"Prying" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the companion of persons distinguished for their virtue, birth, high fashion, rank, or wit, and resident in the centre of all public information and intelligence; every avenue to knowledge, and every mode of observation were open to his curious, prying, piercing, and ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... of tradition throw light upon the daily life of the young Register of the Land Office. All point to the fact that politics was his absorbing interest. He had no avocations; he had no private life, no esoteric tastes which invite a prying curiosity; he had no subtle aspects of character and temperament which sometimes make even commonplace lives dramatic. His life was lived in the open. Lodging at the American Tavern, he was always seen in company with other men. Diller's drug-store, near the old ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... period of calm, was now profoundly uncomfortable. This kind of prying was the last thing she had expected. She had come prepared to defend Grant, but, beyond one exceedingly personal reference, the detective had studiously shut ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... wicked women those secret designs of his providence, which no human wisdom is able to foresee. To consult these false oracles is not only foolish, but sinful. It is foolish, because they are themselves as ignorant as those whom they pretend to teach; and it is sinful, because it is prying into that futurity which God, in mercy as well as ...
— Stories for the Young - Or, Cheap Repository Tracts: Entertaining, Moral, and Religious. Vol. VI. • Hannah More
... journey of thirty hours from Paris brought me one fine afternoon in the early part of July to Kulstein, an ancient fortress forming the frontier-town of the North Tyrol, toward Bavaria. While occupied in passing my portmanteau through the prying and unutterably dirty hands of the custom-house officials I was accosted by a man dressed in the garb of a Tyrolese mountaineer—short leathern breeches reaching to the knee, gray stockings, heavy hobnailed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... some nations could be no longer kept from prying into learning, this miserable gibberish of the schools was contrived." We have exploded schoolmen as much as he, and in some people's opinion too much, since the liberty of embracing any opinion is allowed. They following Aristotle, who is doubtless the greatest master of arguing in the world: But ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... too, how much more snug and comfortable is the house, shut in from the prying winds and shivering cold of the outside air, which the opposite outer doors of an open hall cannot, in their continual opening and shutting, altogether exclude! Our own experience, and, we believe, the experience of most housekeepers will readily concede its ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... the woman's emotion. "Miss Maclaire," he said gravely. "I am not prying into your life needlessly, but am endeavoring to serve you as well as others. Hawley may indeed possess papers of great value, but if so they were not found by accident, but stolen from the body of a murdered man. These papers may possibly refer to ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... quivering, This flame, this ether, This glad rush of blood, This daylight in my heart, This glow of sympathy in my palms! Thou blind, loving, all-prying touch, Thou openest the ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... man himself), that I crushed his fingers on purpose. That's a lie! With the open cupboard door between us, how could I see him, or he see me? When I gave it a push-to, I no more knew where his hand was, than you do. If I meant anything, I meant to slap his face for prying about in my room. We've made out a writing between us, to show to the doctors. You shall have a copy, in case you're asked about it. Now for the other matter. You keep on telling me I shall fall ill myself, if I don't get a person to help me with Carmina. Make your mind ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... had installed myself in quiet quarters on the Mittelstrasse, and Kim, who had been transformed from a Basuto boy into an efficient man servant, looked after my comforts. To secure myself from the questions of prying neighbors, I had caused it to be known that I was a retired South African planter inclined to poor health. This was the most likely explanation for my curious mode of living and my sudden periodical disappearances, for I ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... 1637-1703. This famous diarist was the son of a London tailor. He received a collegiate education, and became a connoisseur in literature and art. Of a prying disposition, he saw all that he could of the varied political, literary, and social life of England; and has recorded what he saw in a diary so quaint, simple, and amusing, that it has retained its popularity to the present day, and has greatly aided ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... the name for you; There's no better title that describes the things you do: Into something all the while where you shouldn't be, Prying into matters that are not for you to see; Little Master Mischievous, order's overthrown If your mother leaves you for a ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... logs between 55 and 65 on the dial and gives the radio a signal BARELY AUDIBLE in the speaker WITH the VOLUME control FULL ON. A small snap button cap is located in the end of the receiver case beside the antenna lead connection. Remove the snap button cap by prying with a ...
— Delco Manuals: Radio Model 633, Delcotron Generator - Delco Radio Owner's Manual Model 633, Delcotron Generator Installation • Delco-Remy Division
... families, and all their connections and followers, and his life would be placed in imminent danger. They would be all the more bitter against him, inasmuch as the discovery would not have been made by accident, but by an act of deliberate prying into matters which concerned him in no way, he not being a citizen of ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... seemed to you intolerably prying and officious," I said, "well, at any rate, Jones, there's my excuse. It rests with you to give me Freddy or take her from me. Turn back, and you'll make me the happiest man alive; ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... come out to do some thinking. He believed, in spite of a good deal of evidence to the contrary, that his best ideas came to him while walking. At any rate, it was a way of getting away from four walls and from the prying eyes and anxious looks of superiors. He sighed gently, crammed his hat onto his head ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett
... preceding night, and bitterly did he regret having yielded to a curiosity which had cost the unfortunate Sambo so much. He judged correctly that they had been followed in their nocturnal excursion, and that it was the face of some prying visitant which Sambo's superstitious dread had transformed into a hideous vision of the past. He recalled the insuperable aversion the old man had ever entertained to approach of even make mention of the spot, and greatly did he blame himself for having persisted in offering a violence to ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... chief, on one of these pieces of matting, the dwarf was regaling himself in the parlour, with bread and cheese and beer, when he observed without appearing to do so, that a boy was prying in at the outer door. Assured that it was Kit, though he saw little more than his nose, Mr Quilp hailed him by his name; whereupon Kit came in and demanded ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... disappointed ambition. He seemed to feel deeply the degradation of his situation. Shorn of power among his people, compelled to acknowledge the authority of his rival, and bending beneath the infirmities of age, it is not singular that he should shrink from the prying gaze of curiosity, and sigh for the deep seclusion of ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake
... in just a moment, boys!" he called. "I'm looking for something to use in prying apart those beams. They're pretty heavy, and I've got to work all alone. I'll ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... any one who goes meddling in my brush cupboard now that I've just put all in order against the prying and nozzling of the good-for-nothing baggage what's coming along ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... family of sir Pertinax and lady McSycophant. She is a sly, prying tale-bearer, who hates Constantia (the beloved of Egerton McSycophant), simply because every one else loves her.—C. Macklin, The Man ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... happened to find in D'Hozier's dictionary, which was in the library, and which strengthened his belief in their truth, and in the high-breeding of Rebecca. Are we to suppose from this curiosity and prying into dictionaries, could our heroine suppose that Mr. Crawley was interested in her?—no, only in a friendly way. Have we not stated that he was ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... into the next village; where entring the inn, we saw a great many others that had also struck in, to avoid the storm. The throng kept us from being taken notice of, and gave us the opportunity of prying here and there, what we might filch in a crowd, when Ascyltos, unheeded of any one, took a purse from the ground, in which he found several pieces of gold; we leap'd for joy at so fortunate a beginning; but fearing, lest some or other might seek after it, we slunk ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... an insolence to which she would not submit. She thought she discovered a certain antagonism amongst those with whom she presently came into contact, and the opposition developed character. Pride came to her aid. No doubt some peeping Tom or prying woman had been witness to the theft of kisses. In that case the incident would now be a theme of conversation in the cabins. She could not trust Mrs. Macdougal to withhold from the gossips a single word of their conversation. ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... on the rocks, alone by the sea, on that stormy day of December, and I indulged my grief where no prying eyes could witness it, amid the solitude of wild and angry Nature. And the moan and thud with which the great waves hurled themselves against the base of the black rock on which I was perched afforded but a feeble echo of the storm that raged and ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... full-dress lieutenant's coat, white trousers, and a cap with a tall feather, he looked upon himself as a most exalted personage, and for the whole of the first day remained on board, impatiently, but in vain, prying into each boat that left the shore for the dusky forms of some of his quondam friends. His pride, however, could not long withstand the desire of display. Yielding to the impulse of vanity he, early the following ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... and once, with as few details as possible, when he had an interview with the widow of the murderer, the beloved of the victim. The particulars of this interview he never divulged, for he considered Emily's grief too sacred to be exposed to the prying eyes of the curious and the unfeeling. She left the neighborhood immediately, leaving her worldly affairs in Wensleben's hands, who soon disposed of the property for her. She returned to her native country, with the resolution ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... house or not. The gentleman with the drooping, cream-separator mustache was at perfect liberty to use the common drinking cup on the railroad train. The appendix lurked in its snug retreat, undisturbed by the prying fingers of curiosity. The fever-bearing skeeter buzzed and flitted, stinging where he pleased. The germ theory was unfathomed. Suitable food for an invalid was anything the invalid could afford to buy. Fresh air, ...
— "Speaking of Operations—" • Irvin S. Cobb
... no real difference to him—it was not love of family that kept him from leaving the dirty, crowded little flat. It was the protection of a family, with its pseudo-respectability, that he wanted. It was the locked room, which no one would think of prying into, that ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster
... degree protected from the wind and rain, the traveler threw his valise over his arm, and knocked loudly at the entrance of the building for admission. An aged black soon appeared; and without seeming to think it necessary, under the circumstances, to consult his superiors,—first taking one prying look at the applicant, by the light of the candle in his hand,—he acceded to the request for accommodations. The traveler was shown into an extremely neat parlor, where a fire had been lighted to cheer the dullness of an easterly storm and an October ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... blossoms arranged in the big jar—the tops of their branches reaching the water-stained roof; a canvas for a half-length tacked on a stretcher and placed on an improvised easel, Adam began prying into the dark corners for a seat for his model, Olivia following his every movement, her eyes twice their usual size in ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... a question. "Dear mamma, don't think me prying, but is Potter's the only pressing obligation ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... the room by the veranda door, because he bade me do so, to avoid what he termed 'the prying of servants.' I broke some clusters of chrysanthemums blooming in the rose garden, to carry to my mother, and then I hurried away. If the wages of disobedience be death, then fate reversed the mandate, and obedience exacts my life as a forfeit. Think of it: I had ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... intellectual; seeker [inquirer after religious knowledge], seeker after truth. V. be curious &c adj.; take an interest in, stare, gape; prick up the ears, see sights, lionize; pry; nose; rubberneck [U.S.]. Adj. curious, inquisitive, burning with curiosity, overcurious; inquiring &c 461; prying, snoopy, nosy, peering; prurient; inquisitorial, inquisitory^; curious as a cat; agape &c (expectant) 507. Phr. what's the matter? what next? consumed with curiosity; curiosity killed the cat, satisfaction brought it back. curiouser ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... and uncomfortable, and Gregory resolved to make his easy-chair by the parlor fire the point from which he would watch the development of this domestic drama. He had no vulgar, prying curiosity, but an absorbing interest in the chief actor; and was compelled to admit that the being whom he had come to regard as faultless was growing human ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... Jim Sloot, who can handle an axe with any man. You have that to learn. It is the axe that has made Canada.' Arrived at the bridle-path that led to their lot, they had a day's work on it brushing and prying off fallen trees. On reaching the lot master had bought, trees had to be felled to continue the path. These Jabez and Jim assailed, while master trimmed their branches off with a hatchet. On the evening of the third day they were ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... certain things which she wanted to do on this her first night in her new home; and among them she wanted to put that green velvet pocket-book, gold embroidered, in some absolutely safe place, where it would not be seen by prying eyes or fall into dangerous hands. She did not intend to destroy its contents. She knew enough of the uncertainty of life to hold by all sorts of anchorages; and though things looked safe and sweet enough now, they might drift ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... mirror on my dresser, and sometimes, when I have been quite alone, I took it out and tried to solve it, but I couldn't. I never was good at puzzles when I was little, and I suppose I lack that deductive quality now. I was ashamed, too: it seemed so like prying into things which didn't concern me, which my father didn't wish me to know; still, I was only doing it to try to ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... devils, guarding the treasures which the Romans had hidden. The Caesars became to them magical man-gods. The poet Virgil became the prince of necromancers. If the secrets of Nature were to be known, they were to be known by unlawful means, by prying into the mysteries of the old heathen magicians, or of the Mohammedan doctors of Cordova and Seville; and those who dared to do so were respected and feared, and often came to evil ends. It needed moral courage, then, to face and interpret fact. Such ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... one—'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'" With that, he thrust into her hand a brass-topped, red-leather purse, stuffed with money. Generous fellow! all the little savings, that had heretofore escaped the prying eye and filching grasp of Simon Jennings. There was some little gold in it, more silver, and a lot ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... with a start that the village was empty. Then he remembered it was Sunday, and they were all in church. Thank God, there was none to watch him; no prying, curious eyes to disturb his thoughts. But they would soon be out again, and it behooved him to make the best use of his solitude while he might. He struck inland, his heart beating with a curious expectancy; at every ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... intimate, personal history, as one would make a friend familiar to another friend. And these past histories and the rooms themselves were leading Flora away out of her anxious self, were soothing her prying apprehensions, were giving her a detachment in the present, till what she so anticipated lay quiescent at the ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... that which made me lighter: for the dwarf sprang from my shoulder, the prying sprite! And it squatted on a stone in front of me. There was however a ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... unheeded and unsought, on soft mossy banks, not the less lovely because unknown, and just above our dwelling-place a large oak spread abroad its leafy branches. It was a favourite tree of the birds, they felt so secure there, sheltered from prying eyes by its protecting leaves; besides, its branches were so firm and strong, they resisted bravely the fury of the storms that swept over them. What bird, then, would fear to build its nest there? ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer
... "simple life" may not make as much stir in the world as some others we know: but never make the mistake of thinking the life one lacking in interest. These "little journeys" of mine were for the purpose of prying into the secrets of our friends "the owls." As far back as the uncovered picture-writing of the ancients, Mr. Owl has been the synonym for wisdom. Does he ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various
... that he isn't mazed at all but so well in his head as you and I be,—just pretending like. And you'm right about that Brimacott too, and I do hope that every one will let mun know that he's not welcome in Ashacombe. He's a prying man and a tale-bearing man, that's what I believe he is, and all to deceive her ladyship and keep friends with the witch. But we'll catch that mazed man for all his pretending, and there there will be two guineas for you ...
— The Drummer's Coat • J. W. Fortescue
... animals, he crosses the River of Death in a boat, only to find the magic formula is unknown even to the angel of Death! The words are, however, well known to Wipunen, a giant of whom he goes in quest. Prying open the monster's lips to force him to speak, Wainamoinen stumbles and accidentally falls into the huge maw and is swallowed alive. But, unwilling to remain indefinitely in the dark recesses of the giant's body, Wainamoinen soon sets up a forge in the entrails of the colossus, ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... honour, looking very black, "that no one, not even my daughter, is permitted to go where I forbid.—As for you, you prying fool," added he, turning on me, "you shall see whether I am to be obeyed ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... she had distorted and ruined his life as an artist, she had saddened his life as a man. Now he believed that he might have produced the most remarkable works, if he had not known that little woman who crushed him with her weight. Her silent censure, her prying eyes, that narrow, petty morality of a well-educated girl, blocked his course and made him turn out of his way. Her fits of temper, her nervous attacks, made him lose his bearings, belittling him, robbing ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... elusive worm that feverish youth known as Tacks the Human Catastrophe, had finally succeeded in prying the rock loose and immediately thereafter Uncle Peter dropped his rod with a yell of terror and proceeded to ...
— Back to the Woods • Hugh McHugh
... Joe doing all this time? She did not mean to keep prying, but for the life of her she could not help throwing out casual inquiries. His reply was always, "Business"; and he would go on to give her details—all of which were tiresome. How much was he seeing of Fanny Carr and her detestable money affairs? His manner, engrossed as it had grown, and ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole
... truce, by the Spanish officer commanding the reinforcement just sent across from Panama. He was all politeness, airs, and graces, while trying to ferret out the secret of their real strength. Drake, however, was not to be outdone either in diplomacy or war; and a delightful little comedy of prying and veiling courtesies was played out, to the great amusement of the English sea-dogs. Finally, when the time agreed upon was up, the Spanish officer departed, pouring forth a stream of high-flown ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... "picking up" from the effects of transplanting and a long winter journey. Seeing he was bent on making himself disagreeable, I put him into his cage again, first having to chase him all about the room to catch him, and prying him up at last from between a picture and the wall, where he had flown and settled down in his struggle to get out. For my Cheri is not in the least tame. He is an entirely uneducated bird. I have seen canaries sit on people's fingers and eat from their tongues, but Cheri ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... been tilting forever, and shall not go on tilting forever, it is because something is wrong with the mechanism of the world outside their little spotted bodies. Surely the easiest, least willed motion in all the universe is this sandpiper's teeter, teeter, teeter, as it hurries peering and prying ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... heard it said that any Christian who passed Bojador would infallibly be changed into a black, and would carry to his end this mark of God's vengeance on his insolent prying. The Arab tradition of the Green Sea of Night had too strongly taken hold of Christian thought to be easily shaken off. And it was beyond the Cape which bounded their knowledge that the Saracen geographers had fringed the coast of Africa with sea-monsters and serpent rocks and water unicorns, instead ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... mean by coming here and saying this sort of thing? You're becoming a perfect old woman. You spend your whole time prying into other people's ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... commencing our day's walk. The girls declared themselves fully able to proceed. While we were sitting on the ground, I perceived a movement in the boughs, and saw that the monkeys were coming back to have a further look at us; and presently the boughs above our heads were filled with curious prying black, grey, and yellow faces. I pointed them out to Grace ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... rummaged her pockets in vain, expressed some surprise at the loss of her purse; upon which her attendant gave indications of extreme amazement and concern. She said, it could not possibly be lost; entreated her to search her escritoir, while she herself ran about the room, prying into every corner, with all the symptoms of fear and distraction. Having made this unsuccessful inquiry, she pretended to shed a flood of tears, bewailing her own fate, in being near the person of any lady who met with such a misfortune, by which, ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... history of the past. Never again will such works be undertaken. Their raison d'etre, as well as the means for their production, have ceased to exist. We have very ancient historical evidence of the use of hangings (or tapestries), either as curtains to exclude prying eyes, or as coverings to what was sacred or else unseemly, or as ornamental backgrounds ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... Mrs. Pendyce found herself, for the first time since she had begun this practice, driven by her own trouble over that line of diffident distrust which had always divided her from the hearts of her poorer neighbours. She was astonished at her own indelicacy, asking questions, prying into their troubles, pushed on by a secret aching for distraction; and she was surprised how well they took it—how, indeed, they seemed to like it, as though they knew that they were doing her good. In one cottage, where she had long noticed with pitying wonder ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... such dinners, all with the same empty ending. He attended Gargantuan feasts, where multitudes fed on innumerable bullocks roasted whole, prying them out of smoldering pits and with sharp knives slicing great strips of meat from the steaming carcasses. He stood, with mouth agape, beneath long rows of turkeys which white-aproned shopmen sold. And everybody bought save Smoke, mouth still agape, chained ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... but scarce might speak; His trembling tones were faint and weak: "O Giant King, in vain we try The purpose of the foe to spy. Their strength and number none may tell, And Rama guards his legions well. He leaves no hope to prying eyes, And parley with the chiefs denies: Each road and path a Vanar guard, Of mountain size, has closed and barred. Soon as my feet an entrance found By giants was I seized and bound, And wounded sore I fell beneath Their fists and knees ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... hands, the smooth, grey hair. He would miss her visits; yes, indeed, he would miss them sorely. But what right had she to go talking to him of death? Still, she was old, she had been kind to him, and he had driven her away in anger. He had called her a meddlesome busybody who went about poking and prying into other people's affairs and had ordered her to leave the house ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... dark enough to keep any one from seeing us if he looked in from the bright sunshine; but I knew that, sooner or later, if the men stayed where they were, some one was sure to come prying about, and would see the place. How long, then, would it be ere we were discovered, and had to meet our terrible ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... hasty, careless conclusions. It was his habit to write two or three novels simultaneously. He was beset by the problem that exercised even Scott's brain: "The devil of a difficulty is that one puzzles the skein in order to excite curiosity, and then cannot disentangle it for the satisfaction of the prying ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... arraigning, convicting, and condemning Joe for the murder of old Isom. He did it so impressively that he had Constable Frost on edge over the tremendous responsibility that rested on his back. Bill was in a sweat, although the night was cool. He tiptoed around, listening, spying, prying; he stood looking up at Joe's window until his neck ached; he explored the yard for hidden weapons and treasure, and he peered and poked with a rake-handle into shrubbery ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... get "the boys" to write an insulting letter to Senator Slocumb,—Mrs. Baker had the feminine idea of Government as a purely personal institution,—and she would find out who it was that had put them up to this prying, crawling impudence! It was probably that wall-eyed old wife of the postmaster at Heavy Tree Crossing, who was jealous of her. "Remind her of their previous unanswered communication," indeed! Where was that communication, ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... see anything in his sketch of Kate Arran? He stood aside, straining after detachment, while the dealer continued his round of exploration, waddling up to the canvases on the walls, prodding with his stick at those stacked in corners, prying and peering sideways like a great bird rummaging for seed. He seemed to find little nutriment in the course of his search, for the sounds he emitted expressed a weary distaste for misdirected effort, and he completed his ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... the river, from which he hauled the water which he drank and used for culinary purposes. If there was wealth in the land and rocks, nature had masked it very well indeed. The pick and the hammer revealed nothing; long hours of prying and exploring yielded no gleam of metal to confirm his fast-shrinking belief that he had ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... any business of yours. What right have you to come prying into the affairs of a poor lone woman?" And she sat down upon the sofa beside him, threw her long arm round him, rested her painted face upon his shoulder and began to weep ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... startlingly recalled from that tender exercise; happy family parties, struck into silence round the table, the mother still with raised finger: every degree and age and humor, but all, by their own hearths, prying and hearkening and weaving the rope that was to hang him. Sometimes it seemed to him he could not move too softly; the clink of the tall Bohemian goblets rang out loudly like a bell; and alarmed by the bigness of the ticking, he was tempted to stop the clocks. And then, again, with a swift ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... eye was upon me. I could observe him prying, endeavouring to search and probe me. But I came too well prepared. Instead of shrinking from the encounter, my brow contracted increasing indignation; and my voice grew louder, as I stood forth the champion ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... impatient one refrained, but he cast many envious looks downward, and a little later could have been seen stretched out on his stomach, prying off bunches of the 'coon oysters with a knife, and enjoying ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen
... more than one suit of clothes and donned new ones, cast its skin for the last time, refused all further food, spun a cocoon of silk with a dome-shaped silken floor to each cell, and for a period retired from the prying eyes of the world, even of its own mother, into the sacred sanctuary of the chrysalis state. Then the queen's labor lightened a little for a period, so that you could again see her at spare moments sucking nectar from the flowers for ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... the horrors of a guilty conscience, and all the terrors which haunt the man who sees himself in hourly danger of detection. He determined to keep his secret cautiously from his wife: he was glad that she was confined to her bed at this time, lest her prying curiosity should discover what was going forward. The species of affection which he had once felt for her had not survived the first six months of their marriage; and their late disputes had rendered this husband and wife absolutely odious to each other. Each believed, ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... uniform length and height. Each end of every block is worked with a slightly raised and well-smoothed border, for the purpose of securing without unnecessary labor a perfectly accurate joint. The shallow holes, III, III, in the upper surfaces are pry-holes, which were of use in prying the blocks into position. The adjustment having been made, contiguous blocks in the same course were bonded to one another by clamps, I, I, embedded horizontally, while the sliding of one course upon another was prevented by upright dowels, II, ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... said Hector, his patience exhausted. He drew her out of the door, hoping to escape this prying curiosity; but he did not succeed. They were persistently followed. Some of the Corbeil people who were on the top of the omnibus begged the conductor to walk his horses, that this singular couple might not be lost to view, ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... rapidly combining against him. Mammon is after him, ambition follows, philosophy follows, and the theology of the day fast joining the cry. They have him in his prison house; they have searched his person, and left no prying instrument with him. One after another they have closed the heavy iron doors upon him; and now they have him, as it were, bolted in with a lock of hundred keys, which can never be unlocked without the concurrence of every key—the ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... them all to-night, Mrs. Peaches," said Doctor John teasingly, as he stooped beside me. "Leave a few for—for the others." I waked up in a half-second and so did all those prying ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... prying douaniers were quickly at work, and after some coffee at the Restaurant Baque, which is so well known to travellers to Southern Spain, we re-entered the train for Narbonne, where in the morning we changed and travelled to Montauban, by way of ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... at him as she spoke, but stood with her face averted, as if she would avoid prying into his secret too directly. Her voice was low, a note of weary sadness in it that seemed a confession of the uselessness of turning her back upon the strife ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... her brow grew dim, her eyes were veiled beneath slow-dropping lids; a simple movement which affected the prying guests and kept them silent. Monsieur Becker was the first ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac
... custom, indeed, could ever have shut good women's eyes to the shameful indecorousness of wedding ceremonial. We drag a young girl before the prying gaze of all the world at the very crisis in her life, when natural modesty would most lead her to conceal herself from her dearest acquaintance. And our women themselves have grown so blunted by use to ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... will be vexed," said Molly. "Such mean folk as they are, a-peeping and a-prying after everything! They knows how to look after whatever they chooses to say is their own; and the captain, he made a row before about that there trumpery yard or two of paper that was the parkisit of ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... raised to a fine art in a Native State—where a man's life is worth far less than a cow's if the State be a Hindu one—provided that the prying eyes of British Political Officers are not turned that way. True, Dermot was in British territory, but in such an uncivilised part of it that his removal ought not to be difficult considering his habit of wandering alone about the ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... with Willis; the questions he had asked at the Article-lecture; stray remarks at wine-parties—were treasured up, and strengthened the case against him. One time, on coming into his rooms, he found Freeborn, who had entered to pay him a call, prying into his books. A volume of sermons, of the school of the day, borrowed of a friend for the sake of illustrating Aristotle, lay on his table; and in his bookshelves one of the more philosophical of the "Tracts for the ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... an American than an English city; it is new, bustling, and prosperous." I saw some evidences of this after I had got my baggage through the custom-house, which was attended with considerable delay, the officers prying very closely into the contents of certain packages which I was taking for friends of mine to their friends in England, cutting the packthread, breaking the seals, and tearing the wrappers without mercy. I saw the streets crowded with huge drays, carrying merchandise to and fro, and admired ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... old, appeared and in pantomime reviewed the story of the strange vanishing of his beautiful bride on her wedding night so many years before. In the next scene two servants appeared with orders to clean out and remove the old chest from the landing. Hippy and Jessica, as the two mischievous prying servants, enacted their part to perfection. Hippy carrying a broom and dust pan, did one of the eccentric dances, for which he was famous, while Jessica, armed with a huge duster, tried to ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... see that you are little more than a boy," he said, "but that is no excuse. You are a soldier and you know a soldier's duty. That is not prying into the business of your superiors." He turned to the group of officers. "What do you say, sirs," he said, "shall I have this man court martialed, or shall I have him returned to his ...
— The Boy Allies At Verdun • Clair W. Hayes
... stock purchase, had been the chattel and creature of one Button Gwynnet Fles. In appearance he was such a genuine Yankee, lean and sharp, with a slight stoop and prying eyes, that one quite expected a straw to protrude from between his thin lips or have him draw from his pocket a wooden nutmeg and offer it for sale. After getting to know him I learned this apparent shrewdness was a pure defense mechanism, that he was really ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... but he knows no fear of him. He sees the giant, Curling Smoke, rise stealthily from his lurking places, sees him grow vaster, and vaster, until, when he chooses he darkens all the sky, but of him, also, he is unafraid. The Ash Goblin creeps forth from his low dwelling, prying into the affairs of others and seeking what mischief he may do, but the Elf goes his way undisturbed, ...
— The Shadow Witch • Gertrude Crownfield
... made his peace with his father by a part (tradition says a leg) of the new dish. The father was so astounded with the discovery, that he burned his house down once a year for the sake of coming at an annual banquet of roast pig. A curious prying sort of fellow, one Chang Pang, got to know of this. He also burned down a house with a pig in it, and had his eyes opened. The secret was ill kept—the discovery spread—many great conversions were made—houses were blazing in every part of the Celestial Empire. The insurance offices took the ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... off, if thou art able." Upon this, he turned away to the closet where hung the brass keys, and opened the door a-crack. He saw the hide of the crocodile leaning against it, and the overturned cups. "Just as that boy Hubert packed them," he thought to himself in satisfaction; "no one has been prying here. I flatter myself upon a skilful morning's work. I have knocked the legend out of the Baron's head. He'll see to it the girl keeps away. And as for yon impudent witling in the cage, we shall ...
— The Dragon of Wantley - His Tale • Owen Wister
... peace. The French police keep a very sharp look-out on all political offences, but are more indulgent towards all moral ones, as long as public decorum is not infringed, and then it is severely punished. But they have none of that censoriousness or prying spirit in France which is so common in England to hunt out and criticise the private vices of their neighbours, which, in my opinion, does not proceed from any real regard for virtue, but from a fanatical, ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... dug a monstrous pit To hold his wealth, and buried it By night, alone; then smoothed the ground So that the spot could not be found. But he gained nothing by his labor: A curious, prying, envious neighbor, Who marked the hiding, went and told The Sultan where to find the gold. A troop of soldiers came next day, And bore the ...
— Harper's Young People, December 9, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... honorable to have pushed his questions upon Forsythe. Gifford's relentless justice overtook him. Had he not given Forsythe the right to insult him? Would not he have protected himself against any man's prying? Gifford blushed hotly in the darkness. "But not to use Lois's name,—not that! Nothing could ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... his "meditating" rose Beyond a sunny summer doze; He never troubled his repose With fruitless prying; But held, as law for high and low, What God withholds no man can know, And smiled away ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... province. It was with the consent and approval of the dying man that O'Kiku was united to him. The household in Nippon is adamant in its secrets to the outside world—and that against the most prying curiosity anywhere found. O'Kiku lay in of her child and nursed the babe in her own nurse's house. Thus in full ignorance the council met to consider the request made by the girls to communicate with Jinnai—Osada Sensei—at the ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... presented to the King, and graciously received. He saw at the opera General Clinton, who had come home on a winter leave of absence, and who was next to meet him on a field of battle in America. But, mindful of his own hostile designs, he deemed it proper to forbear from prying into the military forces of the kingdom, and declined an invitation to visit the ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... towards the spring, where first she gives it a slight cast with her eye, then she sets to gathering out the weeds, and nettles, and stones; takes a besom and sweeps the walks; this done, she falls to prying into her herbs and slips, to see if they live, to see if they are likely to grow. Now, if she comes to one that is dead, that she is confident will not grow, up she pulls that, and makes to the heap of rubbish with it, where she despisingly casts ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... and material fashion, for the berries she gave him, the flowers she wove in his hair, and the brooks that drove his mimic mills. He chased the butterfly, he climbed the trees, he would stand in the rain, paint his cheeks with berry juice, dabble in the mud, and nothing was secure from his prying fingers and curious eyes. He must touch and taste of everything, and know every secret. But it eluded him; and he lay down from his giddy chase, tired and unsatisfied, yet still anticipating that the morning would reveal all. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... the exact moment in which sleep shall end. He, too, like Enguerrand, dressed himself with care—unlike Enguerrand, with care strictly soldier-like. Then, seeing he had some little time yet before him, he rapidly revisited the pigeonholes and drawers in which might be found by prying eyes anything he would deny to them curiosity. All that he found of this sort were some letters in female handwriting, tied together with faded ribbon, relics of earlier days, and treasured throughout later vicissitudes; ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... that she could not ascertain whether it was Cyn or Nattie with whom Clem was "flirting." For she was positive he was trifling with the affections of one or the other, and that matters would end in some kind of a horrible scandal. But for all her listening and prying around, she could not seem to gain much information, except that everybody but herself—and perhaps the old gentleman Fishblate—was having a good time. Nor could she get hold of anything "dreadful," which was the ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... Seraphina the remembrance of the other letter—Otto's. She rose and went speedily, her brain still wheeling, and burst into the Prince's armoury. The old chamberlain was there in waiting; and the sight of another face, prying (or so she felt) on her distress, struck ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a certain meddlesome spirit, which, in the garb of learned research, goes prying about the traces of history, casting down its monuments, and marring and mutilating its fairest trophies. Care should be taken to vindicate great names from such ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... destroyer must be underneath this ton of rubbish," grunted Darry, kneeling and prying the strings ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock
... A surgeon's[263] statement, and an earl's[264] harangues! A bust delayed,[265]—a book[266] refused, can shake The sleep of Him who kept the world awake. Is this indeed the tamer of the Great,[dy] Now slave of all could tease or irritate— The paltry gaoler[267] and the prying spy, The staring stranger with his note-book nigh?[268] 70 Plunged in a dungeon, he had still been great; How low, how little was this middle state, Between a prison and a palace, where How few could feel for what he had to bear! Vain his complaint,—My Lord presents his ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... particularly the case if I was at all embarrassed; my face and figure, moreover, were plainly Teutonic and not Latin. The French ascribed their disasters largely to the fact that German spies were everywhere prying into the conditions, and reporting every assailable point and element of weakness. This belief was well grounded; the Germans probably knew France better than the French themselves and skilfully adapted their attacks ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... acquaintance, I am afraid we showed a great deal of pride and stiffness. They were kinder than we deserved, but we thought it prying and patronage, and would not accept what we ...
— Lady Hester, or Ursula's Narrative • Charlotte M. Yonge
... counting its Western acres under water contracts. The acres were in first crops, waiting for the water. The water was dallying down its untried channel, searching the new dry earth-banks, seeping, prying, and insinuating sly, minute forces which multiplied and insisted tremendously the moment a rift had been made. And the orders were to "watch" and "puddle;" and the watchmen were as other men, and some of them ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... represented the hero Hidesato vanquishing a monster on the bridge of Seta; the sage Lao Tsze on his ox; Senno Kinko, a pious man, riding on his golden-eyed carp, absorbed in a book; the god Idaten, pursuing an oni, or devil, who had stolen Buddha's pearl; a bird prying open a Venus's shell with his bill; a golden-eyed octopus or cuttlefish; the sage Kiko leaning from the window of his house, reading a ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... unite for the birth and rearing of each generation, might retain a savage independence. For them it would not be necessary that any vision should fascinate, or that any languor should soften, the prying cruelty of the eye. But sex endows the individual with a dumb and powerful instinct, which carries his body and soul continually towards another; makes it one of the dearest employments of his life to select and pursue a companion, and ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana
... up the end of the board with the mallet, and then he got the wedge under and pried. Ruth pulled. Stephen kept hammering and prying, and Ruth held on to all he gained, until they slipped the wedge along gradually, to where the board was nailed again, to the middle joist or stringer. Then a few more vigorous strokes, and a little smart levering, ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... come not out; they sleep in their workrooms; their very food is handed in to them! (Weber, i. 276.) A victorious Parlement smells new danger. D'Espremenil has ordered horses to Versailles; prowls round that guarded Printing-Office; prying, snuffing, if so be the sagacity and ingenuity of man ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... ship's cat, would have shared his knowledge within the hour. I did not deny anything; I simply did not assent. You are an officer in authority; I am answering you, though I protest strongly at your manner; but I don't tell my affairs to prying strangers because we are cooped ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... been occasionally invisible for months together, and no one could tell why he disappeared, or whither he had gone. At these times his cell was closed; and although none ventured to force their way into it, those who were the most prying could hear no sound indicating that he was within. Various were the conjectures formed on the subject. Some supposed that he withdrew from the sight of men for the purpose of more fervent prayer and more holy meditation; others, that he visited his home, or some other distant country. ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... own conclusions. Had he been as acute as he was meddling, as profound as he was prying, he might have found that in Sir Philip's face whereby to correct his inference. Ever shallow, hasty, and positive, ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... down over his soul. And the, as reflection began to assert itself, sheer terror took the place of humiliation. With every minute that passed the train was rushing nearer to the crowded and bustling terminus where dozens of prying eyes would be exchanged for the one paralysing pair that watched him from the further corner of the carriage. There was one slender despairing chance, which the next few minutes must decide. His fellow-traveller ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... language, let this occupy your most precious time and your most anxious solicitude. Do not be content with acquiring this language superficially, but make it your own, root and branch. To become fluent in it, you must attentivly listen, with prying curiosity, into the forms of speech, the construction and accent of the natives. Here all the imitative powers are wanted; yet these powers and this attention, without continued effort to use all you ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... that all was silence save for the mournful crying of a whippoorwill in the woods. Then a door opened softly, a white vision stole into the little entry lighted by the fan-window, above, seized the book and stole back. Had the minister been a prying man about his household, he would have noticed next day that Cynthia's candle was burned down to the socket. He saw nothing of the kind: he saw, in fact, that his daughter flitted about the house singing, and he went out into the sun to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... easily blocked, as Watt experienced with his improved crank motion. He proceeded therefore in great secrecy to erect the first large engine under his patent, after he had successfully made a very small one for trial. An outhouse near one of Dr. Roebuck's pits was selected as away from prying eyes. The parts for the new engine were partly supplied from Watt's own works in Glasgow and partly from the Carron works. Here the old trouble, lack of competent mechanics, was again met with. On his return from necessary absences, the men were usually found in face of ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... dry-room, therefore, the servants who were carrying the lights respectfully fell back. Cornelius, taking the candlestick from the hands of the foremost, conducted his godfather into that room, which was no other than that very cabinet with a glass front into which Boxtel was continually prying with his telescope. ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... Elsnore village when the Nameless Thing was discovered in Farmer Burns' corn-patch. When the rumor began to gain credence that it was some sort of meteor from inter-stellar space, reporters, scientists and college professors flocked to the scene, desirous of prying off particles for analysis. But they soon discovered that the Thing was no ordinary meteor, for it glowed at night with a peculiar luminescence. They also observed that it was practically weightless, since ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... itself in words, left the Postel family, and stole away unseen to Basine Clerget, told her troubles, and asked for help and shelter. Basine, for greater safety, had brought Eve into her bedroom, and now she opened the door of a little closet, lighted only by a skylight in such a way that prying eyes could not see into it. The two friends unstopped the flue which opened into the chimney of the stove in the workroom, where the girls heated their irons. Eve and Basine spread ragged coverlets ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... first week found the girls down at the Farm prying around the ruins for any lost treasures. Stanley Howard struck up a friendship with both the Judge and Mr. Bobbins, and usually drove by on his way from the village. He would stop and chat for a few moments with them, but Kit was elusive. Vaguely, she felt that the proper thing for her to ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester
... after all, have most satisfactorily accomplished his mission; and he forthwith proceeded, with all the craft and subtlety of which he was master, to urge upon them the desirability of an immediate visit to king M'Bongwele, who, averse as he was to the prying visits of strange men, would, he assured them, be highly gratified at the honour of having as his guests the ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... explained that these parties arrived after dark, worked all night, and then carefully camouflaged all evidences of new earth and departed before daylight, leaving no trace of their night's work to be discovered by prying airman. Often the work was carried on under an intermittent shelling, but that night only two shells ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... into court. Stafford, for once becoming interested in the argument, declared decisively that the woman was right, that, having entered into a matrimonial compact, she was in honor bound to conceal from prying outsiders any domestic differences they might have. Virginia promptly differed with him and proceeded to give her reasons. Stafford was no match for her when it came to sociology and he could only grunt disapproval ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... performance was at an end, he approached Clarissa, who, with an impassive air, was making her way to the exit, and asked whether she had been trying to jest with him, and she, her lips dry, and something like a prying hatred in her eyes, answered, laughing again: "No, no, Captain." After that her face resumed its earnest, almost sad, expression and her head dropped on ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... commemorate the Fauconbridge and Belasyse families, and for its being the scene of Sterne's curacy. A small barrel organ now graces its gallery, which responded to the morning and evening service in Yorick's day. On prying about the belfry we discovered an old helmet, with the gilding on it still discernible, which we at first supposed to be intended as a decoration to some tomb; but its weight and size precluded that ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 12, Issue 328, August 23, 1828 • Various
... the police for?" he asked impatiently. "I have enemies, Sir George. I took a quiet little place in the country, just outside Eastbourne, to get away from London, and all sorts of new people are prying round us. There was a new parson called the other day for a subscription to some boy scouts' movement or other. He has been hanging round my place for a month, and lives at a cottage near Polegate. Why should ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace
... interrupted, with a laugh. "Yet I'll answer it. Last night I was on the threshold of hell. To-day I am within sight of my heaven—I have my eyes on it—hardly three feet to sever me. And now you'd better go. You'll neither see nor hear anything to frighten you if you refrain from prying." ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... was formerly the cause of so much discomfort to both husband and wife, has fortunately gone out of vogue; and in its place has come the retirement to a quiet country or seaside spot, away from the prying eyes of friends. Thus the nervous strain incident to sight-seeing ...
— The Four Epochs of Woman's Life • Anna M. Galbraith
... the Indian village, held it to her lips. She made a motion as if she would drink, but her limbs were powerless, her teeth set, and every muscle rigid. With a low moan she closed her glassy eye, and hope then even fled from her heart. Not so the chief; prying open her teeth with the aid of his hunting-knife, he poured the extract down her throat, and then with a solution of it mixed in water, washed the wound, binding over it the bruised roots from which he had extracted the antidote. He then procured more of the same roots,[11] ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... gospodyni!' he cried, tapping at the door. He was afraid to open it lest he should be suspected of prying into other people's business. ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... name of the Bowling-Green Club. These men seeing one day the character of Leviculus, the fortune-hunter, or Tetrica, the old maid: another day some account of a person who spent his life in hoping for a legacy, or of him who is always prying into other folks' affairs, began sure enough to think they were betrayed, and that some of the coterie sate down to divert himself by giving to the public the portrait of all the rest. Filled with wrath against the traitor of Romford, one of them resolved to write to the printer, ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... and he had an uncontrollable desire to say something. But his eyes and his lips were sealed tight, and to open them, a little army of gnomes came out of the darkness in the back of his head, each of them armed with a lever, and began prying with all their might. After that came the beginning of light and ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... mortar spraying; another blow and another loosened a hole in which the black inserted a short iron and began nervously grinding and prying. ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... the fence at the back, and she caught the gleam of the moonlight on the sentries' bayonets as it was reflected back by the burnished steel. There was no curtain of any kind in the window. The dirt on the window-panes was her only protection against prying eyes. So Nancy pushed the stool over by the bed, piled her extra clothing on the foot of the bed, and carefully blew out the candle ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... said to herself. "How I love you to-day. You are a stern protector, keeping out all prying eyes and malignant tongues. Mr. Dobbins will not venture out while you are abroad, and so we will have peace ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... just sprang up and left him when I heard your voice, without putting anything to keep him in. I MUST go and have a look at him, or I never can settle down. No, no, don't you go, Edward; you'll be prying into all the wrong berths in the car, you poor thing! You stay here, and I'll be back in half a second. I wonder which is my berth. Ah! that's it; I know the one now. [She makes a sudden dash at a berth, and pulling open ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... better, but that it was known," she murmured. "All West Lynne had coupled us together in their prying gossip, and they have only pity to cast on me now. I would far rather you have ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood |
