"Prying" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... indignant that his determination had not been allowed to be carried out; and that the poor old man, when broken down by age, should have been permitted to expose to view all those sacred things which, when sane and sound, he would so carefully have covered from the prying eyes of the world. ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... thou still here, prying things out and spying on the servants? Be thankful for the supper thou hast gotten and betake thyself out ...
— The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy • Padriac Colum
... down the busy stream the Boot-maker. Miss Thompson floated in a dream. Now, hovering bee-like, she would stop Entranced before some tempting shop, Getting in people's way and prying At things she never thought of buying: Now wafted on without an aim, Until in course of time she came To Watson's bootshop. Long she pries At boots and shoes of every size— Brown football-boots with bar and stud For boys that scuffle in the mud, And dancing-pumps ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... lengthy thong of oxhide, which now lay in a coil on the floor. Bound round and round, twisted and intertangled, and finally tied with a special and secret knot (the ends being concealed), the thong of leather secured the contents of the chest from prying eyes or thievish hands. With axe or knife, of course, the knot might easily have been severed, but no one could obtain access to the room except the retainers of the house, and which of them, even if unfaithful, would dare to employ such means ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... involving the most prying supervision of the affairs of each individual, and in which, in settling the tax to be paid, "the collector takes into consideration the number of children [74] to be supported, makes the poor ryot ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... found him environed in smoke when he came down to take his place in the little britzska. I wonder whether the window at the Hotel de Hollande saw him go? There are some curtains behind which no historian, however prying, ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to know I swept the crumbs under the mat—that it was my method? Had she and Dan been discussing me, ridiculing me behind my back? What right had Dan to reveal the secrets of our menage to this chit of a school-girl? Had he done so? or had she been prying, poking her tilted nose into matters that did not concern her? Pity it was she had no mother to occasionally spank ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... "master words" to finish it properly. After vainly seeking these words among birds and 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 ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... was caught, and I couldn't get it loose," Dan explained. "I was trying to free myself, like mad, you may be sure, when all at once I didn't know anything more. You fellows must have had a job prying ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... and, one by one, Tuly examined each of the four women and the man. Each felt the probing, questioning feelers of her thought prying into the deepest recesses ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... the new French translation (which appeared in 1838) of this story, Chamisso amuses himself in his own peculiar way, over the prying curiosity of those who want to know what his real object was in writing this tale: —"The present story," he says, "has fallen into the hands of thoughtful people, who, being accustomed to read only for instruction's sake, have been at a loss to know what the shadow signifies. On ...
— Peter Schlemihl etc. • Chamisso et. al.
... Regicides being now all well known, as having suffered or fled from Justice, or being in hold, as Mr. Martyn was. So Colonel Glover, being well assured that what was done was for the King's honour, and for the well-being of his Estates, and that any other further searching or prying might cost him his place, if they did not draw him within the meshes of the law against Misprision of Treason, forbore to vex himself or Authority further on matters that concerned him not, and was so content to guard ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... encyclopaedia of history, antiquities and chronology, a story book, a code of laws and conduct, a manual of ethics, a treatise on astronomy, and a medical handbook; sometimes indelicate, sometimes irreverent, but always completely and persistently in earnest. Its trifling frivolity, its curious prying into topics which were better left alone, the occasional beauty of its spiritual and imaginative fancies, make it one of the most remarkable books that human wit and human industry have ...
— Hebrew Literature
... a letter written by their enemy, Philip of Macedon, to his wife Olympia, so far from being moved by a curiosity of prying into the secrets of that relation, immediately sent the letter to the queen unopened. Philip was not their sovereign; nor were they inflamed with that violent animosity against him which ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... a glass he found on the bureau and poured some milk in it, crept on the bed and lifted Mark's head in his arms, put the glass to his lips, and begged and pled, and finally succeeded in prying the lips and getting a few drops down. Such joy as thrilled him when Mark finally swallowed. But it was a long time, and Billy began to think he must go for the doctor, leave his friend here at the mercy ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... through his papers, handle all those intimate personal things that accumulate around a human being year by year—letters, yellowing scraps of newspaper, tokens, relics kept, accidental vestiges, significant litter. I learnt many things I had never dreamt of. At times I doubted whether I was not prying, whether I ought not to risk the loss of those necessary legal facts I sought, and burn these papers unread. There were love letters, and ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... however, from their drunken habits; for as soon as it was dark I stole out of the house, and tried to find my way to the shed where Lyal told me he was chained at night. I had taken good note of the bearings of the place as we rode along. I knew that if I was found prying about, I should run a great chance of being killed; but still I was resolved to run every risk to try and rescue the poor fellow from captivity. Of course, as the captain afterwards told me, we might have gone home to England, and laid the ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... a good deal given to prying about on the coast; and what particular eend he had in view in this expedition I cannot tell you. His a'r'n'ds in shore, I must own, be sometimes onaccountable!—Witness the ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... people, condemned to spend Christmas dwelling alone on memories of the past, and now startingly 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 humour, 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 ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... solitude, her sharp ears caught the noise of romping children in the playroom, and the frequent dropping of the sliding-doors upon the narrow individual cupboards, indicating an excessive rummaging of shelves. Cordelia knew full well the prying habits of the ...
— Big and Little Sisters • Theodora R. Jenness
... before Thule the wondrous ice-land of the North yielded her first secrets, and longer ere the Terra Australis of Finne was laid bare to the prying eyes of Science. ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... there's a chance coming your way now—or I'm much mistaken—which it would be madness to miss. This Miss Moore—she's dropped from the skies, but she's charming, she's a lady, she's just the woman for you. What, Dick? Think so yourself, do you? No, it's all right, I'm not prying. But this is a chance you'll never get again. And you can't ask her, you can't have the face to ask her, as long as you keep that half-witted creature dangling after you. It wouldn't be right, man, even if she'd have you. ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... king!—Well doth he fare Who breathes in this rosy light, But, ah, it is horrible down there! And man must not tempt the heavenly Might, Or ever seek, with prying unwholesome, What he graciously ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... triumph of love.—While he basked in the warm sunshine of love, friendship also promised to shed its dewy freshness; for a friend, whom he loved next to his mistress, was the confident, who forwarded the letters from one to the other, to elude the observation of prying relations. A friend false in similar circumstances, is, my dearest girl, an old tale; yet, let not this example, or the frigid caution of cold-blooded moralists, make you endeavour to stifle hopes, which are the buds that naturally ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... 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
... absence, had quitted her room and was roving up and down in the Hall, anxiously awaiting my return. Also the Page, aroused by my cries, had left his room, and under pretext of ascertaining whether I had fallen somewhere in a faint, was prying into the cabinet in my study. All this I could now SEE, not merely infer; and as we came nearer and nearer, I could discern even the contents of my cabinet, and the two chests of gold, and the tablets of which ...
— Flatland • Edwin A. Abbott
... of manhood worthy "Robert!" "Martha!" all they say. O'er went wheel and reel together, Little cared the owner whither; Heart of lead is heart of feather, Noon of night is noon of day! Come away, come away! When such lovers meet each other, Why should prying ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... that extensive additions were making to the old house. Beyond this elementary fact conjecture had the field to itself. Both architects and builders were imported from another State and sworn to secrecy, while the high wall and the hedge of trees baffled prying eyes. Quantities of red granite and many blocks of precious marbles were understood to be using in the work. The opinion gained that such an Oriental palace was building as never had been ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... shadow of the eaves in any part of the city after nightfall, it would only have been supposed that he was bound on some mission of beneficence, or good work of some sort! And if even it had become known to a few persons given to prying into what did not concern them, that the Marchese Lamberto di Castelmare was not more immaculate in his conduct than his neighbours, the only result would have been a few jests which he would have never heard, and a few sly smiles which be would ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... that Mrs. Ledwich had said something disparaging of Miss Ethel, either as to youth, judgment, or doctrine, Mrs. Elwood had fired up into a declaration that "Miss Ethel was a real lady—that she was! and that no real lady would ever come prying into other folk's work and finding fault with what wasn't no business of theirs," with more of a personal nature, which Flora could not help enjoying, ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... you shameless woman! Why don't you lie, like the rest of your tribe, and keep me from dying with indignation? Impudent prying! My maid never posted it, and you have found it and read it! Pray, did you hope to find a ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... 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 supposition. In the church of Coxwold, the moralist might amass tomes of knowledge, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 12, Issue 328, August 23, 1828 • Various
... scarcely knew how to get it at once into Marian's hands. To put it into the village post-office was to expose it to the prying eyes of Miss Nancy Skamp. To send it to Old Fields, by a messenger, was still more hazardous. To slip it into Marian's own hand, he would have to wait the whole week until Sunday—and then might not be ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... flattering such as would listen to his flattery, whispering religious twaddle into the ears of foolish women, ingratiating himself with the very few clergy who would receive him, visiting the houses of the poor, inquiring into all people, prying into everything, and searching with the minutest eye into all palatial dilapidation. He did not, however, make any immediate attempt to ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... was plainly a clipping from a letter, was such that Mr. Carvel never showed it to my mother, and would have destroyed it had he not felt that some day it might aid in solving the mystery. So he kept it in his strongbox, where he thought it safe from prying eyes. But my Uncle Grafton, ever a deceitful lad, at length discovered the key and read the paper, and afterwards used the knowledge he thus obtained as a reproach and a taunt against my mother. I cannot even now write ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... has been reserved for us at the railway station. The attentive porter, on the look-out for his fee pulls down the blinds over the side windows of the carriage, and shuts out all prying eyes in that way. After what seems to be an interminable delay the train starts. My husband winds his arm round me. "At last!" he whispers, with love in his eyes that no words can utter, and presses me to him gently. My ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... Bourrienne, apparently about this very time. "After a stormy interview with Napoleon," says Lucien, "I at once went into the cabinet where Bourrienne was working, and found that unbearable busybody of a secretary, whose star had already paled more than once, which made him more prying than ever, quite upset by the time the First Consul had taken to come out of his bath. He must, or at least might, have heard some noise, for enough had been made. Seeing that he wanted to know the cause from me, I took up a newspaper to avoid ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... 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 Seraphina ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... divorced yesterday. The Charles N—-and Campanule household is getting on very badly. They have had some trouble with those prying, grinding, insupportable little men, dressed up in gray suits, who are called police agents, and who, by threatening their landlord, have had them turned out of their house (under the obsequious amiability of this people lurks a secret hatred toward Europeans)—they are therefore ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... in the anteroom assisted him in putting on his cloak, whereupon he rapidly descended the magnificent marble staircase which an hour ago had been desecrated by the broad and clumsy feet of the populace. But when the door of his carriage had closed behind him, and no prying eyes, no listening ears were watching him any longer, his smile disappeared as if by magic, and savage imprecations ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... 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 a white-faced, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... This was an allusion to the well-known circumstance that with credit men a customer's automobile-riding inspires as much confidence as his betting on the horse races, and when Morris climbed into the tonneau he paid little attention to Abe's instructions, so busy was he glancing around him for prying credit men. At length, with a final jar and jerk the machine sprang forward, and for the rest of the journey Morris' mind was emptied of every other apprehension save that engendered of passing trucks ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... to believe her brother-in-law. She went home again, and waited patiently till midnight. Then her fear redoubled, and her grief was the more sensible because she was forced to keep it to herself. She repented of her foolish curiosity, and cursed her desire of prying into the affairs of her brother and sister-in-law. She spent all the night in weeping; and as soon as it was day went to them, telling them, by her tears, ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... fireplace. A nice convenient little spot for our friend here to carry on his good work. Just a few words to say that he didn't want to be disturbed in his study, a locked door, a rug moved, and—there you are! He was free from all prying eyes to investigate the way things were going, and to personally supervise the hiding of the gold. While outside upon the Fens men were being killed like rats, because one or two of them chose to use their intelligence, and wanted to find out what the ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... up his diary, and recruit, and keep quiet, instead of showing up the incapacity of his seniors?" So the Nasiban Murder Case did him no good departmentally; but, after his first feeling of wrath, he returned to his outlandish custom of prying into native life. By the way, when a man once acquires a taste for this particular amusement, it abides with him all his days. It is the most fascinating thing in the world; Love not excepted. Where other men took ten days to the ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... which now ensued O'Iwa took in wifely fashion; and attributing it to some passing attraction of Shinjuku Nakacho[u], she did not take it to heart as she would have done if a concubine had been at issue. As for Kwaiba, the usually astute and prying old man was so immersed in his go as to be struck blind, deaf, and dumb. The matter coming to the ears of Kondo[u] Rokuro[u]bei, the worthy gentleman was seriously alarmed. If true, the old man had indeed reached ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... private interview! Miss Milroy's eyes are sharp, and the nurse's eyes are sharper; and I shall lose my place if either of them find me out. No matter! I must take my chance, and give him the interview. Only let me get him alone, only let me escape the prying eyes of the women, and—if his friend doesn't come between us—I answer for ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... 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[obs3]; curious as a cat; agape &c. (expectant) 507. Phr. what's the matter? what next? consumed with curiosity; curiosity killed the cat, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... Kirkwood was the philosophical equanimity with which he submitted to the fate which had fallen upon him. He did not choose to be pumped by the Interviewer, who would show him up in the sensational columns of his prying newspaper. He lived chiefly by himself, as the easiest mode of avoiding those meetings to which he would be exposed in almost every society into which he might venture. But he had learned to look upon himself very much as he would upon an intimate not himself,—upon ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... would call to their men & cry, "Come, trusse me": now the word is "Come, hooke me"; for every body now lookes so narrowly to Taylors bills (some for very anger never paying them) that the needle lance knights, in revenge of those prying eyes, put so many hookes & eyes to ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... said Mr. Derwentwater, "if there is any mystery, all right; I don't want to be prying;" but, as was natural, this only increased his curiosity. After an interval, he broke forth again. "A little mystery," he said, "suits them; a woman ought to be mysterious, with her long robes falling round her, and her mystery of long hair, and all the natural veils and mists ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... he would not land until they first came off to wait on him. Decorated with an old 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 morning, took his departure ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... the Scripture that gives you the right, and I should advise you to waive it if you do not wish me to assume the right to open yours. Your petty prying keeps me in a continual state of irritation. I shall be lowered to retaliate sooner or later. So stop it, ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... knew that it was slightly smaller than Phobos, but its greater distance gave promise that it would better serve our purpose of temporary concealment. The moons of Mars, like the earth's moon, always kept the same face toward their master. By hiding behind Deimos we should escape the prying eyes of the Martians, even when they employed telescopes, and thus be able to remain comparatively close at hand, ready to pounce down upon them again, after we had obtained, as we now had good hope of doing, information ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss
... which 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 and travel ...
— The Four Epochs of Woman's Life • Anna M. Galbraith
... of my visit, the nature of my business, how long I intended to stay, did I have a place to stay arranged for, and if so, where and through whom. It looked for all the world as though they had something to conceal; Czarist Russia couldn't beat that for keeping track of people and prying into their business. Sign ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... for an event which might determine the happiness or the misery of his life. He tried to forget it and wrote diligently, putting down words whose meaning he did not stop to consider, so that he had something to show to prying eyes if such should ever glance through his papers. But the sound had got on his brain, and presently became so insistent that he rose again and flung his window up to see if he were deceived in thinking he heard a deep roar mingling with the incessant patter, a roar which the wind ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... the Cat did the same. They stood looking in this way for some minutes; at last, in a whispering voice, the Owl said, 'What are you who presume to look into my repose? Pass on upon your way, and carry elsewhere those prying eyes.' ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... his uncle, resolved to have the awkwardness of their first meeting over before any prying eyes were upon them. He found him alone, and, mustering all his courage, went up to him and offered his hand, as if nothing had ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... little tramps that would not beg, but are willing to eat what we begged. But come in, boys, and keep quiet, or some prying forester will come along and drive us ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang
... answer in a dry tone. He was giddy, flurried, exasperated, by the prying and irritating mode of the examination, which scarcely gave him time to breathe. The magistrate's questions fell upon him more thickly than the blows of the blacksmith's hammer upon the red-hot iron which he is anxious to beat into shape before ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... ask you a few questions, and if they seem to be prying or personal, you must believe that I have no other wish than to secure information which is vital to myself. What position do you ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... has no resource but her present position,—why should you hunt her out of it? If she is, as you think, a lady, there is the strongest reason why a gentleman should respect her feelings. I fear the result of all this restless prying and intermeddling of yours will be to drive her away; and really, now I have had her, I don't know how I ever could do without her. People talk of female curiosity," said my mother, with a slightly ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... no cozy corners aboard Mr. Courtney's snow-white Albatross in which a couple with many important things to say could be free from prying observation, Johnny and Constance behaved like normal human beings who were profoundly happy. They mingled with the gaiety all the way out through the harbor to the open sea, and then they drifted unconsciously farther and farther to the edge of the hilarity, until they found ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... now, I'll tell you what you do. It ain't but a step across the two back yards. When you get in a quandary how to cook anything—how long to give it or whether to bake or boil—you just run across and ask me. I ain't one o' the prying kind—the doctor'll tell you that—and you needn't be afraid it'll go any further. I know how hard it must be for a young girl like you to take the care of a house on yourself, and I'll be pleased to ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... John Skelton, the satirical poet of the fifteenth century, undoubtedly enjoyed its hospitality, for he has left record in the following lines that he was acquainted with it: Intent on. signs, the prying eye, The George & Vulture will descry. Let none the outward Vulture fear, No Vulture host inhabits here. If too well used you deem ye then Take ...
— The Inns and Taverns of "Pickwick" - With Some Observations on their Other Associations • B.W. Matz
... the ill-fated field of Bothwell Brig, from which he was lucky to escape with a bullet in the shoulder. Thereupon he had been put to the horn, and was now lying hid in a den in the mosses of Douglas Water. It was a sore business for my mother, who had the task of warding off prying eyes from our ragged household and keeping the fugitive in life. She was a Tweedside woman, as strong and staunch as an oak, and with a heart in her like Robert Bruce. And she was cheerful, too, in the worst days, and would go ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... Miss Mathilda was a great big woman, not so big perhaps as her Miss Mary, still she was big, and the good Anna liked them better so. She did not like them thin and small and active and always looking in and always prying. ...
— Three Lives - Stories of The Good Anna, Melanctha and The Gentle Lena • Gertrude Stein
... 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 it ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... with my long knife began prying from its doorway a ruby as large as my fist. Instantly, without warning, the creature nearest me raised its scaly hand in a flinging gesture, and I felt a hot and rushing pain just above my right elbow. I felt, ...
— Us and the Bottleman • Edith Ballinger Price
... you, young man? Get the axe! For God's sake, run for the doctor, some one, while I pry it open! Look here, said the landlady, quickly putting down the vinegar-cruet, so as to have one hand free; look here; are you talking about prying open any of my doors? —and with that she seized my arm. What's the matter with you? What's the matter with you, shipmate? In as calm, but rapid a manner as possible, I gave her to understand the whole case. Unconsciously clapping the vinegar-cruet .. ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... differences between men of genius can be accounted for, and all the seeming mysteries explained. This truth is the groundwork of genuine criticism; and the critic who busies himself about the accidental circumstances, which have influenced an artist, is only prying into his history, without sounding the depth of his nature. At least let criticism start here: it may afterward indulge in microscopic comparisons of style, and in worn-out accusations of imitation: ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... They came to Mr. Smith by marriage. This is the same Humphrey Dyson that assisted Howes in his continuation of Stowe's Survey of London, ed. folio;' and in his preface to Peter Langtoft's Chronicle (vol. i. p. xiii.) Hearne describes Dyson as 'a person of a very strange, prying, and inquisitive genius in the matter of books, as may appear from many Libraries; there being Books (chiefly in old English) almost in every Library, that have belong'd to him, with his name upon them.' Some of his books are preserved in ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... was a woman's natural destiny, but one didn't pick a husband or lover as one chose a gown or a hat. One went along living, and the thing happened. Chance ruled there, she believed. The morality of her class prevented her from prying into this question of mating with anything like critical consideration. It was only to be thought about sentimentally, and it was easy for her to so think. Within her sound and vigorous body all the heritage of natural human ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... prior said in surprise, "and through the strait 'twixt Islay and Jura! Truly that was a marvellous voyage in such a gale—and as I suppose, in an open boat. But how comes it, sir knight—if I may ask the question without prying into your private affairs—that you, a knight, were at Rathlin? In so wild and lonely an island men of your rank are seldom ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... word. I would take my goose now, and in it I would carry my stone to Kilburn. There was a little shed in the yard, and behind this I drove one of the birds—a fine big one, white, with a barred tail. I caught it, and prying its bill open, I thrust the stone down its throat as far as my finger could reach. The bird gave a gulp, and I felt the stone pass along its gullet and down into its crop. But the creature flapped and struggled, and out came my sister to know what was the matter. ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... boat, and we were prying it off the shingle and waiting for a favouring wave when we were startled with a hail ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... king's presence, he would, 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
... readiness. I then ascended to the field, where the chaise was standing as we had left it on the previous evening. After looking at the cloud-stone near it, now cold, and split into three pieces, I set about prying narrowly into the condition of the wheel and axletree—the latter had sustained no damage of any consequence, and the wheel, as far as I was able to judge, was sound, being only slightly injured in the box. The only thing requisite to set the chaise in a ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... soul liked to lie abed till the last available moment; but that morning she was up with the sun. When dressed she drew a letter from a secret casket with manifold precautions as though she were surrounded with prying eyes, and, placing it in her reticule, hastened forth to seek the little lonely disused churchyard by the shore. She afterwards remarked that she could never forget in what agitation of spirits and with what strange ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... nearly a whole fowl, and had drunk a bottle of beer with it, I felt like another man; and then, pursuing my investigations more leisurely, I found in one of the lockers—which I took the liberty of prying open with a big carving-knife—four or five boxes of capital cigars. In the same locker was a package of safety-matches, and in a moment I was puffing away with such satisfaction that I fairly grew light-hearted—so ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... which is the Zulu word for chieftainess. For a long while I could not make out why he gave it such a name, and at last I asked him, when he informed me that the axe was very evidently feminine, because of her womanly habit of prying very deep into things, and that she was clearly a chieftainess because all men fell down before her, struck dumb at the sight of her beauty and power. In the same way he would consult 'Inkosi-kaas' if in any dilemma; ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... who had never seen him other than self-contained, supercilious, and mocking, this was an amazing revelation. He shrank from it almost; it gave him the feeling of prying, of peeping through a keyhole. He slapped ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... "nature-study" as now followed in the schools—or shall I say in the colleges?—this classroom peeping and prying into the mechanism of life, dissecting, probing, tabulating, void of free observation, and shut away from the open air—would have cured me of my love of nature. For love is the main thing, the prime ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... bending close o'er his, and the small mouth Seemed almost prying into his for breath; And, chafing him, the soft, warm hand of youth Recalled his answering spirits back from death; And, bathing his chill temples, tried to soothe Each pulse to animation, till beneath Its gentle touch and trembling care, a sigh To these kind efforts ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... yearned to him. He would have been delighted if some way had come to help him, but he could not bring himself to such a curious investigation of his poor affairs as his mother would have had him make with prying inquiries. It seemed to him that such a course would be impertinent, and so, whenever she suggested it, ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... breakfast-room, looking into the court, and on the left the salon, looking into the garden. Shrubs and creeping plants covered the windows, and hid from the garden and court these two apartments, the only rooms into which, as they were on the ground-floor, the prying eyes of the curious could penetrate. On the floor above were similar rooms, with the addition of a third, formed out of the ante-chamber; these three rooms were a salon, a boudoir, and a bedroom. The salon down-stairs was only an Algerian divan, for the ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... 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 may ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... stand there looking like one of the Fates; you've only seen a peep through the curtain,—a specimen of what is going on, the world over, in some shape or other. If we are to be prying and spying into all the dismals of life, we should have no heart to anything. 'T is like looking too close into the details of Dinah's kitchen;" and St. Clare lay back on the sofa, and busied ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... You looked at it! Like your confounded impertinence, sir! Who are you to look at her! If ever I catch you prying into my concerns again, I'll shoot ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... were hungry, and struck fiercely at the bait. She soon had plenty for supper and breakfast. Wherefore she abandoned that diversion, and took to prying tentatively in the lee of certain bowlders on the edge of the creek—prospecting on her own initiative, as it were. She had no pan, and only one hand to work with, but she knew gold when she saw it—and, after all, it was but an idle method ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... away. The drumming of a woodpecker is as terrifying to a little insect in the bark of a tree as the breaking open of our shutters by a burglar would be to us. But at night she was safe in her lofty nook. At night no creatures came prying. ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels
... is his illness, for he is a lamb when he is well. He is capable of getting up and prying about; and if by any chance he went into the salon, he is so weak that he could not go beyond the door; he would see that they are all ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... of bushes, with a fallen tree or two, which served a good purpose later. The sunlight fell across it in great golden bars, making light and shadow to play in; all around was the great marsh, giving protection from enemies; dense underbrush screened them from prying eyes—and this was ...
— Wilderness Ways • William J Long
... be prying, of his own accord, into things of such ticklish and troublesome, not to say perilous nature—I've nothing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 22, 1893 • Various
... 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
... of his first year Goriot began to practise little economies; at the end of the second he removed his rooms to the second floor, and did without a fire all the winter. This although, as Madame Vauquer's prying eyes had seen, Goriot's name appeared in the list of state funds for a sum representing an income of from eight to ten thousand francs. Henceforth she denounced him to the other paying-guests as an unprincipled old libertine, who lavished his enormous income from the funds on unknown youthful ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... a prying knave to watch thy master so closely," said Elizabeth, blushing, but not with anger; "and a tattling knave to tell over again his fooleries.—What colour might the braid of hair ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... of you to tease her, Justin,' said Archie indignantly. 'You don't like people prying into your secrets, I know that,' and Justin looked a little ashamed of himself, while Miss Mouse gave Archie's hand ...
— Miss Mouse and Her Boys • Mrs. Molesworth
... Well, well!" said Ezra. "It's been too sad an' mournful all along for me to go about to make a new quarrel on it. Let it pass. I make no doubt you acted for the best. Art too good a lad to tek pleasure in prying into the pain of an old man—as—loves thee. Leave it alone, lad. Let's think a while, and turn it over and see what may ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... are similar to cant-hooks, except that they have sharp pikes at their ends. So armed, they have to "ride any kind of a log in any water, to propel a log by jumping on it, by rolling it squirrel fashion with the feet, by punting it as one would a canoe; to be skilful in pushing, prying, and poling other logs from the quarter deck of the same cranky craft." Altho the logs are carried by the river, they have to be "driven" with amazing skill ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes
... rustic seat, under a spreading beech, our heroine, with her accustomed looks of mystery, examined the seals of her numerous and important letters, to ascertain whether they had been opened at the post-office, or whether their folds might have been pervious to any prying eye. Her son tore the covers off the newspapers; and, as he unfolded one, Amelia leaned upon his shoulder, and whispered softly, "Any news of ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth |
