"Pick" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... big black mare, who came in almost last, but he did not flinch. As he paid over the half-dollar he said: 'Everybody's likely to make mistakes about some things; King Solomon was a fool in the head about women-folks! I bet-che a dollar I pick the winner in this race!' and 'Done!' said the disagreeable young man, still laughing. I gasped, for I knew we had only eighty-seven cents left, but gran'ther shot me a command to silence out of the corner of his eyes, and announced that he bet ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... that the job seemed what you called it just now, hopeless, and you were going back, I should feel ashamed of you all. You take my advice, sir, and stick to it like a man. It's like looking for a needle in a bundle of hay, I know; but the needle's there, and you've got to pick out the hay bit by bit till there's nothing left but dust—it's sand here—then you've got to blow the dust away, ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... hovered even for a fleeting moment between them. He had his career before him. He followed the way of ambition, and he should continue to follow it, unhindered by any thought of her. She was dependent upon no man. She would pick up the threads of her own life and weave of it something that should be worth while. With the return of health this resolution was forming within her. Mrs. Ralston's influence was making itself felt. She believed that the way would open out before her as she went. She had made one great ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... lamp globe will be mounted in a safety lamp and, when the lamp is in a horizontal position, a steel pick weighing 100 grammes will be permitted to fall a sufficient distance to break the globe by striking its center, the distance of the ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXX, Dec. 1910 • Herbert M. Wilson
... The earl folded the letter, and turned to go. His companion paused to pick up the fragments of the button and slip them into his pocket. He performed the office with a smile on his lips that was half pity, half contempt. It did not seem to him that there would be the least need to betray Lord Ostermore once his lordship was wedded to the Stuart faction. ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... feet of a chest of drawers, which stood at a little distance from it, high enough on its legs to make the bottom a roof for him; using for this purpose dried turf and sticks, which he laid very even, and filling up the interstices with bits of coal, hay, cloth, or any thing he could pick up. This last place he seemed to appropriate for his dwelling; the former work seemed to be intended for a dam. When he had walled up the space between the feet of the chest of drawers, he proceeded to carry in sticks, cloths, hay, cotton, and to make a nest; and, when he had done, he would ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley
... I must put it away till mamma comes home." So she opened a drawer in the table and laid her knitting down. Then she put on a nice little pink sun bonnet, and ran out into the garden to pick some flowers. The stone young lady smiled at her; but as she could not speak or run, Annie did not care a speck for her: she thought a great deal more of the good little dog dozing on the mat ...
— Little Mittens for The Little Darlings - Being the Second Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... little thing to the doctor," Dick said. "Now, lads, row on; let's pick up some of ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... short distance behind. They had spent some time crossing a wide stretch of rolling country dotted with clumps of poplar and birch, which was still sparsely inhabited; and now they were compelled to pick their way among fallen branches and patches of muskeg, for the ground was marshy and their feet ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... were unable to make our way, for paths there were none, and the ground was dangerous from the quantity of stones, etc., so we were compelled to sit down quietly and smoke our pipes until we could see to pick our way. In the tropics there is but little dawn; the sun springs up without heralding his approach by a lengthened gradation from darkness to night, as obtains in more temperate climes, and but little patience was requisite to enable us to commence our search. As many of our readers ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... maid answered. She looked at him, quaking like an owl out in the sunlight. "But think of yourself," she went on; "several young men, who want to drive you away from the baths, have agreed to pick a quarrel with you, and to ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... I began gingerly, almost wishing that I hadn't purposely put the pink paper where Terry would be sure to pick it up. "And I don't see why you should call the advertiser in my paper an ass. If you were hard up, and ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... whole fleet at times, and have some excuse for being a little exacting—harkee, Galleygo—get a horse-cart, and push off at once, four or five miles further into the country; you might as well expect to find real pearls in fishes' eyes, as hope to pick up any thing nice among so many gun-room and cock-pit boys. I dine ashore to-day, but Captain Greenly is fond of mutton-chops, ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... be on hand when they are cleaning it up, and it can't all be done in one day. They are quite capable of sneaking back here before the gaphir's about in the morning, to see what they can pick up, to sell to the visitors in ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... nothin' about nothin'," asserted Huldah sweepingly. "I was jest goin' to ax did ye want any huckleberries, and git a pail to pick some." ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... until nearly nine yesterday morning, and for the first few miles were much delayed by breakdowns in the transport column. The transport mule is a troublesome creature; sometimes he insists on stopping to pick up grass; always he is reluctant to do merely what is required of him. So although our transport column is supposed to take up only one mile of road, it straggled over a good two miles during Friday's ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... pick the rose and hold it up to the light, and kiss it, her hand is going to look like a full-grown ...
— The Girls of Central High Aiding the Red Cross - Or Amateur Theatricals for a Worthy Cause • Gertrude W. Morrison
... remonter les batteaux, machines pour—a great many things which you would like to see I am sure over my father's shoulder. And my aunt would like to see the new staircase, and to see a kitcat view of a robin redbreast sitting on her nest in a sawpit, discovered by Lovell, and you would both like to pick Emmeline's fine strawberries round the crowded oval table after dinner, and to see my mother look so much better in the midst ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... pick up this Cynic, Hermes? The noise he made on the crossing, too! laughing and jeering at all the rest, and singing, when every one else was at ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... of an opportunity of decorating HER old person with her finest things. She was walking through the court of the Palace on her way to wait upon Their Majesties, when she espied something glittering on the pavement, and bade the boy in buttons who was holding up her train, to go and pick up the article shining yonder. He was an ugly little wretch, in some of the late groom-porter's old clothes cut down, and much too tight for him; and yet, when he had taken up the ring (as it turned out to be), and was carrying it to his mistress, she thought he ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... wife had become very thoughtful. She went along her garden bed, stooping here to strip a decayed leaf from a cabbage, and there to pick up a dry bean that had fallen out of its pod, or to pull out a little weed from ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... man of the same village were much the same. He made the acquaintance of a bonga girl thinking that she was some girl of the village, but she really inhabited a spring, on the margin of which grew many ahar flowers. One day she asked him to pick her some of the ahar flowers and while he was doing so she cast some sort of spell upon him and spirited him away into the pool. Under the water he found dry land and many habitations; they went on till they came ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... a French duel the pair hug and kiss and cry, and praise each other's valor; then the surgeons make an examination and pick out the scratched one, and the other one helps him on to the litter and pays his fare; and in return the scratched one treats to champagne and oysters in the evening, and then "the incident is closed," as the French say. ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... an invasion of gunboats by gunboats,' &c. He objected to the force of sea-fencibles, or long-shore organisation, because he considered it more useful to have the sea-going ships manned. Speaking of this coastal defence scheme, he said: 'It would be a good bone for the officers to pick, but a very dear one for ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge
... their teeth against the stones, And now they pick the Bishop's bones; They gnawed the flesh from every limb, For they were sent ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... found her alone in the drawing-room, tired, but not ready for bed, so restless she was unable to pin her attention to a book. How could she occupy her mind for a little? She looked vaguely about, and was about to pick up some cards for a game of patience when her eye fell on a large portfolio of colour-prints, reproductions of the work of modern Russian painters. The cover, reminiscent of the Chauve-Souris, attracted her, she ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... was an exception to both rules; he never minded blood; he could cut up a deer. But Hugo refused to be a doctor, because he could not stand the sight of an operation; and even as a sportsman he never liked to pick up or handle the game he had shot himself; he said it sickened him. He rushed from that room last night, I feel sure, in a physical horror at the deed he had done; and by now he is as far as he can get from London. The sight of his ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... "It will take some lively work to pick your Scout Masters and get them trained in time, but the difference in their efficiency ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey
... resolved to make the Author a suitable Return for the Trouble he had been at in collecting them. In order to this, he set before him a Sack of Wheat, as it had been just threshed out of the Sheaf. He then bid him pick out the Chaff from among the Corn, and lay it aside by it self. The Critick applied himself to the Task with great Industry and Pleasure, and after having made the due Separation, was presented by Apollo with the ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... attitude and Billy stooped to pick up the paper which the Colonel had thrown contemptuously ...
— The Hilltop Boys - A Story of School Life • Cyril Burleigh
... subject. There is always something pleasurable in the struggle and the victory. And if a man has no opportunity to excite himself, he will do what he can to create one, and according to his individual bent, he will hunt or play Cup and Ball: or led on by this unsuspected element in his nature, he will pick a quarrel with some one, or hatch a plot or intrigue, or take to swindling and rascally courses generally—all to put an end to a state of repose which is intolerable. As I have remarked, difficilis in otio quies—it is difficult to keep ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... cent. on their money, not in wild speculation, but in straightforward genuine business. He might go up to London and learn the business—he had heard that it would not take more than six months or a year to pick it up—and start on his own account. A thousand pounds would be sufficient to begin with; or he might buy a partnership—he could do that for three or four thousand. Either of these courses would suit him, the latter for preference, but a certain amount of capital would be necessary before he ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... name of Dietrich, had recently constituted himself a patron of the theatre, and especially of the women. With due deference to the men with whom they were connected, he used to invite the pick of these ladies to dinner at his house, and affected, on these occasions, the well-to-do Englishman, which was the beau-ideal for German merchants, especially in the manufacturing towns of ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... it, is it?" he cried. "Why didn't you say so before? I could have easily explained. We are not coming by the same route; but we'll pick up their trail sometime today, even if we don't ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... then, all's well. I will pick him as clean as a whistle." Again caution overcrowded cheer. "But I must pick my time, ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... cowards. There's one man here that ain't afraid of his own shadder. I call on Constable Zeburee Nute to head the committee, and take along with him Constables Wade and Swanton. And I want to say to the voters here that it's a nice report to go abroad from this town that we have to pick from the police force to get men with enough courage to tell a citizen that he's been elected first selectman. But the call has gone out for Cincinnatus, and he must be ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... are thinking about Him; but you are not thinking with Him—are you?—the way He thinks. You know, He sends us His thoughts, and we have to pick them out from all the others that aren't His, and then think them. If the senora and her man had been thinking God's thoughts, they wouldn't have been afraid to eat a piece of ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... troublesome," said Brunow, "and it's too absurd to talk of one man stopping four. Look at our papers if you like, and there's a little something for yourself." He threw the man a gold coin. The fellow stooped to pick it up, and we rode on like men whose business was accomplished. He ran after us, shouting and gesticulating for a minute or two, but we paid no heed to him, and in a while he left ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... tower on each side, To the alleys and lanes, where Misfortune and Guilt Their children have gathered, their city have built; Where Hunger and Vice, like twin beasts of prey, Have hunted their victims to gloom and despair; Raise the rich, dainty dress, and the fine broidered skirt, Pick your delicate way through the dampness and dirt. Grope through the dark dens, climb the rickety stair To the garret, where wretches, the young and the old, Half starved and half naked, lie crouched from the cold; See those skeleton limbs, those frost-bitten ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... knows I've no right to mind. But I should mind. It would be like switching off all the lights. I couldn't stand it. So, if it's that, just let us part company at once. I've no more use for you.—I know where I am now. If I go up into St. Peter's Square I can pick up a hansom and drive back home—I suppose I may as well call it home, as I have no other. And as for you, if you've any mercy in you, never let me see you again. Never come near me. I have no use for you, ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... occupation. Carriages turning the corner suddenly where her fruit-stall was placed, sometimes almost grazed it and overthrew all its contents; but even this circumstance did not appear to awaken any interest in her mind; she only stooped down to pick up one or two of the peaches which had been shaken off by the jar, quietly moved her stall a little nearer the wall, and then folded her arms again in the ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... to cross. It is with the Toulon squadron that we are immediately concerned, as it alone for the present touches the fortunes of Nelson. Villeneuve's orders were to make the best of his way to the Straits of Gibraltar, evading the British fleet, but calling off Cartagena, to pick up any Spanish ships there that might be perfectly ready to join him. He was not, however, to delay for them on any account, but to push on at once to Cadiz. This port he was not to enter, but to anchor outside, and there be joined by the "Aigle," ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... then, and I will. I advise the bank, you know, and 'Splatchett's' farm is mortgaged up to the eyes. It is not the only one. I go to the village inns, and pick up all ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... play at everything I tell 'em. Jolly boys—when they knock a girl down, they pick her up again, ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... file of dusty cypresses marks the ruins of a painful Calvary cut in the waste and shale of the hill-side. Below, as in a green pasture, Florence shines like a dove's egg in her nest of hills; I can pick out among the sheaf of spears which hedge her about the daintiest of them all, the crocketed pinnacle of Santa Croce, grey on blue; and then the lean ridge of a shrine the barest, simplest and most honest in all Tuscany. Certainly Saint Francis, "familiarmente discorrendo," appeared ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... other: "from here, I go to the house we know of, taking a circuitous route, loitering on the way, and making certain that I am not followed. If I find myself followed, I will pass this shop, dropping my handkerchief in front of it and then turning back to pick it up. If I am not followed, I enter the other house, mount to the roof and make sure that everything is in order. At ten minutes to twelve, I hoist into place the two arms to which our wires are secured, stretching them tight by means of the winch ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... Collect bugs, old china, Indian baskets, Indian blankets, pipes, domestic implements, war paraphanalia, photographs, butterflies; make an herbarium of the flowers of your State; collect postage stamps, old books, first editions; go in for extra-illustrating books; pick up and classify all the stray phrases you hear—do anything that will occupy your mind to the exclusion ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... me and paled, and then looked away at the berries again. She stooped to pick one, and her face was away ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler
... throne greater than the throne itself.' BOSWELL. Lord Shelburne, about the year 1803, likening the growth of the power of the Crown to a strong building that had been raised up, said:—'The Earl of Bute had contrived such a lock to it as a succession of the ablest men have not been able to pick, nor has he ever let the key be so much as seen by which he has held it.' Fitzmaurice's ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... France," said Tom. "We could always pick out a fellow that came over from England as soon as they set him to driving an ambulance. He'd always go plunk over to the left side of the road. You know they have to keep to the left over there instead of to ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... big man with arms and legs like a wrestler. A man who hunts lions. He will pick me up like you did at Kamakura, big captain, and throw me in the air and catch me again. And I will take him away from the woman he loves, so that he will hate me and beat me for it. And when he sees on my back the marks of the whip and the blood he will love me again so strongly ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... the Expeditionary Force, which will be JUST TOO LATE.' The splendid hawks that swooped about the palace reminded him of a text in the Bible: 'The eye that mocketh at his father and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it.' 'I often wonder,' he wrote, 'whether they are destined to pick my eyes, for I fear I was not the ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... seemed eager to pose for me. A friend carried to me a beautiful tan-coloured Polyphemus with transparent moons like isinglass set in its wings of softest velvet down, and as for butterflies, it was not necessary to go afield for them; they came to me. I could pick a Papilio Aj ax, that some of my friends were years in securing, from the pinks in my garden. A pair of Antiopas spent a night, and waited to be pictured in the morning, among the leaves of my passion vine. Painted Beauties swayed along my flowered walks, and in September a Viceroy ...
— Moths of the Limberlost • Gene Stratton-Porter
... upon which was a temple to Apollo. At the annual festival of the god, it was the custom to cast down a criminal from this rock into the sea. To break his fall, birds of all kinds were attached to him, and, if he reached the sea uninjured, boats were ready to pick him up. This apparently was a rite of expiation, and as such gave rise to the well-known story that unfortunate lovers leaped from this rock to seek relief from their distress. The story of Sappho and Phaon is one of these, but it has been claimed that ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... all slaves; And for a meal, that ye might surfeit on it, Give up your wives, your homes, and all that's dear, To the brute arms of men, who hold it virtue To heap their shame upon a fallen foe? Would ye, that ye might eat, yet not be satisfied, Pick up the scanty crumbs around their camp, After their cattle and their dogs have left them; Or would ye, for this favour, be content To take up arms against your countrymen!— For this! will fathers fight against their sons?— Sons 'gainst their fathers?—brethren with each other? Those ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... red threads from above. The intruder in the tooth has spoken and it is only a worm. The tormentor has wrapped itself around the root of the tooth. Quickly you have dropped down the red threads, for it is just what you eat. Now it is for you to pick it up. The relief has been caused to ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... to a druidess, a vestal virgin, and a Greek goddess; and Lady Arbuthnot's friends, who thought to please the girl, assured her that no one would ever suppose her to be an American—their ideas of the American young woman having been gathered from those who pick out tunes with one finger on the pianos in the public parlors of the Metropole. Miss Egerton was said to be intensely interested in her lover's career, and was as ambitious for his success in the House as he was himself. They were both very much in love, and showed it ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... remained unfinished as I had written it two years and a half ago when Disease laid its hand on me, and all my MSS. ended in a dash. It was a description of Kristofer Hansteen, an explanation of his work in Norway. And now that I am ready to pick up the thread of life again, I read that he is dead—of the earth no more, he who hardly ever belonged to it. At this moment the most insistent memory I have of that delicate, half-aerial personality are the words: "When the doctors told me that I might ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 3, May 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... that I wanted it so very much for myself; but I wish ye to pick out all that you care to have—such things as may be endeared to ye by associations, or particularly suited to your use. And take them to your own house—it will not be depriving me, we can do with less very well, and I will have plenty of opportunities ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... no one else in the office just at that moment. So Mr. Stout was obliged to pick himself up, which he did, muttering wrathfully under his breath, while Rex, very white, went on with ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... the mind and give hints of which a skilful painter, who is sensible of what he wants, and is in no danger of being infected by the contact of vicious models, will know how to avail himself. He will pick up from dunghills what by a nice chemistry, passing through his own mind, shall be converted into pure gold; and, under the rudeness of Gothic essays, he will find original, rational, and even ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... Guard is essential to a force advancing in order to pick up the stragglers, to keep off marauders, and to prevent surprise by an energetic enemy who may detach a force for a surprise attack on the rear of the ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous
... cheat their widows of their rights... and then you build churches, and set your parsons to preach to them about love and self-sacrifice! To teach them charity, while you crucify justice! To trick them with visions of an imaginary paradise, while you pick their pockets upon earth! To put arms in their hands, and send them to shoot their brothers, in the name of ...
— Prince Hagen • Upton Sinclair
... Marshal Saxe, who, attended by a file of musketeers, had entered the tent at the close of the duel. "You will give up your sword to this officer, Captain de Grandville," added he, pointing to a commissioned officer by whom he was accompanied. "Count de St. Prix, you will pick up your weapon, also, and surrender it. Officers who forget themselves so far as to seek each other's lives upon the eve of battle, with the enemy before them, are unworthy of command. This is matter for ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... one was passing the little hut by the river, he would drop in, and glance around just to see what sort of place the barbarian kept. He would pick up the Bible and other books, throw them on the floor, and with words of contempt strut ...
— The Black-Bearded Barbarian (George Leslie Mackay) • Mary Esther Miller MacGregor, AKA Marion Keith
... sung him full of joy, Flowers he loved to pick for me, mind me of my boy. Somewhere he is waiting till my steps come nigh; Love may hide itself awhile, but love can never die. Heart, be glad, The little lad Will call again to thee: "Father dear, Heaven ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... sanction draws, while these we forge ourselves, Mere tools to clear her necessary path. Go free—thou art no slave: God doth not own Unwilling service, and His ministers Must lure, not drag in leash; henceforth I leave thee: Riot in thy self-willed fancies; pick thy steps By thine own will-o'-the-wisp toward the pit; Farewell, proud ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... Mrs. Long was her name. She was sparkling with jewels, and Lil and I were quite dazzled by them and her pretty clothes and her careless way of saying that she thought of "running over to New Orleans for a couple of months," just as we should have proposed to run down to the beach to pick up shells. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... all roun' that-a-way, we thought we'd leave Sonny to pick his church when he got ready, an' then they wouldn't be nothin' to undo or do over in case he went over to the 'Piscopals, which has the name of revisin' over any other church's performances—though sence we've turned 'Piscopals we've found ...
— Sonny, A Christmas Guest • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... and joy. So she warmly seconded her niece's pleadings, and the momentous decision was come to that James Anderton should be approached upon the subject. If the child learned Greek—from a professor—and could pick up a few of Roberta's songs as an accomplishment, she might do well enough—and a governess in the house, in spite of the money paid by Mr. Anderton to keep her, was a continual gall and ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... always fit and baste their work before sewing; and they say they always save time in the end by so doing, as they never have to pick out ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... observing carefully. It needed a specimen from the other world, and this biped would serve nicely, but it might as well learn as much as possible about him first. It could always pick him up some time before he returned to his own world. Just to make sure, it sent a stinging unit ...
— Cat and Mouse • Ralph Williams
... Easter Sunday. Faust and Wagner take an afternoon walk together and witness the jollity of the common people. As they are about to return home at nightfall they pick up a casual black dog that has been circling around them. Arrived in his comfortable study, Faust feels more cheerful. In a mood of religious peace he sets about translating a passage of the New Testament into German. The dog becomes uneasy and begins to take on the appearance ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... the door. Peter followed him. "I'm going up to the old ranch and see if I can pick up their trail. I need another horse. My corral is cleared out and Dad's is too. But ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... plan suggested itself to me, and I lost no time in trying it. Dropping one of the sage-hens, I asked the man behind me to pick it up. As he was groping for it in the darkness, I pulled one of my Colt's revolvers, and hit him a terrific blow over the head. He dropped to ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)
... of desultory running battle ensued as the fleets moved slowly through the Channel; the English fighting "loose and large," and seeking to pick off stragglers, still fearful of a general action, but taking advantage of Channel flaws to close with the enemy and sheer as swiftly away; the Spanish on the defensive but able to avoid disaster by better concerted ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... anything," Scott said, "and especially when they're in heat. We never had any complaints about this guy, but we knew what he was. I myself told him that someday he would pick up ...
— Take the Reason Prisoner • John Joseph McGuire
... take partners as experienced as themselves, and go to pieces with as much splendor as their neighbors. Remember that the men who stocked California in the fifties were physically, and, as far as regards certain tough virtues, the pick of the earth. The inept and the weakly died en route, or went under in the days of construction. To this nucleus were added all the races of the Continent—French, Italian, German, and, of ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling
... criminous doings of women is so alive and avid among criminological writers that it is hard indeed to find material which has not been dealt with to the point of exhaustion. Does one pick up in a secondhand bookshop a pamphlet giving a verbatim report of a trial in which a woman is the central figure, and does one flatter oneself that the find is unique, and therefore providing of fresh fields, ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... pick up the strange chatter of the birds and to understand the funny talking antics of the dogs. I used to practise listening to the mice behind the wainscot after I went to bed, and watching the cats on the roofs and pigeons in ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... partially sinks, and this is more particularly the case if there is a flickering sunlight coming though the branches of the jungle trees. In one case of this kind, though I could see the tiger when it half raised itself up—it had been wounded in the back—I failed to pick it up the moment it sank back into the leaves; and my shikari told mo of another similar case he had seen when there was a similar flickering light. But even without that source of confusion to the sight a tiger ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... a' women, has sought you wi' a bribe in her hand, Davie. You ken whether she has bid your price or not. When you hae served your twa years I'se buy you a L20,000 share in the Gordon Bank, and a man wi' L20,000 can pick and choose the wife he likes best. But I'm aboon bribing you—a fair offer isna ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... over the Isle before and, being given his head, began to pick his way so cleverly that Walter Skinner was still further elated. He sat up pompously and pictured himself a courtier at the palace as a reward for this day's work. "For I lean not to golden rewards alone," he said. "No doubt it can be managed that from ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... try to pick up a little by a wandering life; perhaps I shall go for a few weeks to Brunnen, on the lake of Lucerne, and try to settle down to work. I shall make excursions from there to the Bernese Oberland and thus pass the time till your much-desired arrival. ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... resolve a difficulty that at one moment seemed insoluble." And under the bulging eyes of Levasseur and his officers, he untied the mouth of the bag and rolled into his left palm four or five pearls each of the size of a sparrow's egg. There were twenty such in the bag, the very pick of those taken in that raid upon the pearl fleet. "You boast a knowledge of pearls, Cahusac. At what do ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... needless to state that when the results of time observations are first worked up, it will take far more time to pick out and add up the proper unit times, and allow the proper percentages of rest, etc., than it originally did for the workman to do the job. This fact need not disturb the operator, however. It will be evident ...
— Shop Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor
... and if it goes there is nothing left that they care for. The unremitting quest of their lives therefore is to feed the blood of men to their beauty, and if they can not do it in any other manner they pick the locks of sleep and get at them in that way. But the last time this person came, a surprise awaited her. And the same, I will confess, awaited me. My heart was like so much sawdust, so far as one drop of blood that she could wring from it. And now she won't come again, I believe, for why ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... say good-night," she explained. "I'm off to pick up Pa. But I've got time to run as far as Brighton and back, say. Nearly ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... Hitchcock as he spoke, "is one of the best shots there is, and I reckon you're not as good at shootin' as at—other things." Again he paused to think, and then continued with the same deliberate air of careful reflection, "We all cotton to you, Jedge; you know that. Suppose you pick a man who kin shoot, and leave it to him. That'd be fair, an' you kin jes' choose any of us, or one after the other. We're ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... announced their intention to go, for who would remain here and tiresomely drag out existence with the niggardly sums to be made from fishing when elsewhere the gold lies in such heaps that one can pick up whole bags ...
— The Shipwreck - A Story for the Young • Joseph Spillman
... down, outflanking Caesar's right wing, with the archers behind and between them raining showers of arrows. Caesar's cavalry gave way before the shock, and the outer squadrons came wheeling round to the rear, expecting that there would be no one to encounter them. The fourth line, the pick and flower of the legions, rose suddenly in their way. Surprised and shaken by the fierceness of the attack on them, the Pompeians turned, they broke, they galloped wildly off. The best cavalry in those Roman battles were never a match for infantry when in close formation, and Pompey's brilliant ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... close to the hut, the horses were unharnessed and unsaddled and turned out to pick up their supper, and the whole party were soon collected in the hut. The interior showed evident signs of a late debauch. There was a rough table in the centre covered with tobacco-ashes, a broken black cutty, or pipe, some battered tin mugs, and a couple of empty spirit bottles on their sides, ...
— The Gilpins and their Fortunes - A Story of Early Days in Australia • William H. G. Kingston
... Administration was short-lived, for when it had existed four months Earl Spencer died, and Althorp, on his succession to the peerage, was compelled to relinquish his leadership of the House of Commons. William IV. cared little for Melbourne, and less for Russell, and, as he wished to pick a quarrel with the Whigs, since their policy excited his alarm, he used Althorp for a pretext. Lord Grey had professed to regard Althorp as indispensable to the Ministry, and the King imagined that Melbourne would adopt the same view. ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... us," said the colonel. "We should be able to pick them off as fast as they come through. They won't try ...
— The Boy Allies in Great Peril • Clair W. Hayes
... fellow has a name—Mike, mostly, as a term of affection. He has found a cupboard in one ward in which oakum is stored, and he loves to steal in there and "pick oakum", amusing himself as long as is permitted. I hold that this indicates convict ancestry to which ...
— In Flanders Fields and Other Poems - With an Essay in Character, by Sir Andrew Macphail • John McCrae
... the first stage in being; if we are all at school, and not merely pitched into the world by chance to pick up our living as best we can ... it seems to me that we have reason enough to complain of the existing economic system.... I imagine that many of our churchgoing people, if they ever get to the heaven they sing about, will find themselves most uncomfortable, if it be a place for which ...
— Progress and History • Various
... the Frenchmen. The manner in which they stood to their work was matter of great surprise and wonderment to the French countrypeople, who came crowding round them in their blouses, and, after gazing admiringly at their expert handling of the pick and mattock, and the immense loads of "dirt" which they wheeled out, would exclaim to each other, "Mon Dieu, voila! voila ces Anglais, comme ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... to pick up strange stories, and as I was particularly struck with several parts of this, I made a minute of it, on my return to my lodgings. The memorandum was lost, with several others of my travelling papers, and the story had faded from my mind, when recently, in perusing ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... much trouble, otherwise I am fairly well off, but with your friendly cousin in Vienna, who thinks so little of your advantage, I have still a bone to pick. About that next time. I should, no doubt, have had news from you if, in my last letter, I had not again given you such a dose of gravy. I should have been only too happy to receive a sign of life from you, even if that ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... would shout, "the left foot on that beat. Bah, bah, stop! You walk like a lot of tin soldiers. Are your joints rusty? Do you want oil? Look here, Taylor, if I did n't know you, I 'd take you for a truck. Pick up your feet, open your mouths, and move, move, move! Oh!" and he would drop his head in despair. "And to think that I 've got to do something with these things in two weeks—two weeks!" Then he would turn to them again with a ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... became a sensualist," he said. "I did not make that mistake. For the sensualist carries his miseries pick-a-back, and round his feet is wound the shroud that shall soon enwrap him. I may be mad, it is true, but I am not so stupid anyhow as to have tried that. No, what is it that makes puppies play with their own tails, that sends cats on their prowling ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... it. It had been duly impressed upon Hamish that he was to conduct Miss Huntley in to breakfast, etiquette and society consigning that lady to his share. Mr. Hamish, however, chose to misconstrue instructions in the most deplorable manner. He left Miss Huntley, a prey to whomsoever might pick her up, and took in Miss Ellen. It might have passed, possibly, but for Annabel, who appeared as free and unconcerned that important morning ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... the anecdote was always, and so familiarly, humanly and vividly, designed to convey: everyone in the little old Albany of the Dutch houses and the steep streets and the recurrent family names—Townsends, Clintons, Van Rensselaers, Pruyns: I pick them up again at hazard, and all uninvidiously, out of reverberations long since still—everyone without exception had at last taken a turn as far as possible from edifying. And what they had most in common, the hovering presences, ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... The back of the hand is greased in the same way, and a pad of clean cotton-wool is held in the right hand, and having been made as flat as possible by being pressed on the table, is drawn over the back of the hand. This should make it just greasy enough to pick up the gold, but not too greasy to part with it readily when pressed on the book. As little grease as possible should be used on the book, as an excess is apt to stain the leather and to make the ...
— Bookbinding, and the Care of Books - A handbook for Amateurs, Bookbinders & Librarians • Douglas Cockerell
... want to make you acquainted with Mrs. Smith." Never say: "make you acquainted with" and do not, in introducing one person to another, call one of them "my friend." You can say "my aunt," or "my sister," or "my cousin"—but to pick out a particular person as "my friend" is not only bad style but, unless you have only one friend, bad manners—as it implies Mrs. Smith is "my friend" ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... still overcast and lowering, it is true, and the cold was still intense. But notwithstanding this the weather, compared with that of the preceding five days, seemed positively fine; and, wrapping themselves up in their warmest clothing, and arming themselves with pick and shovel, they set out to discover if possible what lay concealed ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... insidious misrepresentations of them be made, by giving one side only of a subject, and that too in such exaggerated and indecent terms as could scarcely be applied to a Nero—to a notorious defaulter—or even to a common pick-pocket. ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall
... How she loved it! How proud she was to feel that in part it was her country. Faithfully would she serve it. Oh, Susanna West! I 'd like to shake you till your harp snapped a string. It 's like sending a baby to pick flowers on the edge ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... bastioned by big bags of bullion, Is "Capital"; he's the new Jove, and each Titan would treat as his scullion, But look at the huge Hundred-Handed One, armed with the scythe and the sickle, The hammer, the spade, and the pick! ...
— Punch Among the Planets • Various
... for instance, open and play upon a piano in a hotel parlor or any other parlor at inappropriate times or when it is occupied by strangers. She will never perform in public any of the duties of the toilet, such as cleaning her nails or using a tooth-pick. She will not eat peanuts or fruit or candy, or chew gum, in public places. In fact, I cannot imagine a really refined young lady chewing gum even in the privacy of her own room, so offensive is it to good taste. She will not descant ...
— Letters to a Daughter and A Little Sermon to School Girls • Helen Ekin Starrett
... the spring-time thrilled his heart with joy, Flowers he loved to pick for me, 'mind me of my boy. Surely he is waiting till my steps come nigh; Love may hide itself awhile, ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... a buttercup, Upon the mountain top, That you might sweetly pick me up, And sweetly let me drop. I wish I was a little worm, All rigling in the sun, That I myself towards thee might turn When thou along didst come. Oh, I wish I was a doormat, sweet, All prostrate on the floor, If only thou wouldst wipe thy feet, ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... "Oh, I'm going to pick berries and dig dandelions, and weed, and drive cows, and do chores. It is vacation, and I can work all the time, and earn ever ...
— Marjorie's Three Gifts • Louisa May Alcott
... bread, and fruit of any kind. Do not give them meat, but occasionally they may I have small bones to pick. ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... staying about a month in each, is not thought the worse of on that account. As the love of finery is inherent in them all, even more so than in other daughters of Eve, a girl will go to service merely to earn sufficient to buy herself an embroidered chemise; and if, in addition to this, she can pick up a pair of small old satin shoes, she will tell you she is tired of working, and going home to rest, "para descansar." So little is necessary, when one can contentedly live on tortillas and chile, sleep on a ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... were women who had been dropped out of society, like Madame de Versanne, who, with her sunken eyes and faded face, was not likely again to pick up in the street a bracelet worth ten thousand francs. There was a literary woman who signed herself Fraisiline, and wrote papers on fashion—she was so painted and bedizened that some one remarked that the principal establishments she praised in print probably paid her in their merchandise. ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... at by long-continued improvement in the hands of an almost infinite succession of thieves; but may not this inference be somewhat too hastily drawn? Have we any right to assume that burglars work by means analogous to those employed by other people? If any thief happened to pick up any crowbar which happened to be ever such a little better suited to his purpose than the one he had been in the habit of using hitherto, he would at once seize and carefully preserve it. If it got worn out or broken he would begin searching for a crowbar ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... Aren't we fortunate!" cried Mr. May, perking up the moment they were in the street. But this cheerfulness and brisk perkiness was a great strain on him. He missed his eleven o'clock whiskey terribly—terribly—his pick-me-up! And he daren't confess it to James, who, he knew, was T-T. So he dragged his weary and hollow way up to Woodhouse, and sank with a long "Oh!" of nervous exhaustion in the private bar of the Moon and Stars. He wrinkled his short nose. The smell ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... blush that go to any reference to sex, sign or manifestation of sex? Is it not awful beyond the power of words to express that a man and a woman come together in ignorance and beget children who are not even to obtain the benefit of such knowledge as their unfortunate parents pick up by the way, but must themselves begin the most responsible functions of life, not only in equal ignorance, but with an added load of misconceptions, sex-superstitions, immoral dogmas and probably physical ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... the soldiers, who are so insolent and domineering to the Moors who are under their power that they treat them worse than if they were their slaves. Her father said to Zoraida, "Daughter, retire into the house and shut thyself in while I go and speak to these dogs; and thou, Christian, pick thy herbs, and go in peace, and Allah bring thee ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... It was always the telephone. We drove on down the lane, eyed somnolently by spotted cows and incurious sheep, and all the way Miss Emily talked. She was almost garrulous. She asked the hackman about his family and stopped the vehicle to pick up a peddler, overburdened with his pack. I watched her with amazement. Evidently this was Mr. Staley's Miss Emily. But it was ...
— The Confession • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... heroine of the Fierte. In the very next year Denise de Gouy, whose previous history is not pleasant reading, took service with a citizen of Rouen, and by means of false keys provided by her lover, robbed her employer of a considerable quantity of linen, using her special knowledge to pick and choose the best. She only escaped being hanged with her paramour by being about to give birth to a child, and was finally pardoned by the Chapterhouse. In 1492 a dressmaker was far less fortunate. She was unable to satisfy a lady as to the ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... Manisty, concerned. 'But she never can stand heat. She will pick up when she gets to England.—But now suppose we grant all my enormities. Then please tell me what I am to do? How am I to appease Eleanor?—and either transform the book, to satisfy Neal,—or else bury it decently? Beastly thing!—as if it were worth one tithe of the trouble it has cost her and ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... sucked down a fly which in an adventurous mood has strolled into one of those little holes in the instrument, coughs himself half out of his evening clothes, does the conductor forsake his air of austerity and use language unbefitting a solemn occasion? Does he pick up his music-stand and hurl it at the offender? He does not. It would ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 1, 1920 • Various
... in the past two months. The magistrates do their best to keep order in the city, but who can fight against the odds of such a time as this? The very men employed as watchmen may be the thieves themselves. They have to take the services of almost any who offer. It is no time to pick and choose. I carried my story to the Lord Mayor himself, and he gave me sympathy and pity; but to look for the robbers is a hopeless task. It is most like that the plague pits have received them ere now. The mortality in the lower parts ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... there on the run. When he had nothing to do for the moment, he would stand round fidgeting, dancing, with the overflow of energy that was in him. If he were working in a line of men, the line always moved too slowly for him, and you could pick him out by his impatience and restlessness. That was why he had been picked out on one important occasion; for Jurgis had stood outside of Brown and Company's "Central Time Station" not more than half an hour, the ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... had set off I went to t' door an' looked out. My song! but 'twere a grand neet. T' mooin were just turned full, an' were leetin' up all t' scars an' plats o' meadow; t' becks were just like silver an' t' owd yew-trees that grow on t' face o' t' scar had lang shadows as black as pick. I stood theer on t' door-sill for mebbe five minutes an' then I said to misel, I'll just run down as far as Janet's Cove afore I gan to bed.' It were a bit cowd, so I lapped my shawl around my head an' ...
— More Tales of the Ridings • Frederic Moorman
... room and was sitting in the middle of the floor again. He had not returned empty-handed—or rather, empty-mouthed—although the object he had brought with him was not the sort of object dogs generally pick up. It was ...
— The Servant Problem • Robert F. Young
... in his selection, and the box slipped from Carlotta's hand and the contents rolled upon the floor. They both went on hands and knees to pick them up, and there was much laughing ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... a look at the farmer man. I see the sweat coming out on his forehead. He goes over and closes the front door and watches me some more. Directly he says: "I'll bet you twenty I can pick the shell the ball's ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... the house of Mrs. Henry. She is lying there amidst its thunders. Rebel sharpshooters take possession of it, and pick off Rickett's gunners. He turns his guns upon the house. Crash! crash! crash! It is riddled with grape and canister. Sides, roof, doors, and windows are pierced, broken, and splintered. The bed-clothes are cut into rags, and the aged woman instantly ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... been at? There lay poor Miss ——, alias "Weaky" as we call her, taking her siesta in the most innocent manner imaginable, with a babe-in-the-wood kind of air, which proved so highly attractive that I could do no less than pick her up in my arms and pop her (I don't know but it was head first), right into the bathing-tub which happened to be filled with fresh cold water. Poor, good little Weaky! There she sits shaking and ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... Jack to the school-master, he took hold of it with trembling fingers and touched the strings timidly. Then he looked around cautiously: nobody was paying any attention to him and he took it up into his lap and began to pick, ever so softly. Nobody saw him but Melissa, who slipped quietly to the back of the room and drew near him. Softly and swiftly Chad's fingers worked and Melissa could scarcely hear the sound of the banjo under her father's loud voice, but she could make out that he was playing ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... was a long one, young master," spoke the robber, and he stooped to pick up Robin's little weapon. "Here is your bodkin—'tis no fault of yours that the arrow was ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... and autumn time bloomed in her thought all light and sweet: No wallflower more of sweet could hold, of sunny light no marigold. Fruit on her mind's boughs ripened full, in summer's and calm autumn's heat: Then fell, for there came none to pick; but winter came, ...
— Poems New and Old • John Freeman
... "Pick up the ghastly remains, Potts," Sir Penthony says, hurriedly, alluding to the shattered china. Mr. Amherst is still on the lowest step, having discarded Mr. Buscarlet's arm. "If there is one thing mine host abhors more than another, it is broken china. ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... for the time any of the wretched timidities that had tied him long since behind the counter in his proper place. He was angry and adventurous. It was all about him, this vivid drama he had fallen into, and it was eluding him. He was far too grimly in earnest to pick up that lost thread and make a play of it now. The man was living. He did not pose when he alighted at the coffee tavern even, nor when he made ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells |
