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More "Pry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... learn to say what you mean," said James, "instead of trying to pry information out of someone who happens ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... all right. Go on, tell me the whole yarn, if you feel like it. I don't want to pry too much into your affairs, but, after all, I AM interested in those affairs, Al. Tell me as much ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... Dirk took time to pry off a fresh chew of tobacco before he replied. "You mean Thunder Pass? That there crosses over into the Black Rim country. Yeah—There's a big wide range country over there, but we don't run any stock on it. Burroback Valley's big enough for ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... mental confusion Old Man Anderson kept revolving in his mind, with satisfaction, a new plan he had evolved. The next time Jim should fall asleep he would crawl back through the aperture in the conduit wall, pry up the boards over the opening into the prison yard, wriggle out, and take his chances in getting over the wall somehow! Better even be shot by a guard than die like a rat in this unspeakable place, as he was doing, where he couldn't stand ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... all right, Polly. I don't want to pry into yore secret. But—don't do anything foolish. Don't marry a man with the notion of reformin' him or because he seems to you romantic. You have lots of sense. You'll use it, ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... out a cure. Let me, (though great, grave brethren of the gown Preach all Faith up, and preach all Reason down, Making those jar whom Reason meant to join, And vesting in themselves a right divine), Let me, through Reason's glass, with searching eye, Into the depth of that religion pry 580 Which law hath sanction'd; let me find out there What's form, what's essence; what, like vagrant air, We well may change; and what, without a crime, Cannot be changed to the last hour of time. Nor let me suffer that outrageous zeal Which, without knowledge, furious bigots ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... the officiousness, the inquisitiveness, the effrontery, the toad-eating, the insensibility to all reproof, he never could have produced so excellent a book. He was a slave, proud of his servitude, a Paul Pry, convinced that his own curiosity and garrulity were virtues, an unsafe companion who never scrupled to repay the most liberal hospitality by the basest violation of confidence, a man without delicacy, without shame, without sense enough to know when he was hurting ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... as much, and corresponded with her. If they chose to wink at it, was he, a subordinate, to interfere? She had trusted him, depended on him, and he had a feeling that it would be disloyal to her confidence to betray her, to pry into what she concealed, and expose what his superiors seemed to know. But after she was gone the story leaked out: she was not only a smuggler, but a very dangerous spy. Some one must be the scapegoat, and who so fit as the poor, friendless Tennesseean ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... dragon-wings, all green and gold. They soar far above the vulgar failing of the Sermo humi obrepens—their most ordinary speech is never short of an hyperbole, splendid, imposing, vague, incomprehensible, magniloquent, a cento of sounding common-places. If some of us, whose 'ambition is more lowly,' pry a little too narrowly into nooks and corners to pick up a number of 'unconsidered trifles,' they never once direct their eyes or lift their hands to seize on any but the most gorgeous, tarnished, threadbare, patchwork set of phrases, the left-off ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... too punctilious in their respect for an incognito. If an author intended us to know his name, he would put it on his title-page. If he does not choose to do that, we have no more right to pry into his secret than we have to discuss his family affairs or open his letters. But every rule has its exceptional cases; and the book which stands first upon our list is surely such. All the world, somehow or other, knows the author. ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... out!" she said to herself, as she paced the garden with the rapid steps that indicate a distempered spirit. "What right has he to pry into the depths of my mind, and ferret out all that there is of evil in my nature? Well, he goes the surest way to make me hate him. If ever he comes here again, I will run away and hide from all who know me. I would rather be a farm-servant, and rise at daybreak to work in the fields, ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... bushy grey head. "That's not the real reason, son. The world has a wife for every man; if he hasn't found her by the time he's thirty-five, there's some real reason for it. Well, I don't want to pry into yours, but I hope it's a sound one and not a mean, sneaking, selfish sort of reason. Perhaps you'll choose a Madam Selwyn some day yet. In case you should I'm going to give you a small bit ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... influence upon the wrongdoer was intensified by the softness of his insinuating voice, that seemed to pry down into human secrets as a sort of intellectual jimmy, delicate but powerful, and by the noiselessness of his tread, which had the effect of creeping upon his victim ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... eyes that peer and spy, Sad eyes that heed not skies nor trees, In dismal nooks he loves to pry, Whose motto evermore is Spes! But ah! the fabled treasure flees; Grown rarer with the fleeting years, In rich men's shelves they take their ease, - Aldines, ...
— Ballads in Blue China and Verses and Translations • Andrew Lang
... petulance, if she tried to urge him to cut loose from the club and from the constantly-growing influence of Lloyd Avalons who was discerning enough to discover that Lorimers appetite was a possible lever by which he himself might pry himself up into a more stable position in society. In this matter, however, Lloyd Avalons was not quite so unprincipled as he seemed. To his mind, there was nothing so very bad about a little matter of social intoxication. The evil of drink was an affair bounded ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... elbows on the table and narrowed his eyes at Hollis. "Don't think my questions impertinent," he said gravely, "for I assure you that nothing is further from my mind than a desire to pry into your affairs. But I take it you will need some advice—which, of course, you may disregard if you wish. I suppose you don't make a secret ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... it went sorely against the grain with Josie to pry into anybody's private mail, even though he be an arch-villain who was doing his best to keep two poor little children out of ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson
... during the critical days of Margot's illness, and who had been the girl's companion on the misty moor. What had happened during those hours of suspense and danger? What barriers had been swept aside; what new vistas opened? Edith's own love was too sweet and sacred a thing to allow her to pry and question into the heart-secrets of another, as is the objectionable fashion of many so-called friends, but with her keen woman-senses she took in George Elgood's every word, look, and movement during the ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... parties,' and of course I've been asked to help. It makes my blood tingle when I hear them talk over the 'fun' as they call it. They get detectives to protect them, and then go through the tenements—the homes of the poor—and pry into their privacy and poverty, just out of curiosity. Then they go home and over a chafing dish of lobster or terrapin, and champagne, they laugh at the funny things they saw. If the poor could get detectives, ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... the rule," he said. "Because the old priests did pry and peer, it was ruled henceforth that only the blind could enter the Holy of Holies." I'd swear he was smiling, if thirty teeth peeking out of what looked like a crack in an old suitcase can be ...
— The Repairman • Harry Harrison
... questions, and strifes of words; by most profound theological discussions, ending in nothing but weariness; but were satisfied, that, if men would go to Christ, they would find truth. O, happy time! in which men had not learned to dissect their own hearts, and pry curiously into their feelings, and torture themselves by anxious efforts to feel right, and tormenting doubts as to whether their inward experiences were as they ought to be, but believed that all good feelings would come in their own time out of Christian faith. O, happy, ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... smiled Peter. "Just curious, that's all. Didn't mean to pry open any dark secrets." He made ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... "I'll pry it up," answered the boy, and ran off to get a block of wood. Then he procured a stout pole and with this raised the heavy beam ...
— Joe The Hotel Boy • Horatio Alger Jr.
... having the clue to the other's secret, they were respectively puzzled at what each revealed, and awaited new knowledge of each other's character and mood without attempting to pry into ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... say that. How do you know? If you are not going to read her letter, you had better say so at once. I dont want to pry into it: I only want to know what is become ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... the Party called Anton shook his head. "He leans in no direction, except that which will unite and modernize North Africa. Neither do his immediate followers. They're a well-knit group and it seems unlikely that I could pry any of them away from him in case it ...
— Border, Breed Nor Birth • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... The Demon of Perversity, he had been the first in literature to pry into the irresistible, unconscious impulses of the will which mental pathology now explains more scientifically. He had also been the first to divulge, if not to signal the impressive influence of fear which acts on the will like an anaesthetic, paralyzing sensibility and like ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... that has happened. This was Mr. Burleson's preconception of what he was for and what a Post Office was for and not a hundred million people could pry him out of it. Mr. Burleson ran his Post Office to suit himself and his own boast for himself, and the people naturally in being suited with their Post Office had to take anything that was left over that they could get after Mr. Burleson ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee
... must, unavoidably, therefrom conclude his unity. As to the ineffable Trinity subsisting in this Unity, a mystery discovered only by the Sacred Scriptures, especially in the New Testament, where it is more clearly revealed than in the Old, let others boldly pry into it, if they please, while we receive it with our humble faith, and think it sufficient for us to ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... wanted money, and he wanted it badly, but the tailor had no right to pry into his private affairs—certainly not ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... since thou mad'st thy Daughters thy Mothers, for when thou gau'st them the rod, and put'st downe thine owne breeches, then they For sodaine ioy did weepe, And I for sorrow sung, That such a King should play bo-peepe, And goe the Foole among. Pry'thy Nunckle keepe a Schoolemaster that can teach thy Foole to lie, I would faine learne ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... from husk here and there, but let it be as 'tis. What odds? I have gone against his plans; to my misfortun'. I can't help it; I should do the like to-morrow. As to character, them gentlefolks will search and search, and pry and pry, and have it as free from spot or speck in us, afore they'll help us to a dry good word!— Well! I hope they don't lose good opinion as easy as we do, or their lives is strict indeed, and hardly worth the keeping. For myself, master, I never took with that ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens
... receivers of its truth and organs of its activity. When we discern justice, when we discern truth, we do nothing of ourselves, but allow a passage to its beams. If we ask whence this comes, if we seek to pry into the soul that causes, all philosophy is at fault. Its presence or its absence is all we can affirm. Every man discriminates between the voluntary acts of his mind and his involuntary perceptions, and knows that ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... Jackson, and Longstreet pored long and earnestly over the map of Maryland during the bright September afternoon. But before the glow of a lovely sunset had faded from the sky the artillery once more opened on the ridge above, and reports came in that the Federals were crossing the Antietam near Pry's Mill. Lee at once ordered Longstreet to meet this threat with Hood's division, and Jackson was ordered into line on the left of Hood. No serious collision, however, took place during the evening. The Confederates made no attempt to oppose the passage of the Creek. Hood's ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... had been like that, thru Peter's twenty years of life. Time after time he would get his feeble clutch fixed upon the ladder of prosperity, and then something would happen—some wretched thing like the stealing of a fried doughnut—to pry him loose and tumble him down again into ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... reminded himself that if listeners hear no good of themselves, they also occasionally hear much that is valuable. So Bates and Miss Ocky were in conspiracy to conceal from him some conversation they had had! Um. It would be funny if he couldn't pry the truth out of one of them; mentally, he girded up ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... upon our globe's last verge shall go, And view the ocean leaning on the sky: From thence our rolling neighbours we shall know, And on the lunar world securely pry. ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... besides myself. I give you my word." Donald smiled slightly. "I swear to you, I will take any oath you like that there is no paper there concerned with politics. You will be sorry if you read them. I assure you that you will repent it afterwards. You will be doing a base action. You will pry into a woman's secrets. You will bring dishonour on the name of ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... passages, and round innumerable corners. Arrived at last, she made him sit down, and gave him a glass of home made wine to drink, while she told him the story much as she had already told it to the marquis, adding a hope to the effect that, if ever the marquis should express a wish to pry into the secret of the chamber, Malcolm would not encourage him in a fancy, the indulgence of which was certainly ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... Neale. "That Trix girl has been treating her as mean as she knows how for months, and now you couldn't pry Aggie away ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... dare not pry into my heart, I prefer to temporise, to deceive myself; I have not the courage to face the ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... spear, gore, spit, stab, pink, puncture, lance, stick, prick, riddle, punch; stave in. cut a passage through; make way for, make room for. uncover, unclose, unrip^; lay open, cut open, rip open, throw open, pop open, blow open, pry open, tear open, pull open. Adj. open; perforated &c v.; perforate; wide open, ajar, unclosed, unstopped; oscitant^, gaping, yawning; patent. tubular, cannular^, fistulous; pervious, permeable; foraminous^; vesicular, vasicular^; porous, follicular, cribriform^, honeycombed, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... known you very long," I answered. "I don't see how anyone can be expected to tackle a case like this unless he knows all the details. I don't want to pry into what doesn't concern me. Why don't you go and ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... right," cried Mr Harris: "and for my part I am not going to pry into your reasons for coming. You are one of the Lord's servants on an errand of mercy and self-denying love—I can see that; and you are welcome to my ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... the intercalary 7th moon a great wind blew. The enemy's war-ships were all broken to pieces. Our troops energetically attacked and cut them up, the sea being covered with prostrate corpses. Of the Mongol army of 100,000 only three men got back alive. Henceforward the Mongols were unable to pry ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... say what his reason for watching Angelique was; neither did Bigot ask. The Intendant cared not to pry into the personal matters of his friends. He had himself too much to conceal not to respect the ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... was coming through the woods we happened to stop a minute. Then we see this Frenchy sneaking through the woods. We wondered what was up. Then he vanished. We looked about, some quiet-like, and on tiptoe, and then we saw this shipmate o' your'n pry apart some bushes and head in this way. It ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Spies - Dodging the Sharks of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... I don't want to pry into your secrets; but, won't you let me help you? I can hold my tongue. I want to help you. You have earned that wish from any man, and woman too, who saw the burning ship and what you did to save those on board. There is nothing I would ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... of sunlit water. I handed our axe through a break in the wall, and then D'ri cut away some of the baseboards and joined me. We had our meal cooking in a few minutes—our dinner, really, for D'ri said it was near noon. Having eaten, we crawled out of the window, and then D'ri began to pry the ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... went pale, then said hesitantly, "Well ... the sealed cases Mr. Maulbow brought out from the Hub with him had some very expensive instruments in them. That's all I know. He's always trusted me not to pry into his business any more than my secretarial duties required, ...
— The Winds of Time • James H. Schmitz
... hit. Nor shall proud Lancaster usurp my right, Nor hold the sceptre in his childish fist, Nor wear the diadem upon his head, Whose church-like humours fits not for a crown. Then, York, be still awhile till time do serve; Watch thou and wake when others be asleep, To pry into the secrets of the state; Till Henry, surfeiting in joys of love, With his new bride and England's dear-bought queen, And Humphrey with the peers be fallen at jars. Then will I raise aloft the milk-white rose, With whose sweet smell the air shall ...
— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... disappointed, and he and his sister felt very sorrowful. But not for long, for in a little while along hopped Uncle Wiggily Longears, with his crutch. It didn't take him any time, with the aid of the June bug, and Buddy and Brighteyes, to pry that turnip ...
— Buddy And Brighteyes Pigg - Bed Time Stories • Howard R. Garis
... eyes almost extinguished with weeping, looked like a picture of misery in a balldress. In the adjoining room, long tables were laid out, on which servants were placing refreshments for the fete about to be given on this joyous occasion. I felt somewhat shocked, and inclined to say with Paul Pry, "Hope I don't intrude." But my apologies were instantly cut short, and I was welcomed with true Mexican hospitality; repeatedly thanked for my kindness in coming to see the nun, and hospitably pressed to join the family feast. I only got off upon a promise of returning at half-past ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... weeks with her, She went to see the doctor three times a week. He used a pry to open her jaws, which was very painful to her but she gradually grew better. We were so happy in each other's society. I took her every place to see sights in that grand, philanthropic city. I believe Philadelphia, "Brotherly Love," has more evidence of the meaning ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... compare notes on these matters with some frank and hearty friend whose means and outgoings are much the same as their own. I do not think of such a case,—but of the prying curiosity of persons who have no right to pry, and who, very generally, while diligently prying into your affairs, take special care not to take you into their confidence. Such people, too, while making a pretence of revealing to you all their secrets, will often tell a very small portion ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... and inculcated (the word inculcated means kicked in) ideas to which all "well bred" youths have been subjected for centuries; the idea being that the closer they were kept in the realm of innocence, which is only another name for ignorance, the better "bred" they are. And to pry one's self loose, to break or tear one's self away from such a mental view and condition as heredity and such years of rigorous restraint have developed, is no small task. Indeed, it often takes months, and sometimes years, wholly to rid one's self of these ...
— Sane Sex Life and Sane Sex Living • H.W. Long
... perhaps more aware of themselves than any other children of men. They are for ever judging their betters; how shall they escape from judgment of each other? Judge not, says the Book; but if you pry for vice, what can you be yourself but a prying-ground? So Purcell agonised, and felt her very vitals under the hooks. The case was past praying for. She ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... receptacles he was about to ransack, for sealing-wax, pencils, and the like trifles. Mabel was too wise a woman not to keep her secrets under lock and key, and if there were private documents left in his way, he was too honorable to pry into them. ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... lips to reply, but before she could speak, Strong assured her that the congregation wouldn't do anything to stop her if she wished to go. He saw the blank look on her face. "We ain't tryin' to pry into none of your private affairs," he explained; "but my daughter saw you and that there feller a makin' up to each other. If you're calculatin' to run away with him, you'll save a heap of trouble for the parson by doin' ...
— Polly of the Circus • Margaret Mayo
... like a shy, retiring mouse. For a moment the cowman regarded him intently, as if seeking for some exculpating infirmity; then, leaving the long line of drinkers to chafe at the delay, he paused to pry ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... you go," he retorted. "She was a mighty badly broken-up woman the last time I saw her, but even so I judge she's still got spunk enough left in her to resent having an unauthorized and uninvited stranger coming about, seeking to pry into her own private sorrow. But it's your affair, not mine. Besides, judging by everything, you probably don't think my ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... sympathy to our readers' bones. Western travellers, who have beguiled the midnight hour in the interesting process of pulling down rail fences, to pry their carriages out of mud holes, will have a respectful and mournful sympathy with our unfortunate hero. We beg them to drop a silent tear, and ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... he took him aside and said, "I know this fellow. Ya Allah! Allah! For all his vaunts and visions he has gone to Abd er-Rahman. God will show! God will show! I dare not take him! Abd er-Rahman uses him to spy and pry on his Bashas! Camel-skin coat? Allah! a fine disguise! ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... is the hub of the solar system. You couldn't pry that out of a Boston man if you had the tire of all creation straightened out ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... vestments: round about in the form of an amphitheatre were most curiously planted pine trees, interseamed with limons and citrons, which with the thickness of their boughs so shadowed the place, that Phoebus could not pry into the secret of that arbor; so united were the tops with so thick a closure, that Venus might there in her jollity have dallied unseen with her dearest paramour. Fast by, to make the place more gorgeous, was there a fount so crystalline ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... express staggered back like children as she bucked centre. Two large lady spectators who had seen the Duke of Roxburgh married and had often blocked traffic on Twenty-third Street fell back into the second row with ripped shirtwaists when Violet had finished with them. William Pry ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... community, to a larger extent than most good people seem to be aware of. It needn't be true, to do this, any more than Homeopathy need, to do its work. The Spiritualists have some pretty strong instincts to pry over, which no doubt have been roughly handled by theologians at different times. And the Nemesis of the pulpit comes, in a shape it little thought of, beginning with the snap of a toe-joint, and ending with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... come up to write at my bureau; I dare say, it's only to pry into what I am about; but excuse me, my dear Sir, for that. Adieu! jusqu'au demain, ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... pry'thee now, my son, Go to them with this bonnet in thy hand, And thus far having stretched it (here be with them), Thy knee bussing the stones, for in such business Action is eloquence, and the eyes of the ignorant ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... I come to save, and not destroy: I would not pry into thy secret soul; But if these things be sooth, there still is time For penitence and pity: reconcile thee 50 With the true church, and through the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... reason that she sat still for a minute in the boat, looking up at Toyner, trying to pry into his attitude toward her. At the end of the minute he put out his hand to lift her up, ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... somebody down the table snorted. "That means the freedom for the capitalists to pry somebody else out of the greatest part of what ...
— Combat • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... for humanity, too. They meet death face to face, as they pry close into the cause of decay, the secret of morbid growth. There is more danger in certain germs than in lions. Blood-poisoning is to the surgeon a more constant menace than hunger to an Arctic explorer. These students never know what destroyer they may unwittingly unloose. Cross-section ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... you. Scotty got to you first, and with his weight on it, the thing finally came down." The young agent grinned admiringly. "We had to pry your hands off the rocket. Never saw such a stubborn cuss in my life. Out cold, and still ...
— The Flying Stingaree • Harold Leland Goodwin
... muttered. "Her spells are no jokes. But I will investigate her case like an old-time Salem inquisitor. With more than Yankee curiosity, which was at the bottom of their superstitious questionings, I will pry into her power. But she will find that she has a wary sceptic to convince. I have seen too many saints and sinners to be again deceived by ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... level of our comprehensions. Did one of thy followers come on this quarter-deck and insist on hearing all thine own motives for the orders given in this little felucca, how readily wouldst thou drive him back as mutinous and insolent; and yet thou wouldst question the God of the universe and pry ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... wore compelled to retreat to the loft and draw up the ladder. The lower portion of the cabin was in full possession of the besiegers, who demolished everything they could lay their hands on, with much gusto. They did their utmost to pry up the trap door, but were beaten back. Suddenly to the "Wild Geese's" surprise, the lower part of the cabin was abandoned by the Hens. They thought it a ruse to draw them out, so I they lay quiet for some time. There were no windows in the loft. Bye and bye Paul knocked a hole through the shingles ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... we to pry into the secrets of other men's hearths? True or false, the tale that is gabbled to us, what concern of ours can it be? I speak not of cases to which the law has been summoned, which law has sifted, ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... his mouth cynically. "Huh! Then it's good-bye tools, I suppose. I'm no churchmember, thank God, but I've heard that once the Church gets her clamps on anything worth while all hell can't pry her loose." ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... desire to look unto, or with vehement desire bend, as it were, their necks, and bow down their heads to look and peep into, (as the word used, I Pet. i. 12, importeth) is a subject for angelical heads to pry into, for the most indefatigable and industrious spirits to be occupied about. The searching into, and studying of this one truth, in reference to a closing with it as our life, is an infallible mark ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... on the surface,—far as that rivulet lies from its source! My dear young sir, Mr. Darrell has known griefs on which it does not become you and me to talk. He never talks of them. The least I can do for my benefactor is not to pry into his secrets, nor babble them out. And he is so kind, so good, never gets into a passion; but it is so awful to wound him,—it gives him such pain; that's why he frightens me,—frightens me horribly; and so he will you when you come to know him. Prodigious mind!—granite,—overgrown ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... down the barriers to growth, we must redouble our efforts for freer and fairer trade. We have already taken actions to counter unfair trading practices and to pry open closed foreign markets. We will continue to do so. We will also oppose legislation touted as providing protection that in reality pits one American worker against another, one industry against another, one community against another, and that ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan
... SA, or, 'who knows?' of the Romans, is a shaft that would kill Paul Pry. It nearly throws an inquisitive man into convulsions. He meets it at every turn. The simplest question is knocked to pieces by it. So common is it for a Roman of the true plebs breed to give you this for an answer to almost every question, that Rocjean once won ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... no wish to pry further into their bloody practices; but Bill seemed bent on it, so I turned and went. We passed rapidly through the bush, being guided in the right direction by the shouts of the savages. Suddenly there was a dead silence, which ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... Marquise scarcely went into society at all; and the few families who knew her thought of her as a kindly, gentle, indulgent woman, wholly devoted to her family. What but a curiosity, keen indeed, would seek to pry beneath the surface with which the world is quite satisfied? And what would we not pardon to old people, if only they will efface themselves like shadows, and consent to be regarded as memories ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... actor: Hamlet first, and Bob Logic afterwards, if you like; but don't think, as they say poor Liston used to, that people will be ready to allow that you can do anything great with Macbeth's dagger after flourishing about with Paul Pry's umbrella. Do you know, too, that the majority of men look upon all who challenge their attention,—for a while, at least,—as beggars, and nuisances? They always try to get off as cheaply as they can; and the cheapest of all things they can give a literary man—pardon the forlorn pleasantry!—is ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... connexion with Borrow it is always necessary to take into account the secretiveness of his disposition, and also his passion for posing. He had a child’s fondness for the wonderful. It is through his own love of mystification that students like Dr. Knapp must needs pry into these matters—must needs ask why Borrow drew the veil over seven years—must needs ask whether during the “veiled period” he led a life of squalid misery, compared with which his sojourn with Isopel Berners in Mumpers’ Dingle was luxury, or whether he was really ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... it was—the boarded partition. Marishka took the candle from his hand again while he examined the fastenings—nails somewhat rusted, which would not resist leverage. He found a piece of plank which he inserted in the edge of the door and managed to pry it open a little, and then bracing a foot against the stone wall, made an opening wide enough to ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... her and not tried to understand. He would have deemed it almost sacrilege to pry into the mysteries of her inner self, of that second nature in her which at times mad her silent, and almost morose, and cast a lurid gloom ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... commanded Helen, her eyes blazing. She actually stamped her foot. "Borderman or not, you have no right to pry into my affairs. If you are a gentleman, tell me ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... for me to pry into the motives of the Almighty, nor to inquire why it is that for nearly two thousand years the perfection of proof should never have been duly produced, but if I dare hazard an opinion I should say that such proof was ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... I had no mind to pry openly among the people of these Lowland depths, looking for smugglers. I might, indeed, find them too unexpectedly! Over-curious strangers are not welcomed by the Lowlanders. Many have gone into the depths and ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... you won't go until you have told us a little something about yourself," said Betty, with an inviting smile. "We don't want to pry into your private affairs," she went on, "but we would like to help you. And please don't disappear so mysteriously again. You are the girl who fell out of the branches ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... reason do you pry into other people's business?' was the question in reply. 'This is little concern to you. It is past midnight now, and you had better get home as soon as ...
— Our Little Korean Cousin • H. Lee M. Pike
... place," said Honoria, "I must beg that you will on no occasion attempt to pry into my motives, whatever I may require ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... attend, Her wrinckled vizard being very thin, My piercing eye perceiu'd her cleerer skin 80 Through the thicke Riuels perfectly to shine; When I perceiu'd a beauty so diuine, As that so clouded, I began to pry A little nearer, when I chanc't to spye That pretty Mole vpon her Cheeke, which when I saw; suruaying euery part agen, Vpon her left hand, I perceiu'd the skarre Which she receiued in the Troian warre; Which when I found, I could not chuse but smile. ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... about again. Yes, the position was right. If she fell here, a man with a shovel could easily pry down tons of sand from either bank upon her in a few minutes. The burial might be done by himself without any other soul knowing what had ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... old camp and saw Morano, sitting upon the ground by a small fire. Morano sprang up at once with joy in his eyes, his face wreathed with questions, which he did not put into words for he did not pry openly ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... one yellow butterfly reminded me of the Camarones Mountain; the wild bee and the ladybird-like Ba'zah stuck to us as though they loved us; and we were pestered by the attentions of the common fly. The Egyptian symbol for "Paul Pry" is supposed to denote an abundance of organic matter: it musters strong throughout Midian, even in the dreariest wastes; and it accompanies us everywhere, whole ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... Roux de Marsilly; the history of the master throws no light on the secret of the servant. That secret, for many years, caused the keenest anxiety to Louis XIV. and Louvois. Saint-Mars himself must not pry into it. Yet what could Dauger know? That there had been a conspiracy against the King's life? But that was the public talk of Paris. If Dauger had guilty knowledge, his life might have paid for it; why ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... Pry up thy fault with this great lever—will; However deeply bedded in propensity; However firmly set, I tell thee firmer yet Is that great power that comes from ...
— Almost A Man • Mary Wood-Allen
... Cease from a prying unmeet, nor with rash curiosity question." Haughtily glancing on Zeus, thus answer'd majestical Hera:— "Oh, ever dark and austere! What a word hast thou utter'd, Kronion! When was it ever my custom to pry or torment with a question? Only it now is my fear that the white-footed daughter of Nereus, Thetis, has led thee astray with the craft of her secret persuasion: Early she sat by thy side, and was grasping thy knees in entreaty— Nor did she leave thee, I think, without pledge ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... see only the distressed figure which had sat on the sofa, with hands jerking on its knee. Did she love Philip Caniper? Had they quarrelled long ago, and did she now want to make amends? No, no! She shut her eyes. She must not pry. She felt as though she had caught herself reading a letter which belonged to ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... said Jerry, getting rather red. "Don't let's talk about Errington. You know we always get shirty with each other when we do. I'm not going to pry into his private concerns—and as for Miss Lermontof, she's the type of woman who simply revels ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... he said, 'master, I could sift grain from husk here and there, but let it be as 'tis. What odds? I have gone against his plans; to my misfortun'. I can't help it; I should do the like to-morrow. As to character, them gentlefolks will search and search, and pry and pry, and have it as free from spot or speck in us, afore they'll help us to a dry good word!— Well! I hope they don't lose good opinion as easy as we do, or their lives is strict indeed, and hardly worth the keeping. For myself, master, I never took with that ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens
... friend? Good God, man, why do you badger me! Am I to wear the cap and bells always, do you expect me to be dancing like a clown every moment of the day? Do I not play my part as well as I can? Who gave you the right to peer and pry—" ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... you, didn't he?" remarked Jerry, trying to keep the suspicion out of his voice. If they had a secret that was none of his business, he wouldn't pry. ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart
... we upon our globe's last verge shall go, And view the ocean leaning on the sky; From thence our rolling neighbors we shall know, And on the lunar world securely pry." ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... Prince. "This letter, which the disposition of Almighty Providence has so strangely delivered into my hands, was addressed to no less a person than the criminal himself, the infamous President of the Suicide Club. Seek to pry no further in these perilous affairs, but content yourself with your own miraculous escape, and leave this house at once. I have pressing affairs, and must arrange at once about this poor clay, which was so lately ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... honahable to insist on finding out things that were not intended for her to know. I hadn't thought. If mothah took all the trouble of sending a special-delivery lettah to you to keep me from knowing till my birthday, I'm not going to pry around trying to ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... best to serve him, but, of course, would take no money for it, not being so poor as that came to. Accordingly, on the day following, I managed to set the men at work on the other side of the farm, especially that inquisitive and busybody John Fry, who would pry out almost anything for the pleasure of telling his wife; and then, with Uncle Reuben mounted on my ancient Peggy, I made foot for the westward, directly after breakfast. Uncle Ben refused to go ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... of which the whole sordid story grew, and no one treated with more contemptuous austerity the objects of the King's passion, and the pandars to his vices. However high his own ideal of domestic virtue, Clarendon was a man of the world, not blind to its vices, and not eager to pry into scandals or pursue the secrets of private life. It was not only the vice of Charles's courtiers, it was the sickening parade of debauchery in all its nakedness, which seemed to him to make the Court unmanly and contemptible. Feeling as ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... a few moments. "One question only," he then said; "I don't wish to pry into your past. It is enough that we have met—for that would never have taken place if you had not needed me. So much I know. Your marriage—was it as ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... well. The two women who kept the boarding house were educated and considerate and had long ago ceased to be inquisitive. Such a variety of people met there that it would have been too much of an undertaking to pry into the secrets of each individual. Such things only interfered with business. Effi, who still remembered the cross-questionings to which the eyes of Mrs. Zwicker had subjected her, was very agreeably impressed with the reserve ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... right in, Toby. My latch-string is always out to my chums. I see you managed to pick up Steve on the way across; but I wager you had really to pry him loose from that dandy new volume on travel he was telling me about, because he's ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton
... discuss her prospective plans, then did the little brown eyes assume a reddish tinge, their expression passing from suspicion and alarm to the most stubborn resolve. All this was somewhat ludicrous, because nobody really felt particular interest in her movements, or desired to pry into her actions; but on discovering what appeared to be the weak point in her character—because it was out of all proportion strong—idle people, in search of amusement, availed themselves of the knowledge to lead her a very uncomfortable life. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420, New Series, Jan. 17, 1852 • Various
... simplest portion of the whole venture," I said confidently. "I am not likely to overlook such a point. The third window from here has a loosened shutter; I brought this stick to pry it apart. Then the interior will be ours, unless they ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... tell you! Leave me alone, Gwen! You've no right to pry into my affairs. I never bother about yours. Let go my arm!" and Lesbia, blushing even more furiously, wrenched herself free and fled towards ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... during the last three or four centuries wrapped, surrounded, and encircled in mystery, according to some writers who have been studying the Gipsy character. They have been a theme upon which a "bookworm" could gloat, a chest of secret drawers into which the curious delight to pry, a difficult problem in Euclid for the mathematician to solve; and an unreadable book for the author. A conglomeration of languages for the scholar, a puzzle for the historian, and a subject for the novelist. These are points which it is ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... draped to the ground in flounces of its own green. The last response to her whistle had seemed to come from a spot so close in front of her that she feared to risk another step, and yet, peep and pry as she might, she could neither spy out nor nearer decoy the cunning challenger. In a sense of delinquency she noted the sky showing yellow and red through the hill-top pines, and seeing she must make short end of her play, ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... and pry into her age, Count her old beach lines by their tidal swell; Her sunken mountains name, her craters gauge, Her ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... had learnt at the expense of the poor Unitarians at York. So they went into the house, and presently arrived another chaise, but ere I could make any farther observations, the porter of the out-of-the-way house came up to me, asking what I was stopping there for? bidding me go away, and not pry into other people's business. "Pretty business," said I to him, "that is being transacted in a play like this," and then I was going to say something uncivil, but he went to attend to the new comers, and I took myself away on my ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... intelligence, which makes us receivers of its truth and organs of its activity. When we discern justice, when we discern truth, we do nothing of ourselves, but allow a passage to its beams. If we ask whence this comes, if we seek to pry into the soul that causes, all philosophy is at fault. Its presence or its absence is all we can affirm. Every man discriminates between the voluntary acts of his mind and his involuntary perceptions, and knows that to his involuntary perceptions a perfect faith is due. He may err ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... much, and corresponded with her. If they chose to wink at it, was he, a subordinate, to interfere? She had trusted him, depended on him, and he had a feeling that it would be disloyal to her confidence to betray her, to pry into what she concealed, and expose what his superiors seemed to know. But after she was gone the story leaked out: she was not only a smuggler, but a very dangerous spy. Some one must be the scapegoat, and who so fit as the poor, friendless ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... no right to say that. How do you know? If you are not going to read her letter, you had better say so at once. I dont want to pry into it: I only want to know what ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... made. What I was commissioned to say was this: that the place of Receiver-General was at present too important, and would occasion too much surprise and speculation; that it would not do to go beyond a place worth fifteen thousand to twenty thousand francs a year; that they had no desire to pry into the King's secrets; and that his correspondence ought not to be communicated to any one; that this did not apply to papers like those of which I was the bearer, which might fall into his hands; that he would ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 1 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... he, and twisted his mouth cynically. "Huh! Then it's good-bye tools, I suppose. I'm no churchmember, thank God, but I've heard that once the Church gets her clamps on anything worth while all hell can't pry her loose." ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... they had the slick smoothness of metal, yet he was unfamiliar with the material. It possessed the ruddy fire of copper, but through it ran small black veins. He would have liked to have taken one with him for investigation, but it was out of the question to pry ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... gallantly and as cheerfully as if he had been her own age, pulling open the drawers of the cabinets, taking out this curio and that, lifting the lid of the old Venetian wedding-chest that she might herself pry among the velvets and embroideries; she dropping on her knees beside it with all the fluttering joy of a child who had come suddenly upon a box of toys; Phil following them around the room putting in a ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... excite me To search and pry into the affairs of others, Who have to employ my thoughts so many cares And sorrows of ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... establishment of a church house at 52 Henry Street. Mr. Denison said: "It was not an institution—it was not even a settlement; it was simply a house where people lived. The time is gone by for men and women to come down as outsiders and pry into the homes of poverty and sin, and then return to their own life far away. One must live in a community, one must ...
— The Kirk on Rutgers Farm • Frederick Bruckbauer
... "Mrs. Marshall-Smith, you're going to stay here, of course, to look at Austin's lovely view! Think of his having hidden that view away from us all till now! I want to go through the house later on, and without Austin, so I can linger and pry if I like! I want to look at every single thing. It's lovely—the completest Yankee setting! It looks as though we all ought to have on clean gingham aprons and wear steel-rimmed spectacles. No, Austin, ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... into the cabin, where we were to breakfast. They sat at table with us, but would not taste any of our victuals. The chief wanted to know where we slept, and indeed to pry into every corner of the cabin, every part of which he viewed with some surprise. But it was not possible to fix his attention to any one thing a single moment. The works of art appeared to him in the same light as those of nature, and were ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... soul shall find itself alone 'Mid dark thoughts of the gray tombstone Not one, of all the crowd, to pry Into thine hour of secrecy. Be silent in that solitude Which is not loneliness—for then The spirits of the dead who stood In life before thee are again In death around thee—and their will Shall overshadow thee: be still. The night—tho' ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... it only loyal to say: "It's well to remember that in making the attempt you may do more harm than good. 'Where the apple reddens, never pry, lest we lose our Edens'—You know ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... with a mule. On the back of that mule are strung two jars seemingly filled with dried dates. Let me tell you that those jars are really half-filled with gold pieces, the dates are only at the top. I should like to deposit them at your house. I suppose your slave-girl will not pry too closely?" ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... gone into the Unknown," she wrote—"that Unknown in which she seemed to be forever trying to pry. We knew she was going, and we told her. She was quite brave, but she begged us to try some way to keep her till after Christmas. 'My presents are not finished yet,' she made moan. 'And I did so want to see what I was going to have. You can't have a very happy Christmas without me, I should ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie
... his voice sort of shrill and quivery. "I have one of the logs loose. Now pry here with your picks, everybody. Together, now! It's coming! Once more! There! Now the next one above. Oh, put your weight on it, Mr. Ellins. Get a fresh hold. Try her now. It's giving! Again. Harder. Look out for your toes! And let's have that ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... over to the B-line and go to town in Adine's roadster. In Adot, Davy would again contact Logan and fix the date to meet him in Cheyenne on Monday. "That check—the draft thing—will be there by that time," was Davy's opinion. "I hope I can pry Welborn loose from his digging and delving long enough to take me over that ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney
... to pry, my dear. But I was afraid there might be something between you and Fred, and I wanted to caution you. You see, Mary"—here Caleb's voice became more tender; he had been pushing his hat about on the table and looking at it, but finally he turned his ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... have become the accomplice of this double-faced villain. I have degraded myself and outraged you by making an appointment to pry into your Diary. I know how base my conduct is. I can make no excuse. I can only repeat that I love you, and that I am sorely afraid you don't love me. And Miserrimus Dexter offers to end my doubts by showing me the most secret thoughts of your ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... the girl, lettin' her know first what he'd done, but jest trustin' to his power of talk. Which, of course, didn't give him no show. While he was makin' love to the girl she outs with a knife and tries to stick him—nice, pleasant sort she must have been—and Drew, he had to pry the ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... the critical days of Margot's illness, and who had been the girl's companion on the misty moor. What had happened during those hours of suspense and danger? What barriers had been swept aside; what new vistas opened? Edith's own love was too sweet and sacred a thing to allow her to pry and question into the heart-secrets of another, as is the objectionable fashion of many so-called friends, but with her keen woman-senses she took in George Elgood's every word, look, and movement during the ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... remarkable for its freedom from any spiteful or frivolous gossip, of which even at Wittenberg there was then no lack. Of such scandal-mongers, who sought to pry out evil in their neighbours, Luther used frequently to say, 'They are regular pigs, who care nothing about the roses and violets in the garden, but only stick their ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... the day-time, he might have suspected that some scamp had managed to pry the mass loose, and to send it crashing downward straight for his head. But as the case stood, such a thing could not ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... to you?" he cried shrilly—"or to any one? Why do you pry? Suppose I have my secrets. They are no concern of yours. I give away my money—my life. Isn't it enough? What would you be—what would any of them be now—but for me? I work day and night for others. Can't I keep ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... his parting words. "But he doesn't want this election any more than I want my right leg. He'll stick. You can talk, Cameron, I'll say it. But you can't pry him off with kind words, any more than ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... as open your mouth to ask the reason; for if you put any questions respecting what does not concern you, you may chance to hear what you will not like; beware therefore, and be not too inquisitive to pry into ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.
... meddle nor make with Huckster Hedinn, saying he is a rude unfriendly fellow. Next morning thou must be off early and go to the farm nearest Hrutstede. There thou must offer thy goods for sale, praising up all that is worst, and tinkering up the faults. The master of the house will pry about and find out the faults. Thou must snatch the wares away from him, and speak ill to him. He will say, 'twas not to be hoped that thou wouldst behave well to him, when thou behavest ill to every one else. Then thou shalt fly ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... the suburbs with his whole attention fixed on the sky, he fell accidentally into a deep well. While he lamented and bewailed his sores and bruises, and cried loudly for help, a neighbor ran to the well, and learning what had happened said: "Hark ye, old fellow, why, in striving to pry into what is in heaven, do you not manage to ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... intending to be absent for some time, gave the key of his study to his wife, with strict orders that no one should enter it during his absence. The lady herself, strange as it may appear, had no curiosity to pry into her husband's secrets, and never once thought of entering the forbidden room: but a young student, who had been accommodated with an attic in the philosopher's house, burned with a fierce desire to examine the study; hoping, perchance, that he might ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... not unreasonable; order in some supper—there's a good fellow—and let's have a comfortable evening together. You're not the man you used to be, Ned. You used to be a fellow of spirit; somebody's jilted you, or something—I don't want to pry into your secrets; but let's have a little comfort for once in a way, and you shall have the whole business about the old colony, and how I came to leave it—the truth, and nothing ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... the name of Davenports in the days of our fathers. Phyl went to it and raised the lid. She did so without a second thought or any feeling that it was wrong to poke about in a place like this and pry into secrets. Juliet seemed to belong to her as though she had been a sister, her own likeness to the dead girl was a bond of attraction stronger than a family tie, and Juliet's mournful love ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... child of ignorance, ignorance is also the child of fear; the two react on, and produce each other. The more men dread Nature, the less they wish to know about her. Why pry into her awful secrets? It is dangerous; perhaps impious. She says to them, as in the Egyptian temple of old—"I am Isis, and my veil no mortal yet hath lifted." And why should they try or wish to lift it? If she will leave ...
— Scientific Essays and Lectures • Charles Kingsley
... for these marks of your esteem and confidence," said Edmund; "be assured that I will not abuse them; nor do I desire to pry into secrets not proper to be revealed. I entirely approve your discretion, and acquiesce in your conclusion, that Providence will in its own time vindicate its ways to man; if it were not for that trust, my situation would be insupportable. ...
— The Old English Baron • Clara Reeve
... Ole has in his hand, and a number of wrought nails; and he brought them home and showed Ole how to use the hammer and drive the nails into the chair; and when he had driven them all into the wood, papa would pry them out for him, and the work would commence all over again, and Ole was ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... is not so. You can pry into the coaling company's affairs and, if you are caught, it would be looked upon as an individual impertinence. If I did anything of the kind, it would reflect upon the Foreign Office and compromise our relations ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... no more to Lanfranc than my need of him, and he was little interested to pry deeper into the matter. He was himself a lively youngster of no more than twenty, but he had been trained to arms, had fought in Spain, and had an honourable record on the grass. Merely his black eyes flashed when he learned what was toward, and such was his eagerness that it ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... he grew, and long revolving stood On some deep, dark design; thence shot with haste, And o'er the mounds of Paradise he past: By his proud port, he seemed the Prince of Hell; And here he lurks in shades 'till night: Search well Each grove and thicket, pry in every shape, Lest, hid in some, the ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... his head. In vain Perris tugged at the reins. The lack of curb gave him no pry on the jaw of the chestnut and sheer strength against strength he was a child on a giant. The strips of leather burned through his fingers and the first great point of the battle was decided in favor of the horse: he had the bit in his teeth. It was a vital ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... fellow sufferers, uttering such whimpers of expectancy, exchanging such gestures of hope. Soon they shall be brought forward to be examined by the doctor and the interpreting officer; the one shall pry their purses, the other their eyes. For in this United States of America we want clear-sighted citizens at least. And no cold-purses, if the matter can be helped. But neither the eyes, alas, nor the purses of our two emigrants ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... Gould attempted to pry out Grant's policies, and with Fisk as an interlocutor, Gould personally attempted to draw out the President. To their consternation they found that Grant was not disposed to favor their arguments. The prospect looked very black for them. Gould met the situation with matchless audacity. By spreading ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... Charon, the ferryman, to take her across the black river and bring her back again. But the voice added, "When Proserpine has given you the box, filled with her beauty, of all things this is chiefly to be observed by you, that you never once open or look into the box nor allow your curiosity to pry into the treasure of the beauty ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... goes unheeded. The camp is roasted out. Strong hands and hand-spikes pry a couple of glowing logs from the front and replace them with two cold, green logs; the camp cools off and the party takes to blankets once more—to turn out again at 5 A.M. ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... you let me alone, boy? Into what have you come here to pry? You are odious—yes, odious!" She stamped her foot. "And I thought last night, that you were in trouble. Was I not kind to you for that, and that only?" She broke off pitifully. "Oh, Harry, I am ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... to hunt seals, and fish, and pry bivalves from the rocks at low tide, and build fires, and talk, and alternate between suspicion and security, between the danger of sedition and the insanity of men without defined purpose, ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... again. His beady eyes glowed at her ardently. "Gee, you know I wish I really was married to you, Maggie! If I was, you bet money couldn't ever pry you loose from me!" ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... When he sawe a waspe; A fly or a gnat He wolde flye at that; And prytely he wold pant When he saw an ant; Lord, how he wolde pry After the butterfly! Lord, how he wolde hop After the gressop, And whan I said Phypp, Phypp, Than he wolde lepe and skyp, And take ane by the lyp. Alas it will me slo That Phillyp is gone ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... soon as she felt something squirming under her, thought that one of the boa constrictors had got loose, and that she had sat down on it. So naturally she fainted away. I came running in with one of my men as soon as I heard the outcries, and after a while we managed to pry up the Fat Woman with a couple of cart-rungs and get the Dwarf out from under her, after which she came to in due time and got over her fright. But the Dwarf was a good deal flattened out by the pressure, and I was afraid at first that his ribs had been stove in. It turned ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... "Don't pry, don't pry, dear old Ham," he said testily. "Great Heavens and Moses! Can't a fellow take a desirable flat, with all modern conveniences, in the most fashionable part of the West End, and all that sort of thing, ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... the lights of our great acetylene lamps (lit before the sky turned from opal to amethyst) prying into dark doorways and windows as Roentgen rays pry through ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... speak, my lamb," said the Moolah, in answer to some argument of Fardet's, "I have myself studied at the University of El Azhar at Cairo, and I know that to which you allude. But the learning of the faithful is not as the learning of the unbeliever, and it is not fitting that we pry too deeply into the ways of Allah. Some stars have tails, oh my sweet lamb, and some have not; but what does it profit us to know which are which? For God made them all, and they are very safe in His hands. Therefore, my friend, be not puffed ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... water passed through fast, as though there was an opening beneath. All hands were now at work for further discovery; the officers with their swords and the soldiers with their bayonets, seeking to clear out the seam, and pry up the slab; others with the butts of their muskets striking the slab with all their might to break it, while the priests remonstrated against our desecrating their holy and beautiful house. While thus engaged, a soldier, ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... Barbee with the same cool impudence. And to the man across the table from him, "Deal 'em up, Spots; you an' me is goin' to pry these two bum gamblers loose from their four-bit pieces real pronto by the good ol' road of high, low, jack, an' the game. Come ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... say I had no wish to pry further into their bloody practices; but Bill seemed bent on it, so I turned and went. We passed rapidly through the bush, being guided in the right direction by the shouts of the savages. Suddenly there was a dead silence, which continued ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... back out of the ravine—to her. But Blake's work was not the kind to slip or pull out. The watcher looked at the powerful figure backing rapidly down that roof-like pitch. One of the toes of the level tripod under the taut loop would easily pry the rope off the spike-head. He turned his pack around to get at the tripod—and paused to look upwards at the three tiny faces peering down over the brink of ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... the best part of the morning to make a drag that was satisfactory and pry the big bear on it then the carcass was bound ...
— Young Hunters of the Lake • Ralph Bonehill
... stomachs for the most indigestible, ready for any business that requires sagacity and acute senses, ready for every adventure, owing to an excess of "free will", with anterior and posterior souls, into the ultimate intentions of which it is difficult to pry, with foregrounds and backgrounds to the end of which no foot may run, hidden ones under the mantles of light, appropriators, although we resemble heirs and spendthrifts, arrangers and collectors from morning till night, misers of our wealth and our full-crammed ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... business to pry into the affairs of his church-members!" replied Mr. Winter, growing more excited again. "That is what I ...
— The Crucifixion of Philip Strong • Charles M. Sheldon
... were it not for the fear of the Wolf they would be thicker therein, and faring wider; for we have slain many of them, coming upon them unawares; and they know not where we dwell, nor who we be: so they fear to spread about over-much and pry into unknown places lest the Wolf howl on them. Yet beware! for they will gather in numbers that we may not meet, and then will they swarm into the Dale; and if ye would live your happy life that ye love so well, ye must now fight for it; and in that battle ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... as such a character may be in many respects, a ship's company is by no means disposed to let him reap any benefit from his deficiencies. Regarded in the light of a mechanical power, whenever there is any plain, hard work to be done, he is put to it like a lever; everyone giving him a pry. ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... Sauney Pry came from Loudon Co., Va. He had been one of the "well-cared for," on the farm of Nathan Clapton, who owned some sixty or seventy slaves. Upon inquiry as to the treatment and character of his master, ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... means sure that everybody knew this before the publication of "The Man Shakespeare," and for the sake of a mystified posterity it may be well to explain that there was once a school of criticism that thought it indecent to pry into that treasure-house of individuality from which, if we reject the nursery hypotheses mentioned above, it is clearly obvious that authors derive their works. That the drama must needs be closely related to the dramatist ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... she cried reprovingly, "Mr. Verslun will think you are very inquisitive. You must not pry ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... entered within the said chamber, perceiving the said whilom John to be wakened out of his sleep by their din, and to pry over his bed-stock, the said Robert came then running to him, and most cruelly, with clenched fists, gave him a deadly and cruel stroke on the jugular vein, wherewith he cast the said whilom John to the ground, ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... replies, one member even suggested that Johnson might achieve more by getting the services to prosecute their current policies vigorously. Although Chairman Reid promised that these suggestions would all be taken into consideration, he still hoped to use the Air Force response to pry further concessions out of the Army ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... to man than to be shown the springs and mechanism of any art. All our arts and occupations lie wholly on the surface; it is on the surface that we perceive their beauty, fitness, and significance; and to pry below is to be appalled by their emptiness and shocked by the coarseness of the strings and pulleys. In a similar way, psychology itself, when pushed to any nicety, discovers an abhorrent baldness, but rather from the fault of our analysis than ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson
... rather enigmatical to the sick man, but he knew such people were sometimes eccentric in their mode of living, and this might possibly account for his surroundings. However, it was no affair of his, she had been an angel of goodness to him, and he had no right to pry ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... bare of other folk's sores and nakedness? I wonder sometimes that any of the audience can look at the stage in company with the rest; the natural man, one would expect, would have the lights of the pit extinguished, and, if he needs must pry, pry ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... at Notting Hill, Mr. Leslie passed a short probation in the provinces, and joined the Royalty Theatre in 1872, making his debut on the London stage in the character of Colonel Hardy in "Paul Pry." He subsequently visited America to play in "Madame Favart," at the Fifth Avenue Theatre. On his return to London he created the character of the Duke in "Olivette." Shortly after this, in 1882, in the title role of "Rip Van Winkle" at the Comedy, he came prominently into public ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... bluntly. 'We ain't got no manners in the bush, nor don't want 'em, as I tell Mary here, when she talks any palaver. Now, wife, them pritters must be done;' and he left his seat on the table to pry over ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... Montcalm, grasping his hand. "I grieve to find you in such a position, but I am happily not called upon to act on your information, of which, indeed," he added with a smile, "I will choose to doubt the accuracy. It is not for me to pry into your family affairs, but if you desire to confide in me, I will assuredly counsel and help you to ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... water which are not equalled by the greyhound on land. Why have the seals hung back? I believe I know the secret. It is the baby! No one knows where the porpoise and the whale cradle their newborn infants—it is so difficult to pry into the domestic ways of these sea-people—but evidently the seals cannot manage it, so they are forced to return to the land when the cares of ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... Shrines bedeck'd with gems we see, Overhung by canopy Of embroider'd curtains rare— Wondrous works of time and care! Up stairs, down stairs, in the hall, There is something great or small To attract the curious eye Into it to rudely pry. ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... boys scrambled through the clutter of debris toward the spot where the test stand had been erected. Bud seized a slender, steel I beam and managed to pry up the wreckage while ...
— Tom Swift and The Visitor from Planet X • Victor Appleton
... old lady. "I don't want to pry into anybody's secrets," she said—"least of all, my son's. But I should like to be so far frank with you as to ask you if Alick has ever talked to ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... onely to the vulgar, but to those also who are otherwise wise men, and excellent schollers; and hence it will follow, that every new thing which seemes to oppose common Principles is not presently to be rejected, but rather to be pry'd into with a diligent enquiry, since there are many things which are yet hid from us, ...
— The Discovery of a World in the Moone • John Wilkins
... added with an effort. "I haven't heard a thing about war, but the whole establishment is buzzing with conspiracies and mystery. There isn't any rest. Everyone is afraid of his neighbor; no one trusts himself to fall asleep in peace, for fear someone will pry his secret away—a terrible atmosphere—but what an adventure if it breaks into war before my eyes.... And ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... a two-story stable; another time he gave an elephant a plug of tobacco, and retired without waiting for an answer; and still another time he pretended to be talking in his sleep, and got off a portion of every original conundrum in hearing of his father. He begs the curious not to pry into the result—as it was of no consequence ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.' Had the now in his life passed? Had the then come when a fuller revelation was about to be vouchsafed? Nay! even the Apostle—the man inspired—only knew in part. Why should he, then, try to pry into the clouds and darkness that were round about the awful throne? And yet in Him who sat on that throne was no darkness at all. Supposing the feelings struggling in his heart now were rays of light from Him—rays seeking to pierce the clouds, ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... try to bite too hard. I tried prying on a bit of metal with the fingernail; inserting the nail in the crack where a metal cylinder had been formed to make a table leg. I might have been able to pry the crack wider, but the rest of my body did not have the power nor the rigidity necessary to drive the tiny lever ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... herself for us. With another love in her heart, she has magnanimously thrown away her freedom and given up her maiden love for the promotion of our happiness. We owe it to her to preserve her honor untarnished, that the calumnious crowd may not pry into the motives of her generous act. For Julia's sake, the world must and shall believe that she is in fact your wife, and that it was love that united you. We must, therefore, preserve appearances, and you must conduct your wife to ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... said one morning, "you stand about on the threshold, and wait for M. Sechard in the passage, to pry into his private affairs; when he comes out into the yard to melt down the rollers, you are there looking at him, instead of getting on with the almanac. These things are not right, especially when you see that I, his wife, respect his secrets, and take so much trouble ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... haue cause to pry into this pedant, Methinkes he lookes as though he were in loue: Yet if thy thoughts Bianca be so humble To cast thy wandring eyes on euery stale: Seize thee that List, if once I finde thee ranging, Hortensio will be quit with thee by ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... ugly mob downtown, boys; and it may do mischief if it hangs together until dark. If we can pry 'em apart, they'll go home and ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... intelligent eye saw everything; that kindly, sympathetic spirit comprehended always the soul of things; and no life, however common, rugged, or coarse, was to him empty. If he added always something of his own nobility of heart, if he did not pry out with prurient eyes the meannesses of life around him, the picture he drew was none the less true,—was, indeed, it seems to me, all the more true. Therefore I say that his early death was a loss to American literature, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... this house shall say she has deceived me. She has not deceived me—she loves me! What do I care whether she has given me her true name or not! She has given me her true heart. What right had Julian to play upon her feelings and pry into her secrets? My poor, tempted, tortured child! I won't hear her confession. Not another word shall she say to any living creature. I am mistress—I will forbid it at once!" She snatched a sheet of notepaper from ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... whaling is concerned, comes to an end. For all practical purposes she becomes a humdrum merchantman in haste to reach her final port of discharge, and get rid of her cargo. No more will she loiter and pry around anything and everything, from an island to a balk of drift-wood, that comes in her way, knowing not the meaning of "waste of time." The "crow's-nests" are dismantled, taut topgallant-masts sent up, and royal yards ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... come to quarrel with me now; Would you know more of me than I allow? Whence are you grown that great divinity, That with such ease into my thoughts can pry? Indulgence does not with some tempers suit; I see I ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... me here, extend his wand over this contiguity of roofs, uncover every chamber and make me familiar with their inhabitants! The most desirable mode of existence might be that of a spiritualized Paul Pry hovering invisible round man and woman, witnessing their deeds, searching into their hearts, borrowing brightness from their felicity and shade from their sorrow, and retaining no emotion peculiar to himself. But ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... march to reach the highest point of the road. What with the frequent halts for the men to fasten a rope to the wagon-poles and aid the severely taxed mules up the steepest places, to fill gullies and sloughs with stones and brush, to pry mired wheels up to firm ground, and repair broken harnesses and wagons, we were over half a day in going a distance which could have been accomplished in two hours by soldiers unencumbered with a baggage ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis
... shuddering fit had again come back; he carried his hands to his face stammering: "Ah! Paparelli, Paparelli!" And muttered invectives followed: the train-bearer was an artful hypocrite who feigned modesty and humility, a vile spy appointed to pry into everything, listen to everything, and pervert everything that went on in the palace; he was a loathsome, destructive insect, feeding on the most noble prey, devouring the lion's mane, a Jesuit—the Jesuit who is at once ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... glance, gaze, stare, see, con, gloat, glare, peek, peer, pry, peep, pore, lower, glower, scan, ogle; seem, appear; await, expect, anticipate; examine, investigate, inspect, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... they might be the more impartial arbitrators between the people of so many different creeds and sects who now inhabited the country; that they must be aware that they never had before been so impartially governed, and that they must continue to obey these their governors, without attempting to pry further into futurity or the will of the gods. Mahadeo performs a part in the great drama of the Ramayana, or the Rape of Sita, and he is the only figure there that is represented ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... ever known among civilised men. The subaltern impostors were thrown into dungeons. But the chief criminal continued to be master of the King and of the kingdom. Meanwhile, in the distempered mind of Charles one mania succeeded another. A longing to pry into those mysteries of the grave from which human beings avert their thoughts had long been hereditary in his house. Juana, from whom the mental constitution of her posterity seems to have derived a morbid taint, had sate, year after year, by the bed on which lay the ghastly ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... basket, Miss Pry!" John Fairmeadow commanded, again. "Huh!" he complained, emerging from his refuge and throwing his mackinaw and cap on the floor; "anybody'd think there was something in that ...
— Christmas Eve at Swamp's End • Norman Duncan
... to ask old Mother Smith if she ever heard the name Fay Larkin. But I thought better of it. If there's a girl here or at Stonebridge of that name we'll learn it. If there's mystery we'd better go slow. Mormons are hell on secret and mystery, and to pry into their affairs is to queer yourself. My advice is—just be as nice as you can be, ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... not take us long," the stranger said. "I want you to help me pry off the knocker, as I have no screw-driver to remove it. I will pay ...
— Lost on the Moon - or In Quest Of The Field of Diamonds • Roy Rockwood
... Kennedy exultingly, "I think we have stolen a march on them. I don't believe they were prepared for this, not at least at this stage in the game. Don't ask me any questions, Walter. Then you will have no secrets to keep if anyone should try to pry them loose. Only remember that this man Lawrence is ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... again he pried with all the force he dared use. Something tapped him on the shoulder. He looked around to see the diver beckoning to him. Joe leaned back and saw, by the motions made by Rand's fingers, that the diver was trying to tell him to pry ...
— Joe Strong, the Boy Fish - or Marvelous Doings in a Big Tank • Vance Barnum
... candle from his hand again while he examined the fastenings—nails somewhat rusted, which would not resist leverage. He found a piece of plank which he inserted in the edge of the door and managed to pry it open a little, and then bracing a foot against the stone wall, made an opening wide ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... and ignorance were not yet unhorsed. The Jewish police-officers, though they allowed coach-gentry to enter and take up their quarters where they pleased, did not fail to pry into their affairs the next day, as well for the protection of the Jewish community against equivocal intruders as in accordance with ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... and threw the clean clothing about. Then, opening the pocket-knife, they proceeded to pry about the soles and heels of the boots, and to cut open the lining of the clothing. So they found the ten dollars in the belt, which they tossed onto the table with the other belongings. Then the personage with the shield announced, "I fine you twelve dollars and sixty-seven cents, ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... of what it's up to me to prove—to say nothing of the fact that I count on your entrance at the last minute to put an end to the whole bad business. For it is a bad business—believe me. But not a word of that now. You couldn't pry open my lips with ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... a word of the affair itself, for John didn't seem to know that he had been frightened, and I was afraid to alarm him by speaking of it. He asked no questions of any sort, although in general he is a miniature Paul Pry, expressed no surprise that I was bareheaded and bloody, or that we had come so far from the fishing place and left our tackle behind. His face expressed confusion, such as a child will exhibit when he is waked ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty
... so many hearts; but, boy though he was, he knew that a grown up man would not care for his poor presents. He even lifted his little blue bank and rattled it softly; but he did not take the trouble to pry it open, for he knew that for all its jingling, the pennies inside would not amount up to more than a dollar. Disappointed, yet determined not to let Mr. Kohn outdo him in the matter, Morris crept ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... might repose sufficient confidence in me as a gentleman to believe I never betray a trust, never pry into a lady's secret." ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... taking the old woman's hand and sitting at her feet, "the Great Spirit has made me honest and open—I cannot conceal anything. I cannot pry and search. I might find out this from some other person—who knows? But I will not try. Come! speak with a straight tongue. Am I the son of a brave; am I a Delaware; or am I what my face makes ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... to be cautious in your communications, Abimelech, concerning our money matters. My daughter gave me a hint about the last mortgage, which I did not half like. Children think they have a right to pry into a father's expences; and to curb and brow-beat him, if the money be not all spent in gratifying their whims. Be more close, Abimelech, ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... certain aspects and conjunctions or oppositions of the stars and heavenly bodies, with the events of the world and the characters and actions of men. The human mind has ever confessed an anxiety to pry into the future, and to deal in omens and prophetic suggestions, and, certain coincidences having occurred however fortuitously, to deduce from them rules and maxims upon which to build an anticipation ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... for her isolation Loveday had raged, but when she had seen these two draw their aprons over their girl's treasures, she had not guessed those possessions aright. What she had imagined in her girl's heart, knowing Primrose's condition, it is not for us to pry at; whatever it was, it was so swift, so born of instinct, as to be holy. But when she saw the crumpled finery, she was suddenly too much of a child again to rate it worth envy. The things that Primrose, all unthinking, stood for, the things of warm hearth ...
— The White Riband - A Young Female's Folly • Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse
... the map of Maryland during the bright September afternoon. But before the glow of a lovely sunset had faded from the sky the artillery once more opened on the ridge above, and reports came in that the Federals were crossing the Antietam near Pry's Mill. Lee at once ordered Longstreet to meet this threat with Hood's division, and Jackson was ordered into line on the left of Hood. No serious collision, however, took place during the evening. The Confederates made no attempt to oppose ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... how dare he meddle and pry into the Misses Templeton's family affairs! There is something I mistrust in the man; he is smooth and plausible, but he is crafty too; he is deep—deep—and if I do not mistake, he is ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... his long absence, nor did Martin pry into it. He was content to see his friend's cadaverous face opposite him through the steam rising from ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... at each other, as if to pry into the thoughts of their neighbors. There was a long silence, and it was in vain that Tony called for the opinions of the members; they did not seem to have any opinions on ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic
... of the price of two hundred dead cows an' gimme what's left," Hopalong retorted. "It'll cost you nine of them twelve men to pry it ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... trust. And Marie Louise, for all her anxiety, was sadly glad of his confidence, regarded it as sacred, and would not violate it so much as to make the least effort to learn what messages she was carrying. Nothing, of course, would have been easier than to pry open one of these envelopes. Sometimes the lapel was hardly sealed. But she would as soon have ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... But that ill wind which ever opposed all the projects upon which the Prince ever embarked, prevented the Chevalier's invasion of Scotland, as 'tis known, and blew poor Monsieur von Holtz back into our camp again, to scheme and foretell, and to pry about as usual. The Chevalier (the king of England, as some of us held him) went from Dunkirk to the French army to make the campaign against us. The Duke of Burgundy had the command this year, having the Duke of Berry with him, and the famous Mareschal Vendosme and the Duke ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... defend its current interpretation of the Gillem Board policy, the Army resisted the Personnel Policy Board's use of the Air Force plan, Secretary Johnson's directive, and the initial recommendations of the Fahy Committee (p. 360) to pry out of it a new commitment to integrate. In lieu of such a commitment, Acting Secretary of the Army Gordon Gray[14-64] offered Secretary Johnson another spirited defense of Circular 124 on 26 May, promising that the Army's next ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... Snivel have found it convenient to make a trip of pleasure into the country. And though the affair creates some little comment in fashionable society, it would be exceedingly unpopular to pry too deeply into the private affairs of men high in office. We are not encumbered with scrutinizing morality. Being an "unfortunate woman," the law cannot condescend to deal with her case. Indeed, were it brought before ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... written for America; it was written for England. So many Englishmen have done their sincerest best to teach us something for our betterment that it seems to me high time that some of us should substantially recognize the good intent by trying to pry up the English nation to a little higher level of manhood in turn. Very truly ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... that I recognised a gentleman in the street whom I have been given to understand you honour with your friendship, a short, stout person with a bald head; let me see, he was called the Butcher at The Hague, was he not? No, do not pout, I have no wish to pry into the secrets of ladies, but still in my position here it is my business to know a thing or two. Well, what did ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... news! Hum! Hum! Better to throw physic to the dogs in his case. Mind diseased: secret trouble: my punishment is greater than I can bear. Put this and that together; there is something serious the matter. Well! well! I'm no Paul Pry.' ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... bibliophile and a bibliomaniac has been described as between one who adorns his mind, and the other his book-cases. Of the bibliomaniac as here characterized, we can suggest no better type than Thomas Hill, the original of Poole's 'Paul Pry,' and of Hull in Hook's novel, 'Gilbert Gurney.' Devoid as Hill was of intellectual endowments, he managed to obtain and secure the friendship of many eminent men—of Thomas Campbell, the poet, Matthews ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... Pry, I did not call; but I ventured to express my feelings in regard to a piece of good news which ...
— Hunting the Lions • R.M. Ballantyne
... They had to pry him loose! You have got the grip of the devil himself. The police surgeon told me they would have to put a whole new set of plumbing in his throat. Said he wouldn't have believed that any living thing, short of a gorilla, could have clamped down ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... "A man couldn't pry you loose from five twenty-dollar gold pieces if you had five thousand in your pocket, John. What are you stalling around for?" demanded Van ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... round Marguerite. Child as she was, she felt the poignancy of her friend's grief, and with the infinite tact of her girlish tenderness, she did not try to pry into it, but was ready ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... infant mortality—we pay our national tribute to private enterprise in milk, a tribute of many thousands of babies every year. We try to reduce this tribute by inspection. But why should the State pay money for inspection, upon keeping highly-trained and competent persons merely to pry and persecute in order that private incompetent people should reap profits with something short of a maximum of child murder? It would be much simpler to set to work directly, employ and train these private persons, and run the dairies and ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... dress herself, to brush her own hair, to take off her own clothes; and that she was not, either by nature or education, an incapable young woman. But that honour and glory demanded it, she would almost as lief have had no Patience Crabstick to pry into her most private matters. All which Crabstick knew, and would often declare her missus to be "of all missuses the most slyest and least come-at-able." On this present night she was very soon despatched to her own chamber. Lizzie, however, took one careful look ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... his lip. He wanted money, and he wanted it badly, but the tailor had no right to pry into his private affairs—certainly not in ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... at last, in his coarse way stirred by Jose's evident truthfulness. "Well—as you wish—I will not pry into your secrets. But, take a bit of counsel from one who knows: when you reach Simiti, inquire for a man who ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... that I don't wonder he drowns his troubles in books. Just as soon as I can find a nice comfortable house mother to put in charge, I am going to plot for the dismissal of Maggie McGurk, though I foresee that she will be even harder than Sterry to pry from her moorings. ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... days of Margot's illness, and who had been the girl's companion on the misty moor. What had happened during those hours of suspense and danger? What barriers had been swept aside; what new vistas opened? Edith's own love was too sweet and sacred a thing to allow her to pry and question into the heart-secrets of another, as is the objectionable fashion of many so-called friends, but with her keen woman-senses she took in George Elgood's every word, look, and movement during the brief ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... are ze evilest leetle beasts in all ze vorld! Venever you sink you are rid of zem, zere zey are at your elbow. (Brownies laugh again.) Vey steal, zey pinch, zey poke, zey pry, and at night, ven all ze house is still, zey come out, and if you do not keep your eyes ver' wide awake zey vill pinch you till you die—zat is, ven you guard ...
— Christmas Entertainments • Alice Maude Kellogg
... people passing along the street. That is an amusement of fools. The inclination to become one of that class left me long ago. Now I do not understand why you were upon the street tonight unattended; why you came to my assistance, or why you are here with me now. I have no desire to pry into your secret. I am content to remain grateful, to count this a red-letter day, because somehow, out of the mystery of the dark, we have thus been brought together. An old professor used to say all life ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... woman to pry into others' secrets, and felt guilty as she fled from the attic, taking the lamp with her. Afterward, as she sat on the narrow piazza, basking in the warm Spring sunshine, she pieced out the love affair of Jane Hathaway's early girlhood after her ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... September afternoon. But before the glow of a lovely sunset had faded from the sky the artillery once more opened on the ridge above, and reports came in that the Federals were crossing the Antietam near Pry's Mill. Lee at once ordered Longstreet to meet this threat with Hood's division, and Jackson was ordered into line on the left of Hood. No serious collision, however, took place during the evening. The Confederates made no attempt to oppose the passage of the Creek. ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... it was over, but that creature in his fury seemed to have inspired himself with lock-jaw, for his teeth were so driven in and double-locked, that I had to pry the jaws apart before the ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... alert—Malone strolled out of the office with a final wave to Boyd. He was thinking about Mike Fueyo, and he stopped his chain of reasoning just long enough to look in at the office of the Agent-in-Charge and ask him to pry loose two tickets for "The Hot ...
— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett
... retenue of deportment, than we are accustomed to see, I will not say in good, but certainly in general society at home. One of the consequences of good breeding is also a disinclination, positively a distaste, to pry into the private affairs of others. The little specimen to the contrary just named was rather an exception, owing to the character of the individual, and to the indiscretion of the young lady in laughing too loud, and then the affair of a birth so very posthumous ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... of his craft before and since, he was a vain, meddlesome vagabond, and must needs pry into a secret which certainly did ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... Many are the solutions to this problem. Each form of life has, as it were, solved it best to suit its own peculiar case, and to the earnest student of Nature there is nothing more interesting than to pry into these solutions and note how varied, strange, and wonderful ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... Quine's school at Notting Hill, Mr. Leslie passed a short probation in the provinces, and joined the Royalty Theatre in 1872, making his debut on the London stage in the character of Colonel Hardy in "Paul Pry." He subsequently visited America to play in "Madame Favart," at the Fifth Avenue Theatre. On his return to London he created the character of the Duke in "Olivette." Shortly after this, in 1882, in the title role of "Rip Van Winkle" at the Comedy, he came prominently into public notice. ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... exhibited his folly, however, by allowing his people to make an inroad into Unyoro and carry off eighty cows belonging to Kamrasi. To their horror, Kyengo, the chief magician, informed them that the king, being anxious to pry into the future, had resolved to adopt a strong measure with that end in view. This was the sacrifice of a child. The ceremony, which it fell to the lot of Kyengo to perform, is almost too cruel to describe. The magician, having placed a large ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... fashion of the former age. Six elders, besides the minister, knew the tragedy of Flora Campbell, and never opened their lips. Mrs. Macfadyen, who was our newspaper, and understood her duty, refused to pry into this secret. The pity of the glen went out to Lachlan, but no one even looked a question as he sat alone in his pew or came down on a Saturday afternoon to the village shop for his week's provisions. London friends thought me foolish about my ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... would school himself to patience. Perhaps she would come back for it,—and explain. Perhaps he could find her by advertising it,—and get an explanation. Pending which, he could wait a little while. It was not his wish to pry into her secrets, even ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... and their busy maid fly in and out with potage and roti, "t-r-r-res succulent," the history of which we must not pry too deeply into, there is much excited conversation. You see at once that many amusing things happen to one who sells balloons all day upon the Park. And there are varied fortunes to recount. Such a lady actually ...
— In Madeira Place - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... dance at parties as if she wished to kill herself, and would drink quantities of iced water when she was in a most heated condition. It was no longer a pretence with her. What scenes took place at home between her mother and herself it was no business of mine to pry into; but this I know right well that the girl one day went straight to Szephalmi and threatened him there and then with something terrible if he did not marry her. I will not tell you, Leonora's former friend, the nature of this threat; it would revolt your pure mind too much, for a heart like ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... handling grain. He was away out in the country somewhere—busy plowing, busy seeding, busy harvesting, busy something-or-other. He was a Farm Hand who so "tuckered himself out" during daylight that he was glad to pry off his wrinkled boots and lie down when it got dark in order to yank them on again, when the rooster crowed at dawn, for the purpose of "tuckering himself out" all over again. It was true that without him there would have been no grain to handle; equally true that without the grain dealers ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... asylum in the basement of his father's house (where he took the precaution to label all his bottles 'poison'), he began the publication of a new and better journal, entitled the PAUL PRY. It boasted of several contributors and a list of regular subscribers. One of these (Mr. J.H.B.), while smarting under what he considered a malicious libel, met the editor one day on the brink of the St. Clair, and taking the law into his own hands, soused ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... let out more of the anchor chain. But they couldn't go very far, for the wind was so strong and the waves were so high and the heavy anchor chain held them back near the ship. When they had got as far as they could, they managed to pry the anchor overboard. It went into the water with a tremendous splash, wetting all the men; but they didn't mind, for they were all wet through already with the rain and the splashing of the waves. And the boat turned around and went back to the shore. But the men didn't try to row it back ...
— The Sandman: His Sea Stories • William J. Hopkins
... on a false charge, based on some slanderous or stupid information of some of your infernal spies," said the Senator. "What right have you to pry into the private affairs of an American traveller? We have ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... not think we have as good "Astrologists" now as we used to have. Astrologists cannot crawl under the tent and pry into the future as they could three or four ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... tired, and I've been thinking too much. That never suits me.... Thanks, Pam. You've helped me to make up my mind. I like you, Pam," she added dispassionately, "because you're so gentlewomanly. You don't ask questions, or pry. Most people do." ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... carefully aside and stepped to the chest. It was old, strong, and rusty. He looked at the vast and old-fashioned lock and flashed his light on the hinges. They were deeply incrusted with rust. Looking about, he found a bit of iron and began to pry. The rust had eaten a hundred years, and it had gone deep. Slowly, wearily, the old lid lifted, and with a last, low groan lay bare its treasure—and he saw the dull sheen ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... noiseless, and without a cap, reared above the stern, came full aboard without breaking, covered the whole boat, sweeping over her like a cuff from a gigantic hand. The Rector received the shock square on the back, but nothing, apparently, could loosen his iron grip from the tiller, nor pry his feet from the deck against which they were braced. He felt the water get deeper and deeper above his head, and a terrible groaning as if the boat were going to pieces under the strain. Then, as he came to the surface, ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... 's a young lawyer chap; calls himself Royal Maillot. I can't pry out of either of 'em what he ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... friendless? Were there not, in Stephen's words, a hundred things he did not know about her? Had she not other resources? Had she not a story? But here, too, he was hampered by his delicacy: one did not pry into the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... say that I wanted you to do some work, or to open up the district; but the fact of the matter is I need the five hundred dollars. I've seen times before this war when a hundred thousand cash wouldn't pry me loose from that claim, but now it's yours for five hundred dollars if you honestly think it's worth it. And if you don't, that's all right, there's no hard feeling between us and you can go and buy from the Professor. You wasn't born yesterday and you're a good, hard-rock ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... never! Well, I never!" gasped Miss Paulina Pry, which was unquestionably the absolute truth, though not characteristic. "That was Beverly Ashby's brother and her beau!" Eleanor's selection of common nouns was at times decidedly common. "Now, Miss High-and-Mighty, we will see what happens to girls ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... There's a work-bench bigger than Noah's ark in the drawing-room, another in the library, next size larger, five tool-chests in as many different rooms, a thousand feet of lumber in the front hall, and nine hundred and thirty-seven different colored paint-pots in the guest-room,—more or less. We pry into cupboards and drawers with our finger-nails, we keep next the wall going up stairs, draw water through a straw, and to open doors we thrust a square stick through a round hole and twist and turn till the stick ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner
... from his dominions, to avert the dreadful calamities which Antiochus, the wicked emperor of Greece, threatened to bring upon his subjects and city of Tyre, in revenge for a discovery which the prince had made of a shocking deed which the emperor had done in secret; as commonly it proves dangerous to pry into the hidden crimes of great ones. Leaving the government of his people in the hands of his able and honest minister, Helicanus, Pericles set sail from Tyre, thinking to absent himself till the wrath of Antiochus, who was mighty, ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... afforded. Yes: there was one other article, and, to my mind, more significant than the vest of the hidalgo. This was a short and stout crowbar of iron; not one of the long crowbars that farmers use to pry up stones, but a short handy one, such as you would use in digging silver-ore out of the cracks ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... was the establishment of a church house at 52 Henry Street. Mr. Denison said: "It was not an institution—it was not even a settlement; it was simply a house where people lived. The time is gone by for men and women to come down as outsiders and pry into the homes of poverty and sin, and then return to their own life far away. One must live in a community, one must be ...
— The Kirk on Rutgers Farm • Frederick Bruckbauer
... Eumolpus and Celeus, leader of the people, she showed the conduct of her rites and taught them all her mysteries, to Triptolemus and Polyxeinus and Diocles also,—awful mysteries which no one may in any way transgress or pry into or utter, for deep awe of the gods checks the voice. Happy is he among men upon earth who has seen these mysteries; but he who is uninitiate and who has no part in them, never has lot of like good things once he is dead, down ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... his looks, averse to heaven and good; Dusky he grew, and long revolving stood On some deep, dark design; thence shot with haste, And o'er the mounds of Paradise he past: By his proud port, he seemed the Prince of Hell; And here he lurks in shades 'till night: Search well Each grove and thicket, pry in every shape, Lest, hid in some, the ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... I haue cause to pry into this pedant, Methinkes he lookes as though he were in loue: Yet if thy thoughts Bianca be so humble To cast thy wandring eyes on euery stale: Seize thee that List, if once I finde thee ranging, Hortensio will be quit with thee ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... into glory, wherein are things the angels desire to look unto, or with vehement desire bend, as it were, their necks, and bow down their heads to look and peep into, (as the word used, I Pet. i. 12, importeth) is a subject for angelical heads to pry into, for the most indefatigable and industrious spirits to be occupied about. The searching into, and studying of this one truth, in reference to a closing with it as our life, is an infallible mark of a soul divinely enlightened, and endued with ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... through bravely, but it only just lasted out. Then he turned his head aside and threw his arm across it. As I drew back to the window, I saw the quivering of the long, emaciated fingers that veiled his face. I did not look again till Guy's voice called to me, quite composedly, for I did not dare to pry into or meddle with the secrets of the strong heart that knew its ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... can climb in at windows for a ball, can go the same way for money, and get it easy enough when they've only to pry ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... self up after lunch, throw the dinner-table away, and trot on to the next village. As a girl passes from town to town, how eager she is to note their characteristics, to look at the people curiously, and to pry into their shop-windows. How much she learns about Nature! Is the sky so blue at home? Are the wild flowers so abundant? Is the grass so soft and green? Oh, girls! try to make yourselves at home with Nature, and walk ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... stare, see, con, gloat, glare, peek, peer, pry, peep, pore, lower, glower, scan, ogle; seem, appear; await, expect, anticipate; examine, investigate, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... the spy On fellow souls, a Spiritual Pry— 'Tis said that people ought to guard their noses, Who thrust them into matters none of theirs; And tho' no delicacy discomposes Your Saint, yet I consider faith and pray'rs Amongst the privatest of ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... is blamable," said my mother, "highly so. Let us leave these things to Providence, and hope for the best; but to wish to pry into the future, which is hidden from us, and wisely too, is mighty wicked. Tempt not Providence. I early contracted a dread of that sin. When I was only a child, something occurred connected with diving into ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... muster—dear Jack, you have been so good and kind to me! So good, I can't express it! Do let me do something for you. I know you have a secret, and I am afraid it is that, even more than my going, which is making you so miserable. I don't want to pry into it, dear Jack, but remember that my father is a rich man, and he is powerful, too. If you won't mind telling him about it, I know—I am quite, quite sure—he will do anything in his power for you. Think what you have done for me! And he loves ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... to save, and not destroy— I would not pry into thy secret soul; But if these things be sooth, there still is time For penitence and pity: reconcile thee With the true church, and ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... was dashed on the instant by the sudden snorting and shying of two or three of the horses in passing, and we laid hold of our weapons, keying ourselves to the fighting pitch. But, curiously enough, the riders made no move to pry into the cause. So far from it, they flogged the shying ponies into line and rode on stolidly; and thus in a little time that danger was overpast and the evening silence of the mighty forest was ours to keep or ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... dominion of the cunning, spread a sacred mysterious veil of sanctity over their lies and abominations. Impressed by such solemn devotional parade, a Greek or Roman lady might be excused, if she inquired of the oracle, when she was anxious to pry into futurity, or inquire about some dubious event: and her inquiries, however contrary to reason, could not be reckoned impious. But, can the professors of Christianity ward off that imputation? ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... to write at my bureau; I dare say, it's only to pry into what I am about; but excuse me, my dear Sir, for that. Adieu! ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... he said, "it's not to pry into what doesn't concern me; but Julia's my sister, and I can't after all help taking some interest in her life. She tells me herself so little. She doesn't think ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... are sometimes sent among an enemy, to discover the state of his affairs, to pry into his designs, and carry back information. This is a dishonorable office; spies, if detected, ...
— The Government Class Book • Andrew W. Young
... remained intact. The reason was plain enough, it was almost impossible to dislodge it. Even with the lawyer and the Cartoonist to help him, the enthusiastic Architect, balanced dangerously on one of Janet's ladders, could scarcely pry it loose. It was just after dinner. It had rained during the day so that the little garden was too damp for the evening and the whole household lingered idly in the bare drawing-room to tease the Architect. When the register was finally loosened, showers of ancient dust descended. The room echoed ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... the next boat," he heard Locke saying as the victoria stopped. "I'd like to see somebody pry ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... vagabonds! We may not always wish to follow in their footsteps, but we like to keep near them and pry into their careless, happy lives. When the Bohemians enter a pot-house we are too virtuous, presumably, to go in likewise, but we stand without, to get a tempting whiff of hot negus and a snatch of some ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... in general upright and honest, therefore unsuspecting and credulous. They are too much engrossed with their own business to pry into the conduct of their neighbours, and too indifferent, in point of disposition, to interest themselves in what they conceive to be foreign to their own concerns. They are wealthy and mercantile, of consequence liberal and adventurous, and so well disposed to take a man's own word for his ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... away! A midget bejeweled mid flowers at play! A snip of a birdling, the blossom-bells' king, A waif of the sun-beams on quivering wing! O prince of the fairies, O pygmy of fire, Will nothing those brave little wings of yours tire? You follow the flowers from southern lands sunny, You pry amid petals all summer for honey! Now rest on a twig, tiny flowerland sprite, Your dear little lady sits near in delight; In a wee felted basket she lovingly huddles— Two dots of white eggs to her warm breast ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... suited her tolerably well. The two women who kept the boarding house were educated and considerate and had long ago ceased to be inquisitive. Such a variety of people met there that it would have been too much of an undertaking to pry into the secrets of each individual. Such things only interfered with business. Effi, who still remembered the cross-questionings to which the eyes of Mrs. Zwicker had subjected her, was very agreeably impressed with the reserve of the boarding house keepers. But after two weeks had passed ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... sacrilege to distort history. They make straight for the substantial, the indubitable. For this reason the Peniculi and Ergasili of Plautus seem to me far more true to nature than the character of Paul Pry in Jerrold's comedy. In one instance, indeed, the evidence of Hester Dyett appears, on the surface of it, to be quite false. She declares that she sees a round white object moving upward in the room. But ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... View the details of Nature's plan, Into each nook and corner pry, And needlessly ...
— Canada and Other Poems • T.F. Young
... wrote my father the fiercest letters. They were married, he said, married legally and honestly—and that was an end of it. As to Mrs. Betts's former history, no one had the smallest right to pry into it. He defied my father to dismiss him. My father—on his principles—had no choice but to do so. So then—your brother ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to leave his guest alone in the tent for a short time while he looked after the preparations for luncheon; and he had little doubt that during his absence the man would without scruple peer and pry into the other compartments of the tent. But to this contingency he was quite indifferent, for he had foreseen and forestalled it, before going off to the barque, by carefully gathering up and stowing away such few traces of a woman's presence as Flora had left behind her. That Turnbull had followed ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... 'We cannot pry into hidden things,' Percy answered. 'Watch his wife, and you will see that she is satisfied. You may trust him to her, and to Him in whose hands he is. Of this I am sure, that there is a patient consideration for others, and readiness to make sacrifices that are not ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sleeping. A sound of heavy breathing followed by a restless movement had deceived him and he knocked upon the door gently, quite expecting to be answered. When no reply came, he ventured in as one who would not willingly pry upon another but is compelled thereto by curiosity. The room itself should have been in darkness, but Alban had deliberately drawn the heavy curtains back from the windows before he slept, and the ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... I guess," mumbled Boltwood, pouching the gold piece. "I don't pry into things that ain't my business. I'll row across and get ...
— Owen Clancy's Happy Trail - or, The Motor Wizard in California • Burt L. Standish
... "I haven't heard a thing about war, but the whole establishment is buzzing with conspiracies and mystery. There isn't any rest. Everyone is afraid of his neighbor; no one trusts himself to fall asleep in peace, for fear someone will pry his secret away—a terrible atmosphere—but what an adventure if it breaks into war before my eyes.... And I've met ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... and exonerating him for all blame for the outbreak of the Rebellion.[782] "The distempered humor predominant in the Common people", which had occasioned the insurrection, they declared the result of false rumors "inspired by ill affected persons, provoking an itching desire in them to pry into the secrets of the grand assembly".[783] They snubbed the King's commissioners, replying to their request for assistance in discovering the common grievances that the Assembly alone was the proper body to correct the people's ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... Unwilling to pry into other people's secrets, I was turning back when the speakers, hearing the noise, rushed from the arbour, with their swords half drawn. One was the owner of the chateau: ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... desecrated and damaged by the public ever since its abandonment. Its visitors apparently did not scruple to deface it in every possible way, and what could not be stolen was ruthlessly destroyed. It apparently was a pleasure to them to pry the massive roof-beams loose, in order to enjoy the crash occasioned by the breaking of the ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James
... at this unearthly hour. I claim the sacred rites of hospitality. I'm an invalid. The doctor said I needed country air, or would have prescribed it if given a chance. You said I might come to see you some day, and by playing Paul Pry I found out, you remember, that this was your ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... the difficulties of his social life lay in the fact that all women of forty were exactly alike, and it was impossible to recall their individual label, to which archdeacon, or canon, or form of spinster good works, they belonged. It would be dangerous, irreverent, to pry further into the recesses of the episcopal, or even of the suffragan, mind. There are snowy peaks where we lay helpers should fear to tread. But it may be stated, without laying ourselves open to a suspicion of wishing to undermine the Church, that when the woman of forty in her turn acidly ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... in the party is sent up the tree, and given a stick wherewith to frighten or poke or pry the cornered animal out of his castle. Compelled to leave the hole, it creeps out upon a limb, and squatting down, snarls at the stranger, who tries to shake loose its hold. But this is a vain attempt. A raccoon can cling like a burr. Try to drag your pet 'coon off the top of a fence, ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... is knavish and absurd, And well deserves a damnatory word. You glance at your own faults; your eyes are blear: You eye your neighbour's; straightway you see clear, Like hawk or basilisk: your neighbours pry Into your frailties with as keen an eye. A man is passionate, perhaps misplaced In social circles of fastidious taste; His ill-trimmed beard, his dress of uncouth style, His shoes ill-fitting, may provoke a smile: But he's the soul of virtue; but he's kind; ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... curiosity is, therefore, to direct attention to the novel until it is made familiar. There is a type of curiosity, however, which craves for mere astonishment and not for understanding. It is such curiosity that causes children to pry into other people's belongings, and men ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education
... all that has happened. This was Mr. Burleson's preconception of what he was for and what a Post Office was for and not a hundred million people could pry him out of it. Mr. Burleson ran his Post Office to suit himself and his own boast for himself, and the people naturally in being suited with their Post Office had to take anything that was left over that they could get after Mr. Burleson ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee
... him, Briggs! Why don't you manifest the power of the human intellect?" and so on, howling out ironical remarks like those; and s'posin' he kept that dog on that leg until he made you swear to pay the bet, and then at last had to pry the dog off with a hot poker, bringing away at the same time some of your flesh in the dog's mouth, so that you had to be carried home on a stretcher, and to hire several doctors to keep ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... Marguerite, for the inscription in the book, the young man's hurried journey, his desire to possess the volume, piqued my curiosity; but I feared if I questioned my visitor that I might seem to have refused his money only in order to have the right to pry into ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils
... was also remarkable for its freedom from any spiteful or frivolous gossip, of which even at Wittenberg there was then no lack. Of such scandal-mongers, who sought to pry out evil in their neighbours, Luther used frequently to say, 'They are regular pigs, who care nothing about the roses and violets in the garden, but only stick their snouts ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... mind as freely as I used to do. But whoever was in fault, self being judge? He complained of spies set upon his conduct, and to pry into his life and morals, and this ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... labouring in the cause of justice, and was not a common eavesdropper. This permitted me to retain a sort of quasi self-respect for a day or two till my honesty rallied itself, and forced me to realise and to admit that I was, to all intents and purposes, a common Paul Pry, performing a disreputable act for the gratification it gave me. I determined I would at least be honest with myself—and this was my verdict. You will, perhaps, fancy that when I arrived at this decision I at once ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... extraordinary story of him. One day, Agrippa left his house, at Louvain; and, intending to be absent for some time, gave the key of his study to his wife, with strict orders that no one should enter it during his absence. The lady herself, strange as it may appear, had no curiosity to pry into her husband's secrets, and never once thought of entering the forbidden room: but a young student, who had been accommodated with an attic in the philosopher's house, burned with a fierce desire to examine the study; hoping, perchance, that ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... Fortunato, uplifting his dull torch, endeavored to pry into the depth of the recess. Its termination the feeble light did ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... not! Gerard, some wretched fool Dares pry into my sister's privacy! When such are young, it seems a precious thing To have approached,—to merely have approached, Got sight of the abode of her they set Their frantic thoughts upon. Ha ...
— A Blot In The 'Scutcheon • Robert Browning
... to answer. The honey on our hands, coupled with the dust, made a grit that in opening and closing the breech caused the mechanism to stick, and the honey clinging to the shells caused the breech chamber to stick, making the shell cases jam in the gun after being discharged, forcing us to pry open with a sharp pick the breech each time to extract the empty cartridge. All during the operation the Major was cursing like a madman at the men, whoever they were, that brought ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... name? he is quickly gone. I am for him, were he Robin Goodfellow. Who's yonder, the Prince John and Fauconbridge? I think they haunt me like my genii, One good, the other ill; by the mass, they pry, And look upon me ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... open it himself, but he wished to make Mr Harding understand that he, as Eleanor's father, would be fully justified in doing so. The idea of such a proceeding never occurred to Mr Harding. His authority over Eleanor ceased when she became the wife of John Bold. He had not the slightest wish to pry into her correspondence. He consequently put the letter into his pocket, and only wished that he had been able to do so without the archdeacon's knowledge. They both sat silent during the journey ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... not wholly satisfied with what he had heard concerning the new attempt of the mysterious tourist to pry into his affairs. He every little while would spring some new question, which Larry answered to the best of his ability. Evidently Frank was trying to discover the real motives actuating Mr. Marsh when he so suddenly decided to remain around Bloomsbury ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... portrait of Farragut spoke further of the sea. If we take a liberty and run our eyes over the bookshelves we find many volumes relating to the development of sea power and textbooks of an old vintage on the sailing of ships and like matters. And if we were to pry into the drawers of an old walnut cabinet in the study we should find illuminative data touching the life of Andrew Kelton. It is well for us to know that he was born in Indiana, as far as possible from salt water; ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... but natural that we should feel an interest in you, Mr. Jones," replied Mr. Merrick; "yet I assure you we have no desire to pry into your personal affairs. You have already volunteered a general statement of your antecedents and the object of your visit to America, and that, I assure you, will suffice us. Pardon me for asking an ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... dismiss Marcia's tirade as other members of the family are wont to do, but there comes an awesome, shivering fear that it is true in some degree. How many times she has seen Gertrude check Marcia when Floyd was under discussion. She has never tried to pry into family secrets, but she knows there have been many about her; a certain kind of knowledge that all have shared, a something against her. She has fancied that she made some advances in living down the dislike; Mrs. Grandon has been kinder of late, ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... agents all over the United States, and, quietly but efficiently, the FBI went to work. Agents began to probe and pry and poke their noses into the files and data sheets of every mental institution in the fifty states—as far, at any rate, as they ...
— Brain Twister • Gordon Randall Garrett
... ourselves, except that our teacher of handicrafts, the sapper Sabum, sometimes gave us a hint. The first thing was to mark out the plan, then with the aid of levers pry the rocks out of the fields, and by means of a two-wheeled cart convey them to the site chosen, fit them neatly together, stuff the interstices with moss, and finally put on a roof made of pine logs which we felled ourselves, earth, moss, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... was, but he could see right away it didn't have a friendly look; so he hopscotched across the engine-room floor and up a handy ladder to the deck, taking his assistant along in his wake. After rescuing the passengers it took three tugboats to pry sub ...
— The U-boat hunters • James B. Connolly
... his Ford," said Polly, eagerly. "If I run up and get my hat and coat, will you slip down and pry him out of that saloon and the three of us run out to Wildcat Canyon before ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall
... stood together for some little time, looking at nothing in particular. And yet it was borne in upon me that friend Barbara rarely thought of me when I was not present with her. I doubt much that this should have given annoyance, for why should we pry into another's thoughts? And yet it rankled in my bosom, and I could but feel that I knew the truth. I should have liked her to think much of me, in sooth: I should have liked her to think of me while she knitted the stockings in the bright leafy porch or walked among her garden-herbs, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... be told? What right has a blacksmith to pry into a grand piano to find out wherein the exquisite harmony of the instrument lies? Who has the right to ask the artist how he blended the colors that crowned his picture with immortality, or the poet to explain his pain in the birth of a mood ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... edge, had been wiped out of existence by the rush of maddened bison along the beach, and the keenings of their relatives rose above the shouts and cries of embarkation. Fully half the rafts were afloat, with their loads, by now, and men grunted heavily in the effort to pry the others free, while women and children crowded into the water around them, waiting to struggle aboard as soon as the men ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... to tell me, Ned, anything that happens at home—God forbid that I should pry into matters so sacred as relations between a boy and a parent!—but I can see, my boy, that something is wrong. You are not yourself. At first when you came back I thought all was well with you; you were, as was natural, ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... insect akin to the Grasshopper and found more particularly in the south of France.—Translator's Note.); you subject cell and protoplasm to chemical tests, I study instinct in its loftiest manifestations; you pry into death, I pry into life. And why should I not complete my thought: the boars have muddied the clear stream; natural history, youth's glorious study, has, by dint of cellular improvements, become a hateful and repulsive thing. Well, if I write ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... there's no help for it," he said at last. "I hate to spoil the box, but we'll have to force the lock. Get a chisel, and we'll pry the ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... applied by that Power to whom only the human heart is fully known. I added, however, that, if I knew more of his mental history for some years past, (into which my affection-should never induce me impertinently to pry,) I might, perhaps, in some measure, account for his scepticism; that I could even conceive cases of minds so "encompassed with infirmity," or so dependent on states of health, as to render such a state involuntary, and therefore to take them out of the sphere of our argument. But, ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... sacrificed herself for us. With another love in her heart, she has magnanimously thrown away her freedom and given up her maiden love for the promotion of our happiness. We owe it to her to preserve her honor untarnished, that the calumnious crowd may not pry into the motives of her generous act. For Julia's sake, the world must and shall believe that she is in fact your wife, and that it was love that united you. We must, therefore, preserve appearances, and you must conduct your wife to your estate in triumph. Decency requires ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... he said, "have you forgotten that on a far more important occasion to YOU, I showed no desire to pry into your secret?" Hurlstone made a movement of deprecation. "Nor have I any such desire now. But for the sake of our coming to an understanding as friends, let me answer the question for you. You are here, my dear fellow, as a messenger from the Mission of Todos Santos ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... forms related in a particular way?" The question is extremely interesting, but irrelevant to aesthetics. In pure aesthetics we have only to consider our emotion and its object: for the purposes of aesthetics we have no right, neither is there any necessity, to pry behind the object into the state of mind of him who made it. Later, I shall attempt to answer the question; for by so doing I may be able to develop my theory of the relation of art to life. I shall not, however, be under the delusion that I am rounding off my theory of ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... always intellectual it must be in words, and hence as well as because it must imply impromptu talent, the comic situations of a farce or pantomime are not witty. When Poole represents Paul Pry as peeping through a gimlet hole, as attacked with a red hot poker, or blown out of a closet full of fireworks, and where Douglas Jerrold on the Bridge of Ludgate makes the innkeeper tells Charles II., in his disguise, all the bad stories he has heard about his Majesty, we merely see ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... 'bout there bein' a plan in his watch-case, Gen'ral," spoke up Jack. Schoverling nodded, and turned to the hut. A moment later he came out, a smashed and bent gold watch in his hand. This they managed to pry open with a knife, and the explorer pulled out a tiny, many-folded map of onion-skin paper. The tracings were made in a brown ink, with marks that ...
— The Rogue Elephant - The Boys' Big Game Series • Elliott Whitney
... through the clutter of debris toward the spot where the test stand had been erected. Bud seized a slender, steel I beam and managed to pry up the wreckage while ...
— Tom Swift and The Visitor from Planet X • Victor Appleton
... George, without preamble, "we don't want to pry into your affairs, nor trouble you in any way, but if we can help you we will be glad to—Miss Lavillotte and I. We believe you are man enough to wish to know the worst, without mincing, whatever it may be, and have come to tell you all. ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... most fit Both for capacity and wit, And very docile: they will do My business, as I wish them to. And hawk—the hawk is a good fellow— And chanticleer, with cockscomb yellow; But all the ravens—they must go— Pry in futurities, you know. That will not do; to baffle all With truth, for the apocryphal. No; jays and pies will do far better,— They talk by ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... was about to grant the Netherland, envoys an audience, the wrath of ambassador Mendoza was kindled. That magniloquent Spaniard instantly claimed an interview with the King, before whom, according to the statement of his colleagues, doing their best to pry into these secrets, he blustered and bounced, and was more fantastical in his insolence than even Spanish envoy had ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... front door. Carolina was in the kitchen and the others had gone to lie down, but she went into the dining-room and listened for a moment there before she ventured into her cousin's room. She had often been in to pry when alone in the flat, and she knew where to look for the key of the attic in the Vicolo. Olive always kept it in a corner of the table drawer and it was there now. Gemma smiled her rare slow smile ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... defeat to his brother, and others were availing themselves of the means which Saladin had supplied for revelling. The wounded man slept under the influence of Saladin's wonderful talisman, so that the dwarf had opportunity to pry about at pleasure, until he was frightened into concealment by the sound of a heavy step. He skulked behind a curtain, yet could see the motions, and hear the words of the Grand Master, who entered, and carefully secured the covering of ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... that mule are strung two jars seemingly filled with dried dates. Let me tell you that those jars are really half-filled with gold pieces, the dates are only at the top. I should like to deposit them at your house. I suppose your slave-girl will not pry too closely?" ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... at her father, and was startled by the look on his face; it was just as if something had made him desperately afraid. But it was only for a moment, and then he had got his features into control, so she hastily averted her head lest he should see her looking, and think that she was trying to pry into what did not concern her. He swallowed down the rest of his coffee at a gulp and rose to go. But his manner now was so changed and uneasy that Katherine must have wondered at it, even if she had not caught a glimpse of ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... whose body is perfectly symmetrical. By standing on one foot, the hip and shoulder of one side approach each other, and so lessen the space within the abdomen on that side. On the other side a support has been removed for the contents of the abdomen, and they sag down until they pry the uterus out of place and press it over towards the side where there is less pressure. The broad ligament on one side is stretched from use and on the other side shortened from disuse, and so the uterus remains ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... the great migrations of the fourth century had destroyed the classical world of the Mediterranean, and the Christian Church, which was more interested in the life of the soul than in the life of the body, had regarded science as a manifestation of that human arrogance which wanted to pry into divine affairs which belonged to the realm of Almighty God, and which therefore was closely related ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... your affairs," and there was a tone of whining complaint in Mrs. Worthington's voice; "I never pry and you never tell, so I don't know how much you are worth, but I can judge somewhat, and I don't ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... guard at every gun Was placed along the wall; The beacon blazed upon the roof Of Edgecombe's lofty hall; And many a fishing bark put out, To pry along the coast; And with loose rein, and bloody spur ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... nurse to carry his daughter forth upon some occasion of hers, whereof she would have none know; and if I oppose her, she will be wroth with me and will say, 'This eunuch fellow stopped me, that he might pry into my affairs.' So she will do her best to kill me, and I have no call to meddle in this matter." So saying, he turned back, and with him the thirty assistants who drove the people from the door of the palace; whereupon the nurse entered and saluted the eunuchs with her head, whilst all ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... you are leaving us, I don't want to pry inter any man's business, and you know these islands as well as I do; but I guess I wouldn't stay here if I war you. Why, it won't pay a man to stay and trade on a bit of a place like this," and he cast a deprecatory ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... to my room and sew or read. Sew! Every hook and eye and button on my clothes is moored so tight that even the hand laundry can't tear 'em off. You couldn't pry those fastenings away with dynamite. When I find a hole in my stockings I'm tickled to death, because it's something to mend. And read? Everything from the Rules of the House tacked up on the door to spelling out the French ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... peer and spy, Sad eyes that heed not skies nor trees, In dismal nooks he loves to pry, Whose motto evermore is Spes! But ah! the fabled treasure flees; Grown rarer with the fleeting years, In rich men's shelves they take their ease, - ...
— Ballads in Blue China and Verses and Translations • Andrew Lang
... about to ransack, for sealing-wax, pencils, and the like trifles. Mabel was too wise a woman not to keep her secrets under lock and key, and if there were private documents left in his way, he was too honorable to pry into them. ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... the sweeps between the tree limbs and the houseboat," suggested Harold Bird. "Perhaps we can thus pry ...
— The Rover Boys in Southern Waters - or The Deserted Steam Yacht • Arthur M. Winfield
... don't want you to think that I am the kind of woman who seeks to pry into the affairs of other people. I don't. I abominate meddlers and will have nothing to say, even if after I tell you what my motives are, you refuse to answer my questions. But a great wrong has been done, an advantage taken of my hospitality. ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... complacent, cooing note, as expressive of perfect content as the purring of a well-fed tabby, stretched cosily upon the earth-rug before a cheerful winter evening fire. This transfer was effected so quickly, that Johnny was baffled in an ill-bred attempt which he made to pry into the domestic concerns of the affectionate pair, and he could not get even a transient glimpse of ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... raising funds for another armed attack on Slavery in Kansas. The sentimentalists asked no questions. And if hard-headed business men tried to pry too closely into his plans, they found him a past master in the art ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... solitary reign. Cf. Virgil, Geo. iii. 476: "desertaque regna pastorum." A MS. variation of this line mentioned by Mitford is, "Molest and pry ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... Whig policy, should be viewed by their own party somewhat in the light of traitors. Accordingly we see them figuring in this character in some of the caricatures of the day, one of which (one of the "Paul Pry" series), published by Geans in 1829, may be cited as an example of the rest, and shows them to us in the act of Burking Old Mrs. Constitution, ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... merely in those who believe in it, but in the general sentiment of the community, to a larger extent than most good people seem to be aware of. It needn't be true, to do this, any more than Homeopathy need, to do its work. The Spiritualists have some pretty strong instincts to pry over, which no doubt have been roughly handled by theologians at different times. And the Nemesis of the pulpit comes, in a shape it little thought of, beginning with the snap of a toe-joint, and ending with such a crack ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... time," Louise broke the awkward silence. "Captain, it's lovely to sail, and our Blowell was like a sea queen, until we struck that sand bar, then she stuck like—like the Brooklyn Bridge, not a thing could move her. We did break a couple of oars trying to pry ourselves loose, but a sand bar is a mighty power when you hit it wrong side up," finished Louise, proud of her attempt to ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... other reader ever suspected; but they have no perception of the cogency of arguments, the force of pathetick sentiments, the various colours of diction, or the flowery embellishments of fancy; of all that engages the attention of others they are totally insensible, while they pry into worlds of conjecture, and amuse themselves ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... Yes, the position was right. If she fell here, a man with a shovel could easily pry down tons of sand from either bank upon her in a few minutes. The burial might be done by himself without any other soul knowing what had ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... a moment. Perhaps he was wondering who had given this stranger a right to pry into his inner shrine. Perhaps he was wondering if Rose-Marie would like an outsider to know just what she had told him. When he ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster
... end impatiently into the grate. "I'm all right. I'm tired, and I've been thinking too much. That never suits me.... Thanks, Pam. You've helped me to make up my mind. I like you, Pam," she added dispassionately, "because you're so gentlewomanly. You don't ask questions, or pry. Most people do." ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... for a woman, told of a dangerous energy when aroused. The eyebrows, too, had a lowering falcon trick that touched the face with fierceness. The forehead gave proof of brains, and yet the San Reve was one more apt to act than think, particularly if she felt herself aggrieved. If you must pry into a matter so delicate, the San Reve was twenty-eight; standing straight as a spear, with small hands and feet, she displayed that ripeness of outline which sculptors ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... drew in a sharp breath of relief as he looked at it with critical eyes. It was not quite the sort of thing he had expected. If it had been a combination lock he had intended to tear away the woodwork covering it, pad the floor with the bed mattress, and then pry it over on its face, to chisel away the cement that he knew would lie under its vulnerable sheet-iron bottom. But it was an ordinary, old-fashioned lock and key "Mennlicher," Durkin at the first ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... as it couldn't be," said the man whom they called Hankie. "He is a proper cunning one to pry out." ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... subject. He exhibited his folly, however, by allowing his people to make an inroad into Unyoro and carry off eighty cows belonging to Kamrasi. To their horror, Kyengo, the chief magician, informed them that the king, being anxious to pry into the future, had resolved to adopt a strong measure with that end in view. This was the sacrifice of a child. The ceremony, which it fell to the lot of Kyengo to perform, is almost too cruel to describe. The magician, having placed a large earthen pot full of water on the fire, arranges a ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... corner. With the harem of Byron and the drunken orgies of Burns, the poaching of Shakespeare and the vanity of Voltaire it has nothing to do—should content itself with what they have freely given it, the intellectual heritage they have left to humanity, and not pry into those frailties which they fain would hide. If Goldsmith "wrote like an angel and talked like a fool," it was because when he wielded the pen there was only a wise man present, and all are affected more or less by the company they keep. ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... with the emperor in private. Having gained the opportunity he did obeisance before him and after repeatedly calling him "master," and "god" (terms that were already being applied to him by others), he said: "I have done nothing of the sort. And if I obtain a respite, I will pry into everything and both inform against and convict many persons for you." He was released on these conditions, but did not report any one; instead, by advancing different excuses at different times, he ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... there for the night, just before laying a course for Ararat; and the monkey and his wife—desperately bored by their long cooping-up among so many uncongenial animals—took advantage of their opportunity to pry a couple of tiles off the roof and get away. The tradition hints that Noah had been drinking; at any rate, their absence was not noticed, and the Ark went on without them the next day. By the time that the Deluge fairly was ended, and the Rhone reopened to normal navigation, a large monkey family ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... two-story stable; another time he gave an elephant a plug of tobacco, and retired without waiting for an answer; and still another time he pretended to be talking in his sleep, and got off a portion of every original conundrum in hearing of his father. He begs the curious not to pry into the result—as it was of no consequence to ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... grew, and long revolving stood On some deep, dark design; thence shot with haste, And o'er the mounds of Paradise he past: By his proud port, he seemed the Prince of Hell; And here he lurks in shades 'till night: Search well Each grove and thicket, pry in every shape, Lest, hid in some, the ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... saw, was a square slab, having on it certain characters and a drawing of a serpent held firmly in the talons of a condor. These symbols excited my curiosity not a little, and I noticed that the stone, which was about three feet square, was loosely resting in its place. I managed to pry it up, and found a dark cavity beneath. It was nearly square, but of its depth I could not judge, owing to the darkness. To satisfy myself on this point, I got a very long stem of one of those gigantic grasses that grow in the tropics, and, letting it down, found ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... 'master, I could sift grain from husk here and there, but let it be as 'tis. What odds? I have gone against his plans; to my misfortun'. I can't help it; I should do the like to-morrow. As to character, them gentlefolks will search and search, and pry and pry, and have it as free from spot or speck in us, afore they'll help us to a dry good word!— Well! I hope they don't lose good opinion as easy as we do, or their lives is strict indeed, and hardly worth ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens
... that we could move the rock by throwing our united weight on a long pry; and many of the boys agreed with him. We felled a spruce tree seven inches in diameter, trimmed it and cut a pry twenty feet long from it. Carrying it to the rock, we set a stone for a fulcrum, and then threw our weight repeatedly on the long end. The rock, which ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... be unequally applied to nations of unequal extent. Small communities, however corrupted, are not prepared for despotical government; their members, crowded together and contiguous to the seats of power, never forget their relation to the public; they pry, with habits of familiarity and freedom, into the pretensions of those who would rule; and where the love of equality, and the sense of justice, have failed, they act on motives of faction, emulation, and envy. The exiled Tarquin had his adherents at Rome; but if by their means he had recovered ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... there before she gets up; go quietly and carefully; and do not run, or you may fall and break the bottle, and then your grandmother will have nothing. When you go into her room, do not forget to say 'Good-morning'; and do not pry into all the corners." "I will do just as you say," answered Red Riding Hood, bidding ...
— My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales • Edric Vredenburg
... his great astonishment, d'Artagnan heard the policy which made all Europe tremble criticized aloud and openly, as well as the private life of the cardinal, which so many great nobles had been punished for trying to pry into. That great man who was so revered by d'Artagnan the elder served as an object of ridicule to the Musketeers of Treville, who cracked their jokes upon his bandy legs and his crooked back. Some sang ballads about Mme. d'Aguillon, his mistress, and Mme. Cambalet, ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... morning when he entered Alban's room and discovered him to be still sleeping. A sound of heavy breathing followed by a restless movement had deceived him and he knocked upon the door gently, quite expecting to be answered. When no reply came, he ventured in as one who would not willingly pry upon another but is compelled thereto by curiosity. The room itself should have been in darkness, but Alban had deliberately drawn the heavy curtains back from the windows before he slept, and the wan gray ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... the shining sands of Polkimbra, still desolate, and, beyond, the purple line of cliffs towards Kynance; on my right the rock hid everything from view, except the open sea and the gulls returning after the tempest to inspect and pry into the fresh masses of weed and wreckage. I looked timidly at my companion. He was still gazing out towards the sea, apparently deep in thought. The cap was on his head, and his legs still dangled, while he muttered to himself as ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... he had seen in the streets suggested that it was not going to be easy to pry most of the company out of Calhoun in a hurry, but that was Campbell's problem. "I'll need couriers," he said aloud. It was an advance scout's privilege to have riders to send ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... firm flesh came out of the nothingness of space about them, to poke and pry all over their bodies. Anger began to take the place of their fear, as, for some time, impotent of resistance, they had to submit to the examination given them. They were prodded and felt like dogs at a show; their breathing and heart action were carefully listened to; their mouths ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... past the church of San Polo, to visit the beautiful Barozza; and he resolved, if possible, to catch him on one of these journeys. 'It so chanced on the 28th of February, which was the second Sunday of Lent, that having gone, as was my wont, to pry out whether Lorenzo would give orders for going abroad that day, I entered the shoemaker's shop, and stayed awhile, until Lorenzo came to the window with a napkin round his neck for he was combing his hair—and at the same moment I saw a certain Giovan Battista Martelli, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... as children do their father. Frigga is his wife. She foresees the destinies of men, but never reveals what is to come. For thus it is said that Odin himself told Loki, 'Senseless Loki, why wilt thou pry into futurity, Frigga alone knoweth the destinies of all, though she telleth ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... three seemed to hit you at once and knocked you forward. Then the whistle blew! When the referee untangled the mess and rolled you upon your back he found you froze to the ball, a foot over the line. Talk about a death grip—they had to pry that old pigskin loose! Say, Benz, after that,—you missed the biggest lot of noise that ...
— Over the Line • Harold M. Sherman
... the child of ignorance, ignorance is also the child of fear; the two react on, and produce each other. The more men dread Nature, the less they wish to know about her. Why pry into her awful secrets? It is dangerous; perhaps impious. She says to them, as in the Egyptian temple of old—"I am Isis, and my veil no mortal yet hath lifted." And why should they try or wish to lift it? If she will leave them in peace, they will leave her in peace. It is enough that ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... yourself from being shocked by the victim. Grasp victim only by coat tails or dry clothes. Put rubber boots on your hands, or work through silk petticoat; or throw loop of rubber suspenders or of dry rope around him to pull him off wire, or pry him along with ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various
... can take the top off a bottle of soda pop with an opener that will pry it up, but you cannot pull ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... brain that the old teeth should not try to bite too hard. I tried prying on a bit of metal with the fingernail; inserting the nail in the crack where a metal cylinder had been formed to make a table leg. I might have been able to pry the crack wider, but the rest of my body did not have the power nor the rigidity necessary to drive the tiny lever that ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... yapping for socialized Literacy," the man on the screen continued. "I'm not going back to the old argument that any kind of socialization is only the thin edge of the wedge which will pry open the pit of horrors from which the world has climbed since the Fourth World War. If you don't realize that now, it's no use for me to repeat it again. But I will ask you, do you realize, for a moment, what a program of socialized Literacy would mean, apart from the ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... that early frosts might kill what the hot winds spared. They became enthusiastic over dry-farming, and their resentment toward the Happy family increased as their enthusiasm waxed strong. The Happy Family complained to one another that you couldn't pry a nester loose from his claim with ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... don't want to pry. But lots of things come quietly to the old man's ear. You've got a ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... all well acquainted with levers. We apply them every day. A box arrives with its lid nailed down; we take a chisel, use it as a lever, pry the lid open, and see no marvel in what we have done (Fig. 1). And yet we thereby did with ease what would have been impossible for us even if we had put out the whole of our unaided strength. The use of levers is an old discovery; more than 1500 years before Christ, Englishmen, ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent
... charged the beast, and got under its guns, pounded at the door, tried to bomb and pry it open with bayonets and crawled over the top looking for dents in the armor with the rage of hornets, but in vain. They could not harm the crew inside and the crew could ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... of Hogsflesh into Bacon. In his method and atmosphere, Lamb had passed from the seventeenth to the late eighteenth century; he got a hearing, but he did not get—and it must be admitted that he did not deserve—success. The farce is interesting as containing in an inquisitive landlord, Jeremiah Pry, the original, it may be assumed, of a whole family of Paul Prys, of which to-day John Poole's is the ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... in an empty bottle, that news in regard to him might not be wanting in case of the worst. They had else been super or subter human. I conceive, also, that, as there are certain persons who continually peep and pry at the key-hole of that mysterious door through which, sooner or later, we all make our exits, so there are doubtless ghosts fidgeting and fretting on the other side of it, because they have no means of conveying back to the world the scraps of news they have picked up. For there is ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... people beyond the personal and associate influence of its members, and the prestige of a name that had once been potential. In fact, the New Netherland Company was using the Leyden congregation as a leverage to pry for itself from the States General new advantages, larger than ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... higher rank, knew as much, and corresponded with her. If they chose to wink at it, was he, a subordinate, to interfere? She had trusted him, depended on him, and he had a feeling that it would be disloyal to her confidence to betray her, to pry into what she concealed, and expose what his superiors seemed to know. But after she was gone the story leaked out: she was not only a smuggler, but a very dangerous spy. Some one must be the scapegoat, and who so fit as the poor, friendless Tennesseean who had escorted her to head-quarters ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... for it, de Beaujardin," said Montcalm, grasping his hand. "I grieve to find you in such a position, but I am happily not called upon to act on your information, of which, indeed," he added with a smile, "I will choose to doubt the accuracy. It is not for me to pry into your family affairs, but if you desire to confide in me, I will assuredly counsel and help you to the ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... aware that he had a Blank-Blank;"—[**Her private figure of speech for Brother—or Son-in-law]—but Mr. Buckstone said that he was not able to conceive what so curious a phrase as Blank-Blank might mean, and had no wish to pry into the matter, since it was probably private, he "would nevertheless venture the blind assertion that nothing would answer in this particular case and during this particular session but to be exceedingly wary and keep clear away from Mr. Trollop; ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 5. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... consumed, she was necessarily diverted from all doubts or apprehensions of the occult purposes of him who had thus beguiled her over the long frequented paths. As the great secret of success with the mere worldling, is to pry into the secret of his neighbor while carefully concealing his own, so it is the great misfortune of enthusiasm to be soon blinded to a purpose which its own ardent nature neither allows it to suspect nor penetrate. Enthusiasm ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... wicked emperor of Greece, threatened to bring upon his subjects and city of Tyre, in revenge for a discovery which the prince had made of a shocking deed which the emperor had done in secret; as commonly it proves dangerous to pry into the hidden crimes of great ones. Leaving the government of his people in the hands of his able and honest minister, Helicanus, Pericles set sail from Tyre, thinking to absent himself till the wrath of Antiochus, who ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... Diabolonians, yet more pry into, and endeavour to spy out the weakness of the town of Mansoul. We also would that you yourselves do attempt to weaken them more and more. Send us word also by what means you think we had best to attempt the regaining thereof: namely, whether by persuasion to a vain and loose life; ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... in every place,' but we have also to remember that in our hearts there is a secret place, and that 'not easily forgiven are they who draw back the curtains,' and let a careless world look in. It is not for others to pry into the hidden mysteries of the fellowship of a soul with the indwelling Christ, however it may be the Christian duty to show to all and sundry the blessed and transforming effects of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... reply, but before she could speak, Strong assured her that the congregation wouldn't do anything to stop her if she wished to go. He saw the blank look on her face. "We ain't tryin' to pry into none of your private affairs," he explained; "but my daughter saw you and that there feller a makin' up to each other. If you're calculatin' to run away with him, you'll save a heap of trouble for the ...
— Polly of the Circus • Margaret Mayo
... do, that will do!" Chia Lien rejoined laughing, "none of these sham attentions for me! So long as you don't pry into my doings it will be enough; and will I go so far as to bear you ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... uneasy upon the return out of Spain of Gellianus, whom he had sent to pry into Galba's actions, understanding that Cornelius Laco was appointed commander of the court guards, and that Vinius was the great favorite, and that Gellianus had not been able so much as to come nigh, much less have any opportunity ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... world could I have proved a scienter?" wrathfully demanded the lawyer. "I can't pry open the prisoner's skull and exhibit his ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... front entrance, leaving the back entrance and the part of the building commanded immediately by it, to the menials, as also the small garden whose high wall you see yonder; and never at any time seek to pry or peep into them, nor to open the door which communicates from the front part of the house through the corridor with the back. I do not urge this in jest or in caprice, but from a solemn conviction that danger and misery will be the certain consequences of your not observing what I prescribe. ...
— Two Ghostly Mysteries - A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family; and The Murdered Cousin • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... there is something, if not very much, in what I say. For all men admire the body, both for its manner of building, and the curious way of its being compacted together. Yes, the further men, wise men, do pry into the wonderful work of God that is put forth in framing the body, the more still they are made to admire; and yet, as I said, this body is but a house, a mantle, a vessel, a tabernacle for the soul. What, then, is ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... inscription in the book, the young man's hurried journey, his desire to possess the volume, piqued my curiosity; but I feared if I questioned my visitor that I might seem to have refused his money only in order to have the right to pry into ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils
... and Mr. Snivel have found it convenient to make a trip of pleasure into the country. And though the affair creates some little comment in fashionable society, it would be exceedingly unpopular to pry too deeply into the private affairs of men high in office. We are not encumbered with scrutinizing morality. Being an "unfortunate woman," the law cannot condescend to deal with her case. Indeed, were it brought before ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... people. Doubtless she could have helped us to find them, but she wouldn't. She was very sullen on these expeditions and frightened. When Graves tried to put her down she would cling to him, and it took real force to pry her loose. ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... which are not equalled by the greyhound on land. Why have the seals hung back? I believe I know the secret. It is the baby! No one knows where the porpoise and the whale cradle their newborn infants—it is so difficult to pry into the domestic ways of these sea-people—but evidently the seals cannot manage it, so they are forced to return to the land when the cares of maternity ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... was reticent as regards the past, and Ann's attitude towards her held an element of that loyal, enthusiastic devotion which an older woman not infrequently inspires in one considerably younger than herself—a devotion which accepts things as they are and has no wish to pry into the secrets ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... Mrs. Hussey soon appeared, with a mustard-pot in one hand and a vinegar-cruet in the other, having just broken away from the occupation of attending to the castors, and scolding her little black boy meantime. Wood-house! cried I, which way to it? Run for God's sake, and fetch something to pry open the door —the axe! —the axe! he's had a stroke; depend upon it! —and so saying I was unmethodically rushing up stairs again empty-handed, when Mrs. Hussey interposed the mustard-pot and vinegar-cruet, and the entire castor ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... hard! Why do it? Why, when everything seems all right, pry into the deep and hidden roots of things? I don't want to think about the possibility of some dreadful dry-rot happening to married people's feelings towards each other, as they get older and get used to each other. It's soiling to my imagination. ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... before you or perches upon a limb, and turns his spotted waistcoat toward you in the most open and trusting manner. In fact, few birds have such good manners as the wood thrush, and few have so much the manner of a Paul Pry and eavesdropper as the catbird. The flight of the wood thrush across the lawn is such a picture of grace and harmony, it is music to the eye. The catbird seems saying, "There, there! I told you so, pretty figure, ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... bring down the log and pry the rocks away, and late as it was this was done, and they scooped up the loose golden pieces and put ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... Guesclin, "it does not befit so great and wondrous a power to pry and search and play the varlet even to the beautiful chatelaine of Villefranche. Ask a worthy question, and, with the blessing of God, you shall have ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... "the warmest welcome at an inn," found George's to be economical. "What do you think," he writes, "must be my expense, who love to pry into everything of the kind? Why, truly one shilling. My company goes to George's Coffee-house, where, for that small subscription I read all pamphlets under a three shillings' dimension; and indeed, any larger would not be fit for coffee-house perusal." Shenstone ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... [aside]. Oh, that I had never waited! How does it happen though, so many Neighbours prone to pry, as I am, Are not ...
— The Wonder-Working Magician • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... black river and bring her back again. But the voice added, "When Proserpine has given you the box, filled with her beauty, of all things this is chiefly to be observed by you, that you never once open or look into the box nor allow your curiosity to pry into the treasure of ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... it was lawful for the children of Israel to borrow jewels of the Egyptians, which supposes a promise of restitution, though they intended not to pry them back again. God gave commandment so to spoil them, and the Egyptians were divested of their rights, and were to be ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... singing.—To a morning concert and heard the real Paganini. To one of the lesser theatres and heard a monologue by the elder Mathews, who died a year or two after this time. To another theatre, where I saw Listen in Paul Pry. Is it not a relief that I am abstaining from description of ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... head seriously; "Did I not tell you so?" said he. "Was not this man an abstract virtue? I give you my word I stand in awe before him, and I feel ashamed to pry into these details of his life. What is it to us how he thought proper to apply his principles to nightcaps and feather dusters? We are not his body servants, and we care nothing about his infirmities. It is enough for ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... shall find itself alone 'Mid dark thoughts of the grey tomb-stone— Not one, of all the crowd, to pry Into thine ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... openin' one of them cast-iron pies same as you made for us last week. You drill a hole in the crust nigh the edge of the plate and then put that thing in and pry the upper deck ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... down the table snorted. "That means the freedom for the capitalists to pry somebody else out of the greatest part of what ...
— Combat • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... contingency some Bhoyars give their children ten or twelve names at birth. If all the names fail, the Joshi invents new ones of his own, and in some way brings about the auspicious union to the satisfaction of both parties, who consider it no business of theirs to pry into the Joshi's calculations or to question his methods. After the marriage-shed is erected the family god must be invoked to be present at the ceremony. He is asked to come and take his seat in an earthen pot containing a lighted wick, the pot ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... surrounded, and encircled in mystery, according to some writers who have been studying the Gipsy character. They have been a theme upon which a "bookworm" could gloat, a chest of secret drawers into which the curious delight to pry, a difficult problem in Euclid for the mathematician to solve; and an unreadable book for the author. A conglomeration of languages for the scholar, a puzzle for the historian, and a subject for the novelist. These are points which it is not the object ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... dignified warriors towards the grounds in the rear of the dwelling, as it was characteristic of their habits, is worthy of being mentioned. Neither spoke, neither manifested any womanish impatience to pry into the musings of the other's mind, and neither failed in those slight but still sensible courtesies by which the path was rendered commodious and the footing sure. They had reached the summit of the elevation so often named, ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... imperfection.—Had I done what they have said, I should have been a pious and moral man.—Verily, I may conceal myself from the sight of my neighbor, but God knows what is secret and what is open.—There is a shut door between me and mankind, that they may not pry into my sins; but what, O Omniscience! can a closed door avail against thee, who art equally informed of ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... these marks of your esteem and confidence," said Edmund; "be assured that I will not abuse them; nor do I desire to pry into secrets not proper to be revealed. I entirely approve your discretion, and acquiesce in your conclusion, that Providence will in its own time vindicate its ways to man; if it were not for that trust, my situation ...
— The Old English Baron • Clara Reeve
... not a learned body, are, as an order, the best friends of the people. They seem to mingle with them more immediately, as their counsellors and comforters; and to go among them more, when they are sick; and to pry less than some other orders, into the secrets of families, for the purpose of establishing a baleful ascendency over their weaker members; and to be influenced by a less fierce desire to make converts, and once made, to let them go ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... the pleasure of drilling him clean," said Arizona, harking back to it with savage pleasure, "but I shot out the light. I wanted him to die slow, and before the end I wanted to pry his eyes open and make him see my face and know that it was me that done for him! That was what I wanted. But he turned yaller ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... settlement. The heavy sleepers in the store and the house were not yet enough awake to know what had occurred. On their rapid ponies the Indians flashed past between the saloon and Rath's, darted here and there around the corners, flung to earth and ran to pry at windows ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... unity. As to the ineffable Trinity subsisting in this Unity, a mystery discovered only by the Sacred Scriptures, especially in the New Testament, where it is more clearly revealed than in the Old, let others boldly pry into it, if they please, while we receive it with our humble faith, and think it sufficient for us ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... considering any matter in connexion with Borrow it is always necessary to take into account the secretiveness of his disposition, and also his passion for posing. He had a child’s fondness for the wonderful. It is through his own love of mystification that students like Dr. Knapp must needs pry into these matters—must needs ask why Borrow drew the veil over seven years—must needs ask whether during the “veiled period” he led a life of squalid misery, compared with which his sojourn with Isopel Berners in Mumpers’ Dingle was luxury, or whether he was ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... know!" said Morgan again. "Someday I may take you aside and explain the facts of precognition and other talents as I understand them. I'm probably quite wrong. But I do know better than to try to pry certain kinds of information from ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... going-away gift to the new president, already enshrined in so many hearts; but, boy though he was, he knew that a grown up man would not care for his poor presents. He even lifted his little blue bank and rattled it softly; but he did not take the trouble to pry it open, for he knew that for all its jingling, the pennies inside would not amount up to more than a dollar. Disappointed, yet determined not to let Mr. Kohn outdo him in the matter, ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... the market, the Captain's attention was attracted by a singular object of mechanism. It seemed so undefined in its application, that he was reminded of the old saying among sailors when they fall in with any indescribable thing at sea, that it was a "fidge-fadge, to pry the sun up with in cloudy weather." It was a large pedestal about six feet high, with a sort of platform at the base for persons to stand upon, supplied with two heavy rings about eight inches apart. It was surmounted ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... Mendoza and his Ford," said Polly, eagerly. "If I run up and get my hat and coat, will you slip down and pry him out of that saloon and the three of us run out to Wildcat Canyon before ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall
... repeated. "At least it ought to concern only you. And I can't assure you too positively that I'm the last person in the world to want to pry; but—" ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... playing the same game now: they smiled and smirked at each other. They had not been playing the same game before. Now they recognised that there was a conspiracy between them.... But he was host, his business for the moment was to make his guests comfortable, and not pry into their inmost bosoms. So before Mrs Weston realised that she had the whole table attending ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... which once each year, in our temperate zone, is bound to come. Many are the solutions to this problem. Each form of life has, as it were, solved it best to suit its own peculiar case, and to the earnest student of Nature there is nothing more interesting than to pry into these solutions and note how varied, strange, and wonderful ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... be on view, an intimation to that effect having constituted the only reference again made by Chad to his good friends from the south. The effect of Strether's talk about them with Miss Gostrey had been quite to consecrate his reluctance to pry; something in the very air of Chad's silence—judged in the light of that talk—offered it to him as a reserve he could markedly match. It shrouded them about with he scarce knew what, a consideration, a distinction; he was in presence at any rate—so ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... younger and fairer and more dashing, the dancing, Miss Malvina, who footed it and tambourined it and shawled it, irruptively, in lonely state. When not admiring Mr. Burton in Shakespeare we admired him as Paul Pry, as Mr. Toodles and as Aminadab Sleek in The Serious Family, and we must have admired him very much—his huge fat person, his huge fat face and his vast slightly pendulous cheek, surmounted by a sort of elephantine wink, ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... pleasure and excitement. "That's what I'd like to do to-night," said he, "and that's what I'll do, you can bet your sh—boots, when all this silly mess is over and I'm a free man. I'll hike back to good old Broadway, and if ever you see any one trying to pry me loose from it again you can laugh yourself to death, because he'll ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... story of him. One day, Agrippa left his house, at Louvain; and, intending to be absent for some time, gave the key of his study to his wife, with strict orders that no one should enter it during his absence. The lady herself, strange as it may appear, had no curiosity to pry into her husband's secrets, and never once thought of entering the forbidden room: but a young student, who had been accommodated with an attic in the philosopher's house, burned with a fierce desire to examine the study; hoping, perchance, that ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... thither, placed herself before the judge, and spoke so bravely that everyone gaped and stared at her as at a prodigy. Another time thieves tried to get into her house at night, knowing that she was alone like an owl in the house. The thieves began to pry open the door with a crowbar, and when Nurse Hripsime heard it she sprang nimbly out of bed, seized her stick from its corner, and began to shout: "Ho, there! Simon, Gabriel, Matthew, Stephan, Aswadur, get up quickly. Get your axes and sticks. Thieves are here; collar the rascals; bind ...
— Armenian Literature • Anonymous
... you would," replied her aunt. "I'm a great believer in married women paying attention at home before they begin to pry into their neighbors' affairs. It's a good idea. ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... from some of the occasions of uneasiness which arise to others from considerations on the subject of religion. Some people, for example, pry into what are denominated mysteries. The more they look into these, the less they understand them, or rather, the more they are perplexed and confounded. Such an enquiry too, while it bewilders the understanding, generally affects ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... marriage law had to be adjusted accordingly. That is no longer possible. When a woman assumes her own moral responsibility, in sexual as in other matters, it becomes not only intolerable but meaningless for the community to pry into her most intimate physiological or spiritual acts. She is herself directly responsible to society as soon as she performs a ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... I've ever been in," she added with an effort. "I haven't heard a thing about war, but the whole establishment is buzzing with conspiracies and mystery. There isn't any rest. Everyone is afraid of his neighbor; no one trusts himself to fall asleep in peace, for fear someone will pry his secret away—a terrible atmosphere—but what an adventure if it breaks into war before my eyes.... And I've ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... his bushy grey head. "That's not the real reason, son. The world has a wife for every man; if he hasn't found her by the time he's thirty-five, there's some real reason for it. Well, I don't want to pry into yours, but I hope it's a sound one and not a mean, sneaking, selfish sort of reason. Perhaps you'll choose a Madam Selwyn some day yet. In case you should I'm going to give you a small bit of good advice. Your mother—now, she's a splendid woman, Selwyn, a splendid woman. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... scoops by heavy shoes; before the polished mahogany doors were replaced by pine and painted a dull, dirty green; before the banisters with their mahogany rail were as full of cavities as a garden fence with half its palings gone; and before—long before—some vulgar Paul Pry had cut a skylight in the hipped roof, through which he could peer, taking note of whatever went on inside the gloomy interior: each of these several calamities but so much additional testimony to its once ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... glances and hints, are perhaps more aware of themselves than any other children of men. They are for ever judging their betters; how shall they escape from judgment of each other? Judge not, says the Book; but if you pry for vice, what can you be yourself but a prying-ground? So Purcell agonised, and felt her very vitals under the hooks. The case was past praying for. She suffered ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... visible around lower edge of hole. Having drilled holes in both ends of connector, heat connector with soft flame until compound adhering to it becomes soft. Then take a 1/2 inch or 5/8 inch round iron or bolt, depending on connector to be removed, insert in one of the holes, and pry connector off with a side to side motion, being careful not to carry this motion so far as to jam ...
— The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care And Repair • O. A. Witte
... counsels continued. The Princess de Lieven, he said, was a dangerous woman; there was reason to think that she would make attempts to pry into what did not concern her, let Victoria beware. "A rule which I cannot sufficiently recommend is NEVER TO PERMIT people to speak on subjects concerning yourself or your affairs, without you having yourself desired them to do so." ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... nerves still a-tingle, the boy seized a stout bit of wood, evidently cut for the fireplace, inserted it between the window bars, bore down and with a low squeak of protest the nails came out. Another pry, with the sill for a fulcrum, and there was a hole big enough for a body to get through. The bit of wood now acted as a step and in a moment ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple
... fact, he saw them very little during his visit. He checked himself because he was unworthy. What right had he to pry, even in the spirit, upon their bliss? It was no crime to have seen them on the lawn. It would be a crime to go to it again. He tried to keep himself and his thoughts away, not because he was ascetic, but because they would not like it if they knew. ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... the negro to pry open the window with a walking-stick, he threw himself into a big, upholstered chair. 'Twas then I remarked the splendor of his clothes, which were silk. And he wore a waistcoat all sewed with flowers. With a boy's intuition, I began to dislike ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... more. She went a little too far this morning, and I'll show her that I'm Miss Wilton, and that she's only the governess—and—and——Now, where's that child gone to? I do think Marjorie is a perfect nuisance. I don't see anything good in her. Paul Pry, I call her. Paul Pry, and a little busy-body. I suppose she'll go and make up to Miss Nelson now, and tell her what I've said. No, though, that isn't like her. She does try to stick up for one. Poor little plain mite. Well, I don't ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... calamities which Antiochus, the wicked emperor of Greece, threatened to bring upon his subjects and city of Tyre, in revenge for a discovery which the prince had made of a shocking deed which the emperor had done in secret; as commonly it proves dangerous to pry into the hidden crimes of great ones. Leaving the government of his people in the hands of his able and honest minister, Helicanus, Pericles set sail from Tyre, thinking to absent himself till the wrath of Antiochus, who was mighty, ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... to load ammunition on the St. Peter and Paul. Nor were old wrongs forgiven. Ismyloff was bundled on the vessel in irons. The chancellor's secretary was seized and compelled to act as cook. Men, who had played the spy and tyrant, now felt the merciless knout. Witnesses, who had tried to pry into the exiles' plot, were hanged at the yard-arm. Nine women, relatives of exiles, who had been compelled to become the wives of Cossacks, now threw off the yoke of slavery, donned the costly Chinese silks, and joined the pirates. Among these ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... the basement of his father's house (where he took the precaution to label all his bottles 'poison'), he began the publication of a new and better journal, entitled the PAUL PRY. It boasted of several contributors and a list of regular subscribers. One of these (Mr. J.H.B.), while smarting under what he considered a malicious libel, met the editor one day on the brink of the St. Clair, and taking the law into his own hands, soused him ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... without meaning to, give other people materials for growing. For the particular purpose of making the best things grow, of pointing up truths, of giving definite edges to right and wrong, an inconsistent man—a man who is trying to pry himself out a little at a time from an impossible situation in an impossible world, is likely to do the world more good than a very large crowd of angels who have made up their minds that they are going to ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... the willows as Sam had said. Awkwardly he pushed off, hoping that Lucy would pry the whole story out of her son and put Rupert on their ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... excellent moral, observes Doctor Tytler, the learned translator of the hymns and epigrams of Callimachus, shewing that those persons who are guided by Pallas, or Wisdom, will improve the present time, without being too anxious to pry into futurity. The Greek poet, however, like the Chinese philosopher, ascribed to the possessor of the Lots, the talent ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... Diana Vernon would not have been otherwise handled by him who drew the not more immortal picture of Antigone. Unlike modern novelists, Sir Walter deals neither in analysis nor in rapturous effusions. We can, unfortunately, imagine but too easily how some writers would peep and pry into the concealed emotions of that maiden heart; how others would revel in tears, kisses, and caresses. In place of all these ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... not far from his father's house, where it was customary to load sloops with wood. Upon one of these occasions, he persuaded a party of boys to pry up a pile of wood and tip it into a sloop, in a confused heap. Of course, it must all be taken out and reloaded. When he saw how much labor this foolish trick had caused, he felt some compunction; but the next temptation found the spirit of mischief ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... to behold, wherewith the infant was infinitely delighted, as was I, without inquiring at that time into the exquisite mechanism whereby the extraordinary demonstrations were produced. But in the course of little more than a month he was led, by his inquiring turn of mind, to pry into the mystery; and in the pursuit of knowledge—laudable surely in a person of his years, and demonstrative of astonishing sagacity and research—he did take the animal entirely to pieces, and saw the inward parts thereof. The great lady, with all the retinue, stopped ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... knew nothing of. In short, the Body of Man is such a Subject as stands the utmost Test of Examination. Though it appears formed with the nicest Wisdom, upon the most superficial Survey of it, it still mends upon the Search, and produces our Surprize and Amazement in proportion as we pry into it. What I have here said of an Human Body, may be applied to the Body of every Animal which has been ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... opened the door at the foot of the stairs wide enough to detect a half-clothed man trying to pry open with one arm a heavy door above. She hesitated for a moment, but when the man had shoved the door back a little farther, enough for her to see Mrs. Preston struggling with all her force, ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... once he jumped off a two-story stable; another time he gave an elephant a plug of tobacco, and retired without waiting for an answer; and still another time he pretended to be talking in his sleep, and got off a portion of every original conundrum in hearing of his father. He begs the curious not to pry into the result—as it was of no consequence to ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... imp won't say where he picked up this notion of his about the dead body," continued the captain. "It's not my place to pry into secrets; but I advise you to call the crew aft, and contradict the boy, whether he speaks the truth or not. The men are a parcel of fools who believe in ghosts, and all the rest of it. Some of them say they would never have signed our articles if they ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... explained it by a paradox. Goldsmith was great in spite of his weaknesses, Boswell by reason of his; if he had not been a great fool, he would never have been a great writer. He was a dunce, a parasite, a coxcomb, a Paul Pry, had a quick observation, a retentive memory, and accordingly—he has become immortal! Alas for the paucity of such immortals under so common circumstances; their number should be legion! That a fool ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... thy shores, O Naxos; The merry Flageolet; When young men come a sighing; Comin' thro' the Rye; Love was once a little Boy; I've been Roaming; My Heart and Lute; Draw the Sword, Scotland; Adventures of Paul Pry; I have Fruit and I have Flowers; The Washing Day; The Light Guitar, and Answer; Long Summers have ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 4: Quaint and Curious Advertisements • Henry M. Brooks
... whole tragedy of his desertion and his shame!—shame that he made sweet and lovely {9} by the mere magic of his personality, but that was none the less shame. Yet as Shakespeare forgave him, should not we forgive him also? I did not care to pry into the mystery of ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... listens to things." Here Bessie pushed the door behind her open, to reveal the culprit in her white nightgown on the other side of it. "I should be ashamed to be a Paul Pry!" Bessie ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... he invented a trick that was a surprise to me. It occurred at a summer resort in northern Indiana, where I noticed a nuthatch hitching up and down and around the slender stem of a sapling, pausing at intervals to thrust something into the crevices of the bark. My curiosity led me to pry into the bird's affairs. Stepping smartly forward, I drove him away, not heeding his vigorous protest of "yank, yank," and examined the bark of the sapling. What did I discover? A colony of black ants were scuttling up and down the ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... Phyllis, come, bright heaven's eye Cannot upon thy beauty pry; Glad Echo in distinguished voice Naming thee will here rejoice; Then come and hear her merry lays Crowning thy name ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... timber without any trouble. Then he drew it toward him, and the lower end wrenched free at once, for the nails that held this building which was to be burnt were not long. And while he did this, he stood on one side, that he might not pry into the chamber idly, as it were, while Dalfin and I could see nothing from where we stood. Only a little peat smoke seemed to come out gently when ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler
... other, having just broken away from the occupation of attending to the castors, and scolding her little black boy meantime. Wood-house! cried I, which way to it? Run for God's sake, and fetch something to pry open the door —the axe! —the axe! he's had a stroke; depend upon it! —and so saying I was unmethodically rushing up stairs again empty-handed, when Mrs. Hussey interposed the mustard-pot and vinegar-cruet, and the entire castor of her countenance. What's ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... known among civilised men. The subaltern impostors were thrown into dungeons. But the chief criminal continued to be master of the King and of the kingdom. Meanwhile, in the distempered mind of Charles one mania succeeded another. A longing to pry into those mysteries of the grave from which human beings avert their thoughts had long been hereditary in his house. Juana, from whom the mental constitution of her posterity seems to have derived a morbid taint, had sate, year after year, by the bed on which ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... stands up before you or perches upon a limb, and turns his spotted waistcoat toward you in the most open and trusting manner. In fact, few birds have such good manners as the wood thrush, and few have so much the manner of a Paul Pry and eavesdropper as the catbird. The flight of the wood thrush across the lawn is such a picture of grace and harmony, it is music to the eye. The catbird seems saying, "There, there! I told you so, pretty figure, pretty figure you make!" But the courteous thrush (just ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... children laughed, and began to call Polly "Miss Pry," and attention was completely ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... conclude his unity. As to the ineffable Trinity subsisting in this Unity, a mystery discovered only by the Sacred Scriptures, especially in the New Testament, where it is more clearly revealed than in the Old, let others boldly pry into it, if they please, while we receive it with our humble faith, and think it sufficient for us ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... heard the name Fay Larkin. But I thought better of it. If there's a girl here or at Stonebridge of that name we'll learn it. If there's mystery we'd better go slow. Mormons are hell on secret and mystery, and to pry into their affairs is to queer yourself. My advice is—just be as nice as you can ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... formidable safe door itself. Durkin drew in a sharp breath of relief as he looked at it with critical eyes. It was not quite the sort of thing he had expected. If it had been a combination lock he had intended to tear away the woodwork covering it, pad the floor with the bed mattress, and then pry it over on its face, to chisel away the cement that he knew would lie under its vulnerable sheet-iron bottom. But it was an ordinary, old-fashioned lock and key "Mennlicher," Durkin at the first glance had seen—the sort of strong box which a Third ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... concert and heard the real Paganini. To one of the lesser theatres and heard a monologue by the elder Mathews, who died a year or two after this time. To another theatre, where I saw Listen in Paul Pry. Is it not a relief that I am abstaining from description of what everybody ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... one is not captious or gluttonous, there should be no lack of good eating in Athens, despite the reputation of the city for abstemiousness. Let us pry therefore into the symposium of some good citizen who is ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... to Harley; it was not in his nature to pry into the sacred mysteries of a young girl's heart, but the tale moved him all the more deeply when he saw young Lee, a man with a high, noble brow and clear, open eyes, through which his honest soul shone, that all might see. But upon ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... said Alan. 'I consider myself as indebted for my life to the mistresses of Fairladies; and it would be a vile requital on my part to pry into or make known what I may have seen or heard under this hospitable roof. If I were to meet the Pretender himself in such a situation, he should, even at the risk of a little stretch to my loyalty, be free from any danger ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... save, and not destroy— I would not pry into thy secret soul; But if these things be sooth, there still is time For penitence and pity: reconcile thee With the true church, and through the ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... floor, he made that little hammer Ole has in his hand, and a number of wrought nails; and he brought them home and showed Ole how to use the hammer and drive the nails into the chair; and when he had driven them all into the wood, papa would pry them out for him, and the work would commence all over again, and Ole ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... knowledge in every place,' but we have also to remember that in our hearts there is a secret place, and that 'not easily forgiven are they who draw back the curtains,' and let a careless world look in. It is not for others to pry into the hidden mysteries of the fellowship of a soul with the indwelling Christ, however it may be the Christian duty to show to all and sundry the blessed and transforming effects of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... to be ungenerous; I don't want to pry into her secrets. But things can't be left like this. Wouldn't it be better for me to go to her? Surely she'll understand—she'll explain...It may be some mere trifle she's concealing: something that would horrify the ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... behind. She might dismiss Marcia's tirade as other members of the family are wont to do, but there comes an awesome, shivering fear that it is true in some degree. How many times she has seen Gertrude check Marcia when Floyd was under discussion. She has never tried to pry into family secrets, but she knows there have been many about her; a certain kind of knowledge that all have shared, a something against her. She has fancied that she made some advances in living down the dislike; Mrs. Grandon has been kinder of late, ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... that peer and spy, Sad eyes that heed not skies nor trees, In dismal nooks he loves to pry, Whose motto evermore is Spes! But ah! the fabled treasure flees; Grown rarer with the fleeting years, In rich men's shelves they take their ease,— Aldines, ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... not, and will never pry, But trust our human heart for all; Wonders that from the seeker fly Into an ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... the side poles of the tent she ran one end of it under the cot; then bracing her shoulder against it, used it as a lever in the endeavor to pry the weight off her friend. The ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge
... noting every change in its flavor, and pressed around Judge Thayer's garden fence trying to get a look at the operations. Judge Thayer was not a little indignant over the scoffings and denunciations, and this impertinent curiosity to pry upon what he gave them to understand was ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... all right," said Mrs. Stumptail. "I wanted you to learn, but you may give me some of the next ones you pry up." ...
— Umboo, the Elephant • Howard R. Garis
... the company would have been of as elegant demeanour, and of much more retenue of deportment, than we are accustomed to see, I will not say in good, but certainly in general society at home. One of the consequences of good breeding is also a disinclination, positively a distaste, to pry into the private affairs of others. The little specimen to the contrary just named was rather an exception, owing to the character of the individual, and to the indiscretion of the young lady in laughing too loud, and then the affair of a birth so very posthumous ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... ask you," he said, "it's not to pry into what doesn't concern me; but Julia's my sister, and I can't after all help taking some interest in her life. She tells me herself so little. ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... out of sympathy to our readers' bones. Western travellers, who have beguiled the midnight hour in the interesting process of pulling down rail fences, to pry their carriages out of mud holes, will have a respectful and mournful sympathy with our unfortunate hero. We beg them to drop a silent ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... teddy, with electric eyes, and a deep bass growl, if they make 'em that way. The best you can get. Fetch it out to-morrow afternoon, and come decently dressed, for once. Bring Murdoch along if you can pry him loose." ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... remember Abraham's example of hospitality, and let us do all we can for this motherless lamb, or kid,—whichever she may prove. One thing more, and here-after I shall hold my peace. You need not live in chronic dread, lest the Guy Fawkes of female curiosity pry into, and explode your mystery; for I assure you, Peyton, I shall never directly or indirectly question the child, and until you voluntarily broach the subject I shall never mention it to you. ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... neck is too far from the ground," Abe answered. "I'm like a crowbar. If I can get my big toe or my fingers under anything I can pry some." ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... world is one is to-day's commonplace. What causes its new solidarity? What but the countless hands that reach across its shores and its Seven Seas, hands that devastate and hands that heal! There are the long fingers of the cable and telegraph that pry through earth's hidden places, gathering choice bits of international gossip and handing them out to all the breakfast tables of the Great Neighborhood. There are the swift fingers of transcontinental ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren
... policy, should be viewed by their own party somewhat in the light of traitors. Accordingly we see them figuring in this character in some of the caricatures of the day, one of which (one of the "Paul Pry" series), published by Geans in 1829, may be cited as an example of the rest, and shows them to us in the act of Burking Old ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... see, con, gloat, glare, peek, peer, pry, peep, pore, lower, glower, scan, ogle; seem, appear; await, expect, anticipate; examine, investigate, inspect, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... an affectation of simplicity covers and reveals by turns a great thirst for ingenuity. Swift's prose is a fair example; in the "Tale of a Tub" and even in "Gulliver" at first sight there seems to appear only an honest and simple directness; but pry beneath the surface statements, or allow yourself to be dazzled by their coruscations of meaning, and you immediately see you are watching a stylistic prestidigitator. The later, more orderly dignity of Dr. Johnson's ...
— An Elegy Wrote in a Country Church Yard (1751) and The Eton College Manuscript • Thomas Gray
... The Bennett-Pry or quarrel had been a cause celebre when John Young was night editor of the Philadelphia Press and I was one of its Washington correspondents. Nothing so virulent had ever passed between an editor and a Congressman. In one of his speeches Pryor had actually ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... also very broad on the side technically called moral. No one had higher ideals of purity. Yet he had little desire to pry into the private morality of kings or politicians. It was by the presence or absence of political principles that he judged them. He would have condemned Pope Paul the Fourth more than Rodrigo Borgia, and the inventor of the "dragonnades" more than his great-grandson. He did not ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... hell is it to you?" he asked unpleasantly, and I stammered out some kind of apology. Far be it from me to pry into a ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower
... nests of storks. In truth, I am by no means sure that everybody knew this before the publication of "The Man Shakespeare," and for the sake of a mystified posterity it may be well to explain that there was once a school of criticism that thought it indecent to pry into that treasure-house of individuality from which, if we reject the nursery hypotheses mentioned above, it is clearly obvious that authors derive their works. That the drama must needs be closely related to the dramatist is just one ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... this creature, that, while so shy in its own personal habits, it yet watches every visitor with a Paul-Pry curiosity, follows him in the woods, peers out among the underbrush, scratches upon the leaves with a pretty pretence of important business there, and presently, when disregarded, ascends some small tree and begins to carol its monotonous song, as if there were no such thing as man in the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... superstition. Besides, the Marquise scarcely went into society at all; and the few families who knew her thought of her as a kindly, gentle, indulgent woman, wholly devoted to her family. What but a curiosity, keen indeed, would seek to pry beneath the surface with which the world is quite satisfied? And what would we not pardon to old people, if only they will efface themselves like shadows, and consent to be regarded as ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... believed that we could move the rock by throwing our united weight on a long pry; and many of the boys agreed with him. We felled a spruce tree seven inches in diameter, trimmed it and cut a pry twenty feet long from it. Carrying it to the rock, we set a stone for a fulcrum, and then threw our weight repeatedly on the long end. The rock, ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... alone, boy? Into what have you come here to pry? You are odious—yes, odious!" She stamped her foot. "And I thought last night, that you were in trouble. Was I not kind to you for that, and that only?" She broke off pitifully. "Oh, Harry, ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... found, find out a cure. Let me, (though great, grave brethren of the gown Preach all Faith up, and preach all Reason down, Making those jar whom Reason meant to join, And vesting in themselves a right divine), Let me, through Reason's glass, with searching eye, Into the depth of that religion pry 580 Which law hath sanction'd; let me find out there What's form, what's essence; what, like vagrant air, We well may change; and what, without a crime, Cannot be changed to the last hour of time. Nor let me suffer that outrageous zeal Which, without knowledge, furious bigots feel, Fair ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... slanting forest eaves, Shingled tight with greenest leaves, Sweep the scented meadow-sedge, Let us snoop along the edge; Let us pry in hidden nooks, Laden with our nature books, Scaring birds with happy cries, Chloroforming butterflies, Rooting up each woodland plant, Pinning beetle, fly, and ant, So we may identify What ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... I pry and spy! You know it is not true, Anna. I only came to ask you to play with us, and—and how was I to know that you were doing something that you didn't want any one to see? Why don't you want any ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... my mind as freely as I used to do. But whoever was in fault, self being judge? He complained of spies set upon his conduct, and to pry into his life and morals, and this by your brother ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... gate. He swung it open and she followed him across the garden to where a worn, grassy path, once a carriage drive, led past the house to the back yard. Here stood Mrs. Meeker, a hatchet in her hand, trying to pry open the stable door. ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... The eyebrows, too, had a lowering falcon trick that touched the face with fierceness. The forehead gave proof of brains, and yet the San Reve was one more apt to act than think, particularly if she felt herself aggrieved. If you must pry into a matter so delicate, the San Reve was twenty-eight; standing straight as a spear, with small hands and feet, she displayed that ripeness of outline which sculptors give ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... is a famous dish in Java. It is served at tiffin, and after you have eaten it you waddle to your room in a congested state and sleep it off. After my first rice tafel I dreamed I was a log jam and that lumber jacks with cant hooks were trying to pry ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... You have. Now, will you be good enough to go—if there is nothing more in my room that you are anxious to pry into? ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... licentiousness out of which the whole sordid story grew, and no one treated with more contemptuous austerity the objects of the King's passion, and the pandars to his vices. However high his own ideal of domestic virtue, Clarendon was a man of the world, not blind to its vices, and not eager to pry into scandals or pursue the secrets of private life. It was not only the vice of Charles's courtiers, it was the sickening parade of debauchery in all its nakedness, which seemed to him to make the Court unmanly and contemptible. Feeling as he did, he had spoken words of bold ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... have found it convenient to make a trip of pleasure into the country. And though the affair creates some little comment in fashionable society, it would be exceedingly unpopular to pry too deeply into the private affairs of men high in office. We are not encumbered with scrutinizing morality. Being an "unfortunate woman," the law cannot condescend to deal with her case. Indeed, were it brought before a judge, and the judge to ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... very much," continued the minister's wife, "to think that our dear friend and neighbor should come home from her wanderings and perils and privations, and find herself in what must be, although we do not wish to pry into your private affairs, something of an embarrassed condition. We have all stayed at home with our friends and our families, and we have had no special prosperity, but neither have we met with losses, and it grieves us to think that you, who ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... among an enemy, to discover the state of his affairs, to pry into his designs, and carry back information. This is a dishonorable office; spies, if ...
— The Government Class Book • Andrew W. Young
... statements in the Gangraena. But really one should not judge of even a poor enthusiastic woman, dead two hundred years ago, on that sole authority. Never was there a more nauseous creature of the pious kind than this Presbyterian Paul Pry of 1644-46. He revelled in scandals, and kept a private office for the receipt of all sorts of secret information, by word of mouth or letter, that could be used against the Independents and the Sectaries. [Footnote: Richard Baxter, as he himself tells us, sent communications ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... light step in the passage and then the opening and shutting of the front door. Carolina was in the kitchen and the others had gone to lie down, but she went into the dining-room and listened for a moment there before she ventured into her cousin's room. She had often been in to pry when alone in the flat, and she knew where to look for the key of the attic in the Vicolo. Olive always kept it in a corner of the table drawer and it was there now. Gemma smiled her rare slow smile as she put it in her purse. There was a photograph of her ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... writing saith, he hath the destruction of the state in mind, and his own aggrandizement. He but beginneth on the faith because he seeth in that a rift wherein to put the lever that shall pry the whole state asunder. So with two and a half millions of Hebrews and a horde of renegade Egyptians to combat, I fear the Rameside army might spill more good blood than is worth wasting on a mongrel multitude. ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... you. The first impulse of my love is to dissuade you from seeking to know more. Your mind will be full of ideas; your hands will be perpetually busy to a purpose into which no human creature, beyond the verge of your brotherhood, must pry. Believe me, who have made the experiment, that compared with this task, the task of inviolable secrecy, all others are easy. To be dumb will not suffice; never to know any remission in your zeal or your watchfulness will not suffice. If the sagacity of others detect your occupations, however ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown
... answered, "you say true: I do not: so I take a stranger's due." Self-love like this is knavish and absurd, And well deserves a damnatory word. You glance at your own faults; your eyes are blear: You eye your neighbour's; straightway you see clear, Like hawk or basilisk: your neighbours pry Into your frailties with as keen an eye. A man is passionate, perhaps misplaced In social circles of fastidious taste; His ill-trimmed beard, his dress of uncouth style, His shoes ill-fitting, may provoke a smile: But he's the soul of virtue; but he's ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... glory of her vestments: round about in the form of an amphitheatre were most curiously planted pine trees, interseamed with limons and citrons, which with the thickness of their boughs so shadowed the place, that Phoebus could not pry into the secret of that arbor; so united were the tops with so thick a closure, that Venus might there in her jollity have dallied unseen with her dearest paramour. Fast by, to make the place more gorgeous, was there a fount so crystalline and clear, that it seemed Diana with her Dryades ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... more, with Miss Craydocke, and Rachel Froke, and the Ripwinkleys; she even went to Luclarion with questions, to get her quaint notions of things; and she had ventured into Uncle Titus's study, and taken down volumes of Swedenborg to pry into, while he looked at her with long keen regards over his spectacles, and she did not know that she ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... viii^d Itm xi bolocks whereof ix be yerelyngs and ii be ii } yerelyngs price } l^s Itm iii Steres of iii yeres of age price xl^s Itm ten kene (kine) & a bull vii^li vi^s viii^d Itm vi sukkyng Calves x^s Itm v wenyers (weaning calves) x^s Itm iiii yewes & iii lambes vi^s viii^d Itm ii old geldyns pry^d (priced for) saddell xxvi^s viii^d Itm an old horse v^s Itm a lame horse to go to myll v^s Itm iii mares ii grey & i bay xx^s Itm a grey ii yere colt gelded price vi^s viii^d Itm ii ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... give her the benefit of the doubt. He would wait, he would school himself to patience. Perhaps she would come back for it,—and explain. Perhaps he could find her by advertising it,—and get an explanation. Pending which, he could wait a little while. It was not his wish to pry into her secrets, even ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... they take her for? Was she any less fit for the post of secretary than she had been before? Her duties had been a pleasure from the first; they would afford her greater delight than ever now. And why should they bring in a stranger to pry into their affairs? They might give her more salary, if they liked—and here she laughed merrily; but she wasn't going to give up the work she liked more than anything else ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... within the kin—in other words, violates the law of exogamy. To be thus guilty of incest is to incite in the community at large a horror which, venting itself in what Bagehot calls a "wild spasm of wild justice," involves certain death for the offender. To interfere with a grave, to pry into forbidden mysteries, to eat forbidden meats, and so on, are further examples of transgressions liable ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... sadly glad of his confidence, regarded it as sacred, and would not violate it so much as to make the least effort to learn what messages she was carrying. Nothing, of course, would have been easier than to pry open one of these envelopes. Sometimes the lapel was hardly sealed. But she would as soon ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... to Enfield, and Potter's Bar, and Waltham, when we had a holyday—holydays, and all other fun, are gone, now we are rich—and the little hand-basket, in which I used to deposit our day's fare of savory cold lamb and salad—and how you would pry about at noon-tide for some decent house, where we might go in, and produce our store—only paying for the ale that you must call for—and speculate upon the looks of the landlady, and whether she was likely to allow us ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... stable be threatened, carry out the cow-chains. Never mind the horse,—he'll be alive and kicking; and if his legs don't do their duty, let them pay for the roast. Ditto as to the hogs,—let them save their own bacon, or smoke for it. When the roof begins to burn, get a crow-bar and pry away the stone steps; or, if the steps be of wood, procure an axe and chop them up. Next, cut away the wash-boards in the basement story; and if that don't stop the flames, let the chair-boards on the first floor share a similar fate. Should the "devouring element" still pursue the "even tenor ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... be ridin' any terrible great distance an' takin' chances by the handful just to see me, boy," said Price. "But I ain't tryin' to pry into your affairs. You don't have to answer any of the fool questions I ask you—you know that. I'm an old man an' ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts
... several places where the pressure of the water, and the strain of the storm in which she had foundered, had 'opened the plates of the ship, but in no case were the openings large enough to admit a person. Captain Weston put his steel bar in one crack, and tried to pry it farther open, but his strength was not equal to the task. He made some peculiar motions, but Tom ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... held the jar to Duncan's parched lips. "I dursn't stay," she said, kindly; "but if you knock at this wall I shall hear, and I'll come if you want me. We're up at the top, so there's no one to pry down the stairs. He do seem real bad, poor little chap! but maybe he'll be better in ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... Thursday. It has a pretty drawing-room, approached through four most extraordinary chambers. It is the most ridiculous and preposterous house in the world, I should think. It belongs to a Marquis Castellane, but was fitted (so Paul Pry Poole said, who dined here yesterday) by —— in a fit of temporary insanity, I have no doubt. The dining-room is mere midsummer madness, and is designed to represent a ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... my shoulder (which Madam de Warrens had obliged me to put on) presented in their idea the image of a real sorcerer. Being near midnight, they made no doubt but this was the beginning of some diabolical assembly, and having no curiosity to pry further into these mysteries, they fled with all possible speed, awakened their neighbors, and described this most dreadful vision. The story spread so fast that the next day the whole neighborhood ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... excellent taste and feeling, he declined the honour in favour of Sir William Jones. But the chief advantage which the students of Oriental letters derived from his patronage remains to be mentioned. The Pundits of Bengal had always looked with great jealousy on the attempts of foreigners to pry into those mysteries which were locked up in the sacred dialect. The Brahminical religion had been persecuted by the Mahommedans. What the Hindoos knew of the spirit of the Portuguese Government might warrant them in apprehending ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to fall upon (Fig. 38), fell the tree (see Figs. 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, and 118), and then cut a circle around the trunk at the two ends of the log and a slit from one circle clean up to the other circle (Fig. 38); next, with a sharp stick shaped like a blunt-edged chisel, pry off the bark carefully until you take the piece off in one whole section. If it is spruce bark or any other bark you seek, hunt through the woods for a comparatively smooth trunk and proceed in the same manner as with ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... Esquire, Astrologer, was an imaginary person, almost as well known in that age as Mr. Paul Pry or Mr. Samuel Pickwick in ours. Swift had assumed the name of Bickerstaff in a satirical pamphlet against Partridge, the maker of almanacks. Partridge had been fool enough to publish a furious reply. Bickerstaff ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... met you. I had always been prepared for his marrying, but not a girl like you. I thought he would choose a sweet thing who would never pry into his closets—he hated women with ideas! But as soon as I saw you I knew the struggle would have to begin again. He is so much stronger than his father—he is full of the most monstrous convictions. And he has the courage of them, too—you ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... warlike goddess view'd The mercenary nymph, and angry sighs, Which shook her bosom heav'd; the AEgis shook, On that strong bosom fix'd. Now calls to mind Minerva how with hands prophane, the maid Her strict behests despising, daring pry'd To know her secrets; and the seed beheld Of Vulcan, child without a mother form'd: Now to her sister and the god unkind; Rich with the gold her avarice had claim'd. To Envy's gloomy cell, where clots ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... me, who am deprived of every occupation. If I were a writer, I could still dictate. If I were a business man, I could conduct my business. But I am a soldier, and not a clever soldier. Jealousy, a continual and irritable curiosity—there is no Paul Pry like your blind man—a querulous claim upon your attention—these are my special dangers." And Ethne laughed gently in ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... our globe's last verge shall go, And view the ocean leaning on the sky; From thence our rolling neighbors we shall know, And on the lunar world securely pry." ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... much room for good sense in taking them up. Many lay hold upon the canes and pull so hastily that little save sticks comes out. A gardener wants fibrous roots rather than top; therefore, send the spade down under the roots and pry them out. Suckers and root-cutting plants can be dug in October, after the wood has fairly ripened, but be careful to leave no foliage on the canes that are taken up before the leaves fall, for they rapidly drain the vitality ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... presently began searching with his eyes among the branches of the poplar sapling for one stout enough to serve him as a lever. With the right kind of a stick in his hand, he told himself, he might manage to pry apart the jaws of the trap and get his foot free. At last his choice settled upon a branch that he thought would serve his turn. He was just about to reach up and break it off, when a slight crackling in the underbrush across the stream ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory, wherein are things the angels desire to look unto, or with vehement desire bend, as it were, their necks, and bow down their heads to look and peep into, (as the word used, I Pet. i. 12, importeth) is a subject for angelical heads to pry into, for the most indefatigable and industrious spirits to be occupied about. The searching into, and studying of this one truth, in reference to a closing with it as our life, is an infallible mark of a soul divinely ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... it was not for her to make conditions, but to thank her stars that there were none made for her. If she persisted, she might find it coming to pass that there would be conditions, and the formal rupture—the rupture that the world would hear of and pry into—would then proceed from the ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... we have as good "Astrologists" now as we used to have. Astrologists cannot crawl under the tent and pry into the future as they could three or ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... upon the supposed necessary connection of certain aspects and conjunctions or oppositions of the stars and heavenly bodies, with the events of the world and the characters and actions of men. The human mind has ever confessed an anxiety to pry into the future, and to deal in omens and prophetic suggestions, and, certain coincidences having occurred however fortuitously, to deduce from them rules and maxims upon which to build an ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... the traitor—you mustn't think that of him. But it isn't in his nature to facilitate things. In the present crisis he will feel that he is personally responsible for the expenditure of five million dollars. He will examine and investigate, and probe and pry, and will want to worry through every pen-scratch which has been made up ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... living in a boarding house, which suited her tolerably well. The two women who kept the boarding house were educated and considerate and had long ago ceased to be inquisitive. Such a variety of people met there that it would have been too much of an undertaking to pry into the secrets of each individual. Such things only interfered with business. Effi, who still remembered the cross-questionings to which the eyes of Mrs. Zwicker had subjected her, was very agreeably impressed with the reserve of the boarding house keepers. But after two weeks had passed ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... surface,—far as that rivulet lies from its source! My dear young sir, Mr. Darrell has known griefs on which it does not become you and me to talk. He never talks of them. The least I can do for my benefactor is not to pry into his secrets, nor babble them out. And he is so kind, so good, never gets into a passion; but it is so awful to wound him,—it gives him such pain; that's why he frightens me,—frightens me horribly; and so he will you when you come to know him. Prodigious mind!—granite,—overgrown ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Lola and her biologists. Everybody's full of joy and gratitude and stuff—as well as information. And we managed to pry ourselves loose without waking you two trumpet-of-doom sleepers up. So we're ready to jump again. I wonder where in hell we'll wind ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... for socialized Literacy," the man on the screen continued. "I'm not going back to the old argument that any kind of socialization is only the thin edge of the wedge which will pry open the pit of horrors from which the world has climbed since the Fourth World War. If you don't realize that now, it's no use for me to repeat it again. But I will ask you, do you realize, for a moment, what a program of socialized Literacy would mean, apart from the implications ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... one who preserves the great traditions of the police. I had asked for an agent of no great account, backed by some official personage, and they send me those past-masters of the business! Ah, Grevin, Fouche wants to pry into my game. That's why I left those fellows dining at the chateau; they may look into everything for all I care; they won't find Louis XVIII. ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... this direction—yes, the wine cellar—here it was—the boarded partition. Marishka took the candle from his hand again while he examined the fastenings—nails somewhat rusted, which would not resist leverage. He found a piece of plank which he inserted in the edge of the door and managed to pry it open a little, and then bracing a foot against the stone wall, made an opening ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... school at Notting Hill, Mr. Leslie passed a short probation in the provinces, and joined the Royalty Theatre in 1872, making his debut on the London stage in the character of Colonel Hardy in "Paul Pry." He subsequently visited America to play in "Madame Favart," at the Fifth Avenue Theatre. On his return to London he created the character of the Duke in "Olivette." Shortly after this, in 1882, in the title role of "Rip Van Winkle" at the Comedy, he ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... long," the stranger said. "I want you to help me pry off the knocker, as I have no screw-driver to remove it. I will ...
— Lost on the Moon - or In Quest Of The Field of Diamonds • Roy Rockwood
... the truth is, she came to Font Abbey to pry. She had heard a vague report about Lucy ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... article, Tommy. Professor Wyman will tell you that backbone is the distinctive characteristic of the highest order of animals on this earth. When your father used to pry into all sorts of books, years ago, he found out that he belonged to the Vertebrata, which, Anglicized, meant backboned creatures. And yet do you know that there are crowds of men and women whose framework would puzzle the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... Reader; we must not go on. If you are a boy, you won't mind what followed; if a girl, you have no right to pry into such matters. We therefore beg leave at this point to shut the lids of our dexter eye, and drop ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... his ship. He did not know what it was, but he could see right away it didn't have a friendly look; so he hopscotched across the engine-room floor and up a handy ladder to the deck, taking his assistant along in his wake. After rescuing the passengers it took three tugboats to pry sub and steamer apart. ...
— The U-boat hunters • James B. Connolly
... loud firecracker to wake those Sound & Cape fellows up. I had to show 'em what damage the new deals and competition and our combination would do to 'em if they kept on sleeping on their stock certificates. Funny how hard it is to pry some folks loose from their par-value notions." Mr. Fogg delivered this little disquisition on the intractability of stockholders with reproachful vigor, staring blandly into the unwinking gaze of Mr. Marston. ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... any time pry into his secrets; and keep close what is intrusted to you, though put to the torture, by wine or passion. Neither commend your own inclinations, nor find fault with those of others; nor, when he is disposed ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... might get some fool to buy him. Anyway, you'd better tell Sam to pry him round a bit somehow when the show's opening. He looks all right when he gets a move on him, but he ain't worth a hill o' beans lyin' curled up there in a corner. How'd it do to get a dingo, and put it in ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... regret, or reproach; she mocking even at themselves, mocking at this 'change'—'Why, and yet without it, would you ever even have dreamed once a poor fool of a Frenchman went to his restless grave for me—for me? Need we understand? Were we told to pry? Who made us human must be human too. Why must we take such care, and make such a fret—this soul? I know it, I know it; it is all we have—"to save," they say, poor creatures. No, never to SPEND, and so they daren't for a solitary ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... of second-sight, and communications from the spiritual world. It always will be so. The human mind feels instinctively its connection with a higher sphere. Some will ever be impatient of the restraints of our present mode of being, and prone to break away from them; eager to pry into the secrets of the invisible world, willing to venture beyond the bounds of ascertainable knowledge, and, in the pursuit of truth, to aspire where the laws of evidence cannot follow them. A love of the marvellous is inherent to the sense of limitation ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... pride so jealous and irritable as the pride of territory. As one wave of emigration after another rolls into the vast regions of the west, and our settlements stretch towards the Rocky Mountains, the eager eyes of our pioneers will pry beyond, and they will become impatient of any barrier or impediment in the way of what they consider a grand outlet of our empire. Should any circumstance, therefore, unfortunately occur to disturb the present harmony of the two nations, this ill-adjusted ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... must needs pry closely into the matter, it may be doubted whether there was any real change, after all, in the sordid, worn-out, worthless and ill-jointed substance of the scarecrow, but merely a spectral illusion and a cunning effect of light and shade, so colored and contrived ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... that subject on the table for some of our night talks; and you can scold us all you like. We have a lot of work to do now, and let's forget the old pry. Now you lie down on that couch where I put you, and Leslie and ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... did not care to make it an object for well-meaning detectives to pry into the affairs of indiscreet members of ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... have one chance at the girl, lettin' her know first what he'd done, but jest trustin' to his power of talk. Which, of course, didn't give him no show. While he was makin' love to the girl she outs with a knife and tries to stick him—nice, pleasant sort she must have been—and Drew, he had to pry the ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... take long walks. There were pleasant nooks even in the neighbourhood of Plaistow marshes in those days. Here and there a graceful elm still clung to the troubled soil. Surrounded on all sides by hideousness, picturesque inns still remained hidden within green walls where, if you were careful not to pry too curiously, you might sit and sip your glass of beer beneath the oak and dream yourself where reeking chimneys and mean streets were not. During such walks my father would talk to me as he would talk to my ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... be frightened," gaily exclaimed Bertheroy, who, despite his careless and abrupt ways, was really very shrewd. "I haven't come to pry into your secrets.... Leave your papers there, I promise you that I ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... field agents all over the United States, and, quietly but efficiently, the FBI went to work. Agents began to probe and pry and poke their noses into the files and data sheets of every mental institution in the fifty states—as far, at any ...
— Brain Twister • Gordon Randall Garrett
... great one! Biggest one in ten years!" said the boy. "He loved it so, that me trying to pry him loose from it was about like working to move the Iriquois Building with a handspike. All he'd promise that first trip was that if I'd come and tell him when I saw you'd got into trouble, he'd see what ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... of the office with a final wave to Boyd. He was thinking about Mike Fueyo, and he stopped his chain of reasoning just long enough to look in at the office of the Agent-in-Charge and ask him to pry loose two tickets for ...
— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett
... "You have opened my trunk! How dare you pry into my affairs? General Laguerre!" I protested. "I ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... wife's advice and did not attempt to pry into Jimmy's affairs. "He is quite old enough to look after himself," Mrs. Walter said, "and I don't see why you should be private detective for May and Ida. I believe they would try and manage ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... was Forrest's reply from the door. "We're on business. Besides, you can't pry Rita from ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... Andujar, the lights of our great acetylene lamps (lit before the sky turned from opal to amethyst) prying into dark doorways and windows as Roentgen rays pry through flesh ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... rasped Lander, "or I'll knock your block off! If you utter another peep during this game, I'll button up both your blinkers so tight it'll take a doctor to pry 'em ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... instruction, and consequently possess it fully, is forgetting three fundamental facts: first, that it is quite inconceivable that anyone, having before him the splendid fields for investigation which true clairvoyance opens up, could ever have the slightest wish to pry into the trumpery little secrets of any individual man; secondly, that even if by some impossible chance our clairvoyant had such indecent curiosity about matters of petty gossip, there is, after all, such a thing as the honour of a gentleman, which, on that plane as on this, would of course ...
— Clairvoyance • Charles Webster Leadbeater
... to wish to pry into futurity. We are impatient to penetrate the clouds that envelope us, and to discern the distant course which Providence has prescribed for our feet. Curiosity combines with self-interest to urge this inquiry; but the reproof ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... Even to Lola and her biologists. Everybody's full of joy and gratitude and stuff—as well as information. And we managed to pry ourselves loose without waking you two trumpet-of-doom sleepers up. So we're ready to jump again. I wonder where in hell we'll wind ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... combatants were frankly discussed; but their attitude to each other after the duel was criticised lightly and with caution. It was irreconcilable, and that was to be regretted. After all, they knew best what the care of their honour dictated. It was not a matter for their comrades to pry into overmuch. As to the origin of the quarrel, the general impression was that it dated from the time they were holding garrison in Strasburg. Only the musical surgeon shook his head at that. It went much farther back, ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... crushed out. They are not many, but they are infinitely malignant, and the hand of our power should close over them at once. They have formed plots to destroy property, they have entered into conspiracies against the neutrality of the Government, they have sought to pry into every confidential transaction of the Government in order to serve interests alien to our own. It is possible to deal with these things very effectually. I need not suggest the terms in which they may ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... covers and reveals by turns a great thirst for ingenuity. Swift's prose is a fair example; in the "Tale of a Tub" and even in "Gulliver" at first sight there seems to appear only an honest and simple directness; but pry beneath the surface statements, or allow yourself to be dazzled by their coruscations of meaning, and you immediately see you are watching a stylistic prestidigitator. The later, more orderly dignity of Dr. Johnson's exquisitely chosen ...
— An Elegy Wrote in a Country Church Yard (1751) and The Eton College Manuscript • Thomas Gray
... to make some amends, to somewhat mitigate the blow - when it's so easy to do it. See I shall leave you absolutely free. I shall not question you, not pry, not even make an allusion. But do you then spare our family too. That is all I ask. Spare our children ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... believe in it, but in the general sentiment of the community, to a larger extent than most good people seem to be aware of. It needn't be true, to do this, any more than Homeopathy need, to do its work. The Spiritualists have some pretty strong instincts to pry over, which no doubt have been roughly handled by theologians at different times. And the Nemesis of the pulpit comes, in a shape it little thought of, beginning with the snap of a toe-joint, and ending with such a crack of old beliefs that the roar of it is heard in all the ministers' ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... object of mechanism. It seemed so undefined in its application, that he was reminded of the old saying among sailors when they fall in with any indescribable thing at sea, that it was a "fidge-fadge, to pry the sun up with in cloudy weather." It was a large pedestal about six feet high, with a sort of platform at the base for persons to stand upon, supplied with two heavy rings about eight inches apart. It was surmounted by an apex, ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... I know, tell lies, If you know what you are speaking.— Truth is shy, and from us flies; Unless diligently seeking Into every word we pry, ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... lack of knives and forks! On such a walk, how easy to pick one's self up after lunch, throw the dinner-table away, and trot on to the next village. As a girl passes from town to town, how eager she is to note their characteristics, to look at the people curiously, and to pry into their shop-windows. How much she learns about Nature! Is the sky so blue at home? Are the wild flowers so abundant? Is the grass so soft and green? Oh, girls! try to make yourselves at home with Nature, and walk out among her attractions. In all your observations of Nature do not forget ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... knock down the barriers to growth, we must redouble our efforts for freer and fairer trade. We have already taken actions to counter unfair trading practices and to pry open closed foreign markets. We will continue to do so. We will also oppose legislation touted as providing protection that in reality pits one American worker against another, one industry against another, one community against another, and that ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... she looks at you as you bid her goodnight and says it was kind of you to see her home, and puts out her hand to shake you, you feel as though there was only one girl in the whole world, and when you start to go home you have to blow your fingers to keep them warm, and pry your fingers apart, but I don't like to scale 'em and clean 'em, but when they are fried in butter with bread crumbs, and you have baked potatoes, gosh, say, but you can't sleep all night from thinking maybe the next party you go to ...
— Peck's Uncle Ike and The Red Headed Boy - 1899 • George W. Peck
... course, daily, but he was not sneak enough to pry into its secrets, even had the chance presented itself. Sometimes she tossed the letters away carelessly, but he observed that there were ...
— The Purple Parasol • George Barr McCutcheon
... the smaller of the two Assassins pulled out a long knife from his pocket, and tried to pry Pinocchio's ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... thoughtfully, "while she was unconscious it took me ten minutes to pry open her fingers and disengage a rather heavy dog-whip from her clutch.... And there was some evidences of blood on the lash and ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... vinegar-cruet in the other, having just broken away from the occupation of attending to the castors, and scolding her little black boy meantime. Wood-house! cried I, which way to it? Run for God's sake, and fetch something to pry open the door —the axe! —the axe! he's had a stroke; depend upon it! —and so saying I was unmethodically rushing up stairs again empty-handed, when Mrs. Hussey interposed the mustard-pot and vinegar-cruet, and the entire castor of her countenance. ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... Winds come, the Four Winds go, (Ye wise o' the world, oh, listen ye!), Whispering, whistling what they know, Wise, since wandering made them so (Ye stay-at-homes, oh, listen ye!). Ever they seek and sift and pry— Listening here, and hurrying by— Restless, ceaseless—know ye why? (Then, wise o' the world, oh, listen ye!) The goal of the search of the hurrying wind Is the key to the maze of a woman's mind, (And there is no ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... mob downtown, boys; and it may do mischief if it hangs together until dark. If we can pry 'em apart, they'll go home ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... self-control, he had concealed this unpleasant fact from the Canon, and had talked quite agreeably during their little walk between the two houses. The sound of that dreadful cry still seemed to shudder through his flesh, but it was not for him to pry into the private lives of others, even of those whom he knew intimately, and had a great regard for. He hoped all was well with his dear young friends, There might be some quite simple explanation of that cry. He fervently hoped there was. In any case ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... slowly. The night on the Ridge came back to him! Calamity's fear when the old frontiersman arrived; Bat's threat to expose something; Eleanor's perturbed letter; the father's half furtive defiant existence. He was too proud to ask more than the other cared to tell, too loyal to pry into any part of her life that she could not willingly share with him. He sat gazing into the mystic afterglow of the Desert, a flame of fire over a lake of light. It was as the old man had said, he had asked her to strengthen his resolution; and he ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... smile: "I'm not going to pry into your letters." In his heart he knew that it was impossible to put the revelation of their secret to Addie into any words that would not be ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... quickly and stood in front of him. There was a spot of color on both her cheeks, and her hands were clasped together. "Gilbert, let's both go there. Let's get away from all these people for a time. I won't ask you any questions or try and pry into what's happened to you. I'll be very quiet and help you to ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... inn-keeper. "What's it to do with you?" she cried. "Mind your own business!" The inn-keeper passed on without taking any notice of her, and entered the house. Most likely he wanted to see Martha; she followed on his heels. "You can save yourself the trouble, there's nothing for you to pry into!" she screamed. Shortly afterwards he came out again, with the woman still scolding at his heels, and ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... Critical as my position was, I could not pry deeper into Alison West's affairs. If she had got into the hands of adventurers, as Sullivan and his sister appeared to have been, she was safely away from them again. But something of the situation in the car Ontario was forming itself in my mind: the incident at ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... mother Earth, by the bright sky above thee, I love thee, O, I love thee! So let me leave thee never, But cling to thee for ever, And hover round thy mountains, And flutter round thy fountains, And pry into thy roses fresh and red; And blush in all thy blushes, And flush in all thy flushes, And watch when thou art sleeping, And weep when thou art weeping, And be carried with thy motion, As the rivers and the ocean, ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... fins, and recovered a grace and power of motion in water which are not equalled by the greyhound on land. Why have the seals hung back? I believe I know the secret. It is the baby! No one knows where the porpoise and the whale cradle their newborn infants—it is so difficult to pry into the domestic ways of these sea-people—but evidently the seals cannot manage it, so they are forced to return to the land when the cares of maternity are ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... Leicester, though exempt from the general control of superstition, was not in this respect superior to his time, but, on the contrary, was remarkable for the encouragement which he gave to the professors of this pretended science. Indeed, the wish to pry into futurity, so general among the human race, is peculiarly to be found amongst those who trade in state mysteries and the dangerous intrigues and cabals of courts. With heedful precaution to see that it had not been opened, or its locks tampered with, Leicester ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... Surveyor's Dialogue in 1608, which is in the form of a conversation between a farmer and a surveyor, the former at the outset telling the latter that men of his profession were then very unpopular because 'you pry into men's titles and estates, and oftentimes you are the cause that men lose their land, and customs are altered, broken, and sometimes perverted by your means. And above all, you look into the values of men's lands, ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... desire to pry into Mrs. Gerome's affairs, but it is necessary that those who direct or control her estate should be appraised of her condition. It is supposed that her fortune is ample, and her heirs should ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... infant was infinitely delighted, as was I, without inquiring at that time into the exquisite mechanism whereby the extraordinary demonstrations were produced. But in the course of little more than a month he was led, by his inquiring turn of mind, to pry into the mystery; and in the pursuit of knowledge—laudable surely in a person of his years, and demonstrative of astonishing sagacity and research—he did take the animal entirely to pieces, and saw the inward parts thereof. The great lady, with all the retinue, stopped short as she encountered ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... to be honest, honorable, competent, healthy, and personally clean in habits and dress, and she should be tactful, obliging, and she should attend to her own affairs strictly. She should not be a gossip; she should not shirk her work or pry into family affairs that do not concern her; and she should not drag into the conversation her ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.
... I had had supper and washed myself, I said to th' missus, 'There's a peep-show i' Tithebarn Street, and if you'll wash Bobby's face I'll tek him there; its nobbut a penny.' You know it was one o' them shows where they hev pictures behind a piece o' calico, Paul Pry with his umbrella, Daniel i' th' lions' den, ducks swimming across a river, a giantess who was a man shaved and dressed in women's clothes, a dog wi' five legs, and a stuffed mermaid—just what little lads would like. There was a man, besides, who played on a flute, and another ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... wanted to ask old Mother Smith if she ever heard the name Fay Larkin. But I thought better of it. If there's a girl here or at Stonebridge of that name we'll learn it. If there's mystery we'd better go slow. Mormons are hell on secret and mystery, and to pry into their affairs is to queer yourself. My advice is—just be as nice as you can be, and let ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... never occurred to you that you may keep the ten commandments strictly, and yet be a most objectionable person? You might smoke, drink, listen at doors, repeat private conversations, open other people's letters, pry amongst their papers, be vulgar and offensive in conversation, and indecent in dress—altogether detestable, if your code of morality were confined to the ten commandments. But why will you talk like this, Angelica? Why will you be so ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... family are wont to do, but there comes an awesome, shivering fear that it is true in some degree. How many times she has seen Gertrude check Marcia when Floyd was under discussion. She has never tried to pry into family secrets, but she knows there have been many about her; a certain kind of knowledge that all have shared, a something against her. She has fancied that she made some advances in living down the dislike; Mrs. Grandon has been kinder of late, and Marcia, since her marriage, quite ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... advantages of a good living; or he may have nothing else in particular to do; or he may simply desire to rouse the impertinent curiosity of all the indolent quidnuncs of his acquaintance, without the remotest intention of ever gratifying their underbred Paul Pry proclivities.' ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... suppose you mean that she is dying of an incurable disease or has lost her mind. But do not imagine that I care to pry further into that. I never had the least idea that you had—— Oh, I don't know what to believe! . . . Won't you ever ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... dogs, a farm-yard, or a full band, with equal facility. He would also give you Mr. Keeley, in "Betsy Baker;" Mr. Paul Bedford, as "I believe you my bo-o-oy"; Mr. Buckstone, as Cousin Joe, and "Box and Cox;" or Mr. Wright, as Paul Pry, or Mr. Felix Fluffy. Besides the comedians, Mr. Footelights would also give you the leading tragedians, and would favour you (through his nose) with the popular burlesque imitation of Mr. Charles Kean, as Hablet. ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... endeavours to obtain a clear view of the ideas he would consider, separating from them all that dress and incumbrance of words which so much contribute to blind the judgment and divide the attention. In vain do we extend our view into the heavens and pry into the entrails of the earth, in vain do we consult the writings of learned men and trace the dark footsteps of antiquity—we need only draw the curtain of words, to hold the fairest tree ...
— A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge • George Berkeley
... no need to yell so loud. You know I've got back my hearing. What want ye with me? I'm sure I have no wish to pry into the secrets of this young man or yourself. What ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... London the prince was a regular attendant at the theatres, and many were the dramatic criticisms that he sent to his 'friend' at Muskau. He saw Liston in the hundred and second representation of Paul Pry, and at Drury Lane found, to his amazement that Braham, whom he remembered as an elderly man in 1814, was still first favourite. 'He is the genuine representative of the English style of singing,' writes our critic, 'and in popular songs is the adored idol of the public. One cannot deny ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... come to-day on a visit to grandmama. She is telling them they have grown very much lately. But Miss Pry ought not to ...
— Child-Land - Picture-Pages for the Little Ones • Oscar Pletsch
... of perfidy are disclosed as few imagined to exist. During the last two years, while our Southern sky has been aglow with the red light of the slave-masters' insurrection, few of us could probe and pry about among details of lesser villanies than those pertinent to the day. And so it is fortunate that M. Cochin now comes to address a people instinctively grasping at the principle which may give them peace, and to offer them his calm and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... other deities are powerful, they all serve and obey him as children do their father. Frigga is his wife. She foresees the destinies of men, but never reveals what is to come. For thus it is said that Odin himself told Loki, 'Senseless Loki, why wilt thou pry into futurity, Frigga alone knoweth the destinies of all, though ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... replied her aunt. "I'm a great believer in married women paying attention at home before they begin to pry into their neighbors' affairs. It's a good idea. Most ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... learned at the expense of the poor Unitarians at York. So they went into the house, and presently arrived another chaise, but ere I could make any further observations, the porter of the out-of-the-way house came up to me, asking what I was stopping there for? bidding me go away, and not pry into other people's business. 'Pretty business,' said I to him, 'that is being transacted in a place like this,' and then I was going to say something uncivil, but he went to attend to the new-comers, and I took myself away on my ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... look some food or succour there to get, But loseth life, so much is she mistaken. The foolish fly that fleeth to the flame With ceaseless hovering and with restless flight, Is burned straight to ashes in the same, And finds her death where was her most delight The proud aspiring boy that needs would pry Into the secrets of the highest seat, Had some conceit to gain content thereby, Or else his folly sure was wondrous great. These did through folly perish all and die: And though I know it, even ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Idea, by Michael Drayton; Fidessa, by Bartholomew Griffin; Chloris, by William Smith • Michael Drayton, Bartholomew Griffin, and William Smith
... keeping them undiscovered, makes even the conversation of men of wit and learning tedious to you, what anxious hours must I spend, who am condemned by custom to the conversation of women, whose natural curiosity leads them to pry into all my thoughts, and whose envy can never suffer Horatio's heart to be possessed by any one, without forcing them into malicious designs against the person who is so happy as to possess it! But, indeed, if ever envy can possibly have any excuse, or even alleviation, it is in this case, ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... 's nothing so becomes a man As modest stillness and humility: But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger; Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, Disguise fair nature with hard-favored rage; Then lend the eye a terrible aspect; Let it pry through the portage of the head Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it As fearfully as doth a galled rock O'er hang and jutty his confounded base, Swilled with the ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... continued. The Princess de Lieven, he said, was a dangerous woman; there was reason to think that she would make attempts to pry into what did not concern her, let Victoria beware. "A rule which I cannot sufficiently recommend is NEVER TO PERMIT people to speak on subjects concerning yourself or your affairs, without you having yourself ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... thought of playing the traitor—you mustn't think that of him. But it isn't in his nature to facilitate things. In the present crisis he will feel that he is personally responsible for the expenditure of five million dollars. He will examine and investigate, and probe and pry, and will want to worry through every pen-scratch which has ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... a good reason. For, if you should have sought to pry, it might have aroused suspicions and there is no telling ...
— The Boy Allies at Jutland • Robert L. Drake
... abominable manners and poisoning their nascent minds against him, and he has no redress. She may neglect her home, gossip and lounge about all day, put impossible food upon his table, steal his small change, pry into his private papers, hand over his home to the Periplaneta americana, accuse him falsely of preposterous adulteries, affront his friends, and lie about him to the neighbours—and he can do nothing. She may compromise his honour by indecent dressing, write letters to moving-picture ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... tried to reach it, one bracing the other and helping him pry his body up from the implacable pull of Jupiter's uninsulated mass. The top Rogan reached a little higher. The flesh sucker-disk that served as a hand almost grasped the lever, but failed by ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst
... the light," said the captain. "Pry it open a bit more, Harris, and let me have a good, square look at it. I don't believe there's more than one box, at that—which wouldn't be no great trouble ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... being in this house and prying about. I'm not sure our folks would approve of it. Only the old thing has been left so long, and there's such a mystery about it, and we're not harming or disturbing anything, that perhaps it isn't so dreadful. Anyhow, we must be very careful not to pry into anything we ought not touch. Perhaps then it will be all right." Cynthia agreed to all this without hesitation. She, indeed, had even stronger feelings than Joyce on the subject of their trespassing, but the joy of ...
— The Boarded-Up House • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... not the worst of it, madam. At the asylum I was treated most brutally by a good-for-nothing physician, who did his best to pry into ...
— Young Captain Jack - The Son of a Soldier • Horatio Alger and Arthur M. Winfield
... she could not pry into the lad's private affairs. Her brother retorted that a youth, in his physically helpless condition, who was really ingenuous, would have poured out his life's history into the ears of so sympathetic a woman, and have bored her to tears with the inner ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... started; for he had rather muttered than spoken the preceding sentence aloud. Casting a swift and searching glance around him, as it might be to assure himself that no impertinent listener had found means to pry into the mysteries of a mind he seldom saw fit to lay open to the free examination of his associates, he regained his self-possession on the instant, and resumed the discourse with a manner as undisturbed as if it had ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... brothers, twins, who were very much about town in Theodore Hook's time, took pains, by dressing alike, to deceive their friends as to their identity. Tom Hill (the original of Paul Pry) was expatiating upon these modern Dromios, at which Hook grew impatient. "Well," said Hill, "you will admit they resemble each other wonderfully: they are as like as two peas."—"They are," retorted Hook, ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... horse, and went, like a sheep that is led to the slaughter, to follow a boar. In the meanwhile seven wicked women, with whom the Prince had been acquainted, began to grow jealous; and being curious to pry into the secret, they sent for a mason, and for a good sum of money got him to make an underground passage from their house into the Prince's chamber. Then these cunning jades went through the passage in order to explore. But finding nothing, they opened the window; and when they saw ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... the rose to her. "Yes, I know that fellow. I was in the Kootenay when he lost his arm, torn out all bloody right from the shoulder socket; had to pry the cogs up to get him out. They collected a purse of a thousand for him; but he wouldn't take a cent: handed it over to the hospital. Something in that fellow bigger than self kind of popped out ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... of the foregoing quotation occurs an anecdote of Rabbi Elisha ben Abuyah which is too racy to let pass, and too characteristic to need note or comment. One day Elisha ben Abuyah was privileged to pry into Paradise, where he saw the recording angel Metatron on a seat registering the merits of the holy of Israel. Struck with astonishment at the sight, he exclaimed, "Is it not laid down that there is no sitting in heaven, no shortsightedness or fatigue?" ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... blighter," was Van Horn's greeting to the old chief, as the dandy, with a pry of his steering-paddle against the side of the canoe and part under its bottom, brought the dug-out broadside-on to the Arangi so that the sides ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... was clever enough to bridle her indignation. He followed up his advantage swiftly, leaving her no time to pry for a ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... the old Siward house by old Siward servants, drunk as his forefathers? It was none of Fleetwood's business. It was none of the servants' business. It was nobody's business except his own. Who the devil were all these people, to pry into his affairs and doctor him and dose him and form secret leagues to disobey him, and hide decanters from him? Why should anybody have the impertinence to meddle with him? Of what concern to them were his vices ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... England stood afar off, and only assisted Turkey with her good counsel. The same authorities now see Russia in possession, while England, who has not assisted during the bloody struggle, appears upon the scene as a political Paul Pry, and intrudes upon the mysteries that surround Pachas, Governors, and various functionaries, who, from the highest to the lowest ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... replied Ethan, rubbing his head to stimulate his ideas. "I kin cut some rollers, and kinder pry it along." ...
— Hope and Have - or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People • Oliver Optic
... forest eaves, Shingled tight with greenest leaves, Sweep the scented meadow-sedge, Let us snoop along the edge; Let us pry in hidden nooks, Laden with our nature books, Scaring birds with happy cries, Chloroforming butterflies, Rooting up each woodland plant, Pinning beetle, fly, and ant, So we may identify What we've ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... shoulder of one side approach each other, and so lessen the space within the abdomen on that side. On the other side a support has been removed for the contents of the abdomen, and they sag down until they pry the uterus out of place and press it over towards the side where there is less pressure. The broad ligament on one side is stretched from use and on the other side shortened from disuse, and so ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... FUL. I pry thee, Anselm, but observe this fellow; Doest not hear him? he would die for love; That misshap'd love thou wouldst condemn in him, I see in thee: I ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... good fellow, let me rest. You are warring against your own happiness in trying to pry into matters that are naught to you. I will not blight your future, Percy Guest, by letting you share any secrets of mine. There, good-night. I want ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... there is a story extant of a "Londoner" on his travels in the provinces, who rather eclipses the cunning "Yankee Peddler." In traveling post, says the narrator, he was obliged to stop at a village to replace a shoe which his horse had lost; when the "Paul Pry" of the place bustled up to the carriage-window, and without waiting for the ceremony of ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... profitable for people who are not rich to compare notes on these matters with some frank and hearty friend whose means and outgoings are much the same as their own. I do not think of such a case,—but of the prying curiosity of persons who have no right to pry, and who, very generally, while diligently prying into your affairs, take special care not to take you into their confidence. Such people, too, while making a pretence of revealing to you all their secrets, will often tell a very small portion of them, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... knowing the interior movements occasioning the course of events. This is a legitimate and reasonable curiosity; for every man hath a right to open and examine the mechanism of his own watch, put together for his proper use, although he is not permitted to pry into the interior of the timepiece which, for general information, is displayed on ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... washing in the kiva. This is not for the public gaze. If one knows no better than to try to pry into kiva ceremonies, he is courteously but ...
— The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi • Hattie Greene Lockett
... Mr. Snivel have found it convenient to make a trip of pleasure into the country. And though the affair creates some little comment in fashionable society, it would be exceedingly unpopular to pry too deeply into the private affairs of men high in office. We are not encumbered with scrutinizing morality. Being an "unfortunate woman," the law cannot condescend to deal with her case. Indeed, were it ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... a creek not far from his father's house, where it was customary to load sloops with wood. Upon one of these occasions, he persuaded a party of boys to pry up a pile of wood and tip it into a sloop, in a confused heap. Of course, it must all be taken out and reloaded. When he saw how much labor this foolish trick had caused, he felt some compunction; but the next temptation found the spirit of mischief ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... here who consider that they are. We handle over ten thousand separate cases in all parts of the United States every year. We work on a case only so long as we are wanted. We try to find out only such things as our customers want. We do not pry unnecessarily into anybody's affairs. If we decide that we cannot find out what you want to know, we are the first to say so. Many cases are rejected right here in this office before we ever begin. Yours might be such a one. We don't want cases merely ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... the canoe behind the willows as Sam had said. Awkwardly he pushed off, hoping that Lucy would pry the whole story out of her son and put Rupert on their track ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... the spruces and bending the delicate hemlock branches, dusky shapes flit out of the green cover. Are they dry leaves blown about by the gust? No, leaves do not climb about in the face of the wind, or pry and peep into every cone crevice, crying 'twe-zee, twe-zee, twe-zee!' They are not leaves, but a flock of Kinglets forcing the bark crevices to yield them a breakfast of the insects which had put themselves comfortably to bed for the ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... directed on to that point, and the whole marriage law had to be adjusted accordingly. That is no longer possible. When a woman assumes her own moral responsibility, in sexual as in other matters, it becomes not only intolerable but meaningless for the community to pry into her most intimate physiological or spiritual acts. She is herself directly responsible to society as soon as she performs a social act, and ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... free, aff han', your story tell, When wi' a bosom crony; But still keep something to yoursel Ye scarcely tell to ony. Conceal yoursel as weel's ye can Frae critical dissection; But keek thro' ev'ry other man [pry] Wi' sharpen'd sly inspection. ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
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