"Prying" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I believe that in his earliest childhood his feeling for the prose of geography was like Wordsworth's cataract—it "haunted him like a passion." And all the while the subjective side of life called for the intrusion of his prying eyes. So that you may say it was more or less pure chance that led him to give what has proved to be the bulk of his active years to the objective side of things, the purely actual. Take, in this ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens
... miserly that they even conspired to cheat each other. Whatever the woman could lay hands on she hid away; a hen could not cackle but she was on the alert to secure the new-laid egg. Her husband was continually prying about to detect her secret hoards, and many and fierce were the conflicts that took place about what ought to have been common property. They lived in a forlorn-looking house that stood alone and had an ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... from the bottom of this street through to the Rue du Rocher. Halfway down this passage, recently opened through, where the shops let at a very low rent, the Baroness saw on a window, screened up to a height with a green, gauze curtain, which excluded the prying eyes of the passer-by, ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... improve that opportunity for a more minute inspection of some of Nature's works. I have stood under a tree in the woods half a day at a time, during a heavy rain in the summer, and yet employed myself happily and profitably there prying with microscopic eye into the crevices of the bark or the leaves or the fungi at my feet. "Riches are the attendants of the miser; and the heavens rain plenteously upon the mountains." I can fancy that it would be a luxury to stand up to one's chin in some retired swamp ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... Bracciolini said that, "if he did go to Hungary he would pretend that he had come from England," the object must have been that no one should know the country where the MS. had been recovered; any busybody would be thus effectively foiled in visiting the right spot, and there prying about, making inquiries and ascertaining all the particulars with respect to the alleged discovery of some recent rare manuscript. The place thus decided on by accident was a town in Saxony at the farthest eastern extremity ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... a clerk at the Hotel de Ville along with Aristide Saccard; he was dismissed for prying into the prefet's private drawers. He acted for Saccard in many of the shady transactions in which he could not himself appear, and being entirely unscrupulous ultimately amassed such a sum of money that he was able to start a small ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... sweetest and most endearing sympathies of life, the sacrifice and the loss is their own; whilst Englishmen must admit, that in England at least they form a very learned body, much given up to the prosecution of curious and prying researches. But in Italy, where all the world pretend to be antiquaries, the ignorance and incapacity of by far the larger portion of these pretenders is marvellous. No sooner has the adventurer who prints himself antiquary, begun to cheat his way on a little, then he addresses himself boldly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... has shaped them with, and so, Fitting to these their present speech and favour, Discern the thought within. From him I gleaned Nothing. At the least word, however guarded, That sought to try the fastenings of his life With prying hands, how mute and dark he grew, And like the cautious tortoise at a touch Drew in ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman
... across from Panama. He was all politeness, airs, and graces, while trying to ferret out the secret of their real strength. Drake, however, was not to be outdone either in diplomacy or war; and a delightful little comedy of prying and veiling courtesies was played out, to the great amusement of the English sea-dogs. Finally, when the time agreed upon was up, the Spanish officer departed, pouring forth a stream of high-flown compliments, ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... put out to think that anything should be going on that he didn't know about first. You know he is very fond of prying into the affairs of other people, and he loves dearly to boast that there is nothing going on in the Green Forest or on the Green Meadows that he doesn't know about. So now his pride was hurt, and he was ...
— The Adventures of Paddy the Beaver • Thornton W. Burgess
... become more common; "and its existence drags on, to our deep shame, because we have not the courage frankly to say that the sexual relations of husband and wife, or those who live together, concern their own selves, and do not concern the prying, gloating, self-righteous, and ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... this quivering, This flame, this ether, This glad rush of blood, This daylight in my heart, This glow of sympathy in my palms! Thou blind, loving, all-prying touch, Thou openest the book of life ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... the manner of a petulant child. "I'll annoy them. I tell you I am not going to stand for a lot of people's coming here, sneaking and prying around to see what they can see. If anybody wants to enjoy a place like this let him work for it as ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... strife must continue for physical ascendancy, so that the power and the will to be reasonable may not be undermined. Reason is an operation in nature, and has its root there. Saints cannot arise where there have been no warriors, nor philosophers where a prying beast does not remain ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... nurse and the woolly horse. It is a triumph of art that a being whose nature trembles on the very verge of the grotesque should walk through Hawthorne's pages with such undeviating grace. In the Roman dreamland he is in little danger of such prying curiosity, though even there he can only be kept out of harm's way by the admirable skill of his creator. Perhaps it may be thought by some severe critics that, with all his merits, Donatello stands on the very outside ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... saw what might have been cement or something of the kind, and with a throbbing heart he drew a stout burglar's jimmy from his bag and began prying into a seam. ...
— The Boy Nihilist - or, Young America in Russia • Allan Arnold
... inventor hastily. "I don't want people prying around the submarine shed. By all means put the airship away, and then ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... patiently: "To ask personal questions of an adult is 'prying' and is therefore considered improper and antisocial. To ask the same questions of a child is proper and social. It indicates a polite interest in the world of the child. You and I, Mrs. Bagley, have a complete picture of ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... by the veranda door, because he bade me do so, to avoid what he termed 'the prying of servants.' I broke some clusters of chrysanthemums blooming in the rose garden, to carry to my mother, and then I hurried away. If the wages of disobedience be death, then fate reversed the mandate, and obedience exacts my life as a forfeit. Think of it: I had ample time to ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... consummate malignity. Were we to believe certain bold tongues, he made his wife extremely unhappy, although she was the most beautiful woman of the neighborhood. Perhaps, indeed, she was rather silly. But the prying of friends, the slander of enemies, and the gossip of acquaintances, had never succeeded in laying bare the interior of that household. Doctor Rouget was a man of whom we say in common parlance, "He is not pleasant to deal with." Consequently, ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... prying with the iron bar to get the wheel itself free from where it was jammed by the cable against the side of the block. After that Jerry replaced the wheel, and by means of the rope, heaved up on the car till the trolley once more ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... promptly sent out a boat to examine the strange craft, and report upon her character. Jones saw her coming, and resolved to throw her off the scent. Accordingly, by skilful seamanship, he kept the stern of the "Ranger" continually presented to the prying eyes in the British boat. Turn which way they might, be as swift in their manoeuvres as they might, the British scouts could see nothing of the "Ranger" but her stern, pierced with two cabin windows, as might be the stern of any merchantman. Her sides, dotted with frowning ports, were ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... Goldsmith took up residence in the Temple in the spring of the year 1764, in a very shabby set of rooms, which he shared with Jeffs, the butler of the society. Here Dr. Johnson visited him, says Mr. Forster, "and on prying and peering about in them after his short-sighted fashion, flattening his face against every object be looked at, Goldsmith's uneasy sense of their deficiencies broke out. 'I shall soon be in better chambers, sir, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... purpose 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 here, the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... smiling, that I did fly when there was need to serve my friends, & that knowing his people were sick & wanted refreshments, I would not loose time in supplying them, assuring him of giving him part what our men did kill at all times. Some prying a litle too narrowly, young Guillem thought hee had ben discovered, wherat the Father & son were not a litle concern'd. I took upon me, & said it was not civill so narrowly to examine my people; they excus'd it, & the tyde being com in, I took leave to be gon. The Governor & Captain divided my provisions, ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... she said to herself. "How I love you to-day. You are a stern protector, keeping out all prying eyes and malignant tongues. Mr. Dobbins will not venture out while you are abroad, and so we will have peace a ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... has ever occurred to the Anarchist, but, were I myself organising secret committee meetings for unholy purposes, I should invite my comrades to meet in that section of the local museum devoted to statuary. I can conceive of no place where we should be freer from prying eyes and listening ears. A select few, however, do appreciate statuary; and such, I am inclined to think, will not be weaned from their passion by the contemplation of the opera singer in his or ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... stock purchase, had been the chattel and creature of one Button Gwynnet Fles. In appearance he was such a genuine Yankee, lean and sharp, with a slight stoop and prying eyes, that one quite expected a straw to protrude from between his thin lips or have him draw from his pocket a wooden nutmeg and offer it for sale. After getting to know him I learned this apparent shrewdness was a pure defense mechanism, that he was really an ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... to be prying into his poverty, if I enter unasked," said the dean to himself. And so he remained there till Puck, now acquainted with the locality, ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... having intercepted 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 attends all ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... not relish being called, by the remotest implication, an Athenian. As inquisitive as the most prying Yankee is said to be, he stoutly repelled the imputation of inquisitiveness, as applied to himself or to his countrymen. "It was," he was in the habit of saying, "a slander invented by your porter-guzzling Englishmen and smoking Dutchmen. What can you expect of ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... union was still further strengthened by the fact that, while the comparatively learned Miles was enthusiastic and communicative, the unlettered Armstrong was inquisitive and receptive, fond of prying into the nature of things, and always ready as well as competent to discuss— not merely to argue. Observe the distinction, good reader. Discussion means the shaking of any subject into its component parts with a desire to understand ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... induce these men to give me some geographical information of the countries they had just left. Not one of them would come near me, for they knew I was friends with Kamrasi; and Mahamed's men, when they saw mine attempting to converse with them, abused them for "prying into other men's concerns." "These men," they said, "are our friends, and not yours; if we choose to give them presents of cloth and beads, and they give us a return in ivory, what is that to you?" ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... may grin, my lad; but I've been a-watching of yer this morning," said the man, fiercely. "You've been busy with that glass, prying and peering about, and I ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... trail is an actuality for me. The camp on the lake was mine. The rain, the snow I met. The prying camp-robbers, the grouse, the muskrats, the beaver were my companions. But Berrie was with me only in imagination. She is a fiction, born of a momentary, powerful hand-clasp of a Western rancher's daughter. ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... ridiculous occurrences, it is said, that some of Charles's gallantries were discovered by a prying neighbour. A wily old minister was deputed, by his brethren, to rebuke the king for this heinous scandal. Being introduced into the royal presence he limited his commission to a serious admonition, that, upon such occasions, his majesty should always shut the windows.—The ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... not stay long; and indeed, after the disappearance of the Austrian count, a microbe pricking people to departure seemed to multiply in the Villa Bella Vista. The sailor went suddenly, on receipt of a letter from the Admiralty, that prying institution having learned and disapproved of the way in which he was spending his leave and his pay. Lord Burden followed Mrs. Ernstein to Cannes; and Dodo, who never ceased to want good value for her money, was bitterly dissatisfied with the ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the god-like attributes, omniscient, ubiquitous, I mean to squelch free impulse, which is commonly iniquitous. But what's the good of being Chief Inspector of the Universe, And prying into everything from pompous Law to puny verse, If everything or nearly so, shows a confounded tendency To go right of its own accord? My Masterful Resplendency Would radiate aurorally, a world would gaze on trustingly If only things in general wouldn't go on so disgustingly. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 30, 1892 • Various
... dark inside; I can't," I said; and so Aaron went on, pulling and prying, but not one inch ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... he made in entering caused the two personages instantly to resume their respective positions, and, in the strong light which dazzled his prying eyes, he saw the young girl standing before ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... weeping bitterly, and though Patty went to her with affectionate words, she stormed back, "Go away, Patty Fairfield! You have no right to interfere in my affairs! It was your prying that found this out. Go away; I won't speak ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... him as she spoke, but stood with her face averted, as if she would avoid prying into his secret too directly. Her voice was low, a note of weary sadness in it that seemed a confession of the uselessness of turning her back upon the strife ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... going about the bush!" cried the earl. "You never come to the point! How the devil was it you locked them up again?—To go prying all ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... of writing-paper before him, on which he was writing, not in his usual hand, but in printed characters. He would have thought nothing of it had not Barkley, on looking up and seeing him standing there, jumped up in a sudden rage and boxed his ears furiously, calling him a prying little sneak. The boy could not fix this to a day, but it was certainly just about the time when this letter was posted ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... mind—she saw herself standing in the corner of the chapel while the others prayed. Every pulse tightened—her whole nature leapt again in defiance. She seemed to be holding something at bay—a tyrannous power that threatened humiliation and hypocrisy, that seemed at the same time to be prying into secret things—things it should never, never know—and never rule! Yes, she did ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... boy," 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 ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... much, sir. A very nice gentleman he is, sir. And quite a different class from them two detectives from London, what goes prying about, and asking questions. I don't hold with foreigners as a rule, but from what the newspapers say I make out as how these brave Belges isn't the ordinary run of foreigners, and certainly he's ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie
... because of their unobtrusive life. They who lead the "simple life" may not make as much stir in the world as some others we know: but never make the mistake of thinking the life one lacking in interest. These "little journeys" of mine were for the purpose of prying into the secrets of our friends "the owls." As far back as the uncovered picture-writing of the ancients, Mr. Owl has been the synonym for wisdom. Does he deserve ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various
... again you considered and you said: 'It is perhaps not well that we leave this here, lest it should be seen by our grandchildren; for they are troublesome, prying into every crevice. People will be startled at their returning in consternation, and will ask what has happened that this (corpse) is lying here; because they will keep on asking until they find it out. And they will at once be disturbed ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale
... my business prying into a girl's fancies. I'm simply telling you Phil Lambert is the man that ought to marry her, and if he doesn't get on to the job almighty quick that pop-eyed simpleton over there will be prancing down the aisle to Lohengrin with Carlotta ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... with ineffable profundity about the "criminal" ear, the "criminal" thumb, the "criminal" glance. They gain access to gaols and pester unfortunate prisoners with callipers and cameras, and quite unforgivable prying into personal and private matters, and they hold out great hopes that by these expedients they will evolve at last a "scientific" revival of the Kaffir's witch- smelling. We shall catch our criminals by anthropometry ere ever a criminal thought has entered their ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... Smerdyakov, but Mitya, who had committed the murder, though he might have been expected to feel the opposite. He did not want to analyze the reason for this feeling, and even felt a positive repugnance at prying into his sensations. He felt as though he wanted to make haste to forget something. In the following days he became convinced of Mitya's guilt, as he got to know all the weight of evidence against him. There was evidence of ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... the advantage of being a man! And what do you think the old thing did? She took the whole of it to buy a bonnet with a red feather in it! The committee heard of it, though I can't for my life see how. There are a lot of them that seem to think that benevolence consists chiefly in prying into the affairs of the poor wretches they help! And they posted ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... 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 ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... the mouth to insure silence. Tommy was so near that he had no difficulty in recognising in this unfortunate the person of old Coleman, the member of the coast-guard who had been most successful in thwarting the plans of the smugglers for some years past. Rendered somewhat desperate by his prying disposition, they had seized him on this particular night, during a scuffle, and were now about to dispose of him in a ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... her letter with a half-smothered exclamation of intense, joyful surprise, ran swiftly away with it to the beach, never stopping till she had gained a spot beyond and away from the crowd, where no prying eye would watch her movements or note if the perusal of her treasure caused ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... muddy country were not as firm as those previously traversed, a contingency the boys had not taken into consideration. At times the mules were unable to move the wagon, even though all the minstrels were pushing or prying to the extent of their muscular power. Instead of dust, as on the first day out, the minstrels were covered with ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... she dipped her hand into a basin of water, which stood by her, and muttering between her teeth some words, which I could not hear, she threw some water in my face, and exclaimed, in a furious tone, "Wretch, receive the punishment of thy prying curiosity, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... Plague be at hand, and he, more mighty than armies, more terrible than Suleyman in his glory, can restore such pomp and majesty to the weakness of the Imperial city, that if, when HE is there, you must still go prying amongst the shades of this dead empire, at least you will tread the path with seemly ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... in readiness to receive them with blinds down, as if some relative had been dead, and was about to be borne away to the house appointed for all living. The deal coffin was opened, and the contents were taken out, tied up in a parcel so as to conceal from the prying curiosity of any chance person that they were Cleave's Police Gazettes, and then sent off to the railway stations most convenient for their transmission to the provinces. The coffins after this were returned in the middle of next night to the 'undertaker's' ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... up and see you, his only child, undone by the very instrument he designed for your security, how pungent would be his anxiety! I say, Peter, though there is something so unaccountable to human wisdom in such events of things, yet there is something therein so reasonable and just withal, that by a prying eye, the Supreme Hand may very visibly be seen in them. Now, this being plainly the case before us, and herein the glory of the Almighty exalted, rest content under it, and let not this disappointment, befallen you for your father's faults, be attended with others ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... ephemeral thing, lacking the first breath of life; a thing that is dead before it is born. Why, any cub reporter, if he were to put into some other profession the same amount of nerve, and tact, and ingenuity and finesse, and stick-to-it-iveness that he expends in prying a single story out of some unwilling victim, could retire with a fortune in ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... the red rag this year. We're making a different play. We've been having our newspapers drum hard on the tune: 'Leave it out to the people.' It'll be Everett all right in the convention, but we don't want to seem to be prying open their jaws and ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... nothing to a possible prying eye. When the task was completed, Johnny stooped to pick up the hilt of the broken blade. He turned it over and over in his hand, ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... brute, with the front teeth; Whitey, the albino, peering and prying; One-eye, Humpy, Bandy and the rest—all labelled like dogs ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... confounded Old Chester people would mind their own affairs! This prying into things that are none ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... 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 ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... joke with the dwellers in the house. While all these pleasing occupations proceeded, the hour of Cudmore's trial was approaching. The tea-pot which had stood the attack of fourteen cups without flinching, at last began to fail, and discovered to the prying eyes of Mrs. Clanfrizzle, nothing but an olive-coloured deposit of soft matter, closely analogous in appearance and chemical property to the residuary precipitate in a drained fish-pond; she put down the lid with a gentle ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... than one suit of clothes and donned new ones, cast its skin for the last time, refused all further food, spun a cocoon of silk with a dome-shaped silken floor to each cell, and for a period retired from the prying eyes of the world, even of its own mother, into the sacred sanctuary of the chrysalis state. Then the queen's labor lightened a little for a period, so that you could again see her at spare moments sucking nectar from the flowers for herself, robbing the jam-dish, or lapping ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... turned readily upon the newcomer the moment her secret labors had been hidden from prying male eyes. And there was no mistaking her cordiality for ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... entrance. These latter were slender, almost wasplike insects with lacy wings and long, thread-like legs, that whirled and danced with the mad joyousness of life, the mass of swirling creatures seemingly spinning a net of sheerest gossamer that curtained the interior from the prying eyes of the wrens and ant birds hopping inquisitively through the ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... soon after dawn by a glorious white burst of early sunshine. As a rule, the excellent 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 presentiment of evil she was led to this activity ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... old time gentlemen 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
... 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 ...
— The Four Epochs of Woman's Life • Anna M. Galbraith
... she settled herself down into a life of humble apology for her plebeian existence, atoning for it by condoning all his faults and forgiving all his vices, even to the extent of cloaking them before the prying eyes of Sir John, who was persuaded to look upon his son-in-law as a paragon of all the domestic virtues and a perfect model ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... all to-night, Mrs. Peaches," said Doctor John teasingly, as he stooped beside me. "Leave a few for—for the others." I waked up in a half-second and so did all those prying flowers, I felt sure. ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... [Footnote: In Chinese mythology the telluric element has remained untarnished. The dragon is an earth-god, who controls the rain and thunder clouds.] or even to our own Heralds' College, where these and other beasts have sought a refuge from prying professors under such queer disguises that their own mothers ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... me full, Gangs of the prying gull That shriek and scrabble on the riven hatches! For roar that dumbed the gale, My hawse-pipes guttering wail, Sobbing my heart out through the ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... lead her forth and tie her to a post set up in an open place. The head of the post is carved in the shape of a grotesque face. None but the old men may witness what follows. Were a woman caught peeping and prying, it would go ill with her; she would be marked out for the vengeance of the demon, who would make her expiate her crime at the very next moon by madness or death. Every participant in the ceremony comes armed with a scourge ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... Sumner then, which was as full of stir, And prate, and prying, as a woodpecker, And ever inquiring upon everything, Said, "Brother, where is thine inhabiting, In case I come to find ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... convenient, this private entrance into thy penetralia, Roderigo. It shelters me from the prying eyes of Uzeda, who ever seeks to cozen the sire by spying on the Son. We will pay him off one of these days. He loves you no less than he ...
— Calderon The Courtier - A Tale • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... frankness. She introduced us into the kitchen, a large apartment, well filled with these articles which good livers think necessary to the happy enjoyment of life. Here we observed five or six Canadian servants huddled into a corner of the kitchen trembling with fear. Our prying eyes soon discovered a trap door leading into the cellar. The men entered it; firken after firken of butter,—lard, tallow, beef, pork, fish and salt, all became a prey. While the men were rummaging below the lieutenant descended ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... glance? I closed my own again once more, As doubtful that my former trance Could not as yet be o'er. A slender girl, long-haired, and tall, Sate watching by the cottage wall. The sparkle of her eye I caught, Even with my first return of thought; For ever and anon she threw 810 A prying, pitying glance on me With her black eyes so wild and free: I gazed, and gazed, until I knew No vision it could be,— But that I lived, and was released From adding to the vulture's feast: And when the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... what carting was needed. Janice and her aunt made the curtains themselves, and they put them up so as to keep out the prying eyes of all Poketown, for the community now began to wonder what was going on in the empty room next the drug store. As Walky had been bound to secrecy, too, the curious had no means of learning what was going on. It was just as though the ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... out!" said Maggie. "You were always spying and prying on me. You always hated me. I don't know what I have done to you. I'd have left you alone if you had left me alone; but you have interfered with me and made my life miserable. God knows, I am not too happy"—Maggie struggled with her emotion—"but you have ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... in a natural opening, fairly clear 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 ...
— Wilderness Ways • William J Long
... were aware of the absurdity of anything so trivial being held in such high esteem. More of the "calico," which really was an inexpensive but tasteful chintz, hung against the wall and served to hide from prying eyes the child's meagre wardrobe, and a bow of it was perkily tied to the back ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... 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 four Spirits of ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... the word was hardly jerked from his lips before Chad was on his feet and prying Jack's jaws apart. "He ain't much hurt," he said, looking at the bloody hold which Jack had clamped on his enemy's throat, "but he'd a-killed him though, he al'ays does. Thar ain't no chance fer NO dog, when Jack gits ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... "that woman has been grossly libelled; she is vain, frivolous, and fond of admiration, but nothing more. For a whole fortnight I have been prying into her life, but I can't hit upon anything in it to give us a pull over her. The debt may help us, however. Does her husband know that she has ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... of course, evacuated by all inhabitants. The houses all in ruins. By now all the remaining windows have been boarded up and the blown-out doors barred against prying eyes. Here we are at an old estaminet called "Aux Coeurs joyeux." There's hardly anything but the sign left. At the cross-roads in the centre of the town is the church, so dismal. No roof, pillars broken ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... like to have rais'd the Mob upon me for looking upright with this Glass; for this, they said, was prying into the Mysteries of the Great Eye of the World; That we ought to enquire no farther than he has inform'd us, and to believe what he had left us more Obscure: Upon this, I laid down the Glasses, and concluded, that we had Moses and ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... came into the field. He was an investigator who brought to his aid a singular capacity possessed by the very few; the capacity for an unbiased looking for the hidden reasons of things. There was no field too sacred or too old for his prying investigations and his private conclusions. He was, as much as any man ever is, an original thinker. He knew of all the electrical experiments of others, and they produced in his mind conclusions distinctly his own. He was, upon topics pertaining to the field of reason, experience ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele
... Jove and the sacred sepulchre of ancient Battus, or as the thronging stars which in the hush of darkness witness the furtive loves of mortals, to kiss thee with kisses of so great a number is enough and to spare for passion-driven Catullus: so many that prying eyes may not avail to number, ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... of divorce to physical defects or delinquencies; making the proceedings public; prying into all the personal affairs of unhappy men and women; regarding the step as quasi criminal; punishing the guilty party in the suit; all this will not strengthen frail human nature, will not insure happy homes, will not banish scandals and ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... a private quarrel should end in the killing of an English gentleman. Such being the fact, those gardens which adjoined the houses of certain nobles, and by reason of their privacy precluded the presence of prying eyes, were oft turned into duelling grounds, and the square of sward flanking the dwelling of Thomas Percy was well adapted for a contest in which the evenness of the ground, as well as others matters, was of much consequence ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... delightful, in a big sunny room, with interesting people coming and going all the time. Bob and Cecilia smiled at each other like two happy children. It was almost unbelievable that they were free; away from tryanny and coldness, with no more plotting and planning, and no more prying eyes. ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... Christmas present, and I knew that she was always as good as her 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 ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... had eaten 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 great is the comfort ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... quadrangle of cheap brick and white dwelling-houses, and a few mean shops and tawdry saloons. It has the towers of a fortress, the pillars of an Egyptian temple; but more impressive than either of these is the awful simplicity of the bare, uncompromising wall that shuts out the prying eyes of the world and encloses those who are no longer of the world. It is hard to imagine what effect it has on those who remain in the houses about it. One would think they would sooner live overlooking a graveyard than such ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... persuader on a huge German who had just rounded the corner of the "bay." He made a good job of it, getting him in the face, and must have simply caved him in, but not before he had thrown a bomb. I had broken my bayonet prying the dug-out door off and had my ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... do was for Henry to work away at their dream of a home together—home together, however little, just four walls to love each other in, away from the gaze of prying eyes, none daring to make them afraid. How that home was to be compassed was far from clear in either of their minds; but vaguely it was felt that it would be brought about by the powerful enchantments of literature. ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... like to keep to themselves. I don't know now whether Louisa and Alec will be glad to see me bringing three strangers to meet 'em, but my honest opinion is they need someone to say 'Hello' and be friendly without prying." ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence
... prayer, one contrite tear, For past faults to atone— For wasted talents, misspent life, She's gone before God's throne! Prying that wilful, wayward heart That leaned on gods of clay, For calmer, holier death than hers With solemn heart ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
... expression of all this curious artistic idolatry, of which, of course, I have never cared to speak to him. He knows nothing about it. He shall never know anything about it. But the world might guess it; and I will not bare my soul to their shallow prying eyes. My heart shall never be put under their microscope. There is too much of myself in the thing, Harry—too much ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... us prying into the abyss, To gather what we shall be when the frame Shall be resolved to something less than this— Its wretched essence; and to dream of fame, And wipe the dust from off the idle name We never more ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... seemed to her that the Hat Ranch must be situated at least ten miles further from San Pasqual than it had been two days previous. It almost seemed as if she would never reach the gate that pierced the big seven-foot adobe wall which shut Bob McGraw in from the prying eyes of the townspeople; she felt that her heart, over-burdened with its weight of agonized happiness, must break before she found herself once more standing by Bob's bed, gazing down at him with a look ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... to the intrigue developed furiously up at the Baines' house on the hillside. Yasmini gave directions from Tess's bedroom, where Tess hid her from prying servants, she electing to change clothes once more—this time into her hostess' riding breeches, boots and helmet. But she insisted on Tess retaining the Rajput costume, only allowing a hand-bag to be packed with woman's things, ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... of work than a rainbow could prattle about the way it shines,—and as for his personal history, I should like to know by what right society is entitled to pry into the sacred matters of a man's private life, simply because he happens to be famous? I consider the modern love of prying and probing into other people's affairs a most degrading and abominable sign of the times,—it is morbid, unwholesome, and utterly contemptible. Moreover, I think that writers who consent to be 'interviewed' ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... satires on particular persons. He insisted upon weekly communions, desired to rebaptize Dissenters who abandoned their Nonconformity, and exercised his pastoral duties in such a manner that he was accused of meddling in every quarrel and prying into every family. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... a Christian man, and not in the habit of abusing the absent. Indeed, I don't see what right any one has to make impertinent inquiries into the life or way of living of any respectable person—I do not see it, Cannie; and, I assure you, I always set my face against such prying inquiries." ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... and shall not go on tilting forever, it is because something is wrong with the mechanism of the world outside their little spotted bodies. Surely the easiest, least willed motion in all the universe is this sandpiper's teeter, teeter, teeter, as it hurries peering and prying ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... the chief of the Civil Guard and two gentlemen carrying papers and bottles of ink; all with an escort of men wearing three-cornered hats and carrying guns. These omnipotent personages, after a rest at Can Mallorqui, had climbed up to the tower, examining everything, prying all around, running over the ground as if to measure it, compelling him, the Little Chaplain, to lie down in the very spot where Don Jaime had been found, adopting a similar posture. After the visit of the magistrate some pious neighbors ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... how much more snug and comfortable is the house, shut in from the prying winds and shivering cold of the outside air, which the opposite outer doors of an open hall cannot, in their continual opening and shutting, altogether exclude! Our own experience, and, we believe, the experience of most housekeepers will readily concede its ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... Mrs. Cranston's window. Craig picked up some bits of broken stone from a walk about the house and threw them gently against the pane. Then we drew back into the shadow of the house, lest any prying eyes might discover us. In a few minutes the window on the second floor was stealthily opened. The muffled figure of Mrs. Cranston appeared in the dim light; then a piece of ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve |
