"Plucked" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... looked guilty, and cast down their eyes, for they could not help feeling their sister's conduct as a family disgrace. They never spoke to any one about it, and bore all her freaks with wonderful patience. When the little one plucked at their hair or ...
— Dotty Dimple At Home • Sophie May
... be free without suffering," said Gerard. "Is the greatest of human blessings to be obtained as a matter of course; to be plucked like fruit, or seized like a running stream? No, no: we must suffer, but we are wiser than of yore,—we will not conspire. Conspiracies are for ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... stepped forward with looks of pride on their faces— so far as one could see their faces by the glimmer of the flashing lights of the Firefly family. And at the same time Freddie Firefly shouldered his way through the crowd and plucked at Chirpy ...
— The Tale of Freddie Firefly • Arthur Scott Bailey
... expressionless and silent, as he had been all through the interview; the woman trembling on Rainham's arm, who stood beside her with his downcast eyes, the picture of conscious guilt. A curious anguish too pale to be indignation plucked at her heart-strings—anguish in which, unaccountably, the false charge against her husband was scarcely considered; that had become altogether remote and unreal, something barely historical, fading already ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... was sown by Petrarch in the fourteenth century and whose fruit was plucked by Erasmus in the sixteenth, still lives in higher education throughout Europe and America. The historical "humanities"—Latin, Greek, and history—are still taught in college and in high school. They constitute ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... itself to be disguised at the prompting of an evil spirit; her softening lips all but smiled, as if at an amusing suggestion, and her eyes, in their reverie, seemed to behold a pleasant promise. Unconsciously she plucked and tasted the sweet stems of grass that grew about her. At length, the sun's movements having robbed her of shadow, she rose, looked at her watch, and glanced around for another retreat. Hard by was a little wood, delightfully grassy and cool, fenced ...
— The Paying Guest • George Gissing
... Townshend—oh! yes!—are you surprised? Nobody here was: no, not even at his assertion, that he had always applauded the peace, though the whole House and the whole town knew that, on the Preliminaries, he came down prepared to speak against them; but that on Mr. Pitt's retiring, he plucked up courage, and spoke for them. Well, you want to know what place he is to have- -so does he too. I don't want to know what place, but that he has some one; for I am sure he will always do most hurt to the side on which he professes to be; consequently, I wish ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... as near in prison as his mother. Jacob's attitude grows more morose about her and the child every day. I don't understand it. I never will. Martha was the loveliest girl that ever bloomed in the Settlement, and now she has been plucked and thrown into the dust. And the child is too young to share her prison fate. He must be got out ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Bedient saw a most feminine creature in the Grey One, naturally defenceless in her life against the world; a woman so preyed upon by moods that many a time she gladly would have turned devil, but was helpless to know how to begin; again and again plucked to the quick by the world. She had put on foreign scepticisms, and pitifully attempted to harden herself; but the hardening, try as she would, could not be spread evenly. It didn't protect her, as Kate Wilkes' ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... a lily wast, Within a lowly valley blest; A winged cherub flying past, Plucked thee, and placed within his breast, And there by guardian angel nurst, Thou took'st a shape of human grace, Until, a lowly flower at first, Thou grew'st the first of mortal race. Alas! if I who still was blessed When thou wast but a lowly flower— To pluck thy image from ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... by Washington's policy against useless destruction, and from the marauding "Skinners" by its nearness to the British lines and by the solidity of its walls, doors, and shutters. Its gardens suffered, its picket fences and gate fastenings were tampered with, its orchards prematurely plucked. But its trees were spared by the British foragers, and the house itself was no longer in demand as officers' quarters, being too near King's Bridge for safe American occupancy, but not sufficiently near for British. Hessians and Tories, though, ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... man—" He plucked at the steward's sleeve, and stroked his hand eagerly, "old man—" he began again, beseechingly, "you'll not let me die until she comes, will you? What? No, I know I won't die. Nothing made by man can kill me. No, not until ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... and canons "find them so sweet for their gain that they heed not my words." Cromwell however was resolute for a religious uniformity between the two islands, and the Primate borrowed some of his patron's vigour. Recalcitrant priests were thrown into prison, images were plucked down from the rood-loft, and the most venerable of Irish relics, the staff of St. Patrick, was burned in the market-place. But he found no support in his vigour save from across the Channel. The Irish Council looked coldly on; even the Lord Deputy still knelt to ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green
... at the sky. "And are Anonyma and Kew going too?" she thought. You must bear in mind that she had deliberately plucked him from the ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... He reached down, plucked a fistful of grass, and mopped his forehead. In much the same way had the preacher used his bandanna handkerchief. The Lincoln family rose, sang "Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow," and ...
— Abe Lincoln Gets His Chance • Frances Cavanah
... Queen has been pleased with the sight of my tail, I shall begin," said Purpurpurati, and he spread out his tail. Hoodie the Crow plucked out three feathers. ...
— The Boy Who Knew What The Birds Said • Padraic Colum
... saying with fine emphasis, "Imparting instruction is my greatest enjoyment." One memorable day in June, when I was standing on the stone steps of the north dormitory, Mr. Griswold joined me and at once began to teach. He reached up, plucked a flower from an overspreading branch of a locust tree, and, handing it to me, said, "Muir, do you know what ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... opposite, where there was a key in the door and bars across the windows. Presently the soldiers returned with some meat, a couple of fowls, bread, and some wine, together with a bunch of candles. The fowls were soon plucked, cut in two, and grilled over the fire, and in a quarter of an hour after the men's return the two officers sat down to supper. The meal was just finished when there was a knock at the outer door, and the soldier acting as sentry came in and said that Colonel Cortingos ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... knew, it seemed to stop in its rise, break, and sink, like a wind-beaten billow. Once or twice, in a quick fear, she thought: "What is this? Is this a malady coming before death?" She walked out gloomily, thinking of the darkness of the world to Wilfrid, if she should die. She plucked flowers, and then reproached herself with plucking them. She tried to sing. "No, not till I have been with him alone;" she said, chiding her voice to silence. A shadow crossed her mind, as a Spring-mist dulls the glory of May. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... spirit of man that would sound thee, and search out causes of things, Shall shrink and subside and praise thee: and wisdom, with plume-plucked wings, Shall cower at thy feet and confess thee, that none ...
— Poems and Ballads (Third Series) - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... lusty mowers labouring dinnerless, And watched the sun blaze on the turning scythe, And after nodded sleepily in the heat. But she, remembering her old ruined hall, And all the windy clamour of the daws About her hollow turret, plucked the grass There growing longest by the meadow's edge, And into many a listless annulet, Now over, now beneath her marriage ring, Wove and unwove it, till the boy returned And told them of a chamber, and they went; Where, after saying to her, 'If ye will, Call for ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... apocryphal matter commences. I, by accident, can correct one A.D. "Family Instructor," vol. ii. 1718; you say his first volume had then reached the fourth edition; now I have a fifth, printed for Eman. Matthews, 1717. So have I plucked one rotten date, or rather picked it up where it had inadvertently fallen, from your flourishing date tree, the Palm of Engaddi. I may take it for my pains. I think yours a book which every public library must have, and ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... When plucked the fruit of this reunion was found not to be very toothsome. Returning to New York, Tammany held a ratification meeting (July 1) in which the regulars would not unite. Subsequently the regulars held a meeting (July 28) at which Tilden presided, and which Tammany did ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... said for the Macaronis, that they plucked their pigeon with the most graceful negligence in the world. They might live by their wits, but they knew how to wear always the jauntiest indifference of manner. Out came the feathers with a sure hand, the while ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... perhaps (as has been too often the case already) furnish feathers for the caps of others; some for this purpose, and some to plume the arrows of detraction, to be let fly against the luckless bird from whom they had been plucked or moulted. ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... an arm-chair, with his legs stretched out among the ladies' flowing skirts. He seemed to be quite at home in the doctor's house. He had mechanically plucked a flower from a vase, and was tearing it to pieces with his teeth. Madame Deberle ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... gently, close at the back of his head. All these things he felt certain of, and yet investigation led to nothing. He felt odd little cramps stealing now and then about him; and then, on a sudden, the middle finger of his right hand was plucked backwards, with a light playful jerk ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu
... fingers on his neck. "I can't tell whether it's grease or perspiration," she said, laughing a little. "What are you squinting up your nose for? Surely to goodness you don't mind that little, harmless raveling? If you wouldn't go on breathing, it wouldn't wiggle around so much!" Nevertheless, she plucked the tormenting thread and threw it on ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... he died, he left a fee behind him, for the parson, as an admonition to those who still existed in the flesh, not to forget their obligations. He added that this sacred interest was, in short, so rigidly protected, that, whenever a monikin refused to be plucked for a new clerical or episcopal mantle, there was a method of fleecing him, by the application of red-hot iron rods, which generally singed so much of his skin, that he was commonly willing, in the end, to let the hair-proctors pick ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... any great business about that matter of the spectacles; far from it. Sivert, the jester, had to say something, of course; it was too much for him. He plucked Eleseus by the sleeve and said: "Here, come along, we'll go back home and throw those scythes on the fire. Father's going to do all the mowing now with his machine!" And that was ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... can spread out their tail like a great wheel, and in it plays every color, that it quite hurts one's eyes to look at it. These birds are called peacocks, and that is 'THE BEAUTIFUL.' They only want to be plucked a little, and then they would not look at all different from the rest of us. I would already have plucked them, if they had not ...
— A Christmas Greeting • Hans Christian Andersen
... order to find suitable opportunities of disseminating mutual affections. My encounter with you now is also not a matter of accident! This spot is not distant from my confines. I have nothing much there besides a cup of the tender buds of tea plucked by my own hands, and a pitcher of luscious wine, fermented by me as well as several spritelike singing and dancing maidens of great proficiency, and twelve ballads of spiritual song, recently completed, on the Dream of the Red Chamber; ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... Brophy plucked a cigar from a box in the little case on the desk and sat down beside Ward. "I sympathize with you," he said by ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... ourselves. Let a woman be well dressed (or judiciously undressed), have bright eyes, a whitish skin, rounded outlines, and that suffices. All this a wise English mother will certainly secure, just as a wise Chinese woman will take care to have tiny feet, plucked eyebrows, and ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... the while looking out for plants. As if by accident she neared the bush on which the carcass was still hanging, and after assuring herself that the body had not been disturbed, she brushed past so as to cause it to drop to the ground. She hastily plucked a few feathers, put them with the herbs and roots already gathered, and turned homeward. Everything was quiet and still around her, only at a short distance two crows flew ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... her shelter so long. The next day when she had returned to her gown of tow and was no longer a haughty court lady, but only Olga, the Flax-spinner's maiden, she repined at her lot. Frowning, she carried the water from the spring. Frowning, she gathered the cresses and plucked the woodland fruit. And then she sat all day by the spring, refusing to spread the linen on the ...
— The Legend of the Bleeding-heart • Annie Fellows Johnston
... no such thing, I tell you. I don't care the devil had the M'Mahons; but I am bound to this ninnyhammer of a landlord, who has got me promoted, and who promises, besides, to get an appointment for you. I cannot see him, I say, fleeced and plucked by this knavish agent, who winds him about his finger like a thread; and, as to those poor honest devils of M'Mahons, stop just a moment and I will show you a document that may be of some value to them. You see, Fethertonge, in ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... hat and shoes The waters plucked from him, Why, these, he felt, were small to lose, Could he keep ...
— The Youth's Coronal • Hannah Flagg Gould
... These skins proved to be the very finest quality ever plucked, and each separate skin was valued in England at from 4l. ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... in England; when they have six or seven leaves, and are just putting out a stalk, the top is nipped off, to make the leaves stronger and more robust. After this, the buds, which show themselves at the joints of the leaves, are plucked, and then the plants are daily examined, to destroy a caterpillar, of a singular form and grey in colour, which makes its appearance at this stage, and is very destructive to narcotic plants. When fit for ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... Chief Magistrate must be found. Though all seas must be crossed, all mountains ascended, all valleys traversed, he must be found! If he hide him under the mane of the British lion, beneath the paw of the Russian bear or among the lilies of France, he must be found and plucked thence for punishment! If there be no extradition treaty, then the strong hands of our power must make one. He was a tragedian. Had ...
— Abraham Lincoln - A Memorial Discourse • Rev. T. M. Eddy
... towards the suburbs, I find that change, too, has been there. I miss the woods and fields where once, with the gay companions of early years, I spent many a summer hour. Beautiful dwellings have sprung up, it seems to me as if by magic, where but yesterday I plucked fruit from overladen branches, or flung myself to rest among the ...
— Home Scenes, and Home Influence - A Series of Tales and Sketches • T. S. Arthur
... apparently self-denying, who could not hear even a friend commended, without betraying marks of uneasiness; as if that commendation had implied an odious comparison to his prejudice, and every wreath of praise added to the other's character, was a garland plucked from his own temples. This is a malignant species of jealousy, of which I stand acquitted ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... Ta'en was the damsel, and without remorse, The king condemned her guiltless to the fire, Her veil and mantle plucked they off by force, And bound her tender arms in twisted wire: Dumb was the silver dove, while from her corse These hungry kites plucked off her rich attire, And for some deal perplexed was her sprite, Her damask late, now ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... of it is merely tied round the label. In delivering seisin under a feoffment, the grantor, or his attorney, handed over to the grantee, together with the deed, a piece of turf, or a twig, or something plucked from the soil, in token of his giving full and complete possession. I have generally supposed that these strips of rush were the tokens of possession so handed over, as part and parcel of the soil, by the grantor; and that they were ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 74, March 29, 1851 • Various
... Vaughan and to our readers: As long as "the salvation of a man's own soul" is set forth in all pulpits as the first and last end and aim of mortal existence; as long as Christianity is dwelt on merely as influencing individuals each apart—as "brands plucked, one here and another there, from the general burning"—so long will Mysticism, in its highest form be the refuge of the strongest spirits, and in its more base and diseased forms the refuge of the weak and sentimental spirits. They will say, ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... four steps when I caught a sound as of footsteps upon gravel. My heart flew to my throat. We must not be seen coming from that house. I plucked at the king's robe and we drew back and took shelter behind ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... marriage license but no husband. She slept in a room too beautiful for Kedzie to have liked. She did not know enough to like it. She would have found it cold. Charity Cheever found it cold, but she slept at last, though the salt wind blowing in from the sea tormented the light curtains and plucked at the curls about Charity's face. There was salt in the air, and her eyelashes were still wet with tears. She was crying in her ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... woman when like Mercury, I leaped the walls and flew amidst the foe, And like a baited Lion dyed myself All over in the blood of those bold hunters; 'Till spent with toil I battled on my knees, Plucked forth the darts that made my shield a forest, And hurl'd them back with the most unconquer'd fury, Then shining in my arms, I sunned the field, Moved, spoke and fought, and was myself ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... front of the chair, and stood to attention. The prisoner gazed fixedly at the letters "R.F.," which flanked the arms of the Republic on the wall above the President's head, and stood as motionless as on parade. A close observer, however, would have noticed that his thumb and forefinger plucked nervously at the seam of his trousers, and that his hands, though held at attention, were never quite still. The ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... pombe were brought for the king; next, the whole party took a walk, winking through the trees, and picking fruit, enjoying themselves amazingly, till, by some unlucky chance, one of the royal wives, a most charming creature, and truly one of the best of the lot, plucked a fruit and offered it to the king, thinking, doubtless, to please him greatly; but he, like a madman, flew into a towering passion, said it was the first time a woman ever had the impudence to offer him anything, and ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... unspoken consent they ran down the steps of the porch and to the other side of the road. They plucked beautiful, long-stemmed flowers from their hiding-place and excitedly called each other's attention to the brightly colored birds, that balanced on swaying twigs, regarding ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... leaving him chill and humbled. It was as though a cold air had dispersed the fumes of his libations, and the situation loomed before him black and naked as the ruins of a fire. Old habits, old restraints, the hand of inherited order, plucked back the bewildered mind which passion had jolted from its ruts. Trenor's eye had the haggard look of the sleep-walker ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... consideration have revoked much of what he says here in censure of Friedrich. At all events, if asked: Where then is the specifical not "superstitious" WANT of "veracity" you ever found in Friedrich? and How, OTHERWISE than even as Friedrich did, would you, most veracious Smelfungus, have plucked out your Silesia from such an Element and such a Time?—he would be puzzled to answer. I give his Fragment as I find it, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... flown away, but his feet became tangled in the wool and he could not win free. All this while the shepherd was looking on, having seen as well what happened with the eagle as with the sparrow; so he came up to the latter in a rage and seized him. Then he plucked out his wing-feathers and tying his feet with a twine, carried him to his children and threw him to them. "What is this?" asked they and he answered, "This is one that aped a greater than himself and came to grief." Now thou, O fox,' ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... greengage, but free from stone. It grows upon a thorny bush about fifteen feet high; but the fruit is too acid to please most palates; the extreme thirst produced by a day's shooting in a burning sun makes it refreshing when plucked from the tree; but it does not aspire to the honor of a place at a table, where it can only appear in the form of red currant jelly, for which it is ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... marble halls, or leaned half drunken from the cushioned seats of the amphitheatre, while the sands of the arena were reddened with human blood to give them a holiday. Look at them there. They passed their unsatisfying hours in idle jest, wreathed themselves with freshly plucked, but swiftly fading flowers, drowned their senses from moment to moment, still deeper in the spiced and maddening wines, gave unbridled freedom to their lust; and then, at close of day, in the splendor of the sinking sun, went forth to cool their fevered brows in the Campagna's freshening but ...
— Christ, Christianity and the Bible • I. M. Haldeman
... stockings, and solid little boots. The heavy coat she had brought was not particularly noteworthy in these woods, but it would have drawn instant admiration from knowing people of a great city. It was not cut with particular style, neither was it beautifully lined, but the fabric itself was plucked otter,—the dark, well-wearing fur of many lights and of matchless ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... his odes and sonnets spruce With quills plucked from the ordinary goose, While critics write their sharp incisive lines With quills ...
— Cobwebs from a Library Corner • John Kendrick Bangs
... harvesters, since their hands are more nimble. Each fruited stalk is grasped shortly below the fruit head, and the upper section or joint of the stalk, together with the fruit head and topmost leaf, is pulled off. As most Bontoc Igorot are right-handed, the plucked grain is laid in the left hand, the fruit heads projecting beyond between the thumb and forefinger while the leaf attached to each fruit head lies outside and below the thumb. When the proper amount of grain is in hand (a bunch of stalks about an inch in diameter) the useless ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... recently had to pass through an awful ordeal, principally occasioned by the brief ascendency of incompetent councils; and while expressing, in terms of transport, our conviction that, "out of this nettle danger, we have plucked the flower safety"—we cannot repress our feelings of indignation against those who precipitated us into that danger, and of gratitude towards those who, under Divine Providence, have been instrumental in extricating us from it, not only rapidly, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... tale!" she said plaintively. "Or if it be a tale, it is a sad one. The poor rose! It may be that it wished to stay within the garden, and not be plucked to fade away and die. I had not thought of that before! Never will I pluck a rose again; I will let it live where the gardener plants it. I thought it pretty to pluck them and smell them, and watch the leaves ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... bare garret, with its sloping roof, searching for a better weapon. I had only my dagger. But in vain. I saw nothing that would serve. "What will you do?" Madame de Pavannes murmured, standing pale and trembling by the hearth, and looking from one to another. Croisette plucked my sleeve before I could answer, and pointed to the box-bed with its scanty curtains. "If they see us in the room," he urged softly, "while they are half in and half out, they will give the alarm. Let us hide ourselves yonder. ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... whole church, so to the same also pertaineth the removing of ministers; therefore, as a minister ought not to be obtruded upon an unwilling church, so the hearers, being unwilling and striving against it, a fit minister ought not to be plucked away from them." The deposing of a minister, whom the church loves and willingly hears, Balduine accounteth to be high sacrilege,(1124) and holdeth that, as the calling, so the dismissing of ministers ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... regular lists," said King Richard. "Leave that matter in my hands. I warrant you that if the cockerels are well plucked, they will make us sport. What say ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... friend of Dolly Madison. Major Nourse built the old stone house out on the road to Rockville and called it "The Highlands." Tradition says that a large box bush at "The Highlands" has grown from a tiny sprig of box which Mrs. Madison plucked from her bouquet at the inauguration of her husband ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... darling of his time Mitchel expired in his prime. Who four years short of forty seven Was found full ripe and plucked for Heaven. ...
— Quaint Epitaphs • Various
... geese should be plucked until after the laying season is over, which will be in July. Just before the moult, when the feathers begin to loosen, they may be plucked again. Those most considerate of their birds make only this latter plucking, which does not greatly inconvenience the fowls. ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... murmured, "O what of the world's bane?" The sun was laughing sweetly, The moon plucked at my rein; But the little red fox murmured, "O, do not pluck at his rein, He is riding to the townland ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... circle—that of some as far as Islington, and some yet farther still; while mine, I sincerely believe, has hardly travelled beyond the sound of Bow Bell; and, while the works of others fly like unpinioned swans, I find my own move as heavily as a new-plucked goose. Still, however, I have as much pride as they who have ten times as many readers. It is impossible to repeat all the agreeable delusions in which a disappointed author is apt to find comfort. I conclude, that what my reputation wants in extent is made ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... and pleasant. Plucked the seed of the mountain ash in front of the agency dwelling, and planted it on the face of the cliff behind the house. Mr. Chapman arrived with ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... and death have swept from me children, fortune, all, and I am old and needy, it is a consolation known only to my own bosom that I plucked the thorn from ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... in the middle of the room, in a white silk shirtwaist and a short black velvet skirt, which somehow suggested that they had 'cut off her petticoats all round about.' She looked distinctly clipped and plucked. Her hair was parted in the middle and done very close to her head, as she had worn it under the wig. She looked like a fugitive, who had escaped from something in clothes caught up at hazard. It flashed across Dr. Archie that she was running away from the other woman down at the opera ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... Faubourg Saint-Antoine with flowers, and protected it by no railing, the flowers would very speedily be destroyed. His pleasure and exultation were very great when he found he had been right, and that not a flower had been plucked ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... that summer was known in colonial days as the Black-Horse Tavern. Its walls had echoed to the tread of patriot and tory, who gathered here to drink a health to General Washington or to King George; and patriot, and tory, too, had trod the paths of the garden and plucked its flowers and its fruit in the times that tried men's souls. By the back gate grew a strawberry apple tree, and every morning the dewy grass held a night's windfall of the tiny red apples that were the reward of the child who rose earliest. ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... morning of the day set for the funeral Sophy washed her face until it shone, combed and brushed her hair with painful conscientiousness, put on her best frock, plucked her yellow roses, and, tying them with the treasured ribbon her teacher had given her, set out ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... rhetorical gems which occasionally sparkled in the dull quartz of his plentiful output. Nevertheless, so manly was his bearing, so dogged his defence, that he always gained a respectful hearing; and supporters of the Government plucked up heart when, after a display of dazzling rhetoric by Grattan or Plunket, the young aristocrat drew up his tall figure, squared his chest, flung open his coat, and plunged into the unequal contest. Courage and tenacity win their reward; ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... clear and warm in the east, while yet the sun's light lingered over the wilderness. Beautiful flowers shone white and pink and yellow in the opaline light of the evening; and 'Tana mechanically plucked a few that touched her as she passed, but she gave little notice to their beauty. All her thought was on the slender footprint of the man in the woods, and her ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... 'Witta plucked at his long shoulder-lock. "But think!" said he. "If I had let ye go—which I swear I would never have done, for I love ye more than brothers—if I had let ye go, by now ye might have been horribly slain by some mere Moor in the Duke of Burgundy's war, or ye might have been murdered ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... propensities; but a rudimentary survival of the idea may yet be seen in big football-players, who are given good marks, and very gentle mental massage in class. If the same scholars were small and skinny, they would certainly be plucked. ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... your life may turn for or against you, remember always this one thing—that no one can disgrace you save yourself. Dishonour is like the Aaron's Beard in the hedgerows, it can only poison if it be plucked." They call the belladonna Aaron's Beard in the country, you know; and it is true that the cattle, simple as they are, are never harmed by it; just because, though it is always in their path, they never stop and taste it. I think it ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... Swedish punch was served, and Lasse's spirits began to rise. He tried to play at skittles—he had never done so before; and he plucked up ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... piano, only it was provided with two keyboards, one above the other, related to each other as the swell and main keyboards of an organ. At last it occurred to lovers of music that all refinement of musical expression depended on touch, and that whereas a string could be plucked or pulled by machinery in but one way, it could be hit in a hundred ways. It was then that the notion of striking the strings with a hammer found practical use, and by the addition of this element the piano-forte ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... all her hopes for her brother distressed Arenta. Her own marriage had been a most unfortunate one, but its misfortunes had the importance of national tragedy. She had even plucked honour to herself from the bloody tumbril and guillotine. But Rem's matrimonial failure had not one redeeming quality; it was altogether a shameful and well-deserved retribution. And she had boasted to her friends not a little of the great marriage her brother was soon to make, and even spoken of ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... its significance. In all parts of the structure the female slaves were falling upon their masters with whatever weapon came first to hand. A dagger snatched from the harness of her mistress was waved aloft by some fair slave, its shimmering blade crimson with the lifeblood of its owner; swords plucked from the bodies of the dead about them; heavy ornaments which could be turned into bludgeons—such were the implements with which these fair women wreaked the long-pent vengeance which at best could but partially recompense them ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... right. It must be the propeller that's wrong. I'm going down to see," he explained, no trace of excitement on his face, no hint of flurry in his voice. Alb is a good plucked one, and for presence of mind and savoir faire ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... cause we labored!—but we who knew the reality of the danger knew that a veritable octopus had fastened upon England—a yellow octopus whose head was that of Dr. Fu-Manchu, whose tentacles were dacoity, thuggee, modes of death, secret and swift, which in the darkness plucked men from life and ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... suddenly plucked the puzzled young doctor's sleeve. "There will be an old shanty down the glen here, a wee step," he whispered, "jist by the Drowned Lands. It belongs to Sandy McQuarry, but he would be giv——" He paused, for the fierce eyes opened upon him—"renting ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... weight, so that with the Swede on the top of me we fell in a struggling heap upon the sand. I really hardly knew what was happening. I was conscious only of a sort of enveloping sensation of icy fear that plucked the nerves out of their fleshly covering, twisted them this way and that, and replaced them quivering. My eyes were tightly shut; something in my throat choked me; a feeling that my consciousness was expanding, extending out into space, swiftly ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... entrance of the Long Island station I thought of the first trip we had taken to Marvin, and the unpleasantness which had marred the day, and I plucked Dicky's sleeve timidly. ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... a pious hymn at the first view of the Holy City) on the capture of that city. Murder was mercy, rape tenderness, simple plunder the mere assertion of the conqueror's right. Children were seized by their legs, some of them plucked from their mother's breasts, and dashed against the walls, or whirled from the battlements. Others were obliged to leap from the walls; some tortured, roasted by slow fires. They ripped up prisoners to see if they had ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... from the twelve sons the three that he needed. They were Chluas, Grunne, and Bechunach. Then he plucked two twigs of a witch hazel that grew near by, and they all proceeded to the beach. There he held the two twigs out over the water, and, in a moment, the one became a boat and the other a mast with sail set. He sprang ...
— Edmund Dulac's Fairy-Book - Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations • Edmund Dulac
... Alvanley the day before yesterday. Howe plucked up courage, spoke to the King and Queen, and settled Denbigh's appointment,[4] though not without resistance on the part of their Majesties. Lord Grey came down, and was very well received by both. ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... was not forgotten. Three hundred scullions, a hundred cooks, and fifty stewards set to work, under the superintendence of the famous Bouchibus, the chief of the royal kitchens. Pigs were killed, sheep cut up, capons larded, pigeons plucked, and turkeys spitted; it was a universal massacre. It is impossible to have a feast worthy of the name without the help ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... pensive looking after him. In a little while she went to find Tatiana who had not yet brought the samovar. She had tea with her, washed some pots, plucked a chicken, and even combed out some boy's tangled head ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... presents and a letter from the Bishop of Amalfi to the Emir of Biserta. The presents consisted of fifty casks of Lacrima Christi, and of a captive, a tall, noble-looking man, in soiled ecclesiastical costume, and disfigured by the loss of his left eye, which seemed to have been violently plucked out. ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... had been drumming on the table all this time, looked uneasy, and muttered, with some little air of compunction: "They have plucked my feathers deucedly, that's a fact. Hang that fellow Stevens, persuading me to keep race-horses; it's all his fault. Well, sir, proceed with ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... which was still sticking into the belt of her dress, I could see letters embroidered. Realizing that this was no time for hesitation, and that the girl's life might depend on my reading her name, I plucked it ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... Nothing could have been more remorseless. The plan, silently matured, was suddenly and without scruple flashed upon the country that Andrew Johnson, divested of respect, stripped of support, and plucked of offices, had been coolly dropped by the Democracy of ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... her. She went to the lamp-light by the horse, and stood there bent over the new thing, while her hair was like bronze, her apron white and cheerful. Her fingers plucked busily at the paper. She dragged forth a little wringer, with clean indiarubber rollers. She examined it critically, not knowing quite how ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... would not have recognized him now as the same fellow he was an hour before. Fury filled him to overflowing. That coveted money was gone and his own with it, taken by a man whose life he once had saved, his supposed friend, who now had plucked him as one would a pigeon. He seized the money and threw it in the Chevalier's face, then, as he reflected what his act signified, he grasped the handle of his knife ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... "Greeting" came too late. I can only thank you by sending a little moss that I plucked from a tree overhanging his grave ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... as the thunders of Jewry, the ghost of a dead world's tale. That day and its doom foreseen and foreshadowed on earth, when thou, Lord God, wast lord of the keen dark season, are sport for us now. Thy claws were clipped and thy fangs plucked out by the hands that slew Men, lovers of man, whose pangs bore witness if truth were true. Man crucified rose again from the sepulchre builded to be No grave for the souls of the men who denied thee, but, ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... not alone. Behind her, uncomfortable and sullen, was Al. The ward, turning from the episode of the quarter, fixed on him curious and hostile eyes; and Al, glancing around the ward from the doorway, felt their hostility, and plucked Rosie's arm. ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... dight Upon the tedtder bood! Ho, doe, doe! Those berry tibes have flowd, Ad I shall dever see her bore, By beautiful! by owd! Ho, doe, doe! I shall dever see her bore, She will forget be id a bonth, (Bost probably before)— She will forget the byrtle boughs, The flow'rs we plucked at dood, Our beetigs by the tedtder stars. Our gazigs at the bood. Ad I shall dever see agaid The Lily and the Rose; The dabask cheek! the sdowy brow! The perfect bouth ad dose! Ho, doe, doe! Those berry tibes have flowd— Ad I shall dever see her ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... if found guilty. The only thing he could do was make a good record for himself in the infantry, and having done that he could later on hope for mercy. He asked a heap of questions, and I just told him to keep a stiff upper lip and we'd see him through, and he plucked up courage and said he believed he'd be able to have hope again;—at all events he'd go on duty right off. When I asked him how he dared go to Colonel Brent's, where at any time Lieutenant Ray might recognize him, he ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... inconspicuously. It is not my business to tell how it all came to pass, how the way was prepared. That may be left to the spinners of yarns and to those on the trail of the sources of history. I shall leave it to them to ascertain when the idea that there must be a conflict, and that the fruit must be plucked before it had time to ripen, first took root in the ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff |
