"Plucked" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... reflection, he battered his brains during this time in endeavoring to find out how Athos had seen King Charles, how he had conspired his departure with him, and lastly, how he had entered Monk's camp; and the poor lieutenant of musketeers plucked a hair from his mustache every time he reflected that the horseman who accompanied Monk on the night of the famous abduction must ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the sun sparkled on the Oxus stream. But in the gloom they fought, with bloodshot eyes And laboring breath; first Rustum struck the shield Which Sohrab held stiff out; the steel-spiked spear Rent the tough plates, but failed to reach the skin, And Rustum plucked it back with angry groan. Then Sohrab with his sword smote Rustum's helm, Nor clove its steel quite through; but all the crest He shore away, and that proud horsehair plume, Never till now denied, sank to the dust; And Rustum bowed his head; ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... have my letters,' said she calmly, while she took some freshly plucked flowers from a basket on her arm, and appeared to seek for something at ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... legs and arms together, and spare his own eyes and limbs; he doth by that very mercy to himself damn his eyes and limbs—and hath Christ's assurance that it would have been profitable for him rather to have plucked out his eyes, and chopt off his limbs, and so to have wriggled and groped his way through the 'Straight gate and the narrow way that leadeth unto life,' than having two eyes and two arms, or two legs, to be cast into Hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched, where their 'worm dieth ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... he should escape through the back door; at last, however, he plucked up his courage, and went out to ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... I put it forth and plucked, Then the deadly apple sucked. Long as woman looks on day, Shall she walk in ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... these opiate flowers On thy restless pillow,— They were plucked from Orient bowers, By the Indian billow. Be thy sleep Calm and deep, Like theirs who ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... made as though they were intercessors for him, and took him by the hands, and kissed his head and breast. Caesar at the first simply refused their kindness and entreaties: but afterwards, perceiving they still pressed on him, he violently thrust them from him. Then Cimber with both his hands plucked Caesar's gown over his shoulders, and Casca that stood behind him, drew his dagger first, and struck Caesar upon the shoulder, but gave him no great wound. Caesar feeling himself hurt, took him straight by the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... walked out, squaring his shoulders with a touch of bravado that did not impress even the plucked pigeon. Warrington stood listening until he heard the hall-door ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... planks, and rescued him from his perilous position. Much disheartened, he desired to return, and even thought of giving up the job; but Mr. Locke assured him that the worst part was now past; so the new resident plucked up heart again, and both floundered on until they reached the further edge of the Moss, wet and plastered over with bog-sludge. Mr. Dixon's companions endeavoured to comfort him by the assurance that he might avoid similar perils, by walking upon "pattens," ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... For it plucked at her sisterly pride in him that he should, even by implication, debase himself, noting inequality of station between himself and her. She held the worldly aspects of the matter in contempt. They angered ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... stems of a hill and pull them up. A great many of the potatoes are thus pulled, clinging to the stems and to one another in curious shapes,—long red things, and little round ones, imbedded in the earth which clings to the roots. These being plucked off, the rest of the potatoes are dug out of the hill with a hoe, the tops being flung into a heap for the cow-yard. On my way home, I paused to inspect the squash-field. Some of the squashes lay in heaps as they were gathered, presenting ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... was in company with me. Alas that I should never have found out how accurate an observer was measuring my sentiments, numbering the novels which I criticised, and speculating on the probability of my being plucked. "I was familiar with all the novels whose names he had ever heard." If so frightful an accusation did not stun me at once, I might perhaps hint at the possibility that this was to be attributed almost ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... Thorne,' said he cheerily, 'I have come to relieve you. Mrs Bold and my father are the last roses in the very delightful summer you have given us, and desirable as Mrs Bold's society always is, now at least you must be glad to see the last flowers plucked from the tree.' ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... reflect honour on her race. I know nothing about her save what has appeared in the public papers, but taking her exploration along with what was done by Mrs. Baker, no long time could have elapsed before the laurels for the modern re-discovery of the sources of the Nile should have been plucked by the ladies. In 1841 the Egyptian Expedition under D'Arnauld and Sabatier reached lat. 4 deg. 42': this was a great advance into the interior as compared with Linant in 1827, 13 deg. 30' N., and even on the explorations of Jomard(?); but it turned ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... reckoned on winning it from him, but the man was too cautious for that; and when Johnny had plucked all my feathers, won my ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... well known for his judgment in the great Church case, resided, shortly after the decision, in the neighbourhood of Forres. Men plucked each other by the sleeve as he passed along the street, and pointed with awe to the keen-witted lawyer who had caused such a kick-up in the realm. His most innocent doings were watched. One day he went into ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... Philip came up and plucked him by the sleeve. He gave him a piece of bread. Simon took it in order to give it ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... bowed heads beside our city shrines Ye sit 'neath shade of new-plucked olive-boughs. Our distant kin's resentment Heaven forefend! Let not this hap, unhoped and unforeseen, Bring war on us: ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... or even without that fetch her down on her knees and make her lick her own dust off the feet of Frenchmen, from that day forth all the nations of the earth must bow down before him. Russia, Prussia, Austria, Spain, though they might have had the power, never would have plucked the spirit up, to resist him hand in hand, any more than skittle-pins can back one another up ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... a grave in the ground with their paws, and buried the Draken so that Janni might not see their dead bodies. When Janni awoke, and saw his dogs all covered with blood, he believed that they had caught, somewhere, a wild beast, and was angry because they had left none of it for him. But he plucked the cherries, and took them ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... Diaconus, Zimisces, after ordering the wounded emperor to be dragged to his feet, and heaping him with insult, to which the miserable man only replied by invoking the name of the "mother of God," with his own hand plucked his beard, while his accomplices beat out his teeth with the hilts of their swords, and then trampling him to the ground, drove his sword into his skull. Leo Diac, in Niebuhr Byz. Hist. l vii. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... plucked at his thin, gray lips. "That is the error of mine, not yours. My mission is that all the universe ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... his legs, happening to direct her eyes towards the window, beheld a small bottle standing there—only half of whose dark contents were remaining. Oh gracious!—of course it must be POISON, and Mr. Titmouse must be dead!—In a sudden fright she dropped the kettle, plucked the clothes off the trembling Titmouse, and cried out—"Oh, Mr. Titmouse! Mr. Titmouse! what have ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... is a scoundrel, and I'm a fool—a pigeon, and he has plucked me. I swear he cheated. He played that very trick I was once warned about. Serve me right! But it's ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... time at school must. In fact, he was scarcely ever to lie at ease here again, till he came to take his final leave of it, lying at his length so. In brief holidays he rejoins his people, anywhere, anyhow, in a sort of hurry and makeshift:—Flos Parietis! thus carelessly plucked forth. Emerald Uthwart was born on such a day "at Chase Lodge, in ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... Telzey plucked a blade of grass, slipped the end between her lips and chewed it gently, her face puzzled and concerned. She wasn't ordinarily afflicted with nervousness. Fifteen years old, genius level, brown as a berry and not at all bad looking in her sunbriefs, she was the youngest ...
— Novice • James H. Schmitz
... intellectual green fruit of all the places in the world. I think so, at any rate. The demand for intellectual labor is so enormous and the market so far from nice, that young talent is apt to fare like unripe gooseberries—get plucked to make a fool of. Think of a country which buys eighty thousand copies of the "Proverbial Philosophy," while the author's admiring countrymen have been buying twelve thousand! How can one let his fruit hang in the sun until it gets fully ripe, while there are eighty thousand such hungry ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... never changed. Do you remember, Seraphina, on our way home, when you saw the roses in the lane, and I got out and plucked them? It was a narrow lane between great trees; the sunset at the end was all gold, and the rooks were flying overhead. There were nine, nine red roses; you gave me a kiss for each, and I told myself that every rose ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... last determination!" and drawing near him with a desperate and portentous countenance, as if she meant to whisper in his ear, she suddenly plucked St. Louis' dagger from his girdle and struck it into his breast. He caught the hand which grasped the hilt. Her eyes glared with the fury of a maniac, and, with a horrid laugh, she exclaimed: "I have ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... that there trumpet; and then we'll go aloft together, and, as soon as ever we have made our scrape to our betters, we'll both speak a good word for you and the lady, a very pretty lady she is, and a good-hearted, and the best plucked one I ever did see in any distressed craft; now don't ye cry, miss, don't ye cry, your trouble is pretty near over; he said you was not a hundred miles from land. I don't know how he knew that, he was always a better seaman than I be; but say it he ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... they told the Syren Tales (All ears were open then!) And the harps were afire with plucked desire For the white ash oars again— For oars and sail, and the open sea, High prow against pure blue, The good sea spray on eye and lip, The thrumming hemp, the rise and dip, The plunge and the roll of a driven ship As the old ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... anxious to bring to bear his superior strength, spurred close to Muza; and, leaving his sword pendant by a thong to his wrist, seized the shield of Muza in his formidable grasp, and plucked it away, with a force that the Moor vainly endeavoured to resist: Muza, therefore, suddenly released his bold; and, ere the Spaniard had recovered his balance (which was lost by the success of his own strength, put forth to the utmost), he dashed upon him the hoofs ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... eight feet of manhood through the lowlands of Scotland, and the passes of the Grampians. He had seen Severus pass away, and had soldiered with his son. He had fought in Armenia, in Dacia, and in Germany. They had made him a centurion upon the field when with his hands he plucked out one by one the stockades of a northern village, and so cleared a path for the stormers. His strength had been the jest and the admiration of the soldiers. Legends about him had spread through the army and were the common gossip round the camp fires—of his duel with the ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... drover's boy, a thick-set youth of herculean strength, came forth from the group in which he had been standing unnoticed, and held up toward the window a goose all plucked and impaled on a stout iron spit, decorated with bunches of straw ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... plastered and papered ceilings and walls and ample windows gave to the inside of the house a modern air which its mistress deeply regretted, but accepted mournfully as a necessary evil. But she did not allow a weed or a blade of grass to be plucked from its roof; and upon the suggestion that the old brown adobe walls should be treated to a coat of gray plaster she frowned as if it had ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... so," replied Ruth, arranging the dry sticks. "He toils hard, but not for gold and gain, to find the right words. You are always wanting to know what he is looking for in his big books, so I plucked up courage to ask him, and now I know. I suppose he saw I was astonished, for he smiled just as he does when you have asked some foolish question at lessons, and added that a word was no trifling thing and should not be despised, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... to grope in total darkness through this world; never to look upon the bright sky, the green fields; never to see the faces of loved ones; but what was it in comparison to the loss of a soul? I would rather have my eyes plucked out of my head and go down to my grave in total ...
— Moody's Anecdotes And Illustrations - Related in his Revival Work by the Great Evangilist • Dwight L. Moody
... after the custom of men on beaten trails, threw my snowshoes the one way and a couple of dogs the other, and so made room for himself by the fire. Said he'd just dropped in to borrow a pinch of soda and to see if I had any decent tobacco. He plucked forth an ancient pipe, loaded it with painstaking care, and, without as much as by your leave, whacked half the tobacco of my pouch into his. Yes, the stuff was fairly good. He sighed with the contentment of the just, and ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... time there lived a young man who vowed that he would never marry any girl who had not royal blood in her veins. One day he plucked up all his courage and went to the palace to ask the emperor for his daughter. The emperor was not much pleased at the thought of such a match for his only child, but being very ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various
... two Peot [1] were raven black and hung down like ropes by the side of his face. Old as he was, his cheeks showed only tufts of beard here and there, on account of his habit of plucking the hairs out one by one when he was absorbed in thought, not to mention those plucked out by his wife without the excuse of thinking. His black cap shone like a buttered roll, his linen shirt was neither an Egyptian nor a Swiss fabric, and his chest, overgrown with long black hair, always showed ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... shall rob the aged hero of his crown. No chaplet worn by a Roman conqueror in the hour of his brightest triumph, rivals the coronal that Pastor Paul sees flashing before his eyes. It is a crown blazing with stars; every star an immortal soul plucked from the darkness of sin into the light and liberty of a child of God. Poor, is he? He is making many rich. Despised is he? He wouldn't change places with Caesar. Homeless is he? His citizenship is in heaven, where he will find myriads whom he can meet and say to them: "Ye, ye are my glory and ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them. Their fingers, from excessive toil, are too clumsy and tremble too much for that. Actually, the laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day; he cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... on. Once the dreadful storm seemed to have passed, and it even grew considerably lighter. Will plucked up fresh hope, believing the end had come, and that they could soon be on their way to camp, to reach there at ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... obserue them solempnly. But the women of Barcea absteine bothe from cowe fleshe and sowe flesh. When their children are iiii. yeare olde they vse to cauterise them on the coron [Footnote: Query, frontal.] vaine (and some on the temple also) with a medecine for that purpose, made of woolle as it is plucked fro the shiepe: because thie should not at any time be troubled with rheumes or poses, [Footnote: A local name for a cold in the head. (See N. Bailey's Dict., vol. i.)] and by that meanes they say they liue in very good health. Thei sacrifie ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... moral barriers. They walked through the paths of wickedness with the serenity with which they would have trod the ways of righteousness; seeing no boundary, exercising their psychic limbs equally in the open and permitted spaces and in the forbidden. They plucked the fruit of evil without a glance behind them, without a desperate setting of their teeth; plucked it openly, calmly, as they would have plucked the blackberries in the hedge; bit into it, ate it, with ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... went to Philadelphia and plunged into scenes of vice for a week or two; but she quickly repented, and was rescued by her friends. I have seldom seen Friend Hopper so deeply pained as he was by this retrograde step in one whom he had rejoiced over, "as a brand plucked from the burning." After awhile, he addressed a letter to her, in which he says: "I should have written to thee before, but I have been at a loss what to say. I have cared for thee, as if thou hadst been my own child. Little did I think thou wouldst ever disgrace thyself, and ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... affection, and unselfish love, and tender wishes as pure as prayers. I shall always remember the evening when I found the white heather on the moorland above Glen Ericht. Or, rather, it was not I that found it (for I have little luck in the discovery of good omens, and have never plucked a four-leaved clover in my life), but my companion, the gentle Mistress of the Glen, whose hair was as white as the tiny blossoms, and yet whose eyes were far quicker than mine to see and name every flower that bloomed ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... Bill reached over, plucked him to his feet, and shook him, fiercely, silently. Then he dropped the bundle of quivering nerves and turned his attention to the two converts. But they showed little fright and a cheerful alacrity in preparing for ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... could reach him, Morgan Fenwolf plucked a long hunting-knife from his girdle, and made a desperate stab at his assailant. But Clamp avoided the blow, and striking Fenwolf on the shins, ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... movement, she had plucked something out of his shoulder. A smart came into his eyes; it was as if a lock of hair had been pulled out by the roots. "Look at this, Goosie," she said with forced calmness, and placed something in ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... Nature's university, who learn the laws which govern men and things and obey them, are the really great and successful men in this world. The great mass of mankind are the "Poll," who pick up just enough to get through without much discredit. Those who won't learn at all are plucked; and then you can't come up again. Nature's pluck ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... the wine that ripened in the sun when he himself was but a little boy, and he held it a moment to the light; the juice was clearer now than it had been that day sixty years, and the hand that held the goblet was as a hand of iron for strength and steadiness, though the dark fingers might have plucked the grapes on the day they were pressed. And with an old-time motion he carried it to his lips, then paused one instant, then drank it slowly, slowly to the last drop. It was a toast, but the speech was unspoken, ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... Oriental fancy, or with the childlike, earnest faith in what is utterly outside the limits of experience. It belongs to that infancy of the world, when the happy guileless human being still holds that somewhere there is a flower to be plucked, a lamp to be rubbed, or a form of words to be spoken which will reverse the humdrum laws of Nature, call up unwilling spirits bound to incredible services, and change all this brown life of ours to scarlet ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... came to a big walled house, with turrets and grated casements,—very big it looked to him,—like one of the first Findelkind's own castles. His heart beat loud against his side, but he plucked up his courage, and knocked as loud ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... his aspect swart and grim; His belt to bear a long broad-sword did serve, His eye was bold, his nose did fiercely curve Down which he snorted oft and (what is worse) Beneath his breath gave vent to many a curse. Whereat the Duke, sly laughing, plucked lutestring And thus, in voice ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... This vervain was used for religious purposes, and plucked up by the roots from consecrated ground; it was carried by ambassadors ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... rather than to Wyatt, and again his eyes narrowed. Blue eyes are generally warm and sympathetic, but his were of the cold, metallic shade that can express cruelty so well. He plucked, too, at his short, light beard, and Braxton Wyatt read his thoughts. The renegade felt a thrill of satisfaction. Here was a man who could ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... to have had a man's road to Providence lead past the garden gate. I make acknowledgement. And mine? I think it is like one of those squat, heathen, Satsuma vases, inlaid with distorted figures and symbols and toned in all luridness of color, into which has been tossed a poor sort of flower plucked from any bush the owner happened to pass, which has been salted down in frivolity—or perhaps something stronger. I'll keep the lid on to-night, ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... in the ground, when it forthwith grew up seven cubits, at which height it remained, neither increasing nor diminishing. The Brahmans, with their contrary doctrines, became angry and jealous. Sometimes they cut the tree down, sometimes they plucked it up, and cast it to a distance, but it grew again on the same spot as at first. Here also is the place where the four Buddhas walked and sat, and at which a tope was ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... ground, hoping to receive a blow, that he might stab, in return, for he wished the killing to appear as if done in self-defence. Stung by his insolence, Kamehameha did knock him down: a good, stout blow, well won. So soon as he had recovered his wits and got upon his feet the priest plucked out his long bone knife and made a stroke, but the priestess of the temple, her eyes blazing with anger at this trespass, caught his wrist and cried, "Down to your knees! Ask pardon of your future king and mercy of ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... injustice. They have understood in a popular sense all those strong terms of self-condemnation which he employed in a theological sense. They have, therefore, represented him as an abandoned wretch, reclaimed by means almost miraculous, or, to use their favourite metaphor, "as a brand plucked from the burning." Mr. Ivimey calls him the depraved Bunyan and the wicked tinker of Elstow. Surely Mr. Ivimey ought to have been too familiar with the bitter accusations which the most pious people are in the habit of bringing against themselves, to understand literally ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... this rule, which would be better than whom, in the following text: "I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them an other little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots."—Daniel, vii, 8. In Rom., ix, 33, there is something similar: "Behold, I lay in Sion a stumbling-stone and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed." ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... stooped and plucked a lily that grew at his feet. On its white leaves there hung three drops of clear dew. And the dwarf shook them into the flask which Gluck held in his hand. "Cast these into the river," he said, "and descend ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... warm here, if that is news, and as an evidence I inclose some violets I plucked in the yard of a deserted house I occupy. I wish I could see you and give them in person.... Good-bye, my precious child. Give much love to ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... think it a crime to listen. Let them then, or far rather, let those who are in danger of infection from them, attend to the golden aphorisms of the old and orthodox divines. "Sentences in scripture (says Dr. Donne) like hairs in horses' tails, concur in one root of beauty and strength; but being plucked out, one by one, serve only ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... said. "I insist on your taking the whole bird. They are quite small, and I was disappointed when I saw them plucked, and a bit of cold ham and a savoury is all the rest of your dinner. Mary asked me if I wouldn't have an apple tart as well, but I said 'No; the Colonel never touches sweets, but he'll have a partridge, a whole partridge,' I said, 'and he won't complain of his dinner.' ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... did not come a step nearer, only grew fiercer in his final utterances; and at last Salaman stepped forward, just as I was trying hard to keep from laughing, and plucked the ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... Moors), would have stripped him, though, he had nothing on but a plain waistcoat and breeches, if we had not plucked up a little spirit and opposed them; upon which they thought proper to desist. The people continued to come ashore, though many perished in the attempt. The Moors, at length, growing tired with waiting for so little plunder, ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... earnestness and mother wit, however, Parliament refused to pass the bill (in 1825), and for the moment the engineer's vexation was bitter to behold. He and his friends plucked up heart, however; they were fighting the winning battle against prejudice and obstruction, and they were sure to conquer in the long run. The line was resurveyed by other engineers; the lands of the hostile owners were avoided; the causes of offence were ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... which occasionally sparkled in the dull quartz of his plentiful output. Nevertheless, so manly was his bearing, so dogged his defence, that he always gained a respectful hearing; and supporters of the Government plucked up heart when, after a display of dazzling rhetoric by Grattan or Plunket, the young aristocrat drew up his tall figure, squared his chest, flung open his coat, and plunged into the unequal contest. Courage ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... fury of the scene fascinated man and beast. The streaming lines of people raced on, and the horse snorted and plunged into the mass. Now the crackling as of paper burning in a brisk wind could be heard. There was a shout from the crowd. The flames had gained the Peristyle—that noble fantasy plucked from another, distant life and planted here above the barbaric glow of the lake in the lustrous atmosphere of Chicago. The horseman holding his restive steeds drove in a sea of flame. Through the empty arches the dark waters of the lake caught the reflection and ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... was a lover. I was for ever crowned with leis by him, and he had his runners bring me leis all the way from the rose-gardens of Mana—you remember them; fifty miles across the lava and the ranges, dewy fresh as the moment they were plucked, in their jewel-cases of banana bark; yard-long they were, the tiny pink buds like threaded beads of Neapolitan coral. And at the luaus" (feasts) the for ever never- ending luaus, I must be seated on Lilolilo's Makaloa mat, the Prince's mat, his alone and taboo ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... plucked the purse from his girdle, and quoth he, "Here in this purse are six marks. Now, I would fain be a butcher for the day and sell my meat in Nottingham Town. Wilt thou close a bargain with me and take six marks ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... shibboleths of the youngsters playing in the fields prior to harvest-time. That they dread the wavy movement of the grain-laden stalks is certain, and the red poppy, the blue cornflower, the yellow dandelion, and the marguerite daisy, although plucked by tiny hands on the fringe of the fields, it is not often tiny feet trample down the golden stalks. At nightfall, in Germany, an old peasant, observing the gentle undulating motion of the ripe crop while seated ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green
... was to conquer a passion, but of one who, by that same self-constituted code, now burns to atone for a disappointed crime. There is no one to help her against him or against herself. Jane had no friends to stand by her at the altar, and she has none to support her now she is plucked away from it. There is no one to be offended or disgraced at her following him to the sunny land of Italy, as he proposes, till the maniac should die. There is no duty to any one but to herself, and this feeble reed quivers ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... ever out at sea, and looked over a somewhat stormy water, you will have noticed, I dare say, how strangely the white crests of the breakers disappear, as if some force, acting from beneath, had plucked them under, and over the spot where they gleamed for a moment runs the blue sea. So the waves break over the great ocean of time; I might say, like swimmers pulled under by sharks, man after man, man after man, gets twitched down, till at the end—'Joseph died, and all his brethren, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... think will grieve or vex you." "Ah, John! not even on pain of death is there a man to whom I should dare to say that concerning which I wish to seek counsel of thee; rather would I let my eyes be plucked out. Rather would I that thou shouldst kill me than that thou shouldst say it to any other man. But I find thee so loyal and prudent, that I will tell thee what is in my heart. Thou wilt accomplish my pleasure well, as I think, as regards both thy aid and thy silence." ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes
... officer, who had disappeared in the shrubbery, whether he had or had not been a spectator of the scene, exhibited some signs of agitation. He walked rapidly on, occasionally switching the air with a wand of willow, from which he had impatiently plucked the leaves, through an alley of ceanothus, until he reached a little thicket of evergreens, which seemed to oppose his further progress. Turning to one side, however, he quickly found an entrance to a labyrinthine walk, which led ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte
... evident failure, but there was no reason why, with a little application, she should not make it serve her purpose as a school. The lack of tuition was its one great drawback; there seemed no signs whatsoever of the promised shorthand lessons. Finally Joan plucked up her courage one morning in the second week, and ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... the universe), the "Great Mother,"—the originator of all things, Vari-ma-te-takere, "the very beginning,"—and her pet child, Tu-metua, "Stick by the parent," her last offspring, inseparable from her. All of her children were born of pieces of flesh which she plucked off her own body; the first-born was the man-fish Vatea, "father of gods and men," whose one eye is the sun, the other the moon; the fifth child was Raka, to whom his mother gave the winds in a basket, and "the children of Raka are the numerous winds and storms which distress mankind. ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... carry her off. Gianni replied that there was nought that would give him so much pleasure, and that without fail, upon leaving her, he would make all needful arrangements for bringing her away when he next came. Whereupon with exceeding great delight they embraced one another, and plucked that boon than which Love has no greater to bestow; and having so done divers times, they unwittingly fell asleep in ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... Waddington, or some of his tools, dropped a bomb where it might have done us some injury, but Professor Bumper, who was a fellow passenger, on his way to South America to look for the lost city of Pelone, calmly picked up the bomb, plucked out the fuse, and saved us from bad injuries, if not death. And he was as cool about it as an ice-cream cone. Surely ...
— Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders - or, The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold • Victor Appleton
... by Jess from Edinburgh and with the motto "Mak' yersel' at hame," on it in cream-colored letters. It was usually a receptacle for flowers, but it had been hastily washed for the occasion and filled with lemonade, a rather bitter brew concocted by Peachy and Delia from a half-ripe lemon plucked in the garden and a few lumps of sugar saved from tea. This was passed round, and the Camellia Buds gulped it heroically as ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... thought to do. But I hadn't hardly started to teach her the principles of conversation and the branches of relationships and kindred of the big people of the earth, when she plucked off the coverings I had put over the cages, and set open their doors, till the fiery birds of Sabes and the canaries of the eastern world were screeching around my head, giving out every ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... manner above narrated, he was chosen unanimously as the captain of the fleet, and he was a worthy pupil of a worthy master. Many were the poor fluttering merchant ducks that this sea hawk swooped upon and struck; and cleanly and cleverly were they plucked before his savage clutch loosened its hold ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... where the daffodils were plucked, I'd like to swear to that. Look, they were all pulled together by one hand. Somebody leaned over and ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... that she hesitated, saw a nervous uneasiness in her manner as she plucked with quick fingers at the hem of her apron. "She ain't ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... piled-up treasures of uncounted cycles. They unfolded the book of the skies, and sought to read the records thereon. They plunged into the unknown and terrible ocean, and decked their own brows with the gems they plucked from hers. And when conquered Nature had laid her hoards at their feet, their restless longings would not be satisfied. Brave young spirits, with the dew of their youth fresh upon them, set out in quest of a land beyond their ken. Over the mountains, across the seas, through the forests, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Then the others plucked up their spirits, too, and crowded round her, asking a dozen questions, and all at the same time; and for the sake of peace and quiet Cherry told them her wonderful adventures from the day she left them, and, as was to be expected, not one ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... lose time in talking to a squaw, as you call us. Haste! or your bell-flower will be plucked and crushed, like that which you wear so proudly upon your breast. The wolf has slept in the lair of the forest deer: the yellow fawn will be his victim! Su-wa-nee joys at it: ha, ha, ha! Hers will not be the only heart wrung by the villainy of the false pale-face. Ha, ha, ha! Go, brave ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... into the half-pot of mead he thrust me. And might well have drowned in this drink of men—I who had never known a mother's breast in the briefness of time I had lived—had it not been for Lingaard. But when he plucked me forth from the brew, Tostig Lodbrog struck him down in a rage. We rolled on the deck, and the great bear hounds, captured in the fight with the North Danes ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... lovers are not worthy of even its earthly aspect, it palls upon them, and they grow weary, not of love, but of their lack of it. The want of the heavenly in it has caused it to perish: it had no salt. From those that have not is taken away that which they have. Love without religion is the plucked rose. Religion without love—there is no such thing. Religion is the bush that bears all the roses; for religion is the natural condition of man in relation to the eternal facts, that is the truths, of his own ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... describe SYBIL'S frock, in which she looks like a great strawberry that knows it ought to be plucked; or would it be easier to watch the coming of JOHN? Let ...
— What Every Woman Knows • James M. Barrie
... talking of the American war, and when the captain had asked the usual question, "Quando finira mai questa guerra?" and I had responded as usual, "Ah, ci vuol pazienza!" the captain gave a heavy sigh, and turning his head pensively aside, plucked his grapes from the cluster ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... guide along the row of charcoal fires, through a dingy room decorated with shining coppers and bits of glass and silver. These ice-boxes were such as to offer continual delight to any epicure, what with their rows of fat clean fishes and crabs and oysters, the birds nicely plucked, all the dainties which this rich market of the South could afford, from papabotte to terrapin. Helena herself selected two woodcock and approved the judgment of Jean in canvasback. Presently she turned to me, a flush of ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... the happy heart's garden, Plucked in the spirit of love; Blooms that are earthly reflections Of flowers that blossom above. Words cannot tell what a measure Of blessing such gifts will allow To dwell in the lives of many, So ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... venerable place: Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway, And fools who came to scoff remained to pray. The service past, around the pious man, With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran; Even children followed with endearing wile, And plucked his gown to share the good man's smile. His ready smile a parent's warmth expressed; Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distressed; To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given, But all ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... had great iron teeth; it devoured and broke in pieces and stamped the rest with its feet; and it differed from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns. I gave attention to the horns, and behold another little horn came up amongst them, before which three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots; and behold, in this horn were eyes, like the eyes of a man, and a mouth ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... talking, after the fashion of the country, with not a bite of food in the house. When their own desires begin to reinforce the clamors of the children, they will start out at the eleventh hour to find an errand or an odd bit of work. There may be a single squash on the roof vine waiting to be plucked and to yield its few centavos, or they can go out to the beach and dig a few ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... sped their flight— Still in that theft of sweet delight Exult the happy pair; Caress will never pall caress, And joys that gods might envy, bless The single bride-night there. Ah! never he has rapture known, Who has not, where the waves are driven Upon the fearful shores of hell, Plucked fruits ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... was still at his government office, and her mother had gone out to the market to buy the supper. She would much rather her mother had been at home to show the gentleman the rooms; but, knowing that they could not afford to lose a chance to rent them, she plucked up courage, and, candle in hand, showed him through the suite. When he came next day with his baggage, he learned for the first time what manner of apartments he had engaged; for although he had protracted the investigation the previous evening ...
— Lost - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... moment, a ragged child who was coming down through the Rue Menilmontant, holding in his hand a branch of blossoming laburnum which he had just plucked on the heights of Belleville, caught sight of an old holster-pistol in the show-window ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... people seem to think a style can be put off or on, not like a skin but like a coat. Is not a skin verily a product and close kinsfellow of all that lies under it, exact type of the nature of the beast, not to be plucked off without flaying and death? The Public is an old woman. Let her ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... who get plucked there," said my companion after we had left,—a man who had known Carlyle intimately for many years; "silly persons who have no veneration for the great man, and come to convert him or to change his convictions upon subjects to which he has devoted a lifetime ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... possessor indifferent to everything else. For a man without this heavenly stamp to engage in literature was simply for him to rush upon his fate, and become a public nuisance. Literature in its very nature is precarious, and must be plucked from the brink of fate, from the mouth of the dragon. The literary man runs the risk of being destroyed in a thousand ways. He has no track laid, no instituted aids, no specified course of action. The machineries of life are not for him. He enters into no one of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... between them, and take him simply and sincerely as I know she does, as the contemporary of her soul if not of her body. I saw none of that. Could I, as his mother? Would he show it to me? I thought him just a charming boy, clever, too, of course, with nice instincts and well plucked; we were always proud of that, with his delicate physique. Just a boy! I haven't yet stopped thinking how different he looks without his curls. And I thought she would be just kind and gracious and delightful to him because he ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... that the Russian troops had plucked the laurels which the French had gained in Italy from their brows. Thus situated the French government sent Massena across the Alps, together with generals Soult, Oudinot, and Brune, to refix the national banners on the banks of the Po. Their efforts were vain; Massena was finally ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... but was wholly surprised by it; and when the Ricksdag were met, my Chancellor thus excusing himself, there was nobody appointed by me to declare to them the cause of their meeting; but rather than the Assembly should be put off, and nothing done, I plucked up my spirits the best I could, and spake to them on the sudden as you heard, although much to ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... next time he saw Ortensia it was a little different, and after that the difference became greater, and at last very great indeed, till he no longer recognised the familiar turnings in light love's short path, and the pretty flowers he had so often plucked by the way did not grow on each side within easy reach, and the fruit of the garden seemed endlessly far away, though he knew it was hidden somewhere, far sweeter than any he had tasted yet. For it was a maiden's ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... surprised at the turn the conversation had taken. No woman, not even Miss Gannion, had ever dared question to him the wisdom of his choice, or imply to him that there were laurels which he had not yet plucked. Strange to say, he rather enjoyed the frank fashion in which Beatrix was taking him to task. Nevertheless, he ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... admitted. "It was born to be plucked, and I suppose our crowd does do the plucking more scientifically ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... been abominably frightened; I was shocked besides: my delicacy was in arms, like a lady to whom violence should have been offered by a similar monster. I plucked myself from his horrid contact, I snatched the pistol—even discharged, it was a formidable weapon—and menaced him with the butt. "Spare you!" ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... smiled. And the smile of him Was like the sun for power. But he only pointed: bade them heed Those peasants of the Berkshire breed, Who plucked the old Horse of the weed As they pluck ...
— The Ballad of the White Horse • G.K. Chesterton |
