"Picking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is it an easy matter to prevent them, when no such assistance is necessary; and I was obliged to handle my pistols, to make them unhandle my wheels; as it is more than probable they would have overset us in shallow water, to gain an opportunity of shewing their politeness in picking us up again. The stream, indeed, was very rapid; and I was rather provoked by the rudeness of the people, to pass through it without assistance, ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... few gnarled apples that the pickers have rejected. They look like the knuckles of Doctor Reefy's hands. One nibbles at them and they are delicious. Into a little round place at the side of the apple has been gathered all of its sweetness. One runs from tree to tree over the frosted ground picking the gnarled, twisted apples and filling his pockets with them. Only the few know the ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... patiently explained to him, while picking up the pieces of the mirror, that the pretty little song of Queen Hortense had become a national air, and even an official one, since the regimental bands had substituted that gentle melody for the fierce 'Marseillaise'; and that our soldiers, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... a bunch. Oh, you poor child! Mrs. Slater, she doesn't know how!" Miss Forsythe was deeply moved and illustrated by picking imaginary daisies on the porch. Ardelia's quick eye followed her gestures, and stooping, she scooped the heads from three daisies and started back with ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... woman was Sorrow—a wandering woman, a kind of gypsy, always going about the world, and picking up lost things. Nobody likes her, hardly anybody is civil to her; but when she has set anybody down and is gone, there is often a look of affection and wonder and gratitude sent after her. For all that, however, very few are glad to be found by ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... the voices here are generally musical; they are nasal and a little loud and, though Americans have a great deal of geniality and love of fun, I am so slow at picking up the language, that I probably miss much of the irony and finesse that characterises our better kind of humour. The Canadians, who are of British stock, have a better sense of humour; but it is always a dangerous subject to write about, and when I remember the stupid ...
— My Impresssions of America • Margot Asquith
... the country? If there are no children, the pots and pans are stored in it. Unless the roads are rough it makes a comfortable cradle, and it was the only one I ever knew. Well, one day I suppose the road was rough, for I was capsized. I remember picking myself up after a little and running after the cart, but they did not hear my cries. I sat down by the roadside and stared after the cart until I lost sight of it. That was in England, and I was not ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... Madame Sophie, 'Graille'[Mite], and Madame Louise, 'Chiffie'[Rubbish]. The people of the King's household observed that he knew a great number of such words; possibly he had amused himself with picking them out from dictionaries. If this style of speaking betrayed the habits and tastes of the King, his manner savoured nothing of such vulgarity; his walk was easy and noble, he had a dignified carriage of the ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... straw hat and short skirts, something like the peasants in southern Europe. She began to pick the sweet-pea blossoms, and soon had a large bunch of them. Now steps were heard coming round the house, and the girl, turning her head, called out: 'Oh, grandpa, wait a minute. I am picking these flowers for you.' From around one end of the house, which was a large one, Miss Amanda saw approaching an elderly gentleman who was small, with short gray hair and a round, ruddy face. He walked briskly, and with a light switch, which he carried in his hand, he made strokes ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... tidings—though well knowing ship and crew to be past any hope; and as he turned, the wind lifted him and tossed him forward 'like a ball,' as he'd been saying, and homeward along the foreshore. As you know, 'tis ugly work, even by daylight, picking your way among the stones there, and my father was prettily knocked about at first in the dark. But by this 'twas nearer seven than six o'clock, and the day spreading. By the time he reached North Corner, a man could see to read print; ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... a mysterious attack upon the proceedings of Cheltenham. He had heard, he said, strange stories of flirtations there. I could not doubt what he meant, but I would not seem to understand him: first, because I know not from whom he has been picking up this food for his busy spirit, since no one there appeared collecting it for him ; and secondly, because I would not degrade an acquaintance which I must hope will prove as permanent as it is honourable, by conceiving the word flirtation to be ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... happy, nevertheless, and six children were born of the marriage. As a father, Luther showed much tenderness. He wrote with a marvellous simplicity to his eldest son: "I know a very pretty, pleasant garden and in it there are a great many children, all dressed in little golden coats, picking up nice apples and pears and cherries and plums, under the trees. And they sing and jump about and are very merry; and besides, they have got beautiful little horses with golden bridles and silver saddles. Then I asked the man to whom the garden belonged, whose children they were, and ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... Romans are so alarmed by our progress in Spain that they are glad to keep friends with us, but if we were driven out from there they would soon be at war again. You and your sons would be pressed for the ships of war, and like enough you might see the Roman fleets hovering on our coasts and picking up our fishing boats." ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... place was so small that it scarcely held them both. In the evening when the former was sitting on his camp-stool, whilst the people were putting up the tarpaulins, a very small bird, perfectly black, came hopping about the stool, picking up the worms from the moss. It was so tame and fearless that it frequently perched itself on his foot and on different parts of the stool; which shows that these parts of the country must be very little frequented by human beings. 29th. ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... is always blaming me for," said Walter; "but really, now, Edmund, doesn't it savour of the crop-ear to be picking one's words to every rogue in ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and while two of the Indians attended to the fire the other three scattered through the woods in hopes of picking up some unwary bit of game. While they were thus engaged, Donald took a long refreshing swim in the cool waters of the lake. He did not arouse the paymaster until the hunters had returned, bringing a wild turkey ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... and make himself useful on Sundays, according to need, in the churches on shore, a desultory life very trying to him, but which he bore with his usual quiet determination to do obediently and faithfully the duty laid on him, without picking or choosing. ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... said she would wait in Sir Owen's room, and she walked across the hall, smiling at the human nature of the servants' admiration. If their master had a mistress, they were glad that he had one they could boast about. And picking up two songs by Schubert, and hoping she was in good voice, she sat down at the piano and sang them. Then, half aware that she was singing unusually well, she sang another. The third song she sang so beautifully that ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... cowslip, and picking out the five little crimson spots in the cup of it, he flung one to the north, and one to the south, and one to the east, and one to the west, and one up into the sky, and the spell was broken, and the giant's limbs were free. Then Sharvan and the fairy page set off ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... number of persons cut in the soft parts of the rocks. In traveling along the shore I picked up several specimens of the most beautiful pearl I ever beheld. It is so plentiful here that no person thinks it worth picking up. After traveling forty-three miles through the rain I arrived again at St. Louis on the 13th of December. In approaching the Illinois and Mississippi near the mouth from Milton a scene beautiful, grand and sublime presents ...
— Narrative of Richard Lee Mason in the Pioneer West, 1819 • Richard Lee Mason
... the tree Koma saw it all, and screamed with all her might, hoping that some one would hear, and come to help. Luckily a servant of the princess to whom the park belonged was walking by, and he drove off the dog, and picking up the trembling Gon in his arms, ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... fish, flesh or fowl," replied Christy, laughing. "My father suggested the name to the Department, and it was adopted. He talked with me about a name, as he thought I had some interest in her, for the reason that I had done something in picking her up." ...
— On The Blockade - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray Afloat • Oliver Optic
... of the Yankees was when I was out in my marster's yard picking up chips and they came along, took my little brother and put him on a horse's back and carried him up town. I ran and told my mother about it. They rode brother over the town a while, having fun ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... idea of the classification is by the heights of clouds, the Cirrus group being the highest, from about six to ten miles, the Alto group, ranging from two to six miles, and the Cumulus and Stratus groups below that. Here," he continued, picking out a photograph that showed only a few faint specks of white, "is a true Cirrus. It is the highest of the clouds, and, as you can see from the photograph, it is delicate and fibrous. This one, that looks like the ghosts of feathers, ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... minister and bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church of Canada, and was for many years Agent of the Upper Canada Bible Society. He was under fire at the taking of Oswego, and while engaged rigging a pump, a round shot carried away his arm. We have heard him say in his own parlor, picking up a carpet ball, "It was a ball like this that took off my arm." He became, on recovery from his wound, sailing master of Sir James Yoe's flag ship the St Lawrence, a position requiring much nautical skill, as the huge kraken drew twenty-three feet of water, and carried something like a hundred ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... shoulders, threw up his dark head, and opened the door leading to the narrow walk at the side of the house. In another moment the watching boy and girl at the window saw him dart into the hedge and a minute later emerge through it, picking his way among the ancient graves. Suddenly from behind a tall monument stole a figure, and as it approached the solemn eyes of the apparition smiled in dull wonder ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... poor kind: the hogs are the poorest I have ever seen; they are as like the sheep as possible, though with longer legs, and resembling greyhounds in the drawn-up belly and long slender snout; they seem content with wondrous little, and keep about the road sides, picking up any thing ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... picking up leaves with far more interest than they had ever felt in searching for wild flowers. It was wonderful, the infinite variety that they found. Now, Isabel would hold up a crimson leaf, clouded with ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... Armstrong,' she said, when in an interval of contrition Paul apologised, 'it do me good to hear you swear that hearty! Most gentlemen does it when they're picking up a bit.' ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... on it, it does not seem to me I could possibly write a story about Siberian hunters or East-side factory hands without having lived long among them. Now the story was what one calls "finished," and I made a clear copy, picking my way with difficulty among the alterations, the scratched-out passages, and the cued-in paragraphs, the inserted pages, the re-arranged phrases. As I typed, the interest and pleasure in the story lasted just through that process. It still seemed pretty good to me, the ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... condemned so many people to die of hunger while their king was living in abundance. John beheaded her with his own hands in the market-place, and then, in insane frenzy, danced around her body in company with his other wives. Her loss was speedily repaired. The angels were kept busy in picking out new wives for the inspired tailor, till in the end he had seventeen in all, one of whom, Divara by name, gained great influence ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... clung to the familiar face, like a man drifting out into an unknown sea, clutching some relic of the shore. When Lamar fell asleep, he wandered uncertainly towards the tents. The world had grown new, strange; was he Ben, picking cotton in the swamp-edge?—plunging his fingers with a shudder in the icy drifts. Down in the glowing torpor of the Santilla flats, where the Lamar plantations lay, Ben had slept off as maddening hunger ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... fell asleep, and all I can conjecture is that, while I slept, the page, thinking no danger could happen, went among the rocks to look for birds' eggs, having before observed him from my window searching about, and picking up one or two in the clefts. Be that as it will, I found myself suddenly awakened with a violent pull upon the ring, which was fastened at the top of my box for the convenience of carriage. I felt my box raised very high in the ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... latter contingency as well as the utter futility of persevering in the assault, that made a retirement imperative, and on the third night of the battle the exhausted men began their march back to the Jordan, picking up on their way the garrisons left at Shunet Nimrin and Es Salt, together with some hundreds of prisoners. A large proportion of the Christian inhabitants of the latter place who feared, with good reason, ill-treatment by ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... a little more power, and it became clear to all that the pursuer was picking up the ground, or rather water, that she had lost. Then for several minutes no difference in speed was perceptible. A space of a furlong separated the two when they shot past the point of land bearing the odd name of Thomas Great Toe, which is on the western side of the lower part of ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... looked towards the sea that was white with sunshine ... and then turned away again. It seemed to Henry as if, down there by the rocks, in a splash of sunlight, a corpse were lying ... festering.... He sat down again, mechanically picking up a newspaper and reading once more the telegrams he had already read ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... of the house. He hastily jerked on the most important part of his costume, unfortunately wrong side before, and jumped out of the window. His friend ran to the window and exclaimed, "Are ye kilt, Mike?" Picking himself up and looking himself over by the light of the street lamp, he replied, "No, not kilt, Pat, but I fear ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener
... even—making all allowance for the sanative influence of counter-irritation—in the weekly malignity of that ex-Moral Minstrel whom the London "Times" has sent to the aid of our insurgent slave-masters. For, instead of gloating over objections and picking out what petty enigmas may not be readily soluble, Mr. Dicey has a manly, English way of accepting the preponderant evidence concerning the crisis he came to study. He seldom gets entangled in trivial events, but knows how to use them as illustrations of great events. It is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... work was very hard indeed, did not see why the green rocks would not do as well as the white, they would be even prettier, in her opinion, so one day when her husband was asleep she knocked off a great green rock, and picking it up in her apron, hurried back as fast as she could to get it fixed in its place before he should wake. She could not manage it though, poor soul, for just as she was reaching her destination the giant opened his eyes, and as soon as he had opened them he caught sight of the green ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... leisurely aesthetic, fragrant occupation is this picking browse. It should never be cut, but pulled, stripped or broken. I have seen a Senator, ex-Governor, and a wealthy banker enjoying themselves hugely at it, varying the occupation by hacking small timber with their G.W. ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... picking locks and cracking safes I admit to no master. The door to Inskipp's private quarters had an old-fashioned tumbler drum that was easier to pick than my teeth. I must have gone through that door without breaking step. Quiet ...
— The Misplaced Battleship • Harry Harrison (AKA Henry Maxwell Dempsey)
... the capital; and, at the end of the first six weeks of the new season, there was in it no officer more sought-after than young Prince Gregoriev—"a nephew of the Dravikines, you know." And this "young Prince"—who had himself never been known to use his title, lost no time in picking up the manners and the jargon of his small, new world. The thing that, in the beginning, amazed him most, however, was the attitude towards him of his aunt; whom he viewed with deep respect as the mother of Nathalie. He was slow to understand Madame Dravikine's ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... this idiosyncrasy of the Alaskan coast. The phantom mystery of it was stimulating, and in the peril of it was a challenging lure. He could feel the care with which the Nome was picking her way northward. Her engines were thrumming softly, and her movement was a slow and cautious glide, catlike and slightly trembling, as if every pound of steel in her were a living nerve widely alert. He knew Captain Rifle would not be asleep and that straining eyes were peering ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... unsuspected; whereas I know woe and punishment would fall upon me were I to lay my hand on the smallest pippin. So be it. A man who has this precious self-knowledge will surely keep his hands from picking and stealing, and his feet ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... etc. The party is a woman of rank: so far my vanity may be satisfied. But to think I would wish to appropriate a grim grenadier made to mount guard at St. James's! The Lord deliver me! I excused myself with little picking upon the terms, and there was no occasion for much delicacy in ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... about rather clumsily getting the things together, picking them up by the wrong end, and laying them in ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... the same from day to day: Now weeding, now hay, now roots, now hedging; now corn, with sowing, reaping, threshing, stacking, thatching; the care of beasts, and their companionship; sheep-dipping, shearing, wood-gathering, apple-picking, cider-making; fashioning and tarring gates; whitewashing walls; carting; trenching—never, never two days quite the same! Monotony! The poor devils in factories, in shops, in mines; poor devils driving 'busses, punching tickets, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... came. Old Frankland was busy in his little garden, when he heard the voices of his children, who were coming towards him. "Fanny! Patty! James! Frank!. Welcome, my children! Welcome! I knew you would be so kind as to come to see your old father on this day; so I was picking some of my currants for you, to make you as welcome as I can. But I wonder you are not ashamed to come to see me in an almshouse. Such gay lads and lasses! I well know I have reason to be proud of you all. Why, I think, I never saw you, one ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... will explain hereafter; spending years in being incapacitated for doing this, that, or the other (he hardly knows what), during all which time he ought to have been actually doing the thing itself, beginning at the lowest grades, picking it up through actual practice, and rising according to the energy ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... and were returning across the park, picking up a stray rabbit every now and then in the tufts of long grass and patches of brake. One had just started before Forrester, and he was in the act of pulling the trigger, when Livingstone ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... always coped with popular ferments by picking off the individual leaders, and they did not doubt their ability to do the same thing now. As Danton spoke, an influential Royalist, pretending to handclap his sentiments, privately signaled to a number ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... him a sheet of his heavily embossed letter-paper, and, picking up a pencil, began to sketch a rough diagram. Waldron, making no comment, followed every ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... for domestic consumption are imported. The US is the leading source of tourists, accounting for more than half of the 93,000 visitors in 1998. Major sources of government revenue include fees from offshore financial activities and customs receipts. Tourism fell by 6% in 2002 but appeared to be picking ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... are tuning up: Scraping of crystal bows, picking of strings!—Hush! Let the footlights now leap into brightness, for at a signal from their little leader the crickets' orchestra ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand
... double-quick time, and go and pick up nails in the gutter like that good fellow yonder; you can tell by the look of him that he has been in the army.—Isn't it a shame that an old soldier who has walked into the jaws of death hundreds of times should be picking up old iron in the streets of Paris? Ah! God A'mighty! 'twas a shabby trick to desert the Emperor.—Well, my boy, the individual you saw this morning has made his forty francs a month. Are you going to ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... cowed, trembling, appealing dumbly for sympathy, was driven away while the first selectman was picking up the sack that still lay in the village square. Without a moment's hesitation he slit it with his big knife, and emptied its contents into a hole that the spring frosts had left. ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... which they had just given me with the other. This evil one of the chiefs undertook to remove, and with fury in his eyes made a shew of keeping the people at a proper distance. I applauded his conduct, but at the same time kept so good a look-out, as to detect him in picking my pocket of an handkerchief; which I suffered him to put in his bosom before I seemed to know any thing of the matter, and then told him what I had lost. He seemed quite ignorant and innocent, till I took it from him; and then he put it off with a laugh, acting his part with ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... narrowed, and the brig, picking her way daintily through the traffic, sought her old berth at Buller's Wharf. It was occupied by a deaf sailing-barge, which, moved at last by self-interest, not unconnected with its paint, took up a less desirable position and ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... as Mr. Wendell Phillips says that he believes, that "the best education a man can get is what he gets in picking up a living," and that universities are humbugs, and that from the newspapers and lyceum lecture the citizen can always get as much information on all subjects, human and divine, as is good for him or the State, ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... right in the middle of cotton picking time now. Always makes me think of when I was a boy. I picked cotton some but I got lots of whippins 'cause I played too much. They was some chinquapin trees in the fiel' and I jest natchally couldn' help stopping to pick ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... thirty-seven chief warriors; while the whites, defended by their pickets, had but two killed and four wounded. You may judge, too, how industrious the savages had been, when I tell you that the whites who wanted lead, commenced gathering their balls after they left, and succeeded in picking out of the logs, and from the ground, one hundred and ...
— The Adventures of Daniel Boone: the Kentucky rifleman • Uncle Philip
... more nor less—Kelmar and his Jew girls would follow him a hundred yards to look complacently down that hole. For two hours we looked for houses; and for two hours they followed us, smelling trees, picking flowers, foisting false botany on the unwary. Had we taken five, with that vile lad to head them off on idle divagations, for five they would have smiled and stumbled through ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... madam," said Mr. Fogo, picking up his hat and addressing Mrs. Simpson politely, "but the mole on your ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the sudden journey, but the something secret and horribly unfamiliar in his manner frightened her. He came a step further into the hall and picking up a dark muffler from a chair, wound it round his neck. She saw that his face was livid, and looked suddenly flabby, and that his ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... Bunker. Meanwhile they were both running toward Margy, where she stood with her back turned toward the ram, picking flowers. ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandma Bell's • Laura Lee Hope
... on the word, which brought home to him the relentless conditions of his lot. If he gave the farm and mill to Zeena what would be left him to start his own life with? Once in the West he was sure of picking up work—he would not have feared to try his chance alone. But with Mattie depending on him the case was different. And what of Zeena's fate? Farm and mill were mortgaged to the limit of their value, and even if she found a purchaser—in ...
— Ethan Frome • Edith Wharton
... Blue-peter seemed to have no fear, but sported around and among the dummies, and tossed the bright drops of water from its shining plumage. With the true feelings of a sportsman, Paullo wanted the bird to have a fair chance, and so tossed bunches of marsh grass at it—it would not fly. Picking up his gun ...
— Nick Baba's Last Drink and Other Sketches • George P. Goff
... is the very best of all, Laura," said Billie finally, picking up the pretty blue girdle with its indistinct pattern ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler
... Sept. 18. Cotton is opening well now, but we have rather unfavorable weather for picking and drying. The caterpillars have finally run over a good deal of ground, doing some damage, ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... You are not fit to have charge of an animal," cried the indignant officer, picking up and examining the cruel weapon. The sharp points of the nails were stained with blood, and morsels of skin and flesh adhered to them. Dermot felt a strong inclination to thrash the brutal mahout with the unarmed end of the bamboo, but, restraining himself, he turned to the ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... the course, and at the same time held in their horses, then again they let them go at full gallop over the plain. After this, they each took slender sticks, called djigidis, and darted them as they rode, either in the charge or the pursuit, and again seizing them as they flew, or picking them up from the earth. Several tumbled from their saddles under the strong blows; and then resounded the loud laugh of the spectators, while loud applauses greeted the conqueror; sometimes the horses stumbled, and the riders were thrown over their heads, hurled off by a double force from the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... flowers all about; the air is fragrant with the odor of fruit and foliage; and it was through this scented air, and amid these beautiful flowers, that these two little girls were wandering idly, picking here and there to add to their big bouquets, that August ...
— The Boy Life of Napoleon - Afterwards Emperor Of The French • Eugenie Foa
... form, descends upon him. And all these manifestations of freedom are attended by the blue-coated police who interdict the few relaxations unprovided for by the other powers. These human monsters confiscate stilettos and razors; discourage pocket-picking, brick-throwing, the gathering of crowds and the general enjoyment of life. Their name is legion. Their appetite for figs, dates, oranges and bananas and graft is insatiable; they are omnipresent; they are argus-eyed; and their speech is always, "Keep ...
— New Faces • Myra Kelly
... midnight they rested for a half hour, but the dawn found them trudging along steadily, though somewhat wearily, and having about completed the third side of their square. Accordingly, they soon made a right-angle turn to the left, and had been picking their way over the rough ground for nearly two hours, with the sun already high in the sky, when they noticed a diminution of light. Glancing up, they saw that one of the moons was passing across the sun, and that they were on the eve of ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... lie there ready for use—clerical, because they lie ready for the infliction of horrible corporal martyrdom in the service of a bloody, fanatical, papistical belief. Woe, when the door to the Bluebeard chamber opens. They are continually picking at the lock. Then we shall witness all the sanguinary horrors of the Thirty Years' War, the degenerate slaughter-house cruelty ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... long, long time picking down on the witches' moor, carding and spinning, and all the while keeping the house of the Princes, cooking, and making their beds. But she never talked, nor ...
— East O' the Sun and West O' the Moon • Gudrun Thorne-Thomsen
... place, the chair undusted, the blurred window-glass overlooked, the coat unmended, the bastings allowed to stand in all their hideous white prominence, the invalid's appetite untempted. Like a good spirit, our chink-filler glides in and out among the fallen threads in the tangled web of life, picking up dropped stitches, fastening loose strands, and weaving the tissue into a harmonious whole, and yet doing it all so unobtrusively that the great weavers, looking only at the vast pattern they are forming, are unconscious that, ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... of worms are—emaciation; itching and picking of the nose; a dark mark under the eyes; grating, during sleep, of the teeth; starting in the sleep; foul breath; furred tongue; uncertain appetite—sometimes voracious, at other times bad, the little patient sitting down very ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... I made answer, picking my words not to trip his displeasure, "I get as much as I can—and I give as little as I can; and those be all the accounts that ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... "finish" and sharpness of edge so rarely found among the blurred, vague outlines of English women. There was nothing vague about her. Lord Newhaven said she had been cut out body and mind with a sharp pair of scissors. Her irregular profile, her delicate, pointed speech and fingers, her manner of picking up her slender feet as she walked, her quick, alert movements—everything about her was neat, adjusted, perfect in its way, yet without more apparent effort than the succes fou in black and white of the water wagtail, which ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... of the Isabel, was engaged in picking up the oarsmen of the first, and with the fresh breeze there was no danger of pursuit from that direction. Colonel Raybone was evidently suffering severely from his wound, but his mental tortures seemed to be greater than his physical pain. His mouth was still ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic
... got expelled for picking fights with smaller men. Rather than resign, he accepted punishment which assigned him to weeks of dull, filthy extra labor. He hated the restrictions and the iron fence of regulations. He hated boredom, loneliness ...
— The Green Beret • Thomas Edward Purdom
... with is quite a tragedy," she said unconcernedly, picking up the conversation where she had dropped it. "I knew him when he left college. He was an athletic fellow, a handsome man. His people were nice, but not rich. He was planning to go to Montana to take a place in some mines, but he got engaged to the daughter of a very wealthy ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... the game-keeper, lost sight of them. The Boscombe Pool is thickly wooded round, with just a fringe of grass and of reeds round the edge. A girl of fourteen, Patience Moran, who is the daughter of the lodge-keeper of the Boscombe Valley estate, was in one of the woods picking flowers. She states that while she was there she saw, at the border of the wood and close by the lake, Mr. McCarthy and his son, and that they appeared to be having a violent quarrel. She heard Mr. McCarthy the elder ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... to the cave for help. And Fleetfoot hurried and told Antler; and Antler, picking up some little things which she knew she would need, and telling the women to follow quickly with a large skin, went with Fleetfoot to ...
— The Later Cave-Men • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... instant the men in the balcony were leaving it pell-mell, picking up the ever-ready rifles as they dashed off through the halls and out into the park. What they had seen at the gate—which was one rarely used—was sufficient to demand immediate action on their part; a demonstration of some sort was in ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... millionaires, who built themselves houses up there on the height, in the forest! But it was only a passing thought, as he alighted from the train in the welcoming music of many waters, which she hardly heard. Her attention was centred on picking out Mrs. Harland and Falconer among the people who were waiting to meet friends, and on seeing whether ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... no telegraphic orders for him. The express agent jumped off and looked in for pleasure. He received his daily smile and nod of friendly discouragement. Then the light bundle of mail was flung inside the door. Separ had no mail to go out. As she was picking up the letters young Billy passed her like a shadow, and fled out. Two passengers had descended from the train, a man and a large woman. His clothes were loose and careless upon him. He held valises, and stood ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... found that Tiberius, so far from resenting the seizure of Armenia, had sent instructions to Vitellius, that he was to cultivate peaceful relations with Parthia. Apparently he thought that a good opportunity had arisen for picking a quarrel with his Western neighbor, and was determined to take advantage of it. The aged despot, hidden in his retreat of Capreae, seemed to him a pure object of contempt; and he entertained the confident hope of defeating ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... correspondent tells an anecdote of a peasant whose heroic generosity contrasts strongly with the conduct of the above noble proprietors. He (the correspondent) stood by a pit of potatoes whilst the owner, a small farmer, was turning them for the purpose of picking out and rejecting the bad ones. The man informed him it was the fourth picking within a fortnight. At the first picking, he said the pit contained about sixty barrels, but they were now reduced ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... light played through the darkness, and seemed to dance upon a curtain draped behind the sarcophagus, picking out diamond points. The dreamer groped in the mental chaos of his mind, and found a clue to the meaning of this. The diamond points were the eyes of thousands of tarantula spiders with which the curtain ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... interlocked. "My god, sir!" cried the Goblin; "Why not watch where you're going?" Then he saw it was Johnny Blair. "Sorry, Goblin," said the latter; "I—I was thinking about Kathleen." "So was I," said King, picking up his books. And in defiance of the University statute of 1636 (still unrepealed) which warns students against "frequenting dicing houses, taverns, or booths where the nicotian herb is sold," they went into ...
— Kathleen • Christopher Morley
... in the middle of the box, was lolloping upon the table with his customary ease, and picking his teeth with his usual inattention to all about him. The intrusion, however, of so large a party, seemed to threaten his insensibility with unavoidable disturbance; though imagining they meant but to look in at the box, and pass on, he made not at their first approach any alteration in his ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... and whispered to her, and the result was that with the cup of milk came a plate of the magnificent raspberries. The doctor opened his grave eyes at Daisy, and stood at the foot of her couch, picking up raspberries with his finger and thumb, as he had taken that ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... next hour he held the wheel grimly while the car roared over the seventy-odd miles to Keegan. Would he be in time? At last a sign post told him that he was within five miles of the railroad crossing at Keegan. Now the headlights were picking out the black outlines of the freight shed, and the next moment he had swept over the tracks. The luminous dial on his wrist watch notified him that he had been on the road but little over an hour, but his spirits somehow refused to revive ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... promise to behave yourself?" said Corentin, insolently, addressing Laurence, and picking up his dagger, but not committing the great fault ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... writer for the most part deals with small subjects in an unelaborate manner. He leaves the highways of literature, and strays into the fields and lanes, picking here a flower and there a leaf, and not going far at any time. There is no endeavour to explore with system, or to extend any excursion beyond a modest ramble. The author wanders at haphazard into paths which have attracted him, and along which, he hopes, the reader may be willing ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... Tuesday, when I had spent all the morning in listening to Mother Clochette, I wanted to go upstairs to her again during the day after picking hazelnuts with the manservant in the wood behind the farm. I remember it all as clearly ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... regulations, backed up on the sidewalks to receive their loads from the warehouse doors, until he reached Wall Street. Just beyond was Jones Lane, whose sylvan name seemed strangely out of place in the whirl and hubbub of that crowded district. Here he turned, and, picking his way across the muddy street, went out on the uncovered pier that stretched for five hundred feet into ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... all dogs are fond of scratching, and he went on quietly with his digging, when the dog ran up to his master, barking loudly, and back again to the place where he had been scratching. This he did several times, till the old man wondered what could be the matter, and, picking up the spade, followed where the dog led him. The dog was so delighted at his success that he jumped round, barking loudly, till the noise brought the old woman out of ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various
... same Wednesday Reginald Morton had called at the attorney's house, had asked for Miss Masters, and had found her alone. Mrs. Masters at the time had been out, picking up intelligence about the great case, and the two younger girls had been at school. Reginald, as he walked home from Bragton all alone on that occasion when Larry had returned with Mary, was quite sure that he would never willingly ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... route for himself the night before, and now, picking out the land-marks, he laid as straight a course as possible ...
— Tom Swift and his Wireless Message • Victor Appleton
... of every description, for his own and others' works, cut by Bewick, be considered, though perhaps he may not rival our beloved naturalist, he may be counted among the indefatigably industrious. And amid all this he found ample time for reading and conviviality. I have seen him picking, chipping, and finishing a block, talking, whistling, and sometimes singing, while his friends have been drinking wine at his profusely hospitable table. At nights, after a hard day's work, he generally relieved his powerful mind in the bosom of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 557., Saturday, July 14, 1832 • Various
... Regie," said Mr. Andrewes, "if ever you see anybody with a good garden of flowers who grudges picking them for his friends, you may be quite sure he has not learnt half of what his flowers can teach him. Flowers are generous enough. The more you take from them the more they give. And yet I have seen people with beds glowing with geraniums, and trees laden with roses, who grudged to ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... lying at full length on his back, with his feet in the air, under the shed, waiting to be singed.* The gash which the knife had made in his neck was still quite fresh, and was beaded with drops of blood. And a little white hen was very delicately picking off these drops of ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... brought, such as monkeys love extremely, she scattered it up and down in the wood, and withdrew to watch. Very soon the monkeys finding the fruit, put down the bell, to do justice to it, and the woman picking it up, bore it back to the town, where she became an object of uncommon veneration. We, indeed," concluded Damanaka, "bring you a Bull instead of a bell—your Majesty ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... Indians, his creed of humanity did have a triumph and a triumph that has not turned back. The praise given to him is not a priggish fiction of our conventional history, though such fictions have illogically curtailed it. The Nonconformists have been rather unfair to Penn even in picking their praises; and they generally forget that toleration cuts both ways and that an open mind is open on all sides. Those who deify him for consenting to bargain with the savages cannot forgive him for consenting to bargain with the Stuarts. And the same is true of the ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... Well Al nothing doing as usual only patching things up once in a wile and it would be as safe here as picking your teeth if our artillery had a few brains as the Germans wouldn't never pay no tension to us if our batterys would lay off them but we don't no sooner get a quite spell when our guns cuts loose and remind Fritz that they's a war and then of course the Dutchmens has got to pay for their ...
— The Real Dope • Ring Lardner
... because everybody needed it so badly. On the plantations there wasn't enough work to keep the negro slaves busy and it cost a lot to feed them. The planters figured that if something profitable could be found for them to do they would earn their keep. They certainly could not do this picking the seeds out of cotton because it took them such an age to pick enough to make a pound. The darkies could gather the crop all right. It had to be gathered by hand. What was needed was something that would take the seeds out and make it ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... when we chanced One day to meet a hunger-bitten girl, Who crept along fitting her languid gait Unto a heifer's motion, by a cord Tied to her arm, and picking thus from the lane Its sustenance, while the girl with pallid hands Was busy knitting in a heartless mood Of solitude, and at the sight my friend In agitation said, ''Tis against that ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... than done. The wicked steward stood there all day with the tongs in his hand, picking up and throwing back the burning coals that snapped in his face and the hot ashes that flew into his eyes. It was useless for him to shout, pray, weep, and blaspheme; no one heard him. If Finette had stayed at home, ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... nothing, Doc, straight I didn't. That is, nothing much. I was picking up crumbs off the gravel path when she comes swanking into the garden, turning up her nose in all directions, as though she owned the earth—just because she's got a lot of colored plumage. A London sparrow's as good as her any day. I don't hold by these gawdy ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... the real reason lies in another direction, quite beyond the scope of this book. The question of charm may be taken into consideration, for any Chinaman will bear witness to the seductive effect of a gaily-dressed girl picking her way on tiny feet some three inches in length, her swaying movements and delightful appearance of instability conveying a general sense of delicate grace quite beyond ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... mad at me yet, I know that from the sounds of her iron; 't was a shame for her to go picking a quarrel with the likes of me," and Mrs. Dunleavy sighed heavily and stepped down into her flower-plot to pull the distressed foxgloves back into their places inside the fence. The seed had been sent her from the old country, and this was the first year they had come into full ...
— The Queen's Twin and Other Stories • Sarah Orne Jewett
... them masqueraders in their knickerbockers and puttees and caps, but I believe they have done excellent work. It is a queer side of war to see young, pretty English girls in khaki and thick boots, coming in from the trenches, where they have been picking up wounded men within a hundred yards of the enemy's lines, and carrying them away on stretchers. Wonderful little Walkueres in knickerbockers, I lift my hat ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... picking on poor Fill. And I'm bound to say that Fill rather laid himself out as what you might call a pickee. He was always getting into trouble. One day, about three years ago, he was expelled from Harvard, and my uncle vowed he would have nothing more to do ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... She looked through her spectacles at Pixie's woe-begone face, and smiled encouragement. "It seems hopeless at first, but you will get accustomed to it in time. I used to be in despair, but you get into the way of learning quickly, and picking out the things that are most important. There's no time for talking, though. Open your grammar and begin ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... able to follow it faithfully, wherever it twisted, wherever it wound, and wherever it eventually brought her. No one could picture her flinching or turning back along a road she had set out to follow; if it had run in blood, she would have gone on in bare feet, not picking her steps, and yet Hartley dreamed of apple orchards and an Eve in ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... had a tame bird which she was in the habit of letting out of its cage every day. One morning as it was picking crumbs of bread off the carpet, her cat, who always before showed great kindness for the bird, seized it on a sudden, and jumped with it in her mouth upon a table. The lady was much alarmed for the fate of her favourite, but on turning about instantly discerned ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... wood; it is perfectly smooth; there are no crevices or anything of the sort to catch hold of anything. When the body slipped from it, it must have swept everything with it, cleanly. And yet," bending forward over the desk and picking up a minute red particle, "here, directly in the center, we ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... the attractions and economies of Tempe—for that, I think, was the name it ambitiously held—we quitted South Yarra within the same year for a still greater bargain and temptation in the opposite direction, where I had just then the chance of picking up, "at an old song," the pretty cottage previously occupied by Mr. Locke, on the Merri Creek, four miles north by the Sydney-road. Besides the presentable cottage, there was a large, well-stocked garden, at enacre ...
— Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne & Victoria • William Westgarth
... to grin as if he were an old friend when he announces the fact?" complained Barbara, daintily picking her way between boxes ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... your Majesty,' reported the groom; and Friedrich, who by this time had ridden forward, took a look at the thing; which was a Caricature figure of himself: King in very melancholy guise, seated on a Stool, a Coffee-mill between his knees; diligently grinding with the one hand, and with the other picking up any bean that might have fallen. 'Hang it lower,' said the King, beckoning his groom with a wave of the finger: 'Lower, that they may not have to hurt their necks about it!' No sooner were the words spoken, which spread instantly, than there rose from the whole crowd ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... book out of a library at Dole Field. I had paid two-pence a book for three volumes. I also got Richard Turpin, in two volumes, and paid the same. I have seen Oliver Twist, and think the Artful Dodger is very like some of the boys here. I am here for picking ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... A DOG. Poor Irus' faithful wolf-dog here I lie, That wont to tend my old blind master's steps, His guide and guard; nor, while my service lasted, Had he occasion for that staff, with which He now goes picking out his path in fear Over the highways and crossings, but would plant, Safe in the conduct of my friendly string, A firm foot forward still, till he had reach'd His poor seat on some stone, nigh where the tide Of passers-by in thickest confluence flow'd: To whom with loud and passionate ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... as he spoke an expression of distaste stamped Gerrit's features. However, he was left in no doubt: "My wife," the other instructed him, "prefers to speak English. That is the only way she has of picking it up." ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... must have done. She could not have married him else.... But then what was Verschoyle to her, that he should have paid so large a sum in hush-money? A furious jealousy swept away what was left of Rodd's intellectual world and released at last his passions. His mind worked swiftly through the story, picking it up ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan |
