"Pluck at" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Copperhead. "You simpleton, do you think I am going to leave you here where there's man-traps about? None of such nonsense for me. Put your things together, I tell you. Phoebe Beecham's bad enough at home; but if she thinks she's to have you here to pluck at her leisure, she and ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty's jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... ill-favoured dog avowed his turpitude, and had the audacity to approach Villars in order to speak low to him; but the Marechal, drawing back, and repelling him with an air of indignation, said to him, aloud, that with scoundrels like him he wished for no privacy. Gathering up, his pluck at this, Heudicourt gave rein to all his impudence, and declared that they who had been questioned had not dared to own the truth for fear of offending a Marechal; that as for himself he might have been wrong in speaking and writing about it, but he had not imagined ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... it," her mother smiled, tying a ribbon to hold the bright curls. "There!" with a final pluck at the bow; "now run along and hear Leonora's glad story! I am afraid she ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... pluck at his cassock's hem; Sighings of earthly breath that smite his cheek; Canice the priest swings on, atune with them, Hears the throbbings of pain, and hears them speak; Hears the word they utter, and answers "Yea! Yea, poor souls, for I heed; I ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... wish to look at pictures," Charles said, peevishly; "I wish to play cards. You are an ungrateful daughter, Katharine. You are never willing to amuse me." He sat down with a whimper and began to pluck at his ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... fox he murmured, "O what of the world's bane?" The sun was laughing sweetly, The moon plucked at my rein; But the little red fox murmured, "O, do not pluck at his rein, He is riding to the townland That ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... rather talk to Grettel. He looked at her with a smile, and immediately she began to pluck at her skirt and pat her hair and look at him out of a corner of her eye. He said: "It was good of your parents, wasn't it, to put your best clothes on you when they ...
— Everychild - A Story Which The Old May Interpret to the Young and Which the Young May Interpret to the Old • Louis Dodge
... whet. If he had a weak side it was his own astuteness: he could not always see how unutterably foolish a man might be if he were let alone. Another foible he had—intellectual appreciation of beauty pushed to fainting-point. His senses were so straitly tied to his brains that to pluck at one was to thrill the other. Made on a small scale, he was pretty rather than handsome, had quiet watchful eyes, a smiling mouth, very little hands and feet. He seldom dressed out of black velvet, and if he wanted a man assassinated had ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... eyes, and though she had called Neil by name, she looked at him as if she had never seen him before. One small hand reached out uncertainly, pulled at his sleeve, and then, as he made no move to take it, dropped again, and began to finger the big hat that she held, and pluck at the flowers on it, but her eyes did ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... the sea, and the swing of the unbought brine— We'll make no sport in an English court till we come as a ship o' the Line: Till we come as a ship o' the Line, my lads, of thirty foot in the sheer, Lifting again from the outer main with news of a privateer; Flying his pluck at our mizzen-truck for weft of Admiralty, Heaving his head for our dipsey-lead in sign that we ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... the pool, casting on each side—which I find is hard work for the back and shoulders—when, just opposite the big rock where Kingfisher raised his second fish yesterday, I feel a pluck at my fly and see a boil in the water. The robber runs away twenty yards and leaps, then turns short round and comes at me, as if to run down the canoe and drown us all. I wind up my line as fast as possible, but, alas! it comes ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... hundred dinars and the piece of silk and come back, and when thou returnest to me, I will rise up and thou shalt lie down in my place, and I will go to the Khalif and say to him, 'May thy head outlive Nuzhet el Fuad!' and tear my dress and pluck at my beard. He will mourn for thee and say to his treasurer, 'Give Aboulhusn a hundred dinars and a piece of silk.' Then he will say to me, 'Go; lay her out and carry her forth;' and I will come back ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... She began to pluck at the grass with her hand, staring before her at the moonlit stream like one who sees visions of the future. The beauty of her faintly visible head and neck suddenly worked on John Fenwick's senses. He threw ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... swift to move, To pluck at any flying love, That I grow faint to stand and see. Beata ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris
... the young man was wiser, and though the basket often stopped, and strange creatures seemed to rest on him and to pluck at his blanket, he held it tight till he heard the crow calling. Then he flung off the blanket and sprang out, while the basket vanished in ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... Ernest, sitting thus, would pluck at his banjo and sing to the stars, finding ease thus for his homesick heart. Roger sat in silent contemplation, now of the fire, now of the stars. In spite of his impatience over petty details, he was happier than he had been since his undergraduate days. The marvelous ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie |
