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Pluck   Listen
noun
Pluck  n.  
1.
The act of plucking; a pull; a twitch.
2.
The heart, liver, and lights of an animal.
3.
Spirit; courage; indomitable resolution; fortitude. "Decay of English spirit, decay of manly pluck."
4.
The act of plucking, or the state of being plucked, at college. See Pluck, v. t., 4.
5.
(Zool.) The lyrie. (Prov. Eng.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Pluck" Quotes from Famous Books



... chemists, professors of botany, practical botanists like the market gardeners of Gennevilliers; with all the plant that they could use for multiplying and improving machinery; and, finally, with the organizing spirit of the Parisian people, their pluck and energy—with all these at its command, the agriculture of the anarchist Commune of Paris would be a very different thing from the rude husbandry ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin

... up now scrambled over the top, but No Man's Land had been largely stripped of dangers. Victory sparkled in the air; safety smiled at Jeb; with these fellows carrying the battle ever away from him, performing the unbelievable in pluck and endurance, he did not so much mind the thought of going for the wounded! But the uplift was transient—it fled in a ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris

... came the explosion, and the men were off to another building to repeat the work. All was done by bugle call, with military precision. Ten thousand times more "glory" in this march to save than in all the charge at Balaklava. Had equal pluck been shown on the field of battle, the flag of that splendid regiment would have blazoned with another war-cry. Let them place this record on their banners, instead of the name of a city destroyed: December 25th, 1878. Hong Kong Saved! They have no prouder triumph to commemorate, ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie

... Dockwrath armed himself for the encounter,—how he sharpened his teeth, as it were, and felt the points of his own claws. The little devices of Mr. Chaffanbrass did not deceive him. He knew what he had to expect; but his pluck was good, as is the pluck of a terrier when a mastiff prepares to attack him. Let Mr. Chaffanbrass do his worst; that would all be over in an hour or so. But when Mr. Chaffanbrass had done his worst, Orley ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope

... 'it is. Of course it is one of the risks of the Army, and I am sure that Maurice would have gone into it, even if he had known what would take place. He was that sort. In a way, too, it was a glorious death. By his pluck and foresight he made the whole job easy, and put down what might have been a big rebellion. But that isn't quite how I look at it. I lost a pal, the best pal a man ever had. His death bowled me over, too, and I wasn't fit for anything ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking

... pluck, though not in the least sublime, Is wiser than blank dismay, Since "No sparrow can fall before its time", And we're valued higher than they; So hope for the best and leave the rest In charge of a stronger hand, Like the honest boors ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon

... does this fellow think of the rod that is in pickle for him. But I will be even with him. I will not sleep while he pursues the game; vigilance alone must gain me my object. No, no, Signor Artist, you cannot thus pluck this beautiful flower unchallenged; you are observed, and your object is understood, Scheming requires counter-scheming; and you shall have that to your heart's content. Italy against America, by the ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray

... are fastened so tight now that the ropes seem cutting into my wrists, and after they had set me on my feet and cut the cords of my legs I could scarcely stand at first, my feet were so numbed by the pressure. However, we must keep up our pluck. Possibly they may keep us at Canton for a bit, and if they do the squadron may arrive and fight its way past the forts and take the city before they have quite made up their minds as to what kind of death will be most appropriate to the occasion. I wonder what they are ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty

... only on one condition precedent: he must be Shakespeare's peer. In default of this we can only humbly erase here, and reverently suggest there, summoning to our aid all possible knowledge, lest in plucking up the tares we pluck up the wheat also. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various

... price, nor prayers, can infringe the fate Your beauty hath cast on yo[u], my best Zenocia, Be rul'd by me, a Fathers care directs ye, Look on the Count, look chearfully and sweetly; What though he have the power to possess ye, To pluck your Maiden honour, and then slight ye By Custom unresistible to enjoy you; Yet my sweet Child, so much your youth and goodness, The beauty of your soul, and Saint-like Modesty, Have won upon his mild mind, so much charm'd him, That all power laid aside, what Law allows him, Or sudden fires, kindled ...
— Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (1 of 10) - The Custom of the Country • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... sorts of good things. Since noon we've done nothing but pluck pheasants, pewits, wood-hens, and heath-cocks. Feathers are scattered thick. Then from the pond they've brought eels and golden carp ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various

... the cock seemed quite a rara avis at Palermo. Perhaps, after all, one fact explained the other, and I had been mixing up cause and effect. The military were evidently proud of themselves and their past exploits with Garibaldi; they had certainly proved that there was plenty of sturdy pluck about them. They are in general a small, swarthy, handsome set of men, but with rather too much of a swagger for soldiers who had seen service. The ladies are graceful and dignified; a trifle too pale, I thought, but I have since learnt that this pallor is studiously ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux

... full of pluck must amount to something, even if he does not take kindly to Latin," he reflected many a time. "I am afraid I have made a mistake in having him prepared for college. In the army now, and particularly in the cavalry, he would make a ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... as he transferred the nuggets, receipt, and handkerchief to his own pocket. "Eye of my soul that you are! if you offend me I must pluck you out." His conscience feared him and said nothing. As for the tea, he left it in its ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler

... down time's dark stream, And from its margin pluck the flowers, To twine them with the moon's pale beams, Then fling them ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna

... arms, and stroking them, and running about on all fours, encouraging and setting them on. Bets ran high, and, like most other contests, it remained for some time undecided. They both showed great pluck, and fought probably better and longer than their masters would have done. Whether, in the end, it was the white or the red that beat, I do not recollect; but, whichever it was, he strutted off with the true veni-vidi-vici look, leaving the other ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... your pluck, Ben," he said cheerfully; and turning away, he looked at Sally with a long, thoughtful gaze as he ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow

... mine, but as the truth, which may be all the world's, if they look for it. If I remember rightly, Mr. Frank Howard promised at some discussion respecting the "Seven Lamps," reported in the "Builder," to pluck all my borrowed feathers off me; but I did not see the end of the discussion, and do not know to this day how many feathers I have left: at all events the elephant's foot must belong to Mr. Garbett, though, strictly speaking, neither he nor I can be quite justified in using it, for ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin

... their talk turned from the incident of the morning, but when it did its subject was Richard Ferriss. Bennett was sounding his praises and commending upon his pluck and endurance during the retreat from the ship, when Lloyd, after hesitating once ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris

... walked among the trees, he often stopped to listen to the singing birds, or to look at the wild flowers that grew on every side. Now and then he stooped to pluck a violet, or a primrose, or a yellow but-ter-cup. Soon his hands ...
— Fifty Famous Stories Retold • James Baldwin

... it became evident that, in the side of President Ham, Billy was a thorn, sharp, irritating, virulent, and that at any moment Ham might pluck that thorn and Billy would leave Hayti in haste, and probably in handcuffs. This was evident to Billy, also, and the prospect was most disquieting. Not because he loved Hayti, but because since he went to lodge at the cafe of the Widow Ducrot, he had learned ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis

... was dying and so he confessed!" she reflected with asperity. "He hadn't even the pluck to go through with what he had begun.... Ah! If I had committed a crime and once denied it, I would deny it with my last breath, and no torture should drag ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett

... he had invented the best question of his life. It was, "Name twelve animals that inhabit the polar regions." The professor chuckled as he wrote this down. He was sure he would "pluck" half the students on that question and it was beyond a doubt that that opprobrious young loafer Thompson would fail. But when the professor read the examination papers, Thompson, who had not answered another question, was the only man who had solved the polar problem. This was Thompson's ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger

... the absence of its master. He was standing within the Viminal Gate, while an attendant held his horse close by and a little apart from the crowds of weeping women who surrounded the soldiers of the dictator's escort. Suddenly he felt some one pluck him by the cloak, and turned quickly to see a young woman in the single tunic of a slave. Her dress, however, was of finer texture than that worn by most of her class, and seemed to bespeak a rich mistress and especial favour. She stood with her finger to her lips, her eyes ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne

... Malays came on, and although swept by volleys of musketry reached the bamboos, which they strove in vain to pluck up or climb. In the meantime the eighteen pounders had never ceased their fire, the sailors working them steadily, regardless of the fight that was going on on either flank. Here the little brass guns did good service; each time they were fired the recoil sent ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty

... govern it, without allowing other elections; and he whom your Majesty shall send should come accompanied by religious fit to restore and preserve this province. Like a young vine, it is in need of such laborers, and not of such as dry up its moisture and pluck its fruit, like the friars who come here from Mexico. They have no other care, imitating in this their head; for it is evident that the said father Fray Lorenso de Leon has always acted in this way, since for his own private claims he has taken ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson

... well." Immediately the child goes back to his play perfectly happy. One little fellow was taught that when he fell he should get up at once, rub the bump, and say, "That didn't hurt." All through his career the bumps and the hardships of life were met with the same pluck. On the other hand, a thoughtless caretaker will excitedly jump and catch up the slightly injured child, coddle it, rock it, pet it—and the crying continues indefinitely. This early training in meeting minor hurts and obstacles ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler

... you want a receipt for that popular mystery Known to the world as a Heavy Dragoon, Take all the remarkable people in history, Rattle them off to a popular tune! The pluck of Lord Nelson on board of the Victory— Genius of Bismarck devising a plan; The humor of Fielding (which sounds contradictory)— Coolness of Paget about to trepan— The grace of Mozart, that unparalleled musico— Wit of Macaulay, ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert

... the world, whose experience enabled him to be a good judge of character. And he well knew the sort of counsel that would inevitably stir all that was best in the boy and lend strength to his pluck. He judged rightly, for immediately Alf straightened himself with set lips, steady eyes, and ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby

... cowboy country. A story of the modern cowboy of the Southwest, the man who does not live with a gun in his hand, but who fights to a finish when necessity demands it. The Sheriff of Badger is a flesh and blood individual of pluck and quiet daring. His breezy adventures will keep you keenly ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow

... plans to prop his rule. Some think 'twill all result in a great cry, And little (Berlin) wool. Still, all good souls will wish young WILLIAM luck. The Teutons may not relish Swiss suggestion, But anyhow it shows the Emperor's pluck In handling ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 22, 1890 • Various

... atrabilarious being those systems that afflict him, that exasperate his mind, that do nothing more than kindle his anger against his incredulous neighbour; let us tear from the fanatic those terrible ideas which arm him with poniards against the happiness of his fellows; let us pluck from tyrants, let us snatch from impostors, those opinions which enable them to terrify, to enslave, and to despoil the human species. In removing from honest men their formidable notions let us not encourage those of the wicked, who are the enemies of society; let us deprive ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach

... no mistake," Harry said to himself as he descended the stairs. "She has got more pluck than most women, and is as cool and calm as if she were twice her age. Most girls would be quite knocked over if they were in her place. Her father and mother murdered, her sister in the hands of these wretches, ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty

... plucked, the one that seemed to be most wonderful was the one most bright, gleaming yellow as the sun. "It is yellow like gold," she said. "If I come with the sign of gold, I shall be welcome. I will pluck it everywhere I can and carry only yellow flowers." And soon her arms were full, but somehow her fingers seemed hot and unpleasant and her arms were heavy, so she dropped some by the way and carried only those that ...
— Fireside Stories for Girls in Their Teens • Margaret White Eggleston

... anything else. His pluck is certainly wonderful, but even with his pluck he can't dissolve again. His Church Bill has given him a six months' run, and ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... you, my poor goose-cap. I'll pull your lug for ye, child, if ye be so dowly;" and with a mimic pluck the good-natured old housekeeper pinched his ear ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... cocoa-nuts, and his laugh that set the chandelier-drops rattling overhead, as we sat at our sparkling banquets in those gay times! Harry, champion, by acclamation, of the College heavyweights, broad-shouldered, bull-necked, square-jawed, six feet and trimmings, a little science, lots of pluck, good-natured as a steer in peace, formidable as a red-eyed bison in the crack of hand-to-hand battle! Who forgets the great muster-day, and the collision of the classic with the democratic forces? The huge butcher, fifteen ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various

... name, let all, who hear nearer and nearer the hungry moan of the storm and the growl of the breakers, speak out! But, alas! we have no right to interfere. If a man pluck an apple of mine, he shall be in danger of the justice; but if he steal my brother, I must be silent. Who says this? Our Constitution, consecrated by the callous suetude of sixty years, and grasped in triumphant argument in the left hand of him whose right hand ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell

... satisfie Your mercie. Spare my Sonn and I shall goe As willingly to death as to my rest After a painfull child birthe. Looke on him! How fitt the subiect is to invite your pittie! What Tyrant hand would cut this Cedar up Ere its full groath (at which it stately head Would give a shade to heaven), or pluck this Rose As ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various

... the wallabies, and would make a second effort to settle down. A little net fishing would help to keep him going. "As for the sea," said he, "I have had enough—too much. It is all right while your pluck lasts, but once get a shake, and you had better give it up. And the little boat!—I broke that rail as I was getting poor Andrew's body on board. She is all right, but for that—and she's ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield

... weariness clean forgotten. For divers of these trees bore great clusters of yellowish fruit, the which I knew for a sort of plantain, very wholesome and of delicate savour. So, casting out my limpets and periwinkles, I hasted to pluck good store of this fruit, and with my turtle-shell thus well laden, hastened back to our refuge ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol

... count for much anywhere else, but the pluck of it, without rain for months, dew even. It's the ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various

... down for a quarter of an hour, and don't drink anything, and you'll be all right. When you recover you'll be glad you showed pluck. So, good-night, for the present—I know how you feel, and I'll be off. Be sure not to try to settle yourself with wine; it'll ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw

... trailing arbutus in the air around her. In a sheltered, sunny nook, she found a single erythronium, lured forth in advance of its proper season, and gathered it as a relic of the spot, which she might keep without blame. As she stooped to pluck it, her own face looked up at her out of a little pool filled by the spring rains. Seen against the reflected sky, it shone with a soft radiance, and the earnest eyes met hers, as if it were her young self, evoked from the past, to bid her farewell. "Farewell!" she whispered, ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor

... twice sunk, owing to its faulty foundation, has been twice renewed by loving strangers, and each time, as I am informed, these strangers were Americans. Here they do not strew flowers, as was the wont of olden times, but they pluck everything that is green and living on the grave of the poet. The Custode tells me, that, notwithstanding all his pains in sowing and planting, he cannot "meet the great consumption." Latterly an English lady, alarmed at the rapid disappearance of the verdure on and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various

... swear it. You shall not touch pitch and not be defiled. If there be pitch on earth he is pitch. If your eye offend you, pluck it out. He is my step-son, I know; but I will pluck him out like an eye that has offended. It is he that has ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope

... are married and left behind, who bear their children with their husbands far away in danger, who have had no real homes yet, but who wait and hope, they are very wonderful in their courage and pluck—and, most of all, everywhere, our women, like our men, wisely refuse to be dreary. There are enough secret dark hours, but in our work we carry on cheerfully, the women know the soldiers' slogan, "Cheero," and to Britain and to "somewhere on the ...
— Women and War Work • Helen Fraser

... to a mind diseas'd, Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, Raze out the written troubles of the brain, And with some sweet oblivious antidote Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff Which weighs upon the ...
— The Untroubled Mind • Herbert J. Hall

... where people were preparing to dig out two men. One was crying piteously in mixed German and English for help. The other, except his head and shoulders, was completely buried beneath the ruins. As the people began to remove the rubbish he said in a tone expressive at once of pluck and agony, "Leave me, and go and get out that bawling Dutchman: he ain't ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various

... suggested that as I had had a touch of toothache the night before, I might take my place in the chair and give an example of British pluck to the assembled "Poilus." I hastened to impress on the surgeon that I hated notoriety and would prefer to remain modestly in the background. I even pushed aside with scorn the proffered bribe of six "Boche," buttons, assuring the man that ...
— The White Road to Verdun • Kathleen Burke

... bold words for a boy of seventeen. But they were not idle boastings. Before a year had passed, young Olaf's pluck and courage had won the day, and in harvest-time, in the year 1015, being then but little more than eighteen years old, he was crowned King of Norway in the Drontheim, or "Throne-home," of Nidaros, the royal city, now called on your atlas the ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... their wings desperately against her head. Here, indeed, was a situation to try the pluck of a highly civilized young lady. What should she do? What should she say? What tone should she take? In the ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner

... the old woman. "But place yourself here, and when Death comes—I expect him every moment—do not let him pluck the flower up, but threaten him that you will do the same with the others. Then he will be afraid! He is responsible for them to OUR LORD, and no one dares to pluck them up ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen

... a dinner. He had not far to go, for he had scarcely plunged into the first grove of trees when a large bird took wing from among the branches, and, raising his rifle, he succeeded in bringing it to the ground. It proved to be a brush-turkey, which he forthwith proceeded to pluck and prepare for the spit; lighting a fire meanwhile, so that it might burn well up and be in a fit state for cooking when wanted. The turkey was cooked—after a fashion—and if it was not as well done as the engineer could have wished, it was still sufficiently so to satisfy his ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood

... was fortunate he had no disbelievers like us to contend with in battle, for we, instead of trusting to luck and such omens, put our faith only in skill and pluck, which Baraka elucidated from his military experience in the wars in British India. Lastly, I explained to him how England formerly was as unenlightened as Africa, and believing in the same sort of superstitions, and the inhabitants were all as naked as his skin-wearing Wanyambo; but now, since they ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke

... that I was in was foremost of all the company, and as we travelled, I being alone in the waggon, began to try if I could pluck my hands out of the manacles, and as God would, although it were somewhat painful for me, yet my hands were so slender that I could pull them out and put them in again, and ever as we went when the waggons made most noise and the men busiest, ...
— Voyager's Tales • Richard Hakluyt

... Despite his indomitable pluck and resolve, the confinement, uncertainty, and contention told heavily on Nelson's health and spirits. His temper was too kindly and social not to feel the general alienation. It could not affect his purpose; but the sense of right-doing, which sustained ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... homeward. From that hour Edward Claire was to be the subject of a fierce temptation. He had admitted an evil suggestion, and had warmed it in the earth of his mind, even to germination. Already a delicate root had penetrated the soil, and was extracting food therefrom. Oh! why did he not instantly pluck it out, when the hand of an infant would have sufficed in strength for the task? Why did he let it remain, shielding it from the cold winds of rational truth and the hot sun of good affections, until it could live, sustained by its own organs of appropriation and nutrition? Why did ...
— True Riches - Or, Wealth Without Wings • T.S. Arthur

... Fritz Winter, Ritter von Wallishausen, whispered into Joco's ear, his speech agitated and stuttering: "You have a woman with you," he said, "who surely is not your wife. Set her free. I will buy her from you for any price you ask. You can go away with your bears and pluck yourself another such flower ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne

... cheap and plentiful. The better type of these people is the amusing man (l'uomo piacevole), the worse is the buffoon and the vulgar parasite who presents himself at weddings and banquets with the argument, 'If I am not invited, the fault is not mine.' Now and then the latter combine to pluck a young spendthrift, but in general they are treated and despised as parasites, while wits of higher position bear themselves like princes, and consider their talent as something sovereign. Dolcibene, whom Charles IV had pronounced to be the 'king of Italian jesters,' said to him ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt

... built place called the Residency. Isolated in the heart of India, besieged for months on end, without any outside news, starving, decimated by sickness and the enemy's fire, women and soldiers alike, with true British pluck, and having lost all hope of succour, had no thought but to sell their lives as dearly as possible. All at once the noise of the daily cannonade and the rifle fire seem to be doubled, and unaccustomed shouts are heard, like the national "hurrah." The cheering seems to get nearer, but the Sepoys ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville

... sea-dogs of my stamp in plenty too." Then, referring to the Crimean war—"I don't say that the two cases are parallel. I don't ask England to hate Russia as she was bound to hate Spain, as God's enemy; but I do think that a little Tudor pluck and Tudor democracy (paradoxical as the word may seem, and inconsistently as it was carried out then) is just what we ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

... imperfection in mathematics; but it was done in support of an old theory, long since exploded, that the Negro has no capacity for the solution of mathematical problems. We know this to be the case. But the charming nature and natural pluck of young Greener brought him out at last without a blemish ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams

... of the village, at such a pace that Amrei could hardly keep up with him; and when she arrived at their parents' house he was already up in the tree, teasing her in a boasting manner and calling for her to come up too—because he knew that she could not. And now he began to pluck the red berries and threw them down into his sister's apron. She asked him to pick them with their stems on, because she wanted to make a wreath. He answered, "No, I shan't!"—nevertheless no berries fell down after that without stems ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various

... belong exclusively to the tomb,—the natural and only period of human inconstancy, with regard either to desert or to opinion: for they are the very same hands which erect, that very frequently (and sometimes with reason enough) pluck down the statue. Had such an unmerited and unlooked-for compliment been paid to me two years ago, the fragments of the piece might at this hour have the advantage of seeing actual service, while they were moving, according to the law of projectiles, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... on a girl's part to follow a special work, if she has no marked ability, let her ask the advice of friends; but, more than that, let her seek, through her own personal efforts, some honest work. Pluck, not luck; the Yankee, not the aristocrat, earn a living. For a girl of average ability I think a mingling of manual and mental labor preferable to purely manual or strictly mental work. There are many authors, journalists, accountants, etc., who have achieved striking ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder

... duke at this, "the island that I have promised you is not a moving one, or one that will run away; it has roots so deeply buried in the bowels of the earth that it will be no easy matter to pluck it up or shift it from where it is; you know as well as I do that there is no sort of office of any importance that is not obtained by a bribe of some kind, great or small; well, then, that which I ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester

... of the bush-man's skill, but she obviously meant to do so. Although it often cost her an effort to follow him, she would not let him turn back when they came to an angry rapid or a belt of tangled woods. She certainly had charm besides having pluck, because when she did not go fishing young women as well as young men gathered round her on the shady lawn. It was hard to imagine why a girl like this should practise walking long distances and combine the study ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss

... only my own pluck and common sense; but I declare to you I was as much struck by the new idea as if a strange voice had actually spoken; and I ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott

... from the murmurings of the Atlantic to the whirlwinds of the Pacific, guiding womankind from the dark valley of ignorance, and wooing her with wisdom's lore, leads creation's fairest, purest, best into flowery dells where she can pluck the richest food of knowledge, and crowns her brow with a coronet of gems whose brilliancy can never grow dim: for they glisten with the purest thought, that seems as a spark struck from the mind ...
— Slips of Speech • John H. Bechtel

... the interest of certain of the friends whom the boy's misfortune, if not his pluck, had made for him—such lads as Lawley, the English boy, Bourrienne, Lauriston, and Father Patrault, the teacher of mathematics,—Napoleon was liberated with a reprimand; while the boy who had caused all the trouble went unpunished, save for the headache that Napoleon's well-aimed ...
— The Boy Life of Napoleon - Afterwards Emperor Of The French • Eugenie Foa

... piazza of a house near White Oak and going out with a smile to prevent his soldiers picking and eating the cherries belonging to his pretty hostess, they had burst out into laughs and cheers more complimentary to the young General's pluck than his devotion to Nelly Marcy, and fancied that he might have been engaged in picking other cherries for himself, that grew on red lips instead ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford

... none came nigh you, being dead, Who were in life so thronged about and pressed, One hand at least would duly pluck you flowers, One hand at least would strew them on your grave. Sleep now, and I will charm these eyes ...
— Nero • Stephen Phillips

... preaching. But as for practising, you can't do it if you have not got the strength. A man can't walk if you take away his legs. If you break a bird's wing he can't fly, let the bird be ever so full of pluck. All that there was in me she has taken out of me. I could fight him, and would willingly, if I thought there was a ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope

... to encounter us in the open, small as our numbers were; they had suffered heavily the day before, and they must have begun to realize that their strongest positions were inadequate against British pluck and determination. ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts

... girl; but, Alice, I'm determined to turn over a new leaf with Dame Van Winkle; the next time I see her, I'll pluck up [my] ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Rip van - Winkle • Charles Burke

... contemptuously. Some of it was music, some poetry, the bulk prose. At last she threw it suddenly on the bright fire which good Mary O'Reilly had providentially provided in her room; then, as it flared up, stricken with remorse, she tried to pluck the sheets from the flames; only by scorching her fingers and raising blisters did she succeed, and then, with scornful resignation, she instantly threw them back again, warming her feverish hands merrily at the bonfire. Rapidly looking through all her drawers, lest perchance in some stray ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... having learned the full particulars from the coxswain, whom he had summoned into his presence while Frank was in the wardroom eating his dinner. The sailor described all that had happened in glowing language, dwelling with a good deal of emphasis upon the "pluck" displayed by his young officer, and the ignorance and cowardice of the lieutenant, and ended with saying, "He didn't think of nothing, sir, but them dispatches; and it an't every man that could have saved 'em, sir." The captain fully agreed with the coxswain, and when the latter was dismissed, ...
— Frank on the Lower Mississippi • Harry Castlemon

... that his friends did attempt to pluck him by the coat, but he turned upon them demanding to know if he was a school ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath

... Cecilia!" "O do not wait to talk!" cried she, "go to him now, or you will never see him more! the hand of death is on him,—cold, clay-cold is its touch! he is breathing his last—Oh murdered Delvile! massacred husband of my heart! groan not so piteously! fly to him, and weep over him!—fly to him and pluck the poniard from his ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... though high, I covet to ascend, The difficulty will not me offend; For I perceive the way to life lies here. Come, pluck up heart, let's neither faint nor fear; Better, though difficult, the right way to go, Than wrong, though easy, ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress - From this world to that which is to come. • John Bunyan

... of boyish exclamations of welcome with Lathrop Beasley, a tall, rather slender youth who had been their companion in Florida. Like the boys, Lathrop was an accomplished aviator and wireless operator, although he had not the initiative or the sturdy pluck to perform the feats that they had. He was, however, a boy of considerable brain and skill and among the boy-aviators of the country held ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... give them so terrifying an account of the danger in which Beatrice had been placed, and so graphic and highly-coloured a description of Herbert Pryme's pluck and sagacity in rushing to her rescue, that Mr. and Mrs. Miller had no other course left than to shake hands gratefully with the man to whom, as uncle Tom said, they literally ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron

... Dick. He was a gentleman and a good sort, only unfortunately his mother was a German. He did his bit of soldiering with the Prussian Guards at the beginning of the war, got a knock and volunteered for the Secret Service. They sent him over here. The fellow must have no end of pluck, for, as I dare say you know, they let him down from the observation car of a Zeppelin. He finds his way here all right, makes his silly little bargain with our dear but gullible womenkind, and sets himself to watch—to watch me, mind. The whole affair is too ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... fair and ruddy. They have round faces, small eyes full of animated expression, a rather flat nose, a handsome mouth, even white teeth, muscular and well shaped legs, and small flat feet. Like the Tartars, they have hardly any beard, and they carefully pluck out any little that appears, calling the Europeans longbeards, by way of reproach. The hair on their heads is thick, black, and coarse, is allowed to grow very long, and is worn in tresses wound around their heads. The ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr

... body. The taut rope cut deep into my flesh; but nothing mattered now, except to save him. 'Catch the cloak, Elsie!' I cried; 'catch it: pull him gently in!' Elsie caught it and pulled him in, with wonderful pluck and calmness. We hauled him over the edge. He lay safe on the bank. Then we all three broke down and cried like children together. I took his hand in mine and held it ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen

... bagpipes In a golden and silver wood, Queens, their eyes blue like the ice, Are dancing in a crowd. The little fox he murmured, 'O what is the world's bane?' The sun was laughing sweetly, The moon plucked at my rein; But the little red fox murmured, 'O do not pluck at his rein, He is riding to the townland ...
— In The Seven Woods - Being Poems Chiefly of the Irish Heroic Age • William Butler (W.B.) Yeats

... and swift to move, To pluck at any flying love, That I grow faint to stand and see. ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... whole life in this manner. They know that a life depending on hunting and fishing means poverty, dirt, and ignorance; and they don't mean to go back to this. We don't wish to un-Indianize them altogether, we would not overcurb their free spirit; we would not pluck the feather from their cap or the sash from their waist or the moccasin from their foot. They are a proud, grand nation in their way. An Indian was never a slave any more than a Briton. An Indian has no words of ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson

... must pass, may lighten the toils, and perhaps repay us for the perils of the journey. Think not of the toils. Roses grow only upon thorns. From toil we learn to enjoy leisure. Regard not the perils. "From the nettle danger we pluck the flower safety." Security often springs from peril. From such hard experiences great men have arisen. Come, then, my young friend! mind neither toil nor peril, but with me to the great ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... hole so that only the head appears on the outside and no one not in the secret will ever suppose that the innocent-appearing nail is the key to unfasten the door. When you wish to open the door from the outside, pluck out the nail, pull ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard

... touch you close, Then stand away. I kiss your cheek, Catch your soul's warmth—I pluck the rose And love it more than tongue can speak— Then the ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne

... the complete conviction that the man whom she had liked so much at first sight, the man who had shown such pluck in saving her from fire, the man who had exhibited such thoughtfulness and helpfulness in starting her upon the rocky path toward education, was true and fair and fine—was, in the curt language of ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey

... Frenchman, is it?" said he, without returning my bow. "I've got a crow to pluck with him already. As to you, Ned, I knew you would be hot on our scent, and so I was looking out for you. I saw you cross the park and go to ground in the shrubbery. Come in, man, and let us have all the cards on ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle

... pet book done into my favorite language! It was the happiest Christmas I ever spent. Quam bonus Israel Deus! So too said Father Letheby. But I had some dim presentiment that all his well-merited pleasure would not be quite unalloyed,—that some secret hand, perhaps a merciful one, would pluck a laurel leaf or two from his crown. We had a pleasant academic discussion after dinner about the honorable retention of ancient Irish customs,—he quite enthusiastic about them, I rather disposed to think that the abuses which invariably accompanied ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan

... see, I never believed in the devil enough to be scared of him; but a man can make himself very unpleasant. I looked at a lot of doors, all shut tight, with a growing conviction that I would never have the pluck to open one of them. Thinking's no good for one's nerve. I concluded I would give up the whole business. But I didn't give up in the end, and I'll tell you what stopped me. It was the recollection of that confounded doorkeeper who had called after me. I felt sure the fellow would ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad

... poor old lady, Bunny. She had a dog's life before; after that the beans he gave her weren't even fit for a dog. I loved her for her pluck in standing up to him; it beat his hollow in standing up to me; there was only one reward for her, and ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung

... see Daniel," said Mr. X——-. "He is a very remarkable man. I do not approve of the course of his paper, and he has attacked me very bitterly on more than one occasion. But I bear no grudge against him. He is honest in his opinions. I admire the pluck of the man, and the ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke

... creeper's beauty would I never blight, Nor pluck its flowers; should I not be afraid To seize her hair so lovely-long, and bright As wings of bees, and ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka

... do, he bore away along their line to windward and commenced a heavy cannonade, but at so cautious a distance that his shot did little damage. The Terrible's opponent soon sheered off, and, having more speed than pluck, quickly got out of the range of her guns, greatly to the ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston

... brought me into the field, and I called them all, and they all stood ready in their several ranks. Then he said unto them; let every one pluck up his rod, and bring it unto me. And first they delivered theirs, whose rods had been ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake

... was obliged to witness a frightful scene at Gazeau Tower," said M. de la Marche; "and then she must have been very much exhausted and frightened when her horse bolted from the field and galloped right through the forest. Yet her pluck is so remarkable that . . . What do you think, my dear Monsieur Bernard? When you met her in the forest, did she seem ...
— Mauprat • George Sand

... hast feared for thy mate amidst all these tidings of war, and still fearest for him. But pluck up a heart; for the man is a deft warrior for all his fair face, which thou lovest as a woman should, and his hands may yet save his head. And if he be slain, yet are there other men of the kindred, and the earth will not be a desert to ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris

... THE GREAT TEACHER.—Mark the words of the Great Teacher: "If thy right hand or foot cause thee to fall, cut it off and cast it from thee. If thy right eye cause thee to fall, pluck it out. It is better for thee to enter into life maimed and halt, than having two eyes to be cast into hell-fire, where the worm dieth not, and ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols

... no traitor and never shall be one. Our Imperium was organized to secure our rights within the United States and we will make any sacrifice that can be named to attain that end. Our efforts have been to wash the flag free of all blots, not to rend it; to burnish every star in the cluster, but to pluck none out. ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs

... continued Rakewell; "so no more at present from your loving Cousin. I am going now to call on Fred. Fearnought; that fellow has deceived me; I thought him a trump, but he's eaten up with hopes and fears, tormented in mind, body, and estate, no more pluck than a dunghill chick. I must stir him up with a long pole, give him a lesson or two, touch him to the quick, and then quickly adjourn to you; so ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... romantically, so that he begins on the most intimate footing, before another man has left his pasteboard. So he's way ahead of the pack when they open cry. Is that enough? No! At the critical moment he is called to the aid of his country. Gets lauded for his pluck. Gets blown up. Gets everything to make a young girl worship him. Pure luck! It doesn't matter what Peter says or does. Miss Luck always arranges that it turn ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford

... feminine flounces, twisted leaden tubes of "ladies' tormentors" cast away and half-trodden into the mire; the whole an unscavenged desolation. Her folk—the show-folk—had deserted her and vanished, and she had not a penny in her pocket. It cost Tilda all her pluck to keep what she called a tight upper lip. She uttered no cry, but seated herself on the nearest doorstep— apparently with deliberation, actually not heeding, still less caring, to ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... look 'ee! a rare game un. Ma word, he's a big-hearted un! Look at the back on him; see the jaws to him; mark the pluck of him!" He shook his booted foot fiercely, tossing his leg to and fro like a tree in a wind. But the little creature, now raised ceilingward, now dashed to the ground, held on with incomparable doggedness, ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant

... of indomitable pluck, and after he grew a little accustomed to the work he thoroughly satisfied ...
— Dick the Bank Boy - Or, A Missing Fortune • Frank V. Webster

... he could, he came on behind me very slowly and at a great distance. On reaching the gate, I felt pity for my comrade, and waited for him, and took him on the crupper, saying: "What would our friends speak of us to-morrow, if, having left for Rome, we had not pluck to get beyond Siena?" Then the good Tasso said I spoke the truth; and as he was a pleasant fellow, he began to laugh and sing; and in this way, always singing and laughing, we travelled the whole way to Rome. I had just nineteen years then, and so ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini

... holding the cocks in their arms, and stroking them, and running about on all-fours, encouraging and setting them on. Bets ran high, and, like most other contests, it remained for some time undecided. Both cocks showed great pluck, and fought probably better and longer than their masters would have done. Whether, in the end, it was the white or the red that beat, I do not recollect, but whichever it was, he strutted off with the true veni-vidi-vici ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... to being hungry and to satisfying her appetite with scraps of garbage. When she first saw a daisy on the green, she gazed longingly, and then asked plaintively, "Please, might I touch that?" When she was told that she might pluck a few daisies she was much delighted. After her first experiences in the botanising line she formally asked permission to pluck many wild flowers; but she always seemed to have a dread of transgressing against some dim law which had been hitherto represented to her mind by ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman

... fell on his good falcon, which he saw on his perch in his little saloon; whereupon, having no other resource, he took the bird and finding him fat, deemed him a dish worthy of such a lady. Accordingly, without more ado, he wrung the hawk's neck and hastily caused a little maid of his pluck it and truss it and after put it on the spit and roast it diligently. Then, the table laid and covered with very white cloths, whereof he had yet some store, he returned with a blithe countenance to the lady in the garden and told her that dinner was ready, such as it was ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio

... eyes passed on. Only Harry stood still before the grapes. Suddenly springing on the arbor, he bit one grape after another from the bunch. "Red-head Harry!" the children exclaimed horrified, "what are you doing?" "Nothing wrong," said the little rogue. "We are forbidden to pluck them with our hands, but the law does not say anything about biting and eating." His education was not equable and not methodical. Extremely indulgent towards themselves, the parents were extremely severe in their treatment of their children. So arose the contradictions ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles

... food being the cause, though I much doubt whether this is the sole cause, although it may well be requisite for the kind of variation desired by man, namely increase of size and vigour. No doubt horticulturalists, when they wish to raise new seedlings, often pluck off all the flower-buds, except a few, or remove the whole during one season, so that a great stock of nutriment may be thrown into the flowers which are to seed. When plants are transported from high-lands, forests, marshes, heaths, into our gardens and greenhouses, ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin

... expired, and I have the skin at homo with the mark of the sword-cut on the back. It had cut through the shaggy hair, and only penetrated the skin sufficiently to leave a scar. The man who had shown so much pluck was a young farmer from the adjacent village, and I at once offered him the sword with which he had defended me. But he seemed to think he had done nothing, and positively declined it, saying that ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot

... the vintage. The peasants, busy as bees, swarm on the hill-sides; the women pluck the fruit; the men bear it away in wooden measures. While they work, they sing those wild Tuscan melodies that linger in the air like long-drawn sighs. The donkeys, too, climb up and down, saddled with wooden ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot

... Batouch had said. There was pluck in this man, pluck that surged up in the blundering awkwardness, the hesitation, the incompetence and rudeness of him like a black rock out of the sea. She did not answer. They rode on, always slowly. His horse, having had its will, and having known his strength ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens

... "No, by Allah, I have no knowledge of thee!" "I am thine ape!" "What use is there in thee, O my ape?" "Every day I give thee good-morrow, so Allah may not open to thee the door of daily bread." "Thou failest not of this, O one-eye[FN269] of ill-omen! May Allah never bless thee! Needs must I pluck out thy sound eye and cut off thy whole leg, so thou mayst become a blind cripple and I be quit of thee. But what is the use of that rod thou hendest in hand?" "O Khalif, I scare the fish therewith, so they may not enter thy net." "Is it so?: then this very day will I ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton

... our Lady had heard her Petition, To Gabriel, the Angel, she strait gave Commission; She pluck'd off her Smock from her Shoulders Divine, And charg'd him to hasten to England's fair Queen. "Go to the Royal Dame, To give her the same, And bid her for ever to praise my Great Name, For I, in her favour, will work such ...
— Quaint Gleanings from Ancient Poetry • Edmund Goldsmid

... that agin," cried Ike, in sudden anger, all his pluck coming back with a rush, "I'll gin ye a lick ez will weld yer head an' ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock

... Hananiah, enraged by their conduct, summoned an assembly, and denounced their treachery. The people cried out, "That which thou hast built, thou canst not so soon pull down; the hedge which thou hast planted, thou canst not pluck up without injury to thyself." Hananiah demanded their objections to his teaching. They answered, "Thou hast dared to fix intercalations and new moons, by which nonconformity has arisen between Babylon ...
— Hebrew Literature

... Omnipotent. Universal being is in His hand. Revolution, force, fear, as applied to His kingdom, are words without meaning. Rise up in rebellion, if thou hast courage. Associate with thee the whole mass of infernal power. Begin with the ruin of whatever is fair and good in this little globe. Pass hence to pluck the sun out of his place, and roll the volume of desolation through the starry world. What hast thou done unto Him? It is the puny menace of a worm against Him whose frown is perdition. "He that sitteth in the ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser

... if the necklace was taken off and worn by someone else, the Princess would die. The Rajah gave her on her birthday a pair of slippers with ornaments of gold and gems upon them. The princess went out upon a mountain to gather flowers, and whilst stooping there to pluck the flowers, one of her slippers fell into the forest below. A Prince, who was hunting, picked up the slipper, and was so charmed with it that he said he would make the wearer his wife. He made his ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent

... Billy Ray, married men both whose wives he worshipped, the major's rugged heart went out especially to Beverly Field, his boy adjutant, a lad who came to them from West Point only three years before the autumn this story opens, a young fellow full of high health, pluck and principle—a tip top soldier, said everybody from the start, until, as Gregg and other growlers began to declaim, the major completely spoiled him. Here, three years only out of military leadingstrings, he was a young cock of the walk, ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King

... give in to such fancies, but pluck up heart. You will be sure to have luck, wherever you go,—especially since the mother will give you that holy relic. I myself had a piece of Saint John Baptist's thumb-nail sewed up in a leather bag, which I ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various

... more calm, but still deranged. He thought the straws in his bunk were thorns, and would pluck at them with his fingers and exclaim: "My God, ain't they sharp?" Captain Mitchell called, and the boys said: "Sergeant, don't you know him?" "Yes," he replied, "he is one of the devils." The Captain said: "Sergeant, don't you know where you are?" ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty

... Lady Cantrip had suggested. Whereupon Lord Popplecourt said that he supposed it was so. "But a softer, purer, more unsullied flower never waited on its stalk till the proper fingers should come to pluck it," said Lady Cantrip, rising to unaccustomed poetry on behalf of her friend the Duke. Lord Popplecourt accepted the poetry and was ready to do his best to ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope

... supposed, somehow," he said, with a knot of deprecation between his fine eyes, "that he would have had the pluck." ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells

... good quantity of green Beets, and pluck out the middle string, then chop them small, with two or three ripe Apples well relished, season it with Pepper, Salt, and Ginger, then add to it some Currans, and having your Pie ready, and Butter in the ...
— The Queen-like Closet or Rich Cabinet • Hannah Wolley

... death, or life (which is worse), and if I take her with me it can only be one way. What then! a man can lay down his life in many ways, giving it for the life that needeth, whether by jumping a red grave or by means slower but not less sure. And if by any deed of mine I pluck this child out of the mire, put clear light into her eyes (which now are all dark), and set the flush on her grey cheeks which she was assuredly designed to carry there; and if she breathe sweet air and ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett

... the entire passage from the Junction to the sea. And as yet no one has made the complete descent from Green River Valley to the counter-current of the Tidal Bore, so if there is any reader who desires to distinguish himself here is a feat still open to him. Stanton deserves much praise for his pluck and determination and good judgment in carrying this railway survey to a successful issue, especially after the discouraging disasters of the first attempt. He holds the data and believes the project will some day be carried ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... those islands, not against Europe, but for Europe, and America too. Education on the outskirts of civilized life teaches not very much, but it taught this; and one felt no call to shoulder the load of archipelagoes in the antipodes when one was trying painfully to pluck up courage to face the labor of shouldering archipelagoes at home. The country decided otherwise, and one acquiesced readily enough since the matter concerned only the public willingness to carry loads; in London, ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams

... show what a man was made of—as far as that goes it's not much altered since. If you don't die of fever you're pretty sure to get knocked on the head and go down the nigger's gullets—and this chap Warby had rare pluck. He never ran a boat's crew into danger, but would take any risks himself, and somehow we had cruised right up from Marau Sound to the north end of Bougainville without losing a man, or having more than a few arrows or shots ...
— Sarreo - 1901 • Louis Becke

... mother died my uncle took us—me and brother. He hired us out and we got stole. Gene Oglesby stole us and brought us to Memphis to Joe Nivers. I recken he sold us then. Then they stood me up in the parlor and sold me to Jack Oats. They said I was 'good pluck.' Joe Nivers sold me to Jack Oats for $1,150.00 when I was four years old. My brother was name Milton Smith. I ain't seen him from that day till this. Joe Nivers kept him, I recken. I come here on a 'legal tender'—name of the boat I recken. I know that. I ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration

... two, wholly unconscious that any one was within the enclosure, left the other to pass on to the next house, and entered the yard to amuse herself there till her companion returned. Now pausing to read an inscription, and now to pluck a wild violet, she slowly wandered towards that part of the yard where Woodburn, still screened from her view by a clump of intervening evergreens, was pensively reclining against a tomb stone in the vicinity of his mother's grave. And here, taking a turn ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson

... metre and my stomach to the gods," Horace had retorted, "if you will turn over to them your worry about Rome, and pluck the blossom of the hour with me. Augustus is safe in Spain, you cannot be summoned to the Palatine, and to-morrow is early enough for the noise of the Forum. By the way," he added somewhat testily and unexpectedly, "I wish I could ever get to your house without being held up for 'news.' A perfect ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson

... robbing he drew an empire firmly seated and securely governed, wherein caravans travelled from the Atlas to the Straits without fear of attack, and "a soldier wandering through the fields would not have dared to pluck ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton

... left, he sought the stream, For he was thirsty, and already parch'd By the sun's heat. Him issuing from his haunt, Sheer through the back beneath his middle spine, I wounded, and the lance sprang forth beyond. Moaning he fell, and in the dust expired. 200 Then, treading on his breathless trunk, I pluck'd My weapon forth, which leaving there reclined, I tore away the osiers with my hands And fallows green, and to a fathom's length Twisting the gather'd twigs into a band, Bound fast the feet of my enormous prey, And, flinging him athwart my ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer

... feet). Well said, my hearty! There's a brave fellow! There's a man of pluck! A man who's not afraid to say his say, Though a whole town's against him. Rain, rain, rain, Bones of St. Botolph, and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... writes Rutherford to Rusco; 'if it were we would all be saved.' There was a well-known kind of Christians in Rutherford's day that the English Puritans called by the nickname of the Temporaries; and it is to pluck Rusco from among them that Rutherford writes to him this admonitory letter. And there is an equally well-known type of Christian in our day, though I do not know that any one has so happily nicknamed ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte

... dim; instead of the beautiful arched walks, in which a moment before they appeared to wander, it was beneath the vaulted roof of some temple that they now moved; instead of the bed of glowing flowers from which he was about to pluck an offering for her bosom, an altar rose, from the centre of which upsprang a quick and lurid tongue of fire. The dreamer gazed upon his companion, and her form was tinted with the dusky hue of the flame, ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli

... of dramas; the Masti or dancers; the Kommu or tellers of stories; and the Dekkala or genealogists of the caste. It is said that Kommu really means a horn and Dekka a hoof. These last two are the lowest subdivisions, and occupy a most degraded position. In theory they should not sleep on cots, pluck the leaves of trees, carry loads on any animal other than a donkey, or even cook food for themselves, but should obtain their subsistence by eating the leavings of other Madgis or members of different castes. The Nulka Chandriah or priests are the ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell

... the green sea and the azur'd vault Set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder Have I given fire, and rifted Jove's stout oak With his own bolt: the strong-bas'd promontory Have I made shake; and by the spurs pluck'd up The pine and cedar: graves, at my command, Have wak'd their sleepers; op'd, and let them forth By ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... Pluck the flowers. Inhale the delicious perfumes; each perfect, and all delicious. Whence have they come? By what combination of acids and alkalies could ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... without much trouble to accept accomplished facts. When he had been elected pope, he had said to his brother, Julian de' Medici, "Enjoy we the papacy, since God hath given it us" [Godiamoci il papato, poiche Dio ci l' ha dato]. He appeared to have no further thought than how to pluck from the event the advantages he could discover in it. His allies all set him an example of resignation. On the 15th of September, the day after the battle, the Swiss took the road back to their mountains. Francis I. entered Milan in triumph. Maximilian Sforza took refuge in the castle, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... unknown; have recommended sacred poetry, and it would have been extreamly pleasing to have followed Milton over all his classic ground, and seen where the noblest genius of the world thought proper to pluck a flower, and by what art he was able to rear upon the foundation of nature so magnificent, so astonishing a fabric: but in place of that, Mr. Lauder suffers himself to be overcome by his passion, and instead of tracing him as a man of taste, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber

... who had been thus treated was in Bucky O'Neill's troop; and as we looked at the body, O'Neill turned to me and asked, "Colonel, isn't it Whitman who says of the vultures that 'they pluck the eyes of princes and tear the flesh of kings'?" I answered that I could not place the quotation. Just a week afterward we were shielding his own body from ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt

... dying!" he said, softly. "I am bearing in my heart the funeral crape of the monarchy. These raging partisans want to pluck it out, deride it, and fasten it to their own foreheads. And this compels them to break my heart, and this they have done!" [Footnote: Mirabeau's own words.—See "Memoires sur ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach

... know; but, even so, New San Francisco may well brag today of a greater romance than any it ever knew—the romance of achievement. Somebody said not long ago that the greatest of all monuments to American pluck was San Francisco rebuilt; but if there was pluck in it there was romance too. And there is romance, plenty of it, in the exposition these people have planned and are now carrying out to commemorate the opening ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb

... enough to pluck from the backs of the fallen birds the long, silky plumes, which they carefully placed in a stiff leather valise, then hastened on to another part of the island where ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... them his hand, (provided they be willing to engage, ask his assistance, and are not wanting to themselves,) supports and strengthens them: so, that they cannot be led away by any wile or violence of Satan, or snatched out of Christ's hands, as he says himself, St. John x. My sheep shall no man pluck out of my hands. For the rest, if it be asked whether these may not through negligence let go the confidence they had from the beginning, (Heb. iii. 6.) cleave again to the present world, depart from the holy ...
— The Life of Hugo Grotius • Charles Butler

... thou shouldst then spring upon them like a wolf. For it hath been said that in the acquisition of wealth even the garb of holiness might be employed as a hooked staff to bend down a branch in order to pluck the fruits that are ripe. The method followed in the plucking of fruits should be the method in destroying foes, for thou shouldst proceed on the principle of selection. Bear thy foe upon thy shoulders till the time cometh when thou canst throw him down, breaking him into pieces like an ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... the grade. Immediately the excitement of a new sensation gripped me. I had a taste of it when I opened your safe. It seized me again, relentlessly. If I were successful, I might begin again; if I failed, I could shoot myself without imposing an atrocious remorse upon you. Well, the pluck of that driver upset my plans—the plans of an amateur. I ought to have held them up ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell



Words linked to "Pluck" :   tear, plunk, draw, soak, extort, deplumate, pull together, fleece, squeeze, deplume, rack, draw away, pull off, hustle, wring, pick, roll, pick off, plucky, rob, pulling, mushroom, pluckiness, rip off, chisel, berry, gouge, force, cull, charge, cheat, collect, plume, tweeze, garner, displume, fearlessness, tweak, undercharge, steal, bill, hook, pluck at, twang, strip, gutlessness, gather, pull, draw off, overcharge, gazump, surcharge, gutsiness



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