevailed. She obtained his permission to request the guest to remain, and not interpret ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... Greece, threatened to bring upon his subjects and city of Tyre, in revenge for a discovery which the prince had made of a shocking deed which the emperor had done in secret; as commonly it proves dangerous to pry into the hidden crimes of great ones. Leaving the government of his people in the hands of his able and honest minister, Helicanus, Pericles set sail from Tyre, thinking to absent himself till the wrath of Antiochus, who was mighty, should ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... strangers generally. I do not believe any food—that is, solids—ever passed the woman's lips since her attack of paralysis, consequent upon her mishap. As for an occasional teaspoonful of water or milk, I sometimes force her to take it by using an instrument to pry open her mouth, but that is painful to her. As early as 1865 I endeavored to sustain life in this way, for I feared that, in obedience to the universal law of nature, she would die of gradual inanition or exhaustion, which I thought would ...
— Fasting Girls - Their Physiology and Pathology • William Alexander Hammond
... in the basement of his father's house (where he took the precaution to label all his bottles 'poison'), he began the publication of a new and better journal, entitled the PAUL PRY. It boasted of several contributors and a list of regular subscribers. One of these (Mr. J.H.B.), while smarting under what he considered a malicious libel, met the editor one day on the brink of the St. Clair, and taking ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... mules were unhitched, a long rope was attached to one end of the boat, stout shoulders were placed under the pry poles, and with a "Heave'o! and another! and still another!" it was finally slid into the water amid loud cheers from the assembled spectators. These cheers were answered from the other side of the river, where nearly ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe
... one' to be a burglar, he'd have to get to the door before he could pry it off, would he ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... beside me here, extend his wand over this contiguity of roofs, uncover every chamber, and make me familiar with their inhabitants! The most desirable mode of existence might be that of a spiritualized Paul Pry hovering invisible round man and woman, witnessing their deeds, searching into their hearts, borrowing brightness from their felicity, and shade from their sorrow, and retaining no emotion peculiar to himself. But none of these things are possible; and if I would know interior of ...
— Sights From A Steeple (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... making mysteries? I do not wish to pry into your affairs. I would have trusted you anywhere; but when it comes round to me that you have been sending a private messenger to one of the young gentlemen there, I don't know what to be at! I would not believe ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... can take the top off a bottle of soda pop with an opener that will pry it up, but you cannot pull ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... a happy boy, With face lit up by hope and joy, Who thinks that nothing shall destroy His vine, his pride and pleasure, Is standing near, with kindling eye, As if its very look would pry The cup apart, therein to spy The ...
— The Youth's Coronal • Hannah Flagg Gould
... pry into your—sense of proportion, but thought you might have had bad news. That's why I asked. In a place like this, you know, where people are more or less detached from the usual worldly interests, they sometimes feel as though they might help each ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... one should not judge of even a poor enthusiastic woman, dead two hundred years ago, on that sole authority. Never was there a more nauseous creature of the pious kind than this Presbyterian Paul Pry of 1644-46. He revelled in scandals, and kept a private office for the receipt of all sorts of secret information, by word of mouth or letter, that could be used against the Independents and the Sectaries. [Footnote: Richard Baxter, as he himself tells us, ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... approve of it. Only the old thing has been left so long, and there's such a mystery about it, and we're not harming or disturbing anything, that perhaps it isn't so dreadful. Anyhow, we must be very careful not to pry into anything we ought not touch. Perhaps then it will be all right." Cynthia agreed to all this without hesitation. She, indeed, had even stronger feelings than Joyce on the subject of their trespassing, but the ...
— The Boarded-Up House • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... out before the lieutenant got to us," Jimmie cut in. "I guess this bunch of Boy Scouts don't need any United States army to pry us out of our troubles. We almost got here first," he ...
— Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone - The Plot Against Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... let me alone, boy? Into what have you come here to pry? You are odious—yes, odious!" She stamped her foot. "And I thought last night, that you were in trouble. Was I not kind to you for that, and that only?" She broke off pitifully. "Oh, Harry, ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... elsewhere and anywhere," Harleston interjected. "I'll trust you not to pry into matters other than the letter. By the way, whose was ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... delicately-nurtured merchant's son slept side by side on their leaf-strewn floor, and even La Salle, excited and surprised as he had been, at last fell into a broken slumber. But when all were asleep, and no human eye could pry into his secret sorrows, Regnar seated himself by the flaring lamp, and drawing from his breast a locket, took from it a small folded paper, and a closely-curled ringlet of yellow hair, such as St. Olave, the warrior saint of Norway, laid in the lap of the ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... of six years of age, assisted his father with a mien which betokened that he considered his services indispensable. With his bare head and feet he ran up and down the timbers as nimbly as a squirrel. When a beam was being lifted, he cried, "Pry under!" as lustily as any one, put his shoulder to the crowbar, and puffed as if nine-tenths of the weight fell upon him. Valentine liked to see his little boy employed. He would tell him to wind the twine on the reel, to carry the tools where they ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... shoulder of one side approach each other, and so lessen the space within the abdomen on that side. On the other side a support has been removed for the contents of the abdomen, and they sag down until they pry the uterus out of place and press it over towards the side where there is less pressure. The broad ligament on one side is stretched from use and on the other side shortened from disuse, and so the ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... exultingly, "I think we have stolen a march on them. I don't believe they were prepared for this, not at least at this stage in the game. Don't ask me any questions, Walter. Then you will have no secrets to keep if anyone should try to pry them loose. Only remember that this man Lawrence is ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... monkeys, cats, dogs, a farm-yard, or a full band, with equal facility. He would also give you Mr. Keeley, in "Betsy Baker;" Mr. Paul Bedford, as "I believe you my bo-o-oy"; Mr. Buckstone, as Cousin Joe, and "Box and Cox;" or Mr. Wright, as Paul Pry, or Mr. Felix Fluffy. Besides the comedians, Mr. Footelights would also give you the leading tragedians, and would favour you (through his nose) with the popular burlesque imitation of Mr. Charles ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... happen in that ring. He give me no time to spring. He fell on me like a horse. I couldn't keep my feet against him, and though, as I saw, he could get his hold when he liked, he wanted to chew me over a bit first. I was wondering if they'd be able to pry him off me, when, in the third round, he took his hold; and I begun to drown, just as I did when I fell into the river off the Red C slip. He closed deeper and deeper on my throat, and everything went black and red and bursting; ...
— The Boy Scout and Other Stories for Boys • Richard Harding Davis
... had no wish to pry further into their bloody practices; but Bill seemed bent on it, so I turned and went. We passed rapidly through the bush, being guided in the right direction by the shouts of the savages. Suddenly ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... in another person's concerns: and were it not that what I do for want of memory, others do more often for want of good faith, I should always, in matter of fact, rather choose to take the truth from another's mouth than from my own. If every one would pry into the effects and circumstances of the passions that sway him, as I have done into those which I am most subject to, he would see them coming, and would a little break their impetuosity and career; they do not always seize us on a sudden; there ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... and went into an inner room, replacing the letter as she did so, and folding over the flap, so that it would seem as though she knew nothing of the contents. Sally quickly saw the kind of person she was—an interfering creature, with "Miss Pry" written all over her. She was tall and thin, and had gooseberry eyes and a small nose and a large sycophantic mouth. Sally had a picture of her all the time she was away—grey-blue dress and all. She didn't like her. She hated her. She ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... I should not pry into arrangements I must later be able to deny convincingly with a clear conscience. I can only plead, my dear Blauvelt, the tenseness of the ...
— The Outbreak of Peace • Horace Brown Fyfe
... - That Second Calendar, Son of a King, On whom 'twas vehemently enjoined, Pausing at one mysterious door, To pry no closer, but content his soul With his kind Forty. Yet I could not rest For idleness and ungovernable Fate. And the Black Horse, which fed on sesame (That wonder-working word!), Vouchsafed his back to me, and spread his vans, And soaring, soaring on From air to air, came charging to the ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... make-ups, in their favorite cap and bells, their favorite swords, their favorite doublet and hose—all of them sit around in the special Valhalla of the Great Actors reading their press notices to one another and listening to the hosannas of such critics as have managed to pry ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... Hagar' in the handwriting of my father, it shows that somebody is not telling the truth. I used to pore over the old farm records in my father's hand at Stone Ridge in the old account books stowed away in places where a boy loves to poke and pry. I know it as well as I know yours. Do you suppose she would not know it? When a man writes as few letters as he does, the handwriting does not change." Paul laid the letter upon the coals. "It is the only witness against her, ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... a desire to pry into foreign affairs; witness the following letter from Thomas Hardy to Dr. Adams, Secretary of the London Society for ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... and women who make up the world, and bettering our condition by bettering theirs. Of a future life he said he knew nothing, and concerning the supernatural he was silent, even rebuking his disciples for trying to pry into the secrets of Heaven. The word "God" he does not use, but his recognition of a Supreme Intelligence is limited to the use of a word which can best be translated "Heaven," since it tokens a place more than it does a person. Constantly he speaks of "doing the will of Heaven." ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... as injurious to a child to attempt to force a feeling before its normal time, as to a bud, to pry open its petals to hasten God's processes. Even the Divine Child "grew." "That is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, then that which is spiritual," is God's ...
— The Unfolding Life • Antoinette Abernethy Lamoreaux
... have had the pleasure of drilling him clean," said Arizona, harking back to it with savage pleasure, "but I shot out the light. I wanted him to die slow, and before the end I wanted to pry his eyes open and make him see my face and know that it was me that done for him! That was what I wanted. But he turned yaller and ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... children carelessly and idiotically, cursing them with abominable manners and poisoning their nascent minds against him, and he has no redress. She may neglect her home, gossip and lounge about all day, put impossible food upon his table, steal his small change, pry into his private papers, hand over his home to the Periplaneta americana, accuse him falsely of preposterous adulteries, affront his friends, and lie about him to the neighbours—and he can do nothing. She may compromise his honour by indecent dressing, ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... pry into no ancient rites, Morfed," I said. "Tell me what you know of Owen the prince, my foster father, and we will go hence. I have seen that which tells me that he is near, but there are yet things that I must learn of how he came and ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... What possible excuse was she going to give for it, in the face of her behaviour to him that afternoon on the moorland? Merely to have asked for shelter on account of the heat, appeared to her now as the flimsiest of excuses, and would appear to him as an excuse simply to pry upon him, to see his mode of living. He had not returned to the parlour. Doubtless his absence was a silent rebuke to her. She had thrust the necessity of hospitality upon him, but he intended to show her plainly that it was entirely of ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... Master Euseby, are all God's creatures in this meadow, because they never pry into such high matters, but breathe sweetly among the pig-nuts. The only things we hear or see stirring are the glow-worms and dormice, as though they were sent for our edification, teaching us to rest contented with our own little light, and to come out and seek our sustenance ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... divine will we should not pry, but should absolutely refrain from it as from the divine majesty, for it is inscrutable, and God has had no desire to declare it in this life. He desires to show it under certain tokens or coverings, as Baptism, ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... Works. Louisa was Louisa Holcroft. Guichy was possibly the Frenchman, mentioned by Crabb Robinson, with whom the Lambs had travelled to France. Poole was, I imagine, John Poole, the dramatist, author of burlesque plays in the London Magazine and later of "Paul Pry," which, it is quite likely, he based on Lamb's ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... wild notion, Finding it easy for a Frog to jog On with a kind King Log. But in the fulness of the time, there came A would-be monarch—Legion his fit name; A Plebs-appointed Autocrat, Stork-throated, Goggle-eyed, Paul-Pry-coated; A poking, peering, pompous, petty creature, A Bumble-King, with beak for its chief feature. This new King Stork, With a fierce, fussy appetite for work; Not satisfied with fixing like a vice Authority on Town and Country Mice, Tried to extend his sway to pools ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 21, 1891 • Various
... crack!" Jack retorted. "But I'm more interested in wondering what would become of us. Guess we'd better keep a good thousand feet up, and not bother trying to pry into the ice-floe's secrets." ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... his termagant, never suffering himself to utter a complaint of her to others, never suffering others to censure her within his hearing. This loyalty may have had its roots in pride—indeed, no other soil can be assigned to them—a pride that would allow no strangers to pry into the sore places of his being. He frowned now to hear Hortensia's angry mention of her ladyship's name; and if his blue eyes moved uneasily under his beetling brows, it was because the situation irked him. How should he stand as judge between Mistress ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... much from the violent conduct of her husband) still, I say, striking for personal attractions and accomplishments; and is avowedly of an unspotted character. Let the defendant, therefore, but attempt to pry further than he has done into the private habits of my client, as regards his wife, and I shall not hesitate still further to tear down the beautiful appearance of adopted sanctity, simplicity, and innocence of deportment, with which ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... squeals, and the horses cut up some; but the driver has landed on his feet and has them by the head in no time at all, so we wa'n't dragged around any. Noticin' that, I lays still and waits for Toodle to pry himself loose. But the Doc. don't seem in any hurry to move, and the next thing I know I hear him groanin' and mumblin' under his breath. Between groans he was tryin' to say over that rigmarole ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... carry out the cow-chains. Never mind the horse,—he'll be alive and kicking; and if his legs don't do their duty, let them pay for the roast. Ditto as to the hogs,—let them save their own bacon, or smoke for it. When the roof begins to burn, get a crow-bar and pry away the stone steps; or, if the steps be of wood, procure an axe and chop them up. Next, cut away the wash-boards in the basement story; and if that don't stop the flames, let the chair-boards on the first floor share a similar fate. Should the ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... dismissed their remonstrances with a fine scorn. What did they take her for? Was she any less fit for the post of secretary than she had been before? Her duties had been a pleasure from the first; they would afford her greater delight than ever now. And why should they bring in a stranger to pry into their affairs? They might give her more salary, if they liked—and here she laughed merrily; but she wasn't going to give up the work she liked more than anything ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... little mound; swing the back of your axe vigorously against it, adze-wise, between your legs. Nine times out of ten it will crumble, and the tenth time means merely a root to cut or a stone to pry out. At length you are possessed of a plot of clean, fresh earth, level and soft, free from projections. But ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... see it when I come along wid mah mule, Boomerang, an' I tried t' git it outer de way, but I couldn't. Den I left Boomerang an' mah wagon at de foot ob de hill an' I come up heah t' git a long pole t' pry de log outer de way. I didn't t'ink nobody would come along, case dis road ain't ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-boat - or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa • Victor Appleton
... ye cannot bear them now.' Had the now in his life passed? Had the then come when a fuller revelation was about to be vouchsafed? Nay! even the Apostle—the man inspired—only knew in part. Why should he, then, try to pry into the clouds and darkness that were round about the awful throne? And yet in Him who sat on that throne was no darkness at all. Supposing the feelings struggling in his heart now were rays of light from Him—rays seeking to pierce the clouds, ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... Phyllis, come, bright heaven's eye Cannot upon thy beauty pry; Glad Echo in distinguished voice Naming thee will here rejoice; Then come and hear her merry lays Crowning thy ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... have been so good and kind to me! So good, I can't express it! Do let me do something for you. I know you have a secret, and I am afraid it is that, even more than my going, which is making you so miserable. I don't want to pry into it, dear Jack, but remember that my father is a rich man, and he is powerful, too. If you won't mind telling him about it, I know—I am quite, quite sure—he will do anything in his power for you. Think what you have done for me! And he loves me—he ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... sense of honor forbids him to pry into his love's secret thoughts, he would have asked whom she ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... are the Mount Sinai; the bounds whereof are the Laws of them that represent Gods Person on Earth. To look upon them and therein to behold the wondrous works of God, and learn to fear him is allowed; but to interpret them; that is, to pry into what God saith to him whom he appointeth to govern under him, and make themselves Judges whether he govern as God commandeth him, or not, is to transgresse the bounds God hath set us, and ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... others. He put them carefully aside and stepped to the chest. It was old, strong, and rusty. He looked at the vast and old-fashioned lock and flashed his light on the hinges. They were deeply incrusted with rust. Looking about, he found a bit of iron and began to pry. The rust had eaten a hundred years, and it had gone deep. Slowly, wearily, the old lid lifted, and with a last, low groan lay bare its treasure—and he saw the ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... the English sailed to India in their own ships, several English merchants and others had gone to India from time to time in the Portuguese ships, and some overland; from a desire to pry into and to participate in the advantages of that gainful commerce. Of those who went by land, several letters and relations remain which will be found in the sequel: But of all who performed the voyage as passengers in the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... pursue the subject; even under their strange circumstances, favourable as they were to intimacy and confidences, it seemed impertinent to him to pry into the mysteries of his companion's life. Only ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... often think of that. But I couldn't ask her, you know. I had no right to pry into her secrets. When I came away, she got up to see me off; and I almost felt tempted to carry her into the ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... merely in those who believe in it, but in the general sentiment of the community, to a larger extent than most good people seem to be aware of. It need n't be true, to do this, any more than Homoeopathy need, to do its work. The Spiritualists have some pretty strong instincts to pry over, which no doubt have been roughly handled by theologians at different times. And the Nemesis of the pulpit comes, in a shape it little thought of, beginning with the snap of a toe-joint, and ending with ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... illicit acts, from force of habit; and such people open their friends' letters, thrust themselves in at private meetings, become spectators of rites they ought not to witness, enter holy grounds they ought not to, and pry into the lives ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... first opening of the Book, he lights on a place in which Captain Swan had inveighed bitterly against most of his Men, especially against another John Reed a Jamaica man. This was such stuff as he did not seek after: But hitting so pat on this subject, his curiosity led him to pry farther; and therefore while the Gunner was busie, he convey'd the Book away, to look over it at his leisure. The Gunner having dispatch'd his business, lock'd up the Cabbin-door, not missing the Book, and went ashore. Then John Reed shewed it to his Namesake, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... box? Yes; you had it in your hands when Manuel brought you out. They could hardly pry your ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... seein' fur themselves an' givin' the poplars the lie! Don't ye place no dependence on a poplar, Janet, they be shivery, whisperin' critters! They turn pale when there ain't nothin' the matter; they keep their shade t' themselves, jest plain miserly; an' they pry too much. 'T ain't proper; 't ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... no good. Your husband is no dumb fool to be "influenced" this way or that by two women! He is a man with ideas of his own. If he was disappointed in you as wife, he has possibly turned to some other woman. If so the more you pry and suspect and hint around, the more positively he will turn away from you. If you "found out" and made things warm for him or another he would simply hate and despise you and be the harder set against ...
— Happiness and Marriage • Elizabeth (Jones) Towne
... be frightened," gaily exclaimed Bertheroy, who, despite his careless and abrupt ways, was really very shrewd. "I haven't come to pry into your secrets.... Leave your papers there, I promise you that I ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... except that our teacher of handicrafts, the sapper Sabum, sometimes gave us a hint. The first thing was to mark out the plan, then with the aid of levers pry the rocks out of the fields, and by means of a two-wheeled cart convey them to the site chosen, fit them neatly together, stuff the interstices with moss, and finally put on a roof made of pine logs which we felled ourselves, earth, moss, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... that I had never waited! How does it happen though, so many Neighbours prone to pry, as I am, Are not caught ...
— The Wonder-Working Magician • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... we was coming through the woods we happened to stop a minute. Then we see this Frenchy sneaking through the woods. We wondered what was up. Then he vanished. We looked about, some quiet-like, and on tiptoe, and then we saw this shipmate o' your'n pry apart some bushes and head in this way. It looked queer ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Spies - Dodging the Sharks of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... bear the rose upon its top; And bark, that all the way across the sea Ran straight and speedy, perish at the last, E'en in the haven's mouth seeing one steal, Another brine, his offering to the priest, Let not Dame Birtha and Sir Martin thence Into heav'n's counsels deem that they can pry: For one of these ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... vainly pry Into the page that's folded there? I shall be better by and by: The porters, as I sit and sigh, Pass and ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... and left an aching heart behind. She might dismiss Marcia's tirade as other members of the family are wont to do, but there comes an awesome, shivering fear that it is true in some degree. How many times she has seen Gertrude check Marcia when Floyd was under discussion. She has never tried to pry into family secrets, but she knows there have been many about her; a certain kind of knowledge that all have shared, a something against her. She has fancied that she made some advances in living down the dislike; Mrs. Grandon has been kinder of late, and Marcia, since her marriage, quite confidential. ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... of the great chain was a murderous job. When we loosened it, the huge seas would sweep over the logs and us while we tried to get them overboard. It was touch and go. We had to use capstanbars to pry the big logs over and over. We tried to push them with the rolling of the ship. One wave would carry a mass of the logs away, and the next wave would bring them back, crashing into the vessel, catching in the rigging, and nearly pulling it down, and the masts with it. Dodging ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... Hercules will aid confer. Look wisely in the proper quarter, To see what hindrance can be found; Remove the execrable mud and mortar, Which, axle-deep, beset thy wheels around. Thy sledge and crowbar take, And pry me up that stone, or break; Now fill that rut upon the other side. Hast done it?" "Yes," the man replied. "Well," said the voice, "I'll aid thee now; Take up thy whip." "I have ... but, how? My cart glides on with ease! I thank thee, Hercules." "Thy team," rejoin'd the voice, "has ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... shot across the painter's face. He paused for a moment, and a wild feeling of pity came over him. After all, what right had he to pry into the life of Dorian Gray? If he had done a tithe of what was rumoured about him, how much he must have suffered! Then he straightened himself up, and walked over to the fireplace, and stood there, looking at the burning logs with their frost-like ashes ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... though not a learned body, are, as an order, the best friends of the people. They seem to mingle with them more immediately, as their counsellors and comforters; and to go among them more, when they are sick; and to pry less than some other orders, into the secrets of families, for the purpose of establishing a baleful ascendency over their weaker members; and to be influenced by a less fierce desire to make converts, and once made, to let them go to ruin, soul and body. They may ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... suspected something with all the coming and going; the whispering and smothered giggles in corners, etc., but she wasn't the kind to pry into other people's affairs, and so, no matter what she may have thought, she kept ...
— Paula the Waldensian • Eva Lecomte
... cease the publication of the Weekly Herald. On the contrary, he prospered in both his enterprises until persuaded by the "printer's devil" in the office of the Port Huron Commercial to change the character of his journal, enlarge it, and issue it under the name of Paul Pry, a happy designation for this or kindred ventures in the domain of society journalism. No copies of Paul Pry can now be found, but it is known that its style was distinctly personal, that gossip ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... Literacy," the man on the screen continued. "I'm not going back to the old argument that any kind of socialization is only the thin edge of the wedge which will pry open the pit of horrors from which the world has climbed since the Fourth World War. If you don't realize that now, it's no use for me to repeat it again. But I will ask you, do you realize, for a moment, what a program of socialized Literacy ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... The judgments of the court were dissolving ancestral ties, destroying homesteads, and causing the transference of household gods to distant dwellings. Such are the inevitable results of an attempt to pry into ancient titles, and to investigate claims the basis of which lies even a few decades from ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... impression upon the bulkhead by his direct attack, he changed his tactics now and undertook to loosen one of the jambs where it was wedged into the rock at top and bottom. After a desperate struggle he succeeded in loosening the entire structure so that he could pry it out far enough to squeeze ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... from Buxton, I was so confident of the bird's tameness I used to carry him in my hand out to the tulip tree, and there I often sat and read, while Richard would pry into the moss and the bark of the tree, searching for insects, and though he could fly well by this time, he did not try to do so, but seemed content ...
— Wild Nature Won By Kindness • Elizabeth Brightwen
... those of us who haven't automobiles, life is pleasant and without responsibilities. We ride in every new automobile, and, what is more, we go over it as carefully as a farmer does a new horse. We open its hood and pry into its internal economy. We crank it to test its compression—half the Homeburg men who have achieved broken wrists by the crank route haven't autos at all. We denounce the owner's judgment on oils and take his machine violently away from him in order to prove that it will pull better uphill ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch |
