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Pluck   /plək/   Listen
Pluck

verb
(past & past part. plucked; pres. part. plucking)
1.
Pull or pull out sharply.  Synonyms: pick off, pull off, tweak.
2.
Sell something to or obtain something from by energetic and especially underhanded activity.  Synonyms: hustle, roll.
3.
Rip off; ask an unreasonable price.  Synonyms: fleece, gazump, hook, overcharge, plume, rob, soak, surcharge.
4.
Pull lightly but sharply with a plucking motion.  Synonyms: pick, plunk.
5.
Strip of feathers.  Synonyms: deplumate, deplume, displume, pull, tear.  "Pluck the capon"
6.
Look for and gather.  Synonyms: cull, pick.  "Pick flowers"



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"Pluck" Quotes from Famous Books



... themselves upon ingenious handicrafts with the souls of departed utensils, for that is the name which in the Indian language they give their tools when they are burnt or broken. As he travelled through this delightful scene he was very often tempted to pluck the flowers that rose everywhere about him in the greatest variety and profusion, having never seen several of them in his own country: but he quickly found, that though they were objects of his sight, they were not liable ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison

... such a fuss about?" demanded Lapham, terribly crestfallen, but trying to pluck up a spirit. "I haven't done anything yet. I can't ask your advice about anything any more without having you fly out. Confound it! I shall do ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... Lathrop Beasley, a tall, rather slender youth who had been their companion in Florida. Like the boys, Lathrop was an accomplished aviator and wireless operator, although he had not the initiative or the sturdy pluck to perform the feats that they had. He was, however, a boy of considerable brain and skill and among the boy-aviators of the country held ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... the superintendence of a limited number of our citizens, it is obvious that we could put forth more strength in such an emergency, at less sacrifice, than any other people of the same numbers. And thus we should in every point of view, "out of this nettle danger, pluck the ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... white and straight lieth the road to Knowing, and down it in the heat and dust go all wise people of the earth, but in the fields before they come to it the very wise lie down or pluck the flowers. By the side of the road to Knowing—O King, it is hard and hot—stand many temples, and in the doorway of every temple stand many priests, and they cry to the travellers that weary of ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]

... this litigation, and the methods by which they sought to control decisions. It is entirely probable that they had hopes of intimidating the federal judges, as many believed some state judges had been, and that thus they might "from the nettle danger, pluck the flower safety." ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham

... Europe, and America too. Education on the outskirts of civilized life teaches not very much, but it taught this; and one felt no call to shoulder the load of archipelagoes in the antipodes when one was trying painfully to pluck up courage to face the labor of shouldering archipelagoes at home. The country decided otherwise, and one acquiesced readily enough since the matter concerned only the public willingness to carry loads; in London, the balance of power in the East came alone into discussion; ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams

... But his pluck was not quite equal to it, and the grim, determined look on Ken's face daunted him. With a muttered oath, ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges

... prostrate, there is reason to believe, in his own lobby. Toby contented himself with proclaiming his victory at the door, and, returning, finished his bone- planting at his leisure; the enemy, who had scuttled behind the glass door, glared at him. From this moment Toby was an altered dog. Pluck at first sight was lord of all . . . That very evening he paid a visit to Leo, next door's dog, a big tyrannical bully and coward . . . To him Toby paid a visit that very evening, down into his den, and walked about, as much ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang

... sleepeth sound, So sleep his knights who gave that Round Old Table such eclat! Oh Time has pluck'd the plumy brow! And none engage at turneys now But ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various

... long enough to pluck from the backs of the fallen birds the long, silky plumes, which they carefully placed in a stiff leather valise, then hastened on to another part of the island where the ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... the universe; but how could they know that, those dumb creatures? No, they knew nothing, and their reasonings were of a piece with their ignorance. They argued and discussed among themselves, with Noel listening, and arrived at the decision that Joan was a witch, and had her strange pluck and strength from Satan; so they made a plan to watch for a safe ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain

... merchant seamen whom they could not kill, disable, or make prisoners. But not a man refused to go to sea again, even when his last ship had been torpedoed and his chums been killed. That is the first glory of the Mercantile Marine. But there are many more. And not the least is the pluck with which the British, who did most and lost most, started the race for oversea trade again, though at an enormous disadvantage compared with those who did least and ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood

... not, but pluck up a heart! For either I have seen it or dreamed it, or thought it, that by this road easy to wend the Romans should come into the Mark. For shall not those dastards and traitors that wear the raiment and bodies of the Goths over the hearts and the lives of foemen, tell them ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris

... firmly to their shoulders, like the grim old "die-hards" that they were. The brigade of guards, a dozen red-coated veterans of solid lead, who had taken up a strong position in the cover of a cardboard box, still held their ground with a desperate valour only equalled by the dogged pluck of a similar body of the enemy, who had occupied the inkstand with the evident intention of remaining there until the ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery

... They are never too busy to say a kind word or to do a gentle deed. They may be compelled to sigh betimes, but amid their sighs are smiles that drive away the cares. They find sunbeams scattered in the trail of every cloud. They gather flowers where others see nothing but weeds. They pluck little sprigs of rest where others find ...
— The Girl Wanted • Nixon Waterman

... fully a score of Americans in the crowd, the non-sailors being "tramps royal," the men whose "mate is the wind that tramps the world." They were all cheerful, facing things with the pluck which is their chief characteristic and which seems never to desert them, withal they were cursing the country with lurid metaphors quite refreshing after a month of unimaginative, monotonous Cockney swearing. The Cockney has one oath, and one oath only, ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London

... love, as wax melts in the sun, since thou livest free of all our bonds and shams, since in thy blood, in thy pure bosom, lies the renewal of the old sap, I, on my faith as a Prince, I swear to thee that none but me, O my Rhone flower, shall have the happiness to pluck thee as a flower of ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer

... seemed permitted to make trial of her faith and love, and she struggled hard against his attacks. But the dear little one was safe in the arms of her Good Shepherd, and none could pluck her out of his hand. Her anxious prayers were heard and answered, and peace was restored to her soul. Her brightened countenance required not the addition of words to assure her friends of this, and yet they rejoiced to hear her say, "I am quite happy; ...
— Jesus Says So • Unknown

... the burghers, they were a failure. Our commandoes, when driven against them, always had sufficient pluck and courage to cut the wires between them, and so they crossed the lines at almost any point they pleased. That we have crossed and recrossed them frequently is proof enough that they were, in this respect, not a success. The barbed wire fences, ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald

... haste, my bonnie bark, O'er the waves let us bound, As the deer from the horn, Or the hare from the hound. Pluck down thy white plumes, Sink thy keel in the sand, Whene'er ye see my love, And the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... with heroes' blood, Where knelt the vanquished foe, When winds were hurrying o'er the flood And waves were white below, No more shall feel the victor's tread, Or know the conquered knee: The harpies of the shore shall pluck The eagle ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various

... But no! Many were already there! They were eating supper and made room for me at the long table before the open fire. They were cordial and made me feel at home at once, marveling over my making the trip alone, and praising my pluck. I was much too weary and hungry to protest, even though I had been becomingly modest. Seeing this, they filled my plate and let me be, turning their nimble tongues on our host—What handsome whiskers—la! ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills

... who in a few weeks would be sailing the Atlantic, while he would stand here looking out of the same window. "Merciful God!" he cried, sinking on knees. "Heavenly Father, Thou seest this evil in my heart. Thou knowest that my weak hand cannot pluck it out. My strength is breaking, and still Thou makest my burden heavier than I can bear." He stopped, breathless and trembling. The same visions were flitting across his closed eyes; the same silence gaped like a dry crater in his ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister

... and his seconds were now dubious, though the youngster's fighting pluck and determination ran as ...
— Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock

... revealing the heart at one with nature. Others there were, women of many worlds, only less beautiful; but by these three the young man was held bound. He could not satisfy himself with looking and musing; he could not pluck himself away. An old experience; he always lingered by the print shops of the Haymarket, and always went on with troubled blood, with mind rapt above familiar circumstance, dreaming passionately, making ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing

... untroubled with scruples, an unerring judge of character, he was bound to rise in such times. He set himself to put down every Sikh rival and to profit by the waning of the Durani power to make himself master of their possessions in the Panjab. Pluck, patience, and guile broke down all opposition among the Manjha Sikhs. The Sikh chiefs to the south of the Sutlej were only saved from the same fate by throwing themselves in 1808 on the protection ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie

... governs and should govern human conduct. For morality among nations, as among individuals, implies faith and risk-taking, not recklessness, indeed, but dangerous living, a willingness and a desire to take a hand in the largest game of life and continually to "pluck out of the nettle, danger, safety"; but this safety itself only as a momentary resting-place in the unceasing urge of nations to use their nationality, not for the achievement of some selfish separate perfection, but for the ever advancing ...
— Morals of Economic Internationalism • John A. Hobson

... as he sluiced out the cut while his own adherents stood near by and chaffed him. "The cub cuts his teeth, then! Soon it will be time to try his pluck." ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy

... their dejected faces, the words they get ready and pour out as they pass before me, and their dark costume. No one has come from the castle, but in spite of that there are many people and they all converge upon me. I pluck up courage. ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse

... my regiment to their cells that night, and retired to my room, I reflected that every human existence has its moments of fate, when the apples of the Hesperides hang ready upon the bough, but, alas! how few are wise enough to pluck them. The decision of an hour may open to us the gates of the enchanted garden where are flowers and sunshine, or it may condemn us, Tantalus-like, to reach evermore after some far-off and unattainable good. I dreamed that the clock of fate had struck the hour for me, that I had found ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss

... "O do not wait to talk!" cried she, "go to him now, or you will never see him more! the hand of death is on him,—cold, clay-cold is its touch! he is breathing his last—Oh murdered Delvile! massacred husband of my heart! groan not so piteously! fly to him, and weep over him!—fly to him and pluck the poniard from his ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up and to break down and to destroy it; if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman

... night passed quietly but, just before dawn, the enemy charged down through the surrounding houses. Lieutenant Edwards and his party at once opened fire, at about twenty yards' range. Tom-toms were beaten furiously, to encourage the assailants; but the tribesmen could not pluck up courage to make a charge and, at nine o'clock, they all retired. During the attack four of the sepoys ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty

... pluck the amaranthine flower Of faith, and round the sufferer's temples bind Wreaths that endure affliction's heaviest shower, And do not shrink from ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett

... searching look, as if to pluck out anything he might have been hiding from her. Then she turned swiftly ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham

... a boy of seventeen. But they were not idle boastings. Before a year had passed, young Olaf's pluck and courage had won the day, and in harvest-time, in the year 1015, being then but little more than eighteen years old, he was crowned King of Norway in the Drontheim, or "Throne-home," of Nidaros, the royal city, now called on your atlas the city of ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... Aylmer,—"pluck it, and inhale its brief perfume while you may. The flower will wither in a few moments and leave nothing save its brown seed-vessels; but thence may be perpetuated a race as ephemeral ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various

... Journal says: "George Cary Eggleston has written a decidedly good tale of pluck and adventure in 'Camp Venture.' It will be of interest to young and old who enjoy an exciting story, but there is also a great deal of instruction and ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard

... winter flowers which we prize: tender, pale things, without much life, things either come too soon or stayed too late, among which is "Flamenca;" one of those roses, nipped and wrinkled, but stained a brighter red by the frost, which we pluck in December or in March; beautiful, bright, scentless roses, which, scarce in bud, already fall to pieces in our hand. "Flamenca" is simply the narrative of the loves of the beautiful wife of the bearish and jealous Count Archambautz, and of Guillems de Nevers, ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee

... not do was to get near to Hogarth: his task was, as it were, to pluck Venus from the firmament; but he mused, he mused upon her, with musing astrologic eye, with grand patience, fascinated by her very splendours, not without hope. When at 8 P.M. a banquet was served ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel

... any want To seek refreshment from a plant Thou didst not set; since all must be Pluck'd up, whose growth is not from Thee. 'Tis not the garden, and the bow'rs, Nor sense and forms, that give to flow'rs Their wholesomeness, but Thy good will, Which truth and ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan

... night, which, if it be, let it come, and welcome. Up to my office, whither Commissioner Pett came, newly come out of the country, and he and I walked together in the garden talking of business a great while, and I perceive that by our countenancing of him he do begin to pluck up his head, and will do good things I hope in the yard. Thence, he being gone, to my office and there dispatched many people, and at noon to the 'Change to the coffee-house, and among other things heard Sir John Cutler say, that of his owne experience in time of thunder, so ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... and Queens of the May If you want to be, Every one of you, very good, In this beautiful, beautiful, beautiful wood, Where the little birds' heads get so turned with delight That some of them sing all night: Whatever you pluck, ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various

... cheeks to hide his embarrassment. It was not his way to cause pain, and there was a hurt, unhappy look in Fred's eyes. And Amzi liked Fred—liked his simplicity and earnestness, and stubborn pluck, ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson

... the morning of the first of May, Into the close I went to pluck a flower; And there I found a bird of woodland gay, Who whiled with songs of love the silent hour. O bird, who fliest from fair Florence, how Dear love begins, I prithee teach me now!— Love it begins ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds

... can't do anything else. His pluck is certainly wonderful, but even with his pluck he can't dissolve again. His Church Bill has given him a six months' run, and ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... he. 'He'll yoke wi' an unco weird. Thy braw chiel 'ul tryste wi' th' hangman soon, I wat.' And Angus he was fair mad, I can tell ye, and he said to Wilson, 'Thoo stammerin' and yammerin' taistrel, thoo; I'll pluck a lock of thy threep. Bring the warrant, wilt thoo? Thoo savvorless and sodden clod-heed! I'll whip thee with the taws. Slipe, ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine

... rais'd from earth the game old man. Uncow'd, undamaged to the sport he came, His limbs all muscle, and his soul all flame. The memory of his milling glories past, [10] The shame that aught but death should see him grass'd. All fired the veteran's pluck—with fury flush'd, Full on his light-limb'd customer he rush'd,— And hammering right and left, with ponderous swing [11] Ruffian'd the reeling youngster round the ring— Nor rest, nor pause, nor breathing-time was given But, rapid ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer

... on the name of his boat, which is bigger than the boat," said Billy Manners, one of the chief funmakers of the Hilltop boys, who was coming along with another boy in a motor-boat. "Young J.W. is full of pluck." ...
— The Hilltop Boys on the River • Cyril Burleigh

... wane. You put out marble to be hewn, though with one foot in the grave; and, unmindful of a sepulcher, are building houses; and are busy to extend the shore of the sea, that beats with violence at Baiae, not rich enough with the shore of the mainland. Why is it, that through avarice you even pluck up the landmarks of your neighbor's ground, and trespass beyond the bounds of your clients; and wife and husband are turned out, bearing in their bosom their household gods and their destitute children? Nevertheless, no court more certainly awaits ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace

... The pluck of the man was superb. I could see that the General, too, was moved, from the way he looked at him. And he speaks a little more abruptly ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... I was confined was as dark as pitch, and, as I soon found, as hot as the black—hole in Calcutta. I don't pretend to be braver than my neighbours, but I would pluck any man by the beard who called me coward. In my small way I had in my time faced death in various shapes; but it had always been above board, with the open heaven overhead, and generally I had a goodly fellowship ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... again. And west they drave, and long they ran Till they saw a land was white and wan. "Yea," Snbiorn said, "my home it is, Ye bear a man shall have no bliss. Far off beside the Greekish sea The maidens pluck the grapes in glee. Green groweth the wheat in the English land, And the honey-bee flieth on every hand. In Norway by the cheaping town The laden beasts go up and down. In Iceland many a mead they ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris

... would count with Tim," she said warmly. "He has any amount of pluck." And then she stared at Elisabeth in amazement. A sudden haggardness had overspread the elder woman's face, the faint shell-pink that usually flushed her cheeks draining ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler

... ha! Well done, mistress! Strike again. You shall beat my face, and tear my hair, and pluck my beard up by the roots, and welcome, for the sake of your bright eyes. Strike again, mistress. Do. Ha ha ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... grown reserved and bashful; and he made this and their other interviews provokingly short. She had hoped to have found in him an impetuous and impassioned lover—one who needed but the opportunity to pluck the ripe fruit so temptingly held out to him; but she found him, instead, an apparently cold and passionless man, taking no advantage of his intimacy with her, and treating her with a distant respect that precluded all hope in her bosom of a ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn

... not kneel to you, for my knees bend only to Heaven. But I will speak you fair. If you were shapely, strong, and beautiful, with the white fire of knighthood glowing in your soul, you would laugh at death to pluck the meanest woman in the world from such a ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... he answered tropically, "and I dinna care. If he bided three weeks, he bided ower lang. I kent that fine when ance I saw her. Noo, I pit it till ye, gin ye were crossin' a desert place, an' ye saw the Rose o' Sharon afore ye, wad ye no' pluck it gin ye micht, and pluck it quick? I pit it till ye." And they answered him not a word, for there is no debater like ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles

... Professional Critic—almost inevitably at the fifteenth remove from the heart of things because he is the least creative, unless he is a man of genius, or has pluck and talent enough to work his way through the other fourteen moods and sum them up before ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee

... twelve hundred miles to the Sandwich Islands; the provisions are virtually exhausted, but not the perishing diarist's pluck. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... man in the arena; and, when I broke his helmet-clasps, behold! he was my friend! He knew me, smiled faintly, gasped, and died;—the same sweet smile upon his lips that I had marked, when, in adventurous boyhood, we scaled the lofty cliff to pluck the first ripe grapes, and bear them home in ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson

... game of circles. In conversation we pluck up the termini[703] which bound the common of silence on every side. The parties are not to be judged by the spirit they partake and even express under this Pentecost.[704] To-morrow they will have receded from ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... Here, take this MASI and go pluck me a young nut to drink," and Challis threw him a ship-biscuit. Then he went on tapping the little band of silver. He had already forgotten the violet eyes, and was thinking with almost childish eagerness of the soft glow in the black ...
— By Reef and Palm • Louis Becke

... in baskets, Or pluck'd it from the wall; But the shaking of the pear-tree Was the grandest ...
— The Adventures of A Brownie - As Told to My Child by Miss Mulock • Miss Mulock

... began to perceive more deeply than it has ever yet been stated, the trembling immateriality, the mist-like transience, of this seemingly so solid body in which we walk attired. Certain agents I found to have the power to shake and to pluck that fleshy vestment, even as a wind might toss the curtains of a pavilion. For two good reasons, I will not enter deeply into this scientific branch of my confession. First, because I have been made to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... incense of the temples with which all gods are honored. I shall tell, moreover, of that which I do now see (thanks to him), and there shall be rendered to thee praises before the fulness of all the land. I shall slay asses for thee in sacrifice, I shall pluck for thee the birds, and I shall bring for thee ships full of all kinds of the treasures of Egypt, as is comely to do unto a god, a friend of men in a far country, of which men ...
— Egyptian Literature

... fail to provide for the family dependent upon their daily exertions, at moments seemed to us the secret stores of strength from which society is fed, the invisible array of passion and feeling which are the surest protectors of the world. We fatuously hoped that we might pluck from the human tragedy itself a consciousness of a common destiny which should bring its own healing, that we might extract from life's very misfortunes a power of cooperation which ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams

... I have palaces in town and country: houses, gardens, chases, forests, carriages, millions. I will give fetes. I will make laws. I shall have the choice of joys and pleasures. And the vagabond Gwynplaine, who had not the right to gather a flower in the grass, may pluck the stars ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... is no need to answer," Gnob piped, while Keesh struggled with the paradox. "It is very simple. The Good Man Brown would hold the Raven tight whilst his brothers pluck the feathers." He raised his voice. "But so long as there is one Tana-naw to strike a blow, or one maiden to bear a man-child, the Raven shall not ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London

... Pluck, pluck, and eat thou happy boy; Sad fate abides thee. Thou mayst grow A man: for God may deem it so, I wish thee no such harm, sweet child: Go, whilst thou'rt innocent and mild: Go, ere earth's passions, fierce and proud, Rend thee as lightning ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 344 (Supplementary Issue) • Various

... for you, Reuben," Captain Wilson said, in the first pause of conversation. "I saw the chief, and told him I wanted an appointment for a young friend of mine, who had come out in the Paramatta, and who had shown great pluck and presence of mind in an affair at the Cape, which I described to him. He said that he could appoint you at once, as young Houghton, a district superintendent, was killed three weeks ago, in an affair with ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty

... him, now from below, now from above. They buffet him from one side and from the other. They circle round him like a pair of swift gunboats round an antiquated man-of-war. They even perch upon his back and dash their beaks into his neck and pluck feathers from his piratical plumage. At last his lumbering flight has carried him far enough away, and the brave little defenders fly back to the nest, poising above it on quivering wings for a moment, then dipping down swiftly in pursuit of some passing insect. The war is ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke

... you waiting for?" he shouted, insolently, turning on Buckhurst. "I tell the truth; and if this man can afford to pay hundreds of francs for a telegram, he must be rich enough to pluck, ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

... must know that on every Christmas Eve the great Goeinge forest is transformed into a beautiful garden, to commemorate the hour of our Lord's birth. We who live in the forest have seen this happen every year. And in that garden I have seen flowers so lovely that I dared not lift my hand to pluck them." ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith

... threw a large plate at her. She seemed more pleased than otherwise with the attention, and began to pluck the delicate flowers with which it was painted and gather them into a nosegay. In some dudgeon, I blew a small jug of great beauty on to a carved prie-dieu, to which it adhered as though made of some ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates

... discontented, with her watry eyes Bent on the earth: the unfrequented woods Are her delight; and when she sees a bank Stuck full of flowers, she with a sigh will tell Her servants what a pretty place it were To bury lovers in, and make her maids Pluck'em, and strow her over like a Corse. She carries with her an infectious grief That strikes all her beholders, she will sing The mournful'st things that ever ear hath heard, And sigh, and sing again, and when the rest Of our young Ladies in their wanton blood, Tell mirthful tales in course ...
— The Maids Tragedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... be done now? Tell me, O Krishna, truly. Thou art always the wisest of persons. The Pandavas having thee for their eyes, will vanquish their foes in battle. That which seems to me should be done next, truly shall I say unto thee. Unyoking the steeds to their case, pluck off their arrows, O Madhava!" Thus addressed by Partha, Kesava replied unto him, "I am, also O Partha, of the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... introducing that game into the western prairies. Well, I looked on, and by-and-bye, I got tired of being merely a spectator. My nose itched, my fingers too. I twisted my five-dollar bill in all senses, till a sharp took me for a flat, and he proposed kindly to pluck me out-and-out. I plucked him in less than no time, winning eighty dollars at a sitting; and when we left off for tea, I felt that I had acquired consequence, and even merit, for money gives both. During the night I was so successful, that when I retired to ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat

... Featherloom Petticoat Company. This was what she had left in the morning. To this she had come back at night. As he stared ahead of him there rose before him a mental picture of her—the brightness of her, the sunniness, the indomitable energy, and pluck, and courage. With a sudden burst of new determination he wadded the towel into a moist ball, flung it at the washstand, seized hat, coat, and gloves, and was off down the hall. So it was with something of his mother's splendid courage in his heart, but with ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber

... go with me, thou loveliest child; By many a gay sport shall thy time be beguiled; My mother keeps for thee full many a fair toy, And many a fine flower shall she pluck for my boy." ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... a dingy little room to consider the surrender of the city. Mayor Mayo dashed in and out with the latest information he could get from the War Department. He was slightly incoherent in his excitement, but he was full of pluck and chewed tobacco defiantly. He announced that the last hope was gone and that he would maintain order with two regiments ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon

... learn about the indomitable pluck of our soldiers. They did not seem to be afraid of anything. At Camp Apache my opinion of the American soldier was formed, and it has never changed. In the long march across the Territory, they had cared for ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes

... thou not minister to a mind diseas'd, Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, Raze out the written troubles of the brain, And with some sweet oblivious antidote Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff Which ...
— The Untroubled Mind • Herbert J. Hall

... grips with them, to pit their brawn and muscle, their wit and courage against the best the enemy could bring forth. It was the way their ancestors had fought, man to man, bayonet to bayonet, where sheer pluck and power would give the victory to the men who possessed them ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall

... thrice round, to wind the slack about my body. The taut rope cut deep into my flesh; but nothing mattered now, except to save him. 'Catch the cloak, Elsie!' I cried; 'catch it: pull him gently in!' Elsie caught it and pulled him in, with wonderful pluck and calmness. We hauled him over the edge. He lay safe on the bank. Then we all three broke down and cried like children together. I took his hand in mine and held ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen

... the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies; Hold you here, root and all, in my hand, Little flower; but if I could understand What you are, root and all, and all in all, I should know what ...
— The Fairy-Land of Science • Arabella B. Buckley

... sea-dogs of my stamp in plenty too." Then, referring to the Crimean war—"I don't say that the two cases are parallel. I don't ask England to hate Russia as she was bound to hate Spain, as God's enemy; but I do think that a little Tudor pluck and Tudor democracy (paradoxical as the word may seem, and inconsistently as it was carried out then) is just what ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

... to tell ye, laddie, gien 't warna, as ye ken, 'at the Almichty 's been unco mercifu' to me i' the maitter o' feelin's. Yer freen's i' the Seaton, an' ower at Scaurnose, hae feelin's, an' that 's hoo nane o' them a' has pluck it up hert to tell ye o' the waggin' o' ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald

... "I pluck this lock of hair off my head To tell whence comes the one I shall wed. Fly, silken hair, fly all the world around Until you reach the spot where my ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain

... for fresh reinforcements. However, what really cost the Gauls their victory was that they let their enemy alone and indulged in ignoble squabbles over the spoil. Thus after Cerialis' carelessness had almost caused disaster, his pluck now saved the day, and he followed up his success by capturing the enemy's camp and ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... said Mr. Pile, putting out his hand. Sir Thomas shook hands with Mr. Pile cordially. "It's my opinion that he's right," said Mr. Pile. "I don't like his notions, but I do like his pluck. Good-bye, Sir Thomas." Then Mr. Pile led the way out of the room, ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope

... always speaking sharp: On the same thing you always harp. A bird one may not catch, Nor find a nest, nor angle neither, Nor from the peacock pluck a feather, But you are on the watch ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... him how to make a quick-cooking fire, saying: "Look at the time you are wasting. When I was in the Himalayas I often had to hunt my breakfast. I used to go about two miles in the jungle, shoot my food, skin or pluck it, then cook and eat it, and return to the camp under half an hour." Then he unwisely added, "Of course, you will ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous

... will serve your need. It is, indeed, not quite so convenient for me to spare money as it once was, but I know your situation, and, I will say it, in some respects your worth. I have no time to write at present, but I beg you will endeavour to pluck up a little more of the Man than you used to have. Remember my ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... no reason for shame, for to them the danger seemed real; and believing it to be real, they had not shrunk, but had faced it with very commendable pluck. ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille

... to stand up and let yourself be shot at."—She flushed slightly at the remembrance of Frank standing in this very room in front of the gun in her hand. Would she ever forget his laugh!—"But pluck to do the same monotonous thing day after day, plain, honest, hard work—you haven't got that sort of pluck. You're a failure and the worst of it is, you're not ashamed of it. It seems to fill ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett

... perplexity is great when we find him constructing his ethics quite independently of the question, "What is our conception of the universe?" In this department he had an opportunity of exhibiting native pluck; for he ought to have turned his back on his "We," and have established a moral code for life out of bellum omnium contra omnes and the privileges of the strong. But it is to be feared that such a code could only have emanated from a bold spirit ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche

... boat got adrift," said Brisket. "You've got their own word for it. Not that they didn't behave well for landsmen: Mr. Chalk's pluck was wonderful, and Mr. ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs

... these corporations. We are learning the same lesson in our forestry. We have the lesson still to learn in remaining mines, oil-lands, water-powers, and phosphate-beds. Nothing in the statesmanship of President Roosevelt will more surely win him laurels in the future than his pluck and consistency in forwarding this policy, which stands for the whole people and for the future. It is as serenely above party as it is above ...
— The Conflict between Private Monopoly and Good Citizenship • John Graham Brooks

... deafened, and yelled out at the top of his voice, 'What do you expect, you fools? Mice can only be caught with meat, and meat I must and will have too.' He then let them rave on, and quietly and methodically continued to pluck his chicken. When it was ready, he made a fire and ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

... than she looked up and Dan was there before her, standing very still and laughing at her with his eyes. It was the same thing even when she was a baby. Her earliest memory was of a May morning when they took her out into a field of buttercups, and told her that she might pluck her arms full if she could, and then, as she stretched out her little hands and began to gather very fast, she looked across to where the waving yellow buttercups stood up against the blue spring sky. That memory had always been her own before; ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow

... manly in being bad and nothing unmanly in being good. And in this view it is impossible to value too highly such characters and such biographies as those of Hodson of Hodson's Horse and Captain Hedley Vicars. It is a splendid combination, pluck and daring in their highest degree, with an unaffected and earnest regard to religion and religious duties,—in short, muscularity with Christianity. A man consists of body and soul; and both would be in their ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... the battle of Fredericksburg (Dec. 13, 1862) Lee deserves no special praise. Doubtless his unerring engineer eye picked the fighting-line, and his already great prestige inspired his brave army. But that was all. The pluck of his officers and men and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord

... in evil and dissipated courses, nor death by any of those foolhardy and rash exploits which have far too often been glorified as "courage" or "pluck." ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)

... the open air that the condition which I have compared to somnambulism seemed at times to disappear. Then your consciousness seemed to spring up for a moment and to take heed of what was passing around you. You would sometimes scamper through the meadows, pluck the wild-flowers and weave them into wreaths round your head, or stand listening to the birds, or hold out your hands as if to embrace the sunny wind. One day when a friend of mine, an enthusiastic angler, who comes here, was going down to the river to fish, you showed ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... at her averted face, knowing that all he had to do was to reach out his hand and pluck her, fell to pondering whether, after all, there was any real worth in refined, grammatical English, and, so, forgot ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London

... 'but who shall dare to scrutinize my thoughts—who shall dare to pluck out my opinion? God only is his judge, and to that judge ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... turn the leaves of my Dryden, and glance through some of those admirably composed prefaces, those egotistical self-criticisms so full of literary pugnacity, in an age when pluck in a poet needed searching for. I often say to folk who deplore Bernard Shaw's prefatory egotism that if they would read Dryden they would discover that Shaw is only up to his own masterly old game of imitating his predecessor's tactics. But Shaw is quite safe. He knows people ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee

... the very elbow of my tormentor. But I am glad to know that I would not have run away even if I could. My resolution grew stubborner with every peal of laughter to bear whatever might come with pluck and good temper. I had been a fool, but I would show that I ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

... that is a true-born gentleman, And stands upon the honor of his birth, If he suppose that I have pleaded truth, From off this brier pluck ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery

... thought I, flinging my bridle to a humped old tree, that crooked out an arm to catch it. For the way now lay where path was none, and none might go but by himself, and only go by daring. Through blackberry brakes that tried to pluck me back, though I but strained towards fruitless growths of mountain-laurel; up slippery steeps to barren heights, where stood none to welcome. Fairy land not yet, thought I, though the morning ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville

... systems. The great conflict which is now going on in every civilized country is a conflict between faith and infidelity. For the triumph of light and truth the very throne of God is pledged. There may be difficulties to encounter, but these will be vanquished. As well undertake to pluck the sun and stars from the heavens, and spread the black curtain of one long protracted night over the world, as to try to quench the light of immortal truth as it flows freely into the hearts of so many millions and stirs up the ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 11, November, 1880 • Various

... to the very edge of the way, and now she saw the riding-reek go up into the clear air, and she said: Now are they coming without fail, and I must pluck up a heart; for surely these dear friends of my friends shall neither harm a poor ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris

... is enhanced in beauty by the clearness of these waters, and the reflected lights from the snow-white sandy bottom, which is dotted here and there by delicate shells of various shapes and colors. One longs to descend among these coral bowers,—these mermaid gardens,—and pluck a bouquet of the submarine flora in its purple, yellow, and ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou

... the bow and leaned out over, my hand all but dipped into the waves. A stream of water did once run up my sleeve. Looking round and seeing Tony smile, I yelled back aft: "What be smiling 'bout, Tony?" He replied: "I was a-gloryin' in yer pluck." ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds

... Ireland versus England, is enough to show the hopelessness of such a combat. It is a very easy thing to magnify the old heroism of the Irish, and cast opprobrium on the present bearers of the name, as did several newspaper writers recently, for not displaying the "pluck" of their ancestors who fought against Elizabeth, Cromwell, and William of Orange. It is forgotten that circumstances have altered considerably since those days when the Irish possessed a regular ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... Nay, thine own is easier to come by: pluck out that; and 'twill serve thee and thy wife.—Well, Zenocrate, Techelles, and the rest, ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part I. • Christopher Marlowe

... were perhaps as mixed as they had ever been—curiosity, parental disapproval, to which he knew he was not entitled, admiration of her pluck in letting that fellow know, fears for the consequences of this confession, and, more than all, his profound disturbance at knowing her at last launched into the deep waters of love. It was the least of ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... easily conceivable reluctance, four Shokas undertook to perform, the daring duty. Discovery would mean to them the loss of their heads, probably preceded by cruel tortures of all kinds; so, though they eventually betrayed me, I cannot help giving them credit for the pluck and fidelity they displayed in ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... will papa not trust me? [Vernon comes down, R.] Oh, Harry! I wish he would find out what a lot of pluck and common sense there is in this feather ...
— Our American Cousin • Tom Taylor

... skill and daring which give such special attraction to the national pastime. This is a right royal sport, and as in Portugal the horrid cruelty which defaces it in Spain is absent, there is no overwhelming reason why the women should not sit and applaud the picturesque scene and the exhibitions of pluck and agility ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street

... of the question. And now I'm in a bigger hole than before. We are living at cross purposes. She sees I'm holding back; and she's puzzled, and unhappy. But how the deuce is a man to tell her plainly that by an act of pure pluck and devotion, at the wrong moment, she has practically pushed me deeper into the pit than I've been yet? In fact, I'm beginning to be afraid that . . . ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver

... Metropolitan Temple, which was crowded from pit to dome. The Call declared, "It was more like the ratification of a victory than a rally after defeat;" and at the close of the convention said: "It furnished during its entire sessions an example of pluck and patience such as should forever quiet the calumny that women do not know how to govern themselves—that they become hysterical ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... and the cordial of friendship, are like words in a strange tongue. To the hard, smooth surface of his soul, nothing genial, graceful, or winning will cling; he cannot even purge his voice of its fawning tone, or pluck from his face the mean, money-getting mask which the child does not look at without ceasing to smile. Amid the graces and ornaments of wealths, he is like a blind man in a picture-gallery. That which he has done he must continue to do. He must accumulate riches which he cannot enjoy and contemplate ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... all the rights—unless Blackstaffe makes a really handsome offer. Why, it ought to be worth five or six hundred to me at least. And that would start us. But I don't care even if I only get half that, I shall be married all the same. Rosamund has plenty of pluck. I couldn't ask her to start life on a pound a week—about my average for the last two years; but with two or three hundred in hand, and a decent little house, like that of Mrs. Cross's, at a reasonable rent—well, we shall risk it. I'm sick of waiting. And it isn't ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing

... stars do I my judgement pluck; And yet methinks I have astronomy, But not to tell of good or evil luck, Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality; Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell, Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind, Or say ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare

... the blow was a heavy one, but that having assumed the obligation, he should discharge it; that he asked no favors, and as the notes matured he should take them up. He paid every dollar due, and every one was certain that his wealth must be very large. His manliness, pluck, and integrity, which carried him through that crisis, became the sure foundation-stone on which his great fortune was laid. He took the front rank among successful financiers, and his honorable course in that crisis established his ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.

... very hopefully inclined. For our own part, speaking with diffidence, as being a little off our regular track of work, we will only say that we were favorably impressed with what we saw and heard; and we certainly wish the venture that full success which its cleverness and its pluck, as well as its great importance at this crisis, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 611, September 17, 1887 • Various

... What pluck and dauntless courage possessed the "gallant little cripple" of Twickenham! When all the dunces of England were aiming their poisonous barbs at him, he said, "I had rather die at once, than live in fear of those rascals." A vast deal that has ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... you have. He is gratified that a young lady of quality should have the pluck to make a marriage of affection in a rank so far below her own, considering nothing but the personal worth of ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr

... Elsie? I was just going to ask about her, Jean. But who are those children with her? I thought you told me in one of your letters that she lived quite alone?" asked Grace, stooping down to pluck a bluebell from Geordie's grave, instead of hurrying after this old friend, as the little Grace ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae

... or carelessness might be set in its proper aspect and that the event might be sanctified to their spiritual good. Powers of darkness and of light were struggling for the possession of every soul, and it was the duty of parents, ministers, and teachers to lose no opportunity to pluck the children as brands from the burning." (Johnson Clifton, Old-Time ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY

... a little to increase the reputation in which the missionary was held as a "great medicine-man." The Blackfeet ascribed to his "medicine" what was really due to his pluck; and the Crees, when they learnt that he had been with their enemies during the fight, at once found in that fact a satisfactory explanation for the want of ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler

... of a poniard, or the thrust of a javelin, to silence his opposition for ever? Nay, were Front-de-Boeuf afraid to justify a deed so open, let the leech but give his patient a wrong draught—let the chamberlain, or the nurse who tends him, but pluck the pillow from his head, and Wilfred in his present condition, is sped without the ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... a fool, but he did not want for pluck. His first disposition was to give battle, beginning to call out for his men to come to his assistance, but I put an end to this, by seizing him by the collar, and dropping him, a little unceremoniously, down the companion-way. Half ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper

... a quick glance. The young sub began to recover from the astonishment and confusion caused by Nina's unexpected appearance and great beauty. "She was very beautiful and imposing," he reflected, "but after all a half-caste girl." This thought caused him to pluck up heart and look at Nina sideways. Nina, with composed face, was answering in a low, even voice the elder officer's polite questions as to the country and her mode of life. Almayer pushed his plate away and drank his guest's ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad

... twaddle isn't half as bad as the chaffing I get. It takes a deal of pluck to hold out when you are told you are tied to an apron string, and all that sort of thing," ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott

... did not betray the violent excitement of your mind, and if I did not sympathise with your condition from the bottom of my heart, I could in truth jest about the advocate Sand-man and weather-glass hawker Coppelius. Pluck up your spirits! Be cheerful! I have resolved to appear to you as your guardian-angel if that ugly man Coppola should dare take it into his head to bother you in your dreams, and drive him away with a good hearty laugh. I'm not afraid of him and his nasty hands, not ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... forfeited my bail. I have shown the estimate I put upon my duty by appearing to discharge you as my bail in the face of the indignity I have put upon you, and knowing full well what I was to encounter. Show half my pluck and it will serve you well. I am not yet your prisoner, and by the Eternal! I will not be till to-morrow, when I shall be content with that position. On your peril answer me. Will you fulfil your agreement? Will you be a man ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various

... idleness; he was strong and not afraid of work, and he could learn. Colonel Zane, who prided himself on his judgment of character, took a liking to the young man at once, and giving him a rifle and accoutrements, told him the border needed young men of pluck and fire, and that if he brought a strong hand and a willing heart he could surely find fortune. Possibly if Alfred Clarke could have been told of the fate in store for him he might have mounted his black steed and have placed miles between ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey

... 'uns," he said, nearly wringing my hand off in his approval. "You can't beat 'em for pluck. My missus is one of 'em, and she went bush with me when I'd nothing but a skeeto net and a quart-pot to share with her." Then, slapping the Maluka vigorously on the back, he told him he'd got some sense left. "You can't beat the little ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn

... were irreparably lost. Great and small, old and young, were carried away in the blaze of speculation. The frightened reptiles and beasts running in front to escape it were, it was thought, miserable fools who had not the pluck or sense to aid in setting speculation in Melbourne on fire. A fanciful picture on paper this? True, so was the great boom of 1887 merely a fanciful picture on paper. Had it been otherwise banks would not have failed, nor would families have ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss

... misjudged the courage and the pluck of two American boys like Thure Conroyal and Bud Randolph; and, judging from the scowls that disfigured their faces and the ugly light that flashed into their eyes, at the sight of Bud's actions, in their disappointment, they would show them ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil

... said one. "Call out to him, some one," suggested another. "You're nearest the window, Fraser," said another. Fraser was vice-captain of the second fifteen, and always touchy whenever his pluck was ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed

... silken scarf,—sweet with the dews Of precious flowers pluck'd in Araby, 410 And divine liquids come with odorous ooze Through the cold serpent-pipe refreshfully,— She wrapp'd it up; and for its tomb did choose A garden-pot, wherein she laid it by, And cover'd it ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats

... being simply man, Hath any honor; but honor for those honors That are without him, as place, riches, favor, Prizes of accident as oftas merit; Which when they fall, as being slippery standers, The love that leaned on them, as slippery too, Do one pluck down another, and together Die in the fall. But ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit

... live, and there is nothing else; for there is nothing hath it of itself. Can any boast of that which they have borrowed, and is not their own? As if the bird that had stolen from other birds its fair feathers should come forth and contend with them about beauty; would not they presently every one pluck out their own, and leave her naked, to be an object of mockery to all! Even so, since our breath and being is in our nostrils, and that depends upon his Majesty's breathing upon us, if he should but keep in his breath, as it were, we should vanish into nothing; he looketh upon man and he is ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... could hardly believe my eyes," said he, "but I always thought you would find some one to appreciate your pluck. I'm mighty glad for you, my lad, and you must always let me know how you are getting along." This Archie promised to do, and returned to ...
— The Adventures of a Boy Reporter • Harry Steele Morrison

... and good qualities. He was disposed to be at all times the friend of white men; as he ever was, the advocate of honorable peace. But when his country's wrongs "called aloud to battle," he became the thunderbolt of war; and made her oppressors feel the weight of his uplifted arm. He sought not to pluck the scalp from the head of the innocent, nor to war against the unprotected and defenceless; choosing rather to encounter his enemies, girded for battle, and in open conflict. His noble bearing,—his generous and disinterested attachment to the colonies, when the ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers

... we secured prahus and men, which enabled us to depart from our present encampment. There were some rapids to pass in which our collector of animals and birds nearly had his prahu swamped, and although it was filled with water, owing to his pluck nothing was lost. At Long Kai the lieutenant and Mr. Loing put up a long shed of tent material, while I placed my tent near friendly trees, at the end of a broad piece of road on the river bank, far enough from the ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz

... easy way out of it. But you took everything from me—first my hope of marrying you; then my chance of a big success in my career; and I was desperate—weak, if you like—and tried to deaden my feelings in order to keep up my pluck." ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton

... developed in Eric until that night at the Lone Star schoolhouse, when he had broken his violin across his knee. After that, the gloom of his people settled down upon him, and the gospel of maceration began its work. "If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out," et cetera. The pagan smile that once hovered about his lips was gone, and he was one with sorrow. Religion heals a hundred hearts for one that it embitters, but when it destroys, its work is quick and deadly, and where the agony of the cross has been, joy will not come ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather

... had snow storms, and at this moment the snow-plough is working to form a road for the church-going people. The grave-like stillness of night and winter spread itself with tempest speed over meadow and valley, and only a few cows wander now like spectres over the snow-covered fields, to pluck their scanty fare from the twigs which are not ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer

... rash hand in evil hour Forth reaching to the fruit, she pluck'd, she eat: Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat Sighing through all her works gave signs of woe, That ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey

... Captain Jeb, his mouth stretching into its crooked smile. "You're ruther young for it, I must admit. Still, I like your grit and pluck, younker. Most chaps like you are ready to suck at anything ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman

... dais, [230] with [231] a stair of some thirty steps. Above the dais thou [232] wilt find a lamp hung up; take it and pour out the oil that is therein and put it in thy sleeve; [233] and fear not for thy clothes therefrom, for that it [234] is not oil. And as thou returnest, thou mayst pluck from the trees what thou wilt, for that it is thine, what while the ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne

... Now you can listen. I'll give myself up, so theer! I'll tell the truth, an' what drove me to desert, an' what you be anyway—as goes ridin' out wi' the yeomanry so braave in black an' silver with your sword drawed! That'll spoil your market for pluck an' valour, anyways. An' when I've done all court-martial ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... realised the situation, his feelings may be imagined. His first look at the boy indicated vexation at his recklessness, followed by admiration at his pluck and thankfulness for his escape from almost certain death had the shot failed to reach a vital part. However, matters were soon arranged. A rail from a snake-fence was procured, the panther's legs were tied to it, and in this way he was borne to ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various

... friend's. "Here, Jack," he cried directly after, "shake hands too. Come, be a man. In less than six months those dull filmy eyes of yours will be flashing with health, and you'll be wondering that you could ever have sat gazing at me in this miserable woe-begone fashion. There, pluck up, my lad. You don't know what is before you in the strange lands we shall visit. Why, when your father and I were boys of your age, we should have gone wild with delight at the very anticipation of such a cruise, and rushed off to ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn

... tenderly, as Ellen's anxious face and glistening eyes were raised to hers, "if you love Jesus Christ, you may know you are his child, and none shall pluck you out ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell



Words linked to "Pluck" :   twang, gutlessness, undercharge, force, draw off, gouge, roll, rack, wring, pull together, pulling, squeeze, displume, extort, garner, cheat, rip off, draw, gather, strip, draw away, steal, fearlessness, deplumate, mushroom, charge, berry, collect, chisel, tweeze, bill



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