"Plucked" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the oaf's conceit, and standing closely over him, we got a path made round the corner of the dump to our door, so that we could come and go with decent ease; and he even enjoyed the work, for in that there were boulders to be plucked up bodily, bushes to be uprooted, and other occasions for athletic display: but cutting wood was a different matter. Anybody could cut wood; and, besides, my wife was tired of supervising him, and had other things to attend to. And in short, days went by, and Irvine came ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the conviction, that such exercises as yours, are a conflict that must ultimately prove successful. You do not cloak your sins. You confess and deplore them. I believe that you will still be as 'a brand plucked from the burning,' and that you (with all your wanderings) will be restored, and raised up, as a chosen instrument, to spread a Saviour's name. Many a 'chief of sinners,' has been brought, since the days of 'Saul of Tarsus,' to sit as a little child, at the Redeemer's feet. To ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... us, and shake off a fruit into the water. Gay flowers, too, were not wanting, of the orchid tribe: some with white and spotted and purple blossoms; the most magnificent of a brilliant purple colour, called by the natives Saint Ann's flower, four inches across. We plucked some, which emitted a most delightful odour. At last we came out once more into the bright sunshine, at a small lake, the surface of which was adorned in many parts with numberless beautiful water-plants—graceful lilies, yellow bladder-worts, and numbers of ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... Who plucked in English meadows flowers fair As any that in unforgotten stave Vied with the orient gold of Venus' hair Or fringed the murmur of the ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... hundred and forty-four,—my mother's,—and I looked about and sought her grave. The grass seemed crispy and dry. I sat down by this grave. I leaned over it, and looked into the tangled net-work of dead fibres held fast by some link of the past to living roots underneath. I plucked some of them, and in idlest of fancies looked closely to see if deeds or thoughts of a summer gone had been left upon them. "No! I've had enough of fancies for one day; I'll have no more to-night," I thought; and I wished ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... which rent the air as the meaning of Wendot's words made itself understood. As for the brave lad himself, he had plucked the arrow from his neck, and now stood boldly on guard, resolved to husband his strength and keep on the defensive only, hoping thus to gain time until Griffeth and the armed ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... What is the whole place but a curiosity-shop, and what are you here for yourself but to pick up odds and ends? "We pick them up for you," say these honest Jews, whose prices are marked in dollars, "and who shall blame us if, the flowers being pretty well plucked, we add an artificial rose or two to the composition of the bouquet?" They take care, in a word, that there be plenty of relics, and their establishments are huge and active. They administer the antidote to pedantry, and you can complain ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... Middlesex and of Surrey informing them that Her Majesty "hath given direction that not only no plays shall be used within London or about the city or in any public place during this time of summer, but that also those playhouses that are erected and built only for such purposes shall be plucked down." Accordingly the Council ordered the Justices to see to it that "there be no more plays used in any public place within three miles of the city until Allhallows [i.e., November 1] next"; and, furthermore, to send for the owners of the various playhouses ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... the Master sat in the thickening gloom, eating the dates and temmin wafers, drinking the coffee, pondering in deep silence. When the simple meal was ended, he plucked a little sprig of leaves from the khat plant in the bowl, and thrust ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... never do," exclaimed Dr. Jones. "Silver Cloud is like a bird of paradise with its tail feathers all plucked. We must replace that pole and flag as soon as ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... hadn't learned anything at all from being alive. I'm going to fix it up," he proceeded, painfully earnest. "I'm—" He broke off suddenly at the stabbing memory of the doctor's words, "She wanted to die a thousand times." He thought, I've killed her a thousand times already. The fear plucked at his throat. He rose and walked unsteadily to the door and out ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... rate I can take my Beauty what she asked for," he said to himself, and, without so much as giving a thought to the wrong he was doing, he stood on his toes and plucked ...
— My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales • Edric Vredenburg
... efforts for a better life, an 4 his constant struggle is in the right direction, he is almost sure to regain his will power, and succeed in overcoming the habit. By exercise, the will gains strength. The thorns in the flesh of our spiritual nature will be plucked out, the spiritual life will be developed, and our peace shall flow as the river. This condition we constantly invoke, and by all the means within our reach we try to stimulate the desire for a better life. I am pleased to say our efforts in this direction have not been in vain. For nearly ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur
... whithersoever they came on the march and to whatever nation, they seized the crops of that people and used them for provisions; and if they found no crops, then they took the grass which was growing up from the earth, and stripped off the bark from the trees and plucked down the leaves and devoured them, alike of the cultivated trees and of those growing wild; and they left nothing behind them: thus they did by reason of famine. Then plague too seized upon the army and dysentery, ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... as pulling his beard: "A noble of that nation dying (his name Cid Lai Dios), a Jew, who hated him much in his lifetime, stole privately into the room where his body was laid out, and, thinking to do what he never durst while living, stooped down and plucked his beard; at which the body started up, and drawing out half way his sword, which lay beside him, put the Jew in such a fright that he ran out of the room as if a thousand devils had been behind him. This done, the body lay down as before to rest; and," adds the veracious chronicler, ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... know them all. My ignorance at the time of which I speak seems to me now very shameful; but I was merely in the case of ordinary people, whether living in town or country. How many could give the familiar name of half a dozen plants plucked at random from beneath the hedge in springtime? To me the flowers became symbolical of a great release, of a wonderful awakening. My eyes had all at once been opened; till then I had walked in darkness, yet ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... the trainmaster, mouthing the words as if the mere effort of speech were painful, "and I wish I could promise you that the rank and file will meet you half-way. But I can't. You'll find a plucked pigeon, Mr. Lidgerwood—with plenty of hawks left to pick the bones. The road has been running itself for the past two years ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... the trail reached the crest stood the doctor and his wife, the "little white lady" trembling with excitement as she watched the fearful race from the jaws of a fiery death. The doctor plucked Wilbur from his saddle as the horse rushed by him. The boy's senses were reeling, but before he sank into insensibility from fatigue ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... was terribly miserable; not so much because I had lost Ellen—a man cannot lose what he has never hoped to possess—as from the ruin of all my illusions. During those days I plucked and ate by the dozen of the fruits of the tree of self-knowledge, and I found them very bitter. I ended by leaving Elmira, to seek my fortunes elsewhere. I knew my trade well. Long practice had taught me how to make the best of my learning, and I never had any difficulty ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... ready to fight him he laughed, and yet he was angry. He lifted his great club and would have knocked the life out of Charming in a trice, but suddenly he could not see. He roared with pain, for a raven had plucked out his eyes. Galifron beat wildly in the air, trying to protect himself from the bird; meanwhile Charming seized his opportunity, and it was only a moment until Galifron lay at Charming's feet. Only Galifron was so big that ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... front of the altar. At the angle a candle-branch protruded, standing no higher than my head. It held some three or four tapers, and was so placed to enable the priest to read his missal at early Mass on dark winter mornings. I plucked one of the candles from its socket, and hastening down the church, I lighted it from one of the burning tapers of the bier. Screening it with my hand, I retraced my steps and regained the chancel. Then turning to the left, I made for a door that I knew should give access to ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... for this work," Starr plucked up courage to comment as they started off. "That kid brother of yours must get pretty lonesome too, out here," he added. "If you had some one to stay with you, I'd take him out on a trip with me once in a while and show him the country and let him learn to handle ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... small manuka stick, plucked from a flowering bush by the wayside. With this he struck his leather legging repeatedly, as he walked to and fro in agitation. Pausing by the river's brim, he gazed ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... Olaus Magnus, who says, they danced with such fury, holding each other by the hands, that, if the grasp of any failed, he was pitched into the fire with the velocity of a sling. The sufferer, on such occasions, was instantly plucked out, and obliged to quaff off a certain measure of ale, as a penalty ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... roared with the pain so loud that all the cavern broke into claps like thunder. They fled, and dispersed into corners. He plucked the burning stake from his eye, and hurled the wood madly about the cave. Then he cried out with a mighty voice for his brethren the Cyclops, that dwelt hard by in caverns upon hills; they hearing the terrible shout came flocking from all ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... throughout the next act, during which I pretended to be passionately absorbed in the play. The minute it was over and forced silence at an end, Tony boldly said, "I knew it must be March, all the time. Not that you showed it!" he hurried to add. "You're too good plucked an infant for that! And I'm sure he never twigged. Not he! He's not that kind. It was only because you saw a lot of him, that I thought so; and a girl who wouldn't fall head over ears in love with March, if he was always underfoot, wouldn't have wit enough to know which side ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Moore," he said, halfamused, "ony gate ye're a good plucked un." And his wizened countenance looked at her almost kindly from beneath its dirty ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... remark rather bitterly before he left that her hat was a little bit striking, wasn't it? Upon which she at once, in her good-tempered, amiable way (only too delighted that he should have noticed anything in her toilette even to object to it), plucked the white feather out of the black hat and put a little coat on over her dress, so as to ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson
... against man, life or death. But—and now I come to the very difficulty—looking here and there I cannot see a war new in any respect, either of parties, or objects, or pretence, out of which such a prodigious fame is to be plucked. You discern the darkness in which I am groping. ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... for a moment at the plasmoid station in the screen, seeming to turn slowly as they went orbiting by it. She noticed that one of the space flares they'd planted there had gone out, or else it had been plucked away by a passing twister's touch. She looked away quickly again, turned and went restlessly back through the lounge, and up the passage, toward the cabins. She went by the two suits of space armor at the lock without ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... about $325 in university and college fees from matriculation to graduation, when he gets his degree of B.A., or, if inattentive, fails to pass the examination, and, in Oxford parlance, is said to be "plucked." ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... either did not hear or did not heed the call, and Mr Hayward and Paul set off to run after him. Presently they heard him shriek out, and throw down a large leaf like that of a mallow, which he had plucked from a shrub about ...
— The Young Berringtons - The Boy Explorers • W.H.G. Kingston
... rode all into the wood; and I, seeing no wood there but a stick here and a stick there, about the bigness of a man's arm, growing in the sand, it caused me to marvel how so many camels should be loaded in that place. The wood was juniper; we needed no axe nor edged tool to cut it, but plucked it up by strength of hands, roots and all, which a man might easily do, and so gathered together a little at one place, and so at another, and laded our camels, and came home about seven of the clock that night following: because I fell lame and my camel was ...
— Voyager's Tales • Richard Hakluyt
... to be seen a greater increase both of corn and cattle, nor are there anywhere healthier men, and freer from diseases: for one may there see reduced to practice, not only all the art that the husbandman employs in manuring and improving an ill soil, but whole woods plucked up by the roots, and in other places new ones planted, where there were none before. Their principal motive for this is the convenience of carriage, that their timber may be either near their towns, or growing ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... of birds. They appear to have the same peculiar attachment to particular branches as many humming-birds possess; and the spot can generally be discovered by the number of legs and wings and hard cases of the insects they have caught, and which they have plucked off before ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... was turned to him mockingly. "Late again, Signor Cevelli, and yet again!" She plucked at the strings of a small instrument lying on her lap, and the notes tinkled the music ...
— Unfinished Portraits - Stories of Musicians and Artists • Jennette Lee
... the village of Charvati, the modern representative of the 'rich Mycenae.' Here, while Dehmetri prepared our breakfast, we followed a villager, who led us by rapid strides up the rocky hill toward the angle formed by two mountains. As we rose over one elevation after another, he plucked his hands full of dry grass and brush, and then leading us into a hole in the side of the hill, informed us in good classic Greek that it was the tomb of Agamemnon. It is a large, round apartment, rising to the hight ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... never changed. Do you remember, Seraphina, on our way home, when you saw the roses in the lane, and I got out and plucked them? It was a narrow lane between great trees; the sunset at the end was all gold, and the rooks were flying overhead. There were nine, nine red roses; you gave me a kiss for each, and I told myself that every rose and every kiss should stand for a year of love. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... month of May, A bard enjoyed the break of day, And quaffed the fragrant scents ascending, He plucked a blossomed rose, transcending All blossoms else; it moved his tongue To ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... swamped, stranded, cast away, wrecked, foundered, capsized, shipwrecked, nonsuited[obs3]; foiled; defeated &c. 731; struck down, borne down, broken down; downtrodden; overborne, overwhelmed; all up with; ploughed, plowed, plucked. lost, undone, ruined, broken; bankrupt &c. (not paying) 808; played out; done up, done for; dead beat, ruined root and branch, flambe[obs3], knocked on the head; destroyed &c. 162. frustrated, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... this way. Tomorrow it will be August. The odor of apples is now in my tree. There are big striped apples on the ground, plucked by the wind, the hold loosened by bugs for they too have felt the fullness of July. Three apples, one of them three inches through and two and one-half inches high, and the others nearly as big, hang at the level of my eyes. You may see them in Fig. 11. Here rises again my boyhood ...
— The Apple-Tree - The Open Country Books—No. 1 • L. H. Bailey
... voices of the earth have truly found their way to me—the small rustle in tufts of grass, the silky swish of leaves, the buzz of insects, the hum of bees in blossoms I have plucked, the flutter of a bird's wings after his bath, and the slender rippling vibration of water running over pebbles. Once having been felt, these loved voices rustle, buzz, hum, flutter, and ripple in my thought forever, an undying part ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... bimbo will thank you for this to-morrow, as I do now," said she. "Goodnight, my friends, and may the good God have mercy upon all souls!" She turned to go the way she had come, but Astorre, covering his eyes with one hand, crept forward on three legs (as you might say) and plucked the hem of her robe up, and kissed it. She stooped to lay a hand upon his head. "Never kiss my robe, Astorre," said she—and how under Heaven did she know his name if she were not what she was?—"never kiss my robe, but get up and let me kiss ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... an hotel for families and gentlemen, in high repute among the midland counties, Mr. Grazinglands plucked up a great spirit when he told Mrs. Grazinglands she should have a chop there. That lady, likewise felt that she was going to see Life. Arriving on that gay and festive scene, they found the second waiter, in a flabby undress, cleaning the windows of the empty coffee-room; and ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... of half-joking talk that Phillis was not accustomed to. She looked for a moment as if she would have liked to defend herself from the playful charge of distrust made against her, but she ended by not saying a word. We all plucked our peas in busy silence for the next five minutes. Then Holdsworth lifted himself up from between the rows, ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... business putting a machine out here to bother people like this," Alan said hotly. He took a few more steps and the robot plucked at his sleeve. ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg
... grateful to the person who advised it, he loves to praise the pill or potion which helped him, and he has a kind of monumental pride in himself as a living testimony to its efficacy. So it is that you will find the community in which you live, be it in town or country, full of brands plucked from the burning, as they believe, by some agency which, with your better training, you feel reasonably confident had nothing to do with it. Their disease went out of itself, and the stream from the medical fire-annihilator ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Then Norah plucked me in by the coat-sleeve as if she thought we oughtn't to be looking at her. We shut the door on her flight and turned to each other where we stood on the flagged ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... ask me to forgive you. Oh, Jim, Jim, my old friend, forgive me for my madness; forget what I said to you, forget the brute you just saw and think of me as of old, when I would have plucked out my tongue if I had caught it saying a harsh word to the best and truest friend man ever had. Jim, forget it all. I was mad, I am mad, I have been mad for a long time, but it cannot last much longer. I know it can't, and, Jim, by all our past love, by the memories of the dear ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... amorphous blue shirts. At last came an old man and woman of the Huwaytt tribe, bringing for sale a quantity of liquefied butter. They asked a price which would have been dear on the seaboard; and naively confessed that they had taken us for pilgrims,—birds to be plucked. But sheep and goats were not to be found in the neighbourhood: yesterday we had failed to buy meat; and to-day the young Shaykh, Sulaymn, was compelled to mount his dromedary and ride afar in quest of it. The results were ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... kneeled by him, put his arm around him and prayed for him such a prayer of appeal and hope and good cheer that Louis Douglas will never forget. The whole thing was the beginning of a new manhood for the boy. And when the next day he plucked up courage to confess to his mother, one of the hardest things he ever did in all his life, the entire unfolding of his mother's love, her passionate appeal to his better nature, her cry to him to seek God's ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... amused themselves in various ways until darkness should call them forth to the business of the hour. Some, with that amazing tendency to improve their personal appearance, which is common alike to civilised and savage, plucked out the little beard with which nature had endowed them by means of tweezers, deeming it no doubt wiser on the whole to pluck up the beard by the roots than to cut it off close thereto, as indeed it was, ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... a coarse pebble enveloped in a whitish semi-crystalline paste, lies on the table before me. I know that a blow of the hammer will reveal the beauties of its crystal interior, but I do not crush it. It is more to me as it is—more than a letter plucked from the stone pages of time. Coarse and plain, it is an index to a chapter of life. In the occupations of a busy existence we forget how much we owe to the sweet emotional nature which, by mere chance association, retains the dearer part of the past fixed in memory, just as the graceful volutes ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... flute and timbrel, began now on the psalteron and the native sambuca. Behind was a row of lute-players; but most in view was a trignon, an immense Egyptian harp, at which with nimble fingers a fair girl plucked. ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... blush really to think I ranked so high in your esteem. Was it not rather that other girl you came to seek,—the one you sought so far through the wilderness, only to find hidden in this encampment of savages? Tell me, Monsieur, was she by any chance of fate the heroine who last night plucked Captain de Croix from ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... shyness; indeed, she remembered the simple folk of Shorne Mills, who talked as freely and frankly as this honest couple, and plucked ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... these vases," Ch'iu Wen laughed, "reminds me again of a funny incident. Whenever our Mr. Pao-yue's filial piety is aroused, he shows himself filial over and above the highest degree! The other day, he espied the olea flowers in the park, and he plucked two twigs. His original idea was to place them in a vase for himself, but a sudden thought struck him. 'These are flowers,' he mused, 'which have newly opened in our garden, so how can I presume to be the first to enjoy them?' And actually taking down that pair of vases, he filled ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... stepping out amongst the redeemed in such a rig, and that made me hang back and come to anchor again. People got to eying me— clerks, you know—wondering why I didn't get under way. I couldn't stand this long—it was too uncomfortable. So at last I plucked up courage and tipped the head clerk a signal. ...
— Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven • Mark Twain
... in the marching khaki regiment know all these things, and there are respect and sympathy in the glances and the greetings that pass from them to the women. 'They're good plucked 'uns,' they tell each other, and wonder how our women at home would shape at this game, and whether they would go on living in a house that was next door to one blown to pieces by a shell yesterday, and keep ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... negligently scratching the strings. I noticed an alteration in him; he had grown softer in the flesh in the past years; there were little threads of gray in the knotted curls of his beard. It was as if he had lived well, on the whole. He bent his head over the strings, plucked one, tightened a peg, plucked it again, then set the instrument on the table, and dropped on to the mattress. "Will you have some rum?" he said. "You have grown broad and strong, like a bull.... You made those men fly, sacre nom d'une pipe.... One would have thought you were in ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... second morning a number of the travellers plucked up heart of grace and embarked, though the weather was still squally. George Brand was not in the least interested as to the speculations of those who remained about the responsibilities of the passage. He drew his chair toward the fire, and ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... of the lion. I found it difficult to deliberately influence dreams by suggestion. The dream-self is not to be coerced and usually I over-did the matter. Most of my examples deal with flowers and perhaps the most apposite is the following:—I plucked a stem of blossoms of white everlasting and wore it inside my waist on my bosom all day, asking as I fastened it in,—How will this reappear in my dream? The following morning as consciousness returned, ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... relics of his fortune. These, Andy Plade, who possessed nothing, but thought he might borrow a trifle, volunteered to dispose of, and Freckle, a Missourian, who was tolerated in the colony only because he could be plucked, asserted enthusiastically, and amid great sensation, that he yet had three hundred francs at the banker's, his entire capital, all of which he meant to devote to the most reliable ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... the thunders of Jewry, the ghost of a dead world's tale. That day and its doom foreseen and foreshadowed on earth, when thou, Lord God, wast lord of the keen dark season, are sport for us now. Thy claws were clipped and thy fangs plucked out by the hands that slew Men, lovers of man, whose pangs bore witness if truth were true. Man crucified rose again from the sepulchre builded to be No grave for the souls of the men who denied thee, ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Nettie's career had been one of unbroken success. She had proceeded to Newnham and had come out splendidly in her examinations. Only one thing clouded her sky. Tom had not been successful. In spite of all that coaching could do, he had been plucked at Sandhurst, and the doctor had prohibited further study for the present. Nettie wrote to him constantly, making light of his failure, and assuring him of ultimate success. And now she was to make her start in her chosen profession. Before long she would be able to write herself "Nettie Anderson, ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... wise upbraidings: "Dear, you should not stay so late, Twilight is not good for maidens; Should not loiter in the glen In the haunts of goblin men. Do you not remember Jeanie, How she met them in the moonlight, Took their gifts both choice and many, Ate their fruits and wore their flowers Plucked from bowers Where summer ripens at all hours? But ever in the noonlight She pined and pined away; Sought them by night and day, Found them no more, but dwindled and grew gray, Then fell with the first snow, While to this day no grass will grow Where she lies low: I planted daisies there a year ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... of the exams? he asked. Griffin was plucked. Halpin and O'Flynn are through the home civil. Moonan got fifth place in the Indian. O'Shaughnessy got fourteenth. The Irish fellows in Clark's gave them a feed last night. ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... and pan cultivation on the southern slopes of the hills. The betel-nut tree is cultivated in the same manner as in the plains, except that the trees are planted nearer to one another. The trees bear when eight to ten years old. A portion of the crop is sold just after it has been plucked; this is called u 'wai khaw, and is for winter consumption. The remainder of the crop is kept in large baskets, which are placed in tanks containing water, the baskets being completely immersed. This kind of betel-nut is called u 'wai um. The ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... for—the command in the Mithradatic war—he could never expect to obtain from the voluntary bestowal of the senate: in their own well-understood interest the oligarchy could not permit him to add to his Africa and European trophies those of a third continent; the laurels which were to be plucked copiously and easily in the east were reserved at all events for the pure aristocracy. But if the celebrated general did not find his account in the ruling oligarchy, there remained— for neither was the time ripe, nor was the temperament of Pompeius at all fitted, for a purely ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... by Sir R. Ford, which I shall hereafter make use of when it shall be fit. Thence called at the Major-General's, Sir R. Browne, about my being assessed armes to the militia; but he was abroad; and so driving through the backside of the Shambles in Newgate Market, my coach plucked down two pieces of beef into the dirt, upon which the butchers stopped the horses, and a great rout of people in the street, crying that he had done him 40s and L5 worth of hurt; but going down, I saw that he had done little or none; and so I give them a shilling ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... truth; they even forget to eat and drink, and must be compelled by their friends to attend to the necessities of nature. Many of them have completely ruined their health by study; and some of them, as Democritus the philosopher, are reported to have even plucked out their eyes, that they might have less distraction, and thereby be enabled to meditate more profoundly upon the truths of their respective sciences. Now, I ask, is it in our nature to go through ...
— The Happiness of Heaven - By a Father of the Society of Jesus • F. J. Boudreaux
... searched the fields and lanes To find a solace for MARY'S pains; All the flowers were plucked and gone Save a little dull Parsley, sere and wan; And Theobald wreathed it in simple guise; "It mourns like her," said the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 22, 1920 • Various
... Serjeant Armstrong plucked his wig straight and proceeded to read letters of Dr. Wilde to Miss Travers at this time, in which he tells her not to put too much iodine on her foot, but to rest it for a few days in a slipper and keep it in a horizontal position while reading a ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... the great Orodes slain!" All shout applause, but, dying, he replies, "Strange foe, not long thy triumph shall remain; Like fate awaits thee, on the self-same plain." "Die!" said Mezentius, with a smile of spite, "Jove cares for me," and plucked the shaft again. Grim rest and iron slumber seal his sight; The drooping ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... now, and the flames, dancing up as the boy threw an armful of dry wood on the fire, gave the hut a more cheerful appearance. For some time the lad busied himself with preparation for supper. The three ducks were plucked in readiness for putting over the fire should they be required; cakes of coarse rye-flour were made and placed in the red ashes of the fire; and then the lad threw himself down by the side ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... I were an examiner at one of the Universities, that I should be an extremely popular one. No man should ever be plucked. Of course it would be very wrong, and, happily, the work is in the hands of those who are much fitter for it; but, instead of thinking solely and severely of a man's fitness to pass, I could not help thinking a great deal of the heartbreak it would ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... brings a present, often a bunch of flowers or a few green twigs plucked on the way; but generally the nicest eatables ready cooked, beautiful bunches of flowers, articles of raiment, &c. The amount of offerings here is very great. Stone vases, some of which will hold fifty or sixty gallons, stand round the pagoda, into ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... understands a leg of mutton in its quiddity. He stands wondering, amid the commonplace materials of life, like primeval man with the sun and stars about him.' He is equally certain of Shakespeare, of Congreve, and of Miss Kelly. When he defines the actors, his pen seems to be plucked by the very wires that work the puppets. And it is not merely because he was in love with Miss Kelly that he can write of her acting like this, in words that might apply with something of truth to himself. He has been saying of Mrs. Jordan, that 'she seemed one whom care could not come near; ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... meek and unaffected grace, His looks adorned the venerable place: Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway, And fools who came to scoff remained to pray. The service past, around the pious man, With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran; Even children followed with endearing wile, And plucked his gown to share the good man's smile. His ready smile a parent's warmth expressed; Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distressed; To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given, But all his serious thoughts had rest ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... died I saw not; heaven was fair. Methinks my angel plucked my locks: I bowed My spirit, shamed; and looking in the air:- 'Even so,' I said, 'even so, my brother the ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson
... asserted Pessim. "And my skin would make excellent drumheads," retorted the Ork. "Nevertheless, a plucked bird or a skinned Ork would be of no value to himself, so we needn't brag of our usefulness after we are dead. But for the sake of argument, friend Pessim, I'd like to know what good you would be, were you ...
— The Scarecrow of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... then we'll go aloft together, and, as soon as ever we have made our scrape to our betters, we'll both speak a good word for you and the lady, a very pretty lady she is, and a good-hearted, and the best plucked one I ever did see in any distressed craft; now don't ye cry, miss, don't ye cry, your trouble is pretty near over; he said you was not a hundred miles from land. I don't know how he knew that, he was always a better seaman than I be; but say it he did, and that is enough, for he was a man ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... Have you plucked the apple blossoms in the spring? In the spring? And caught their subtle odours in the spring? Pink buds pouting at the light, Crumpled petals baby white Just to touch them a delight— ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... which was very pleasant to our eyes, long wearied as we were with the sight of ocean and sky, and the dreary skirts of the sea-shore. It was an hour of true repose, while we lay in the shadow of the trees, and drank the cool milk of cocoa-nuts, which the native boys plucked and opened ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... travellers face this furious tempest, which has plucked up trees, and pounded the frozen masses into splinters, with the roar ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... easily keep up with it, or even distance the tired horses. She made one or two incursions into the wood, returning like an animal from quest of food, with something in her mouth, which she was tentatively chewing, and once only with some inedible mandrono berries, plucked solely for their brilliant coloring. It was very hot and singularly close; the higher current of air had subsided, and, looking up, a singular haze seemed to have taken its place between the treetops. Suddenly she heard a strange, rumbling sound; an odd giddiness overtook her, and she ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... thinks she does.' You've done all you could to give my respectable, first-class house the name of a low gambling hell. The evening paper even hints that someone connected with the house had a hand in your being plucked. You've damaged me hundreds of dollars, and if you ever show your face within my doors again ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... the white balls with crimson spots faded away and a lot of beautiful ripe peaches took their place. With a cry of mingled surprise and delight Trot reached out and plucked a peach from the bush and began to eat it, finding it delicious. Cap'n Bill was somewhat dazed at the girl's wish being granted so quickly, so before he could pick a peach they had faded away and bananas took their ...
— The Magic of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... was sticking there, like a woman's long hairpin. He thought that if it had struck two inches lower, with a little more force, he should have looked as the man in the woods did, whom Alric had killed. He plucked the shaft from the stiff cloth with some difficulty, and, barely glancing at it, tossed it away. But little Alric, who had left the guide to take care of the mules and had followed the charge on foot, ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... and put his own hand upon her soft tresses, and spoke kind words to console her. And then he said that the sick man ought to take a few glasses of wine every day; and as he was going away, turned back again, and promised to send the wine from his own house. Nina thanked him, and plucked up something of her old spirit during his presence, and spoke to him as though she had no other care than that of her father's health; but as soon as the doctor was gone she thought again of her Jew lover. That her father should die was a great grief. But when she should be alone in the old house, ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... he would "never fyne" to read "this cursed book al night," all suddenly she plucked three leaves out of it, "right as he radde," and with her fist so took him on the cheek that he fell "bakward adoun" in the fire. Springing up like a mad lion he smote her on the head with his fist, and she lay ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... The terror plucked him from his sleep; for a moment he wrestled and struggled to raise his head from the pillow and loosen the clutch of the night-hag who had suddenly seized him, and with choking throat and streaming brow ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson
... which had given her shelter so long. The next day, when she had returned to her gown of tow, and was no longer a haughty court lady, but only Olga, the flax-spinner's maiden, she repined at her lot. Frowning she carried the water from the spring. Frowning she gathered the cresses and plucked the woodland fruit. And then she sat all day by the spring, refusing to spread the linen on the grass ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... his impiety. The author does not name Vanini; and the truth is that this man repudiated his wrong opinions, until he was convicted of having published atheistical dogmas and acted as an apostle of atheism. When he was asked whether there was a God, he plucked some ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... tulip. Kinsmen and servants stood around him. Dead he was not, yet it could hardly be said that he lived. The healing bog-flower from the faraway lands in the north—that which she was to have sought and plucked for him—she who loved him best—would never now be brought. His beautiful young daughter, who in the magic garb of a swan had flown over sea and land away to the distant north, would never more return. "She is dead and gone," had the two swan ladies, her companions, declared on their return ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... neighboring mantel-piece. And it was with great reluctance that we refrained from decapitating the whole field of daisies at one fell sweep, when we were once allowed to touch their upturned faces. A contract was then made on the spot: we were permitted to pluck the daisies on condition that we plucked but one every day. The field was not large, and long before the blasts of autumn had hushed the voices of the flowers, not a single daisy remained. Advancing spring threw lavish handfuls once more on the ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... he was pacing the garden in such anxious thought that he crushed with his foot a rose lying on the path, and then she saw his face suddenly lighten, and he hurried to the house, but first he plucked a bunch of forget-me-nots. In the evening she found them on ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... quotation, we agreed to assist; and, as many of us catching hold of it as could find a grip, we tugged, and tugged, and tugged. Still the stiff clay did not seem at all inclined to relinquish the prize it had so fairly won. At length, by one tremendous and simultaneous effort, we plucked it forth; but, in doing so, those who retained the trophy in their hands were flung flat on their backs, whilst the newly-gained leg pointed upwards to the zenith. Having first wiped a little of the deep yellow ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... a guardian angel came to your assistance, and plucked you from inevitable ruin; so, at a moment when least expected, the Almighty Avenger may call upon the lawyer to atone for his past crimes if he ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... elements of a tenderness which circumstances had stunted, as nature had stunted his person, I could not help feeling that his malice, now that it could avail him nothing except the gratification of a wanton revenge, fully justified henceforth any reprisals opportunity might enable me to make. It plucked out all commiseration, and obliterated the injury (if injury there were) of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... in front the house—the beeg room with the beeg black bed. Carolina!" He threw the half-plucked chicken at the old cook, wiped his hands on his overalls, and started for the hacienda. "I go for make the bed for Don Mike," he ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... whose cheeks were flushed and eyes suspiciously bright as she plucked all the blades of grass that were within her reach, 'we're glad if you're enjoying being here; but it's a little slow for us girls. You might give the army ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... up the big, grey-headed fellow I have before mentioned—Jacob Baines. He pulled his fore-lock to Sir Ralph, rather shyly; possibly in his youth he had made the sheriff's acquaintance under less favourable circumstances. But he plucked ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... been; and scarcely caring to note the effect of his information upon the man, he had devoted himself to watching Monsieur and Mademoiselle de Crequy. And now he followed them to the Place de la Greve. He saw them mount the platform; saw them kneel down together till plucked up by the impatient officials; could see that she was urging some request to the executioner; the end of which seemed to be, that Clement advanced first to the guillotine, was executed (and just at this moment there was a stir among the crowd, as of a man pressing forward towards the ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... on glimpses of sunny hair, and sad little smiles, and fragments of talk, that, light and conventional as they might seem to chance listeners, were to him clothed with lovely hidden meanings. Sometimes when the eyes met by chance the small warm hands plucked nervously at the flowers she carried, or there was a restless consciousness in step and glance, or a scarcely perceptible quiver of the curved lip, or a piteous droop of the regal little head. Very slight things were these, yet out of them Memory and Imagination made a sumptuous feast, at which ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... in filmy gray, and the twins radiant as fresh-plucked roses in their white frocks and Leghorn hats, had arrived, and were in one of the many long, open loggias close to the red-and-gold pavilion which was ready for ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... consummation of Roman genius and character, had been murdered for aspiring to it. Thus their hereditary aversion to kingship was all subdued by the remembrance of how and why their Caesar fell; and they who, before, would have plucked out his heart rather than he should wear a crown, would now have plucked out their own, to set a crown upon his head. Such is the natural result, when the intensities of admiration and compassion meet together in ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... spoken of in the Bible, both as in a wild and cultivated state. The promised land of the Israelites was "a land of oil, olive, and honey." From the time that the dove returned to Noah in the Ark with an "olive leaf plucked off," in all ages and countries, wherever this tree is known, down to the present day, has an olive-branch been ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... held our breath, gazing at each other with eyes which asked the same question. Then Dugald lifted a corner of the sheet of cotton and plucked it away. ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... in this state to receive 'em, earthed up to the wrists!" She plucked off her gardening-gloves, handed them to Dinah, and stooped to snatch up one of a pair of white cuffs—badges of her widowhood—that she had laid aside on the turf before starting to work. While slipping it ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... on either side had fallen back, leaving the two leaders face to face. Sir Gavan plucked twice at his throat, where the veins stood out like cords, constricting the vocal passages so that he stuttered ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... twinkling he had dropped his spear, plucked her from her saddle, and was marching her toward ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... well known for his judgment in the great Church case, resided, shortly after the decision, in the neighbourhood of Forres. Men plucked each other by the sleeve as he passed along the street, and pointed with awe to the keen-witted lawyer who had caused such a kick-up in the realm. His most innocent doings were watched. One day he went into a book-shop and made a purchase. When he ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... entered, and although for many years I have been free to admire whom fickle fancy chose, and have certainly petted and caressed some whom the world pronounced very lovely, the impression made upon me was transient, as the perfume of a blossom plucked and worn for a few hours only. You have exerted over me a fascination which I can neither explain nor resist. For you I entertain feelings never aroused in my nature until now; and I speak only the simple truth, ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... that bore the name of Merlin. The Spanish were left to do pretty well as they pleased, burning and pillaging Mousehole, Paul, Newlyn, and Penzance, but they thought it advisable to retreat to their galleons in Mount's Bay for the night, and next day, the countryfolk having plucked up some heart, and there being rumours of English seamen drawing near, it was found prudent to decamp altogether. A new town rose from the ashes of the old one, but there was further trouble in the ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... humming a popular song. Betty had slipped behind the half open gate again and was watching her approach, her desperation driving her to thoughts that never would have entered her mind at another time. Suddenly, as the girl passed directly in front of the gate, Betty leaned forward and plucked at her sleeve: ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... apparently at his ease, on the steep lap of danger, found that this hostility and the hostile person held his thoughts. A man may be an enthusiast in the cause of duty, he may have plucked from the hideous slough of war the rare blue flower of loving-kindness, he may in the strength of his convictions seem sufficient to himself; he will still feel a craving for sympathy. Colonel Sullivan ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... in the salon of Madame Appony, but had never visited her in her home until 1836, when he went to Rochecotte to see the famous Prince de Talleyrand, having a great desire to have a view of the "witty turkeys who plucked the eagle and made it tumble into the ditch of the house of Austria." Several years later, on his return from St. Petersburg, he stopped in Berlin, where he was invited to a grand dinner at the home of the Count and Countess Bresson. He gave his arm to the Duchesse de Talleyrand (ex-Dino), whom ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... this report of the watch, he threw his turban on the deck, and plucked his beard, and said to those who were with him: "Receive warning of our destruction, which will befall all of us: not one will escape!" So saying, he began to weep; and all of us in like manner bewailed ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... should be its ruler, and that afterwards he placed separate souls in the various separate bodies; the immortal gods, says Cicero, have placed souls (animos) in human bodies, and the human soul has been plucked ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... her whole being shook with anguish as part of her question was answered; and if her heart was stabbed with sudden pain at the thought that strangers had plucked her crown of glory from her and trampled upon it; and if she suddenly threw out her arms and questioned the Almighty upon the wisdom of His ways, ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... enough for a Prince's bride, Yet nobody came to claim her. She sat like a beautiful picture there, With pretty bluebells and roses fair, And jasmine-leaves to frame her. And why she sat there nobody knows; But this she sang as she plucked a rose, The leaves around her strewing: "I've time to lose and power to choose; 'T is not so much the gallant who woos, But ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... velvet lips On our own, with fragrant sips; But their kisses held us not, All their sweetness we forgot;— Though the brambles in our track Plucked at us to hold us back— "Just ahead," we used to say, "Lie the Lands ...
— Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems • James Whitcomb Riley
... which he pursued a viewless, undeviating path through those trackless woods, his quick reconnaissance of certain trees or openings, his mute inspection of some almost imperceptible footprint of bird or beast, his critical examination of certain plants which he plucked and deposited in his deerskin haversack, were not lost on the quick-witted woman. As they gradually changed the clear, unencumbered aisles of the central woods for a more tangled undergrowth, Teresa felt that subtle admiration which culminates in imitation, and simulating perfectly the step, ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... second-rate hotel, for which he paid twelve dollars a week. There he sat and brooded, until taking up the paper one morning he saw the arrival of one of his old professors at the "Grand Union." Perhaps he might put him in the way of something. So he plucked up heart, and ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... woman pretty well dressed, says the other fellow to Jones, Now mind, Jack, and while jostle her against the wall, do you whip off her pocket. Jones performed tolerably well, though the woman screamed out and people were thick in the street. He gave the pocket, as soon as he had plucked it off, to his comrade, but having felt it rather weighty, would trust him no farther than the first by-alley before they ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... and snatched up the box of roses, "even a Johnny at the stage door. That's going some," and thrusting her hand into the box, she plucked up by their heads a handful of blossoms. Their pure sweet breath flowed out on the coarse scents with which ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... but only because they were not imitations but the very same blossoms, which had grown old. And as each new character is merely a metamorphosis from something older, in these little grey balls I recognised green buds plucked before their time; but beyond all else the rosy, moony, tender glow which lit up the blossoms among the frail forest of stems from which they hung like little golden roses—marking, as the radiance upon an old wall still marks the place of a vanished fresco, the difference ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... desolation, she caught up with him. By a movement so soft that he should not be aware, she plucked him by the coat sleeve on the other side from the fir and held on to him as he ...
— Bride of the Mistletoe • James Lane Allen
... hand, stood comfort, popularity, success and love! And here, on the other, stood cruel hardship, endless difficulties, constant loneliness, and an early grave! 'But how,' he writes, 'can I hesitate? I am but a brand plucked from the burning!' ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham
... in the wood, Who as it seemed was gathering herbs and wild flowers. I had followed him at distance, seen him scale Its western wall, and by an easier entrance Stole after him unnoticed. There I marked, That mid the chequer work of light and shade, With curious choice he plucked no other flowers, But those on which the moonlight fell: and once I heard him muttering o'er the plant. A wizard— Some gaunt slave prowling ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge |
