"Pick" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... falls across the forehead and eyes of the sleeper, but he never stirs. It is close upon midnight, and the heat seems to be increasing. The open square in front of the Mosque is crowded with corpses; and a man must pick his way carefully for fear of treading on them. The moonlight stripes the Mosque's high front of coloured enamel work in broad diagonal bands; and each separate dreaming pigeon in the niches and corners of the masonry throws a squab little shadow. Sheeted ghosts rise up wearily ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... talk pretty lucidly at times, but it isn't anything that can be of any use to us. He doesn't seem to have taken much notice of the position of the valley, he apparently thought at the time that it would be very simple to pick it up again, and I fancy that Bradby must have confirmed him in that view. He couldn't have taken into account the way they had twisted about in the mountains. It's the simplest thing in the world to lose yourself here, ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... months I shall do nothing more militant than to pick imaginary threads off your coat lapel and pout when you mention business. At the end of those three months we'll go into private session, compare notes, and determine whether the plan shall cease or become permanent. ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... over-conscientious, stiff-necked fool, I should have lost her within the last twenty-four hours. I have had to fight and scheme as I have never fought and schemed before, to keep them apart. I have had to pick my way through shoals innumerable, hold myself down when I have been burning to grip her by the wrists and tell her that all that a man could offer a woman was hers. Selingman, this sounds ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... rifle was empty; but he didn't move, so I rushed for'ard an' drew the pistol out o' his belt and let fly in the bull's ribs jist as it ran the poor man down. Martin came up that moment an' put a ball through its heart, an' then we went to pick up the natter-list. He came to in a little, an' the first thing he said was, 'Where's my revolver?' When I gave it to him he looked at it, an' said with a solemcholy shake o' the head, 'There's a whole barrel-full lost!' It turned out that he had taken to usin' the barrels for bottles to ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... an evidence of infantile trend toward self-mutilation. In the same discussion Collins states that he knew of an instance in India in which a horse lay down, deliberately exposing his anus, and allowing the crows to pick and eat his whole rectum. In temporary insanity, in fury, or in grief, the lower animals have been noticed by ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... away, the sighing between the shutters, and even the lift now and again of the heavy curtains in the draught, she seemed to herself as remote from it as does a man crouching in the dark under some ruin feel himself at an almost infinite distance from the pick and the hammer of the rescuers. These were in one world, ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... pick out the boy who had done it, and this Molly had to do, though she would not have consented except for her pity for the shop-girl ...
— Kristy's Rainy Day Picnic • Olive Thorne Miller
... voted accordingly. The vote was met by a storm of indignation from one end of Massachusetts to the other, in which every Republican newspaper in the State, so far as I know, united. The Springfield Republican and the Boston Herald, as will well be believed, were in glory. The conduct of no pick- pocket or bank robber could have been held up to public indignation and contempt in severer language than the supporters of that bill. A classmate of mine, an eminent man of letters, a gentleman of great personal worth, addressed a young ladies' school, or some similar body in Western ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... house, and prepared for their journey by short flights. We fed the birds when the ground was covered with snow, and opened our windows at breakfast-time to let in the robins, who would hop on the table to pick up crumbs. The quantity of singing birds was very great, for the farmers and gardeners were less cruel and avaricious than they are now—though poorer. They allowed our pretty songsters to share in the bounties of ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... decided to give up Roanoke which had proved such an unfortunate spot, and the new company of colonists was bound for Chesapeake Bay. But before they settled there they were told to go to Roanoke to pick up the fifteen men left by Sir Richard Grenville and take ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... reader and to the lawmakers to pick out the correct alternative and to arrive at the one possible, decent, and ethical solution ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... of Hospital Number ——, and his work consisted in picking up scraps of paper scattered about the grounds within the enclosure. He had a long stick with a nail in the end, and a small basket because there wasn't much to pick up. With the nail, he picked up what scraps there were, and did not even have to stoop over to do it. He walked about in the clean, fresh air, and when it rained, he cuddled up against the stove in the pharmacy. The present paper-gatherer ...
— The Backwash of War - The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield as Witnessed by an - American Hospital Nurse • Ellen N. La Motte
... wish was anticipated by this my new domestic. I thought that on taking up my Violin to practise, I jocosely asked him if he could play on that instrument. He answered that he believed he was able to pick out a tune; and then, to my astonishment, began to play a sonata, so strange and yet so beautiful, and executed in so masterly a manner, that I had never in my life heard anything so exquisite. So great was my amazement that I could scarcely breathe. Awakened by the violent ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... darkening sky streaked luridly with citrous strokes; noticed the wheel and tackle high up at the loft door of the warehouse opposite, and put his hand on the doorknob. The last flicker of light scudded across the steel sides of the freeway to pick out the lettering above ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... To be picking up their teeth)—Ver. 803. "Dentilegos." He says that he will knock their teeth out, and so make them pick them up from the ground. We must suppose that while he is thus hurrying on, he is walking up one of the long streets which were represented as emerging on the Roman stage, opposite ...
— The Captiva and The Mostellaria • Plautus
... with two Paper Nautilus shells (Argonauta tuberculosa) found on the shore of Flinders Island this season, a circumstance which he has remarked occurs but every seventh year, when many hundreds are thrown up: the shells are rarely obtained perfect, as they are extremely fragile, and the sea fowl pick ...
— Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society - Vol. 3 - Zoology • Various
... divisions, and advance with them; but the soldiers could not be prevailed upon either by threats or entreaties. The Virginia troops, accustomed to the Indian mode of fighting, scattered themselves, and took post behind trees, where they could pick off the lurking foe. In this way they, in some degree, protected the regulars. Washington advised General Braddock to adopt the same plan with the regulars; but he persisted in forming them into ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... ascertained, for he was missing; and the character of the man, no less than the absence of all intelligible temptation to such an act, forbade the suspicion of his having deserted. On this quarter, therefore, a file of select marksmen were stationed, with directions instantly to pick off every moving figure that showed itself within their range. Of these men Maximilian himself took the command; and by this means he obtained the opportunity, so enviable to one long separated from his mistress, of occasionally conversing with her, and of watching over her safety. In one point he ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... rather extreme. Most of us get along very well with three dimensions. Four seems luxurious. Why pick ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... the skipper, after about an hour of this sort of thing. "There's a good two hundred weight of them.—Here, Palmleaf, pick 'em up, dress 'em, and put 'em in pickle: save what we want for dinner.—Now, you Donovan and Hobbs, bear a hand with those buckets. Rinse off the bulwarks, and wash ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... too," Brion grunted, opening his eyes to look at the wiry length of the man at the other end of the long mat. No one who had reached the finals in the Twenties could possibly be a weak opponent, but this one, Irolg, was the pick of the lot. A red-haired mountain of a man, with an apparently inexhaustible store of energy. That was really all that counted now. There could be little art in this last and final round of fencing. Just thrust and parry, and victory ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... all; the consequence is that the society is very much mixed—the millionaire, the well-educated woman of the highest rank, the senator, the member of Congress, the farmer, the emigrant, the swindler, and the pick-pocket, are all liable to meet together in the same vehicle of conveyance. Some conventional rules were therefore necessary, and those rules have been made by public opinion—a power to which all must submit in America. The one most important, and without which ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... picked up a stout stick lying on the ground near by. To his amazement, the monkeys threw away the stones and began to pick up ...
— Pinocchio in Africa • Cherubini
... the people in that space-cemetery, we had to pick one who thinks like that," said Vaillant, with a sort ...
— The Stars, My Brothers • Edmond Hamilton
... convicts pick from the herd of horses the most able and strongest nags, and then, after eating what they could find ready cooked in the hut, started for Ballarat, where, no doubt, amongst the crowd of miners, they thought they ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... 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
... to 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
... and then, before he could give it to her, he would throw it away and take her in his arms. Afterwards she would pick up the trifle ...
— Bride of the Mistletoe • James Lane Allen
... honourable to suffer for food that he might have a worthy emblem of his rank." On January 1, 1877, the wearing of swords was abolished by an Imperial decree, and foreigners visiting or resident in Japan in that and the following years were able to pick up magnificent swords for a ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... There was the general impression of the infantry at long last heaving themselves out of the mud and going forward in real earnest, of the cavalry on the flanks speeding the heels of the retreating Senussi horsemen, and of the artillery firing as fast as they could load at any target they could pick up. ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... 1865, an Ojha held a village in Hoshangabad District which he had obtained as follows: [356] "He was singing and dancing before Raja Raghuji, when the Raja said he would give a rent-free village to any one who would pick up and chew a quid of betel-leaf which he (the Raja) had had in his mouth and had spat out. The Ojha did this and got ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... out, but as the mob knew that they did not dare fire without the command of the civil power, they were by no means disturbed by their presence. They still continued their work of destruction, while thieves and pick-pockets looked about for plunder. Nothing was done on the Monday for preventing mischief, except the issuing of a proclamation by a privy-council, offering a reward of L500 for those persons who had been concerned in ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... be dangerous to overlook ignorantly what is false and hateful in society; but it is pernicious to pick out such objects for exclusive or permanent scrutiny. The most wholesome results are likely to be secured by the fastening of our attention prevailingly on what is true and fair and blessed in our fellow-beings. ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... 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 ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... better than claiming peace on earth for the Witch products," Randolph said at last. "Why don't you pick a slum we can clean up for not too much, and let's see what you can work out. This cleanup theme isn't bad, it's just peace on earth that doesn't really belong ...
— Prologue to an Analogue • Leigh Richmond
... would go to Tiscornia, the Immigration Station across the Bay of Havana, and hire eight or ten men, as day laborers, to work in our camp. Once brought in, they were bountifully fed, housed under tents, slept under mosquito-bars and their only work was to pick up loose stones from the grounds, during eight hours of the day, with plenty of rest between. In the meantime, as the days of observation passed, I carefully questioned them as to their antecedents, family history and the diseases which they ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... that I took the trouble to get it all down in my mind correctly, because such knowledge always comes in handy. You can use it with effect in company—it stamps you as a person of culture and travel—and it impresses other people; but then I always could pick up foreign languages easily. I do not wish to boast—but with me it amounts to a ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... movement was made on the part of the Professor and his party, the savages mistook its meaning, and a charge was made. "Now deliberately pick your man and fire." No sooner had the order been given before all fired, and four fell, two of them being, without doubt, the chiefs, as the howling was ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... gets reckless here," Olsen resumed. "We are all adventurers, out for what we can get, and the chances against our making good are pretty steep. My notion is to have the best time I can, pick up as much money as possible, and quit before fever, intrigue, or ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... shall find the beast fall upon him. 'And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies gathered together, to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army' (Rev 19:14,19). It is they that fall on, it is they that pick the quarrel, and give the onset. Besides, the armour, as I said, is only spiritual; wherefore the slaughter must needs be spiritual also. Hence as here it is said the Lamb did slay his enemies, by the sword, spirit, or breath of his mouth; ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... softly, Pull up the rope a little until we break This bar away—or some kind friend may see The dangling end below. Now here's a toothpick, Six inches of grey steel, for you to work with, And here's another for me. Pick ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... spoken, he threw down his mailed glove, and several of the knights present stepped forward to pick it up. The baron, however, waved ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... men may receive and send letters to their friends, thus maintaining the home influence of infinite assistance to discipline. Newspaper correspondents with an army, as a rule, are mischievous. They are the world's gossips, pick up and retail the camp scandal, and gradually drift to the headquarters of some general, who finds it easier to make reputation at home than with his own corps or division. They are also tempted to prophesy events and state facts which, to an enemy, reveal a purpose in time to guard against ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... supporting the weight of government. But the very night after he returned to his palace, he saw the old man the third time in a dream, who said to him, "The time of your prosperity is come, brave Zeyn: to-morrow morning, as soon as you are up, take a little pick-axe, and dig in the late sultan's closet; you will ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... complete with a few strong April suns. 'Mid the sharp short emerald wheat, scarce risen three fingers well, The wild tulip, at end of its tube, blows out its great red bell Like a thin clear bubble of blood, for the children to pick ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... the policemen not to be fools, and set off in great strides that left them all behind. The bakers' shops had been in the Harrow Road, and he went through canal London to St. John's Wood, and sat down in a private garden there to pick his teeth and be speedily assailed by another ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... Buninyong, and very soon the sunny slopes of that peaceful and pastoral district were swarming with prospecting parties; the quietly browsing sheep were startled from their favourite solitudes by crowds of men, who hastened with pick and spade to break up the soil in every direction, each eager to out-strip the other in the race for wealth. This region, however, did not realise the expectations that had been formed of it, and many of the diggers began to move northwards, ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... white-coated waiter came to pick up the things. He crossed to the coffeepot, lifted it, and took a tiny device out of the hidden space formed by the pot's legs and its bottom. This, he slipped into his pocket before picking up the tray and going out ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... it, Bucket," cried the old man anxiously with his hand at his ear. "Speak up; none of your brimstone tricks. Pick me up; I want to hear better. Oh, Lord, I am shaken ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... one doubtful point which should not be passed over. It has been thought that to shoot at a block of wood thinking it to be a man is not an attempt to murder, /1/ and that to put a hand into an empty pocket, intending to pick it, is not an attempt to commit larceny, although on the latter question there is a difference of opinion. /2/ The reason given is, that an act which could not have effected the crime if the actor had been allowed to follow it ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... "The North British Review" of Edinburgh during 1851 were capable of filling a wife's heart with exultation, and my mother quotes: "'The most striking features in these tales are the extraordinary skill and masterly care which are displayed in their composition. . . . It would be difficult to pick out a page which could be omitted without loss to the development of the narrative and the idea, which are always mutually illustrative to a degree not often attained in any species of modern art. . . . His language, though extraordinarily accurate, is always light and free. ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... then MacLean spoke in an even voice: "Now a fool might call you as brave as Hector. For myself, I only give you credit for some knowledge of men. You are right. It is not my way to strike in the back an unarmed man. When you are gone, I will wipe off the mirror and pick ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... and the showman. A score of cards were placed upon the ground, each bearing a numeral or the name of some distinguished person. These cards were in perfect disorder. I was allowed, indeed, repeatedly to change their position and to mix them up as I pleased. The pig was then told to pick out the name of Abraham Lincoln and bring it to his master. This he readily did. He was asked in what year Lincoln was assassinated. He slowly but without correction brought one by one the appropriate numerals and put them on the ground ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... At the desk Mayer stopped, told the clerk he had vacated No. 19, but would wait in the office for a while as his train was not due to leave till the afternoon. From the stairhead Jim watched him take a seat by the window, and, the suitcase at his feet, pick up a ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... you to pick up with one," remarked the Major. "There are plenty to be had, if you go about it ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... substitution of the machine-made for the hand-made article has impoverished the world to a greater extent than we are probably yet aware of. Whereas formerly, before the advent of machinery, the commonest article you could pick up had a life and warmth which gave it individual interest, now everything is turned out to such a perfection of deadness that one is driven to pick up and collect, in sheer desperation, the commonest rubbish still surviving from the ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... we had shaken ourselves a little, we went up the side, and asked one of the officers to send a boat to pick ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... me, with appropriate emphasis and action, a homily which he was to deliver the next day in the cathedral. He did not content himself with asking me what I thought of it in the gross, but insisted on my telling him what passages struck me most. I had the good fortune to pick out those which were nearest to his own taste—his favorite commonplaces. Thus, as luck would have it, I passed in his estimation for a man who had a quick and natural relish of the real and less obvious beauties in a work. "This indeed," exclaimed he, "is what you may ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... once a question came to her mind. They had been obliged to go several miles north to pick up the trail. This was due to the movement of the floe. This movement still continued. It was carrying them still farther to the north. The Diomede Islands, halfway station of the Straits, were small; they offered a goal only two or three miles in length. If they were carried much farther ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... may come to Arras to see the romance of war, to see where the shells struck and to pick up pieces of iron. It is not this that is romantic, not Mars, but poor, limping Peace. It is what is left that appeals to you, with pathos and infinite charm; little desolate gardens that no one has tended for years, ...
— Unhappy Far-Off Things • Lord Dunsany
... go on in a straight line, in order not to be carried past the island, hardly left the deck during the subsequent days; he would go aloft to the cross-trees in order to pick out the most favorable path for the brig. All that skill, coolness, boldness, and even maritime genius could do, was done by him while sailing through the strait. It is true that fortune did not favor him, for at that season he ought to have found the ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... my face until I was nearly blinded. Neither veil nor silk handkerchief afforded an effectual protection, and I was glad when the arrival of our huntsmen, with a quantity of ducks, gave me an opportunity of diverting my thoughts from my own sufferings, by aiding the men to pick them and get them ready for ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... on their last layer of rouge, 'and looked as handsome as crimson could make them.' They proceed in a barge, a boat of French horns attending, and little Miss Ashe singing. Parading some time up the river they at last debark at Vauxhall, and there pick up Lord Granby, 'arrived very drunk from Jenny's Whim'—a tavern at Chelsea frequented by his lordship and other gentlemen of fashion. Assembled in their supper-box, Lady Caroline, 'looking gloriously ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... like any other marriage, has only to be a "true" one for the scandal of a breach not to show. The thing "done," artistically, is a fusion, or it has not BEEN done—in which case of course the artist may be, and all deservedly, pelted with any fragment of his botch the critic shall choose to pick up. But his ground once conquered, in this particular field, he knows nothing of fragments and may say in all security: "Detach one if you can. You can analyse in YOUR way, oh yes—to relate, to report, to explain; but you can't disintegrate my synthesis; you can't resolve the ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... the joy of the few, and the bedazement of "the Board," crumbles beneath the pick, as did the north side of St. Mark's, and history is wiped ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... said timidly, "I—I don't suppose you would feel to pick those flowers you were going to send over to Tupham for the Sunday-school festival? I know they kind o' lot on the flowers you send, 'cause they're always so fresh, and you do them up so pretty. But if you don't ...
— "Some Say" - Neighbours in Cyrus • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... it indifferently has very little chance of seeing his native land at the close of the war. Remember that. Bayonet fighting is one of the things no American soldier can afford to be dull about. Lieutenant Morris, if you will pick up a blob-stick we can show these men some of the value of swift work in ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops - Dick Prescott at Grips with the Boche • H. Irving Hancock
... likely be hangin' roun' de parsonage to-night, 'stead ob stayin' in de Sunday-school-room, whar dey belongs. Las' time dat ere Widow Willoughby done set aroun' all ebenin' a-tellin' de parson as how folks could jes' eat off'n her kitchen floor, an' I ups an' tells her as how folks could pick up a good, squar' meal off'n MANDY'S floor, too. Guess she'll be mighty careful what she says afore Mandy to-night." She chuckled as she disappeared down the ...
— Polly of the Circus • Margaret Mayo
... was a particular relief to these people, because we furnished them with knives, scissors, spades, shovels, pick-axes, and all things of that kind which they could want. With the help of those tools they were so very handy that they came at last to build up their huts or houses very handsomely, raddling or working it up like ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... confounded; and the guests during the following days set themselves to pick their own beliefs to pieces. At last they come back to the question of free will, especially as related to science and what is called scientific materialism. Then the question arises of "What do we mean by matter?" and then the question ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... the sides. They made no use of timbers to support the roof, and so these side excavations were not of great extent. In these old workings the miners sometimes left behind them their tools. The principal one was a pick made of deer's horn, as is here represented. Besides these, they had chisels of bone and antler. The marks of stone hatchets on the sides of ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... in her voice, her brave effort to control herself, and the whimsical bit of smile that accompanied her words made him want to do what the gentle pressure of her hands had kept him from doing a few moments before—pick her up in his arms. What she was trying to hide he saw plainly. She had been in danger, a danger greater than that which she had quietly and fearlessly faced at barracks. And she was still afraid of that menace. It was ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood
... turned in the direction she usually took when up above, and walked quickly along the firm smooth sand; pausing occasionally to pick up a beautifully marked stone, or to examine a brilliant sea-anemone or gleaming jelly-fish, ...
— The Mistress of Shenstone • Florence L. Barclay
... FOP-SCRAMBLING to the play in a mask, then bring you home in a pretended fright, when you think you shall be found out, and rail at me for missing the play, and disappointing the frolic which you had to pick me up ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... night, and the next day, February 19, we started off under ideal conditions, the sun was already dipping pretty low, marks easy to pick up, and on this occasion we could plainly see a cairn over seven miles away, raised by the mirage; the only trouble about seeing things so far off is that they take such an awful time to reach. Mirage is a great feature down here and one of the most common ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... have no hesitation now in saying, that there is more gold in the country drained by the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers than will pay the cost of the present war with Mexico a hundred times over. No capital is required to obtain this gold, as the labouring man wants nothing but his pick and shovel and tin pan, with which to dig and wash the gravel, and many frequently pick gold out of the crevices of rocks with their knives, in pieces of from one to ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... interests fail because one fails. If business and material speculation have been overdone, if we are checked and flung down in these mad endeavors to accumulate vast means of living, we shall have time to pick ourselves up, compose ourselves to some tranquillity and some humility, and actually, with what small means we have, begin to live. Panic strangles life, and the money-making fever always tends to panic. Panic is the great evil now, and panic needs a panacea. What better one can ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... out that famous teacher and Peripatetic philosopher of Pallet [Abelard], who at that time presided at Mont St. Genevieve, and was the subject of admiration to all men. At his feet I received the first rudiments of the dialectic art [logic], and shewed the utmost avidity to pick up and store away in my mind all that fell from his lips. When, however, much to my regret, Abelard left us, I attended Master Alberic, a most obstinate Dialectician, and unflinching assailant of the ...
— Readings in the History of Education - Mediaeval Universities • Arthur O. Norton
... a pick and digs for anything big enough to see and pick up with his hands. He doesn't worry about the small stuff that takes sweat ...
— The Great Gray Plague • Raymond F. Jones
... fascinating, extreme and satyr-like ugliness and enormous sense of humor; that he was a perpetual joke to the comic poets, and to himself; an old fellow of many and lovable eccentricities; and that you cannot pick one little hole in his character, or find any respect in which he does not call ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... oath he stopped, and was about to pick up the pistol which had fallen from his hands, but was arrested by the quick, decisive ...
— Only An Irish Boy - Andy Burke's Fortunes • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... with her at cards, and coming home again my wife told me that Mr. Hawly had been there to speak with me, and seemed angry that I had not been at the office that day, and she told me she was afraid that Mr. Downing may have a mind to pick some hole in my coat. So I made haste to him, but found no such thing from him, but he sent me to Mr. Sherwin's about getting Mr. Squib to come to him tomorrow, and I carried him an answer. So home and fell a writing the characters for Mr. Downing, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... "Pick up your prayer-book first, and then I 'll answer. A holy book should not be on the ground like that. Had our mother dropped her prayer-book, she would have kissed it.... Kiss it, ...
— A Ghetto Violet - From "Christian and Leah" • Leopold Kompert
... perhaps, however, for the moment, that Milly was able to pick out of her sense what might serve as the clearest part of it. "You ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... said. "We'll tackle Hull when his wife isn't with him. He goes downtown every day about ten o'clock. We'll pick him up in a taxi, run him out into the country somewhere, an' put him over the jumps. The sooner the quicker. How ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... manners to stand starin' at him," said Redhand, "so you'd better go and pick up yer guns and things, while Bounce and I skin this feller and ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... "Pick them up, and put them back," said Miss Thusa, "and screw it up again—all the joints will open in that way. The wood is hollowed out and filled with gold, which I bequeath to you. My will is in there, too, made by the lawyers ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... late actions around and on Spion Kop prevented me from describing its scenes and incidents. Events, like gentlemen at a levee, in these exciting days tread so closely on each other's heels that many pass unnoticed, and most can only claim the scantiest attention. But I will pick from the hurrying procession a few—distinguished for no other reason than that they have caught my eye—and from their quality the reader may judge ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... a bright and original question—I didn't pick you for the type who watched historical spaceopera on the TV. I have no idea where we are—but I can give you a brief synopsis of how we arrived here, if you are up ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... himself a peer of France. When one thinks of that little Popinot,—ah, mon Dieu! I forgot to tell you that Monsieur Popinot was named minister of commerce yesterday. Why shouldn't I be ambitious too? Ha! ha! I could easily pick up the jargon of those fellows who talk in the chamber, and bluster with the rest of them. ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... not who. Pick up those splinters, and take them to King William; and say, 'The man who broke that lance against the gate is here to make his peace with thee,' and he will know who ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... that there has been a glut in "the nice-girl" market these years back. Prime lots are sold for a song occasionally, and first-rate samples sent as far as Calcutta. The truth is, the fellow who looks like a real buyer may have the pick of the fair, as ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... Chinese tenant, as I may call him, has to carefully water them morning and evening. As the young seedlings grow up, their enemy, the worms and grubs, find them out and attack them in such numbers that at least once a day, sometimes oftener, the anxious planter has to go through his nursery and pick them off, otherwise in a short time he would have no tobacco to plant out. About thirty days after the seed has been sown, the seedlings are old enough to be planted out in the field, which has been all the time ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... gits mostly flies. The old birds, with a nest full o' howlin' young ones, might go on, I s'pose, pickin' up grasshoppers till the cows come home, an' feedin' 'em, but they don't. They jest poke 'em out o' the nest, an' larn 'em to fly an' pick up their own livin'; an' that's what makes birds on 'em. They pray mighty hard fur their daily bread, I tell ye, and the way the old birds answer is jest to poke 'em out, and let 'em slide. I don't see many prayin' folks, an' I don't see many folks any way; but I have a consait ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... his Book before him laid, And Parchment with the smoother side display'd; He takes the Papers, lays 'em down agen, And with unwilling fingers tries his Pen; Some peevish quarrel straight he tries to pick, His Quill writes double, or his Ink's too thick; Infuse more Water; now 'tis grown too thin, It sinks, nor can the characters be seen." ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... seen others laugh. He looked at Manicamp steadily, not venturing to show his anger towards De Guiche; but, at a sign which displayed no little amount of annoyance, Manicamp and De Guiche left the room, so that Madame, left alone, began sadly to pick up her pearls and amethysts, no longer smiling, and ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Tip savagely. "I'm goin' to try and pick Hardy out o' that gang o' killers, and if I do, I don't care much ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... could I pick tip a thought or a stanza, I'd take a flight on another bard's wings, Turning his rhymes into extravaganza, Laugh at his harp—and then pilfer its strings! When a poll-parrot can croak the cadenza A nightingale loves, he supposes he sings! Oh, never ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 390, September 19, 1829 • Various
... as lives have him pick me out a calico dress as to pick it out myself. And that is sayin' a great deal," says I. "I am always very putickuler in calico: richness and beauty is what I ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... berries ripe and dry, pick them, bruise them with your hands, and strain them. Set the liquor by in glazed earthen vessels for twelve hours, to settle; put to every pint of juice a pint and a half of water, and to every gallon of this liquor three pounds of good moist sugar; set in a kettle over the fire, and ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... brought fresh courage. She made them change their wet clothing for that which was warm and dry. They kept the fire burning in the kitchen stove. After a while their fate did not seem so hopeless. The girls were frightened, of course. They wished a ship would hurry along to pick them up. But there was something deliciously thrilling in the idea that the "Merry Maid" was voyaging alone on a—to them—unknown sea, and that they were the first mariners who had ever drifted on ...
— Madge Morton's Secret • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... to processing agricultural products and light consumer goods. The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and bilateral donors have provided funds to rehabilitate Tanzania's deteriorated economic infrastructure. Growth in 1991-2000 featured a pick up in industrial production and a substantial increase in output of minerals, led by gold. Natural gas exploration in the Rufiji Delta looks promising and production could start by 2002. Recent banking reforms have helped ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... "we'll call it a heat—and, say, don't let on what I've told you. I want to see how long it'll take to git all over the village that he didn't ask no odds o' nobody. Hadn't ben out o' a job three days 'fore the' was a lot o' chances, an' all 't he had to do was to take his pick out ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... the Irishman noted was that in his violence the man had dropped the yellow bashlik from his head. O'Malley saw him stoop with a flying rush to pick it up. He seemed to ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... 16th a strong gale blew the English ship some distance off the coast, and was followed by a thick fog, during which the French squadron managed to tow out of the harbour, but were in such a hurry to get away that they did not stop to pick up their boats and immediately made sail, being so far out of reach in the morning, that though some of them were seen by the British, it was not realised that they could be the French escaping from a squadron ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... an English maid in the hotel, who had been long enough out of England to pick up all sorts of funny foreign idioms, and all sorts of curious foreign ways, which need not here be specified. She spoke to us very fluently in her jargon, asked us information as to the manners of the present ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... plantations, little fields, like those of cultivated narcissus, compact masses of their pale salmon and grey shot colours and greyish-green leaves, or fringes, each flower distinct against field or sky, on the ledges of rock and the high earth banks. The flowers are rarely perfect when you pick them, some of the starry blossoms having withered and left an untidy fringe instead; but at a distance this half-decay gives them a singular distinction, makes the light fall on the very tips, the silvery buds, sinking ...
— The Spirit of Rome • Vernon Lee
... always inveterate talkers and often very clever writers, and therefore cannot have their minds formed for them by others, the average man of action, like the average fighter with the bayonet, can give no account of himself in words even to himself, and is apt to pick up and accept what he reads about himself and other people in the papers, except when the writer is rash enough to commit himself on technical points. It was not uncommon during the war to hear a soldier, or a civilian engaged on war work, describing events within his own experience that reduced ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... ammunition, besides extra rifles. Their destination was the Republican River. It coursed more than a hundred miles from Leavenworth, but the country about it was reputed rich in beaver. Will acted as scout on the journey, going ahead to pick out trails, locate camping grounds, and look out for breakers. The information concerning the beaver proved correct; the game was indeed so plentiful that they concluded to pitch a permanent camp and see the ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... had been made in every branch of business carried on in this country. The census of 1890 does not in all cases make a distinction between "proprietor" and occupation. Hence, it is not always easy to pick out the "proprietors." The tables have been gone over very carefully. Only those occupations have been selected about which there can be no doubt that the persons listed are "proprietors." The total number of persons of Negro descent engaged in ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... pacing she paused and stared at the keyhole of the cupboard, then took a hairpin from her head and tried to pick the lock. It was large and complicated and she could do nothing with it. She glanced at the clock. The doctor would not return for an hour. She dressed hastily and went out and bought a lump of soft wax. She took an impress of the keyhole and waited with what patience she could ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... bodies through the church, And knights with arms concealed. The mentors search The spider man, the master publican, And for his friendship silence keep, Letting him herd the populace like sheep For self and for the insatiable desires Of coal and tracks and wires, Pick judges, legislators, And tax-gatherers. Or name his favorites, whom they name: The slick and sinistral, Servitors of the cabal, For praise which seems the equivalent of fame: Giving to the delicate handed crackers Of priceless safes, the spiritual slackers, ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... "if you really wish for an honest answer, I must confess that when I see a strawberry that nobody else seems to notice, I generally pick it." ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... the clock was striking twelve she had suddenly risen up and fled through the ball-room, disappearing no one knew how or where, and dropping one of her glass slippers behind her in her flight. How the king's son had remained inconsolable until he chanced to pick up the little glass slipper, which he carried away in his pocket, and was seen to take it out continually, and look at it affectionately, with the air of a man very much in love; in fact, from his behaviour during the remainder of the evening, all the court and royal family were convinced ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... took no chances. There's only one man alive to-day can swear that Soapy was the man with French Dan lying in the zacaton. And he'll never tell, because he pumped the bullet into his friend. But one thing is sure. Soapy disappeared from Arizona for nearly two years. You can pick any reason you like for his going. That ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... cinnamon-colored tiles relieving their dark-brown walls, had the regular outlines of their doors and windows obliterated by the crumbling of years, until they looked as if they had been afterthoughts of the builder, rudely opened by pick and crowbar, and finished by the gentle auxiliary architecture of birds and squirrels. Yet these openings at times permitted glimpses of a picturesque past in the occasional view of a lace-edged pillow or silken counterpane, striped hangings, or dyed Indian rugs, the ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... determine what is worth doing at all must hold herself calmly and quietly in hand, and stand still with closed eyes for one minute, until her senses, dazed by the wild rush about her, have become sufficiently clear, and her hand steady enough, to pick out the diamonds of duty from the glass chips which pass with the superficial observer for first-water gems. It is well for our housewife to have some test-stone duty by which she may rate the importance of other tasks. Such a test-stone may be John's or baby's needs or ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... all to-day for little burdens to bear for others. See how many you can find out, and pick up, and carry away! Depend upon it, you will not only make it a brighter day for others, but ...
— Morning Bells • Frances Ridley Havergal
... recall that Jameson had come in, that he had fought against great odds, and that when almost reaching his goal he had been taken prisoner for want of assistance. It is perfectly true that in their rage of grief and disappointment men were willing to march out with pick-handles to rescue him, if there were not rifles enough to arm them. While the excitement lasted this was the mood, and the Reform Committee were the scapegoats. The attitude of the crowd was due to ignorance of the ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... the road-side, where we ate our rations of hard-tack which we carried in haversacks, rested a little, rambled a little, foraged a little; cooked coffee, chocolate or tea; partook together of delicate bits which some had contrived to pick up; bathed our feet in a brook which threaded the dell; and in one way or another refreshed ourselves for a speedy resumption ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood
... of a year or two. It is true, causes may arise to keep them together awhile longer, but they are restless, active spirits, and will not be restrained always. Mary alone has more energy and power in her nature than any ten men you can pick out in the united parishes of Birstall and Haworth. It is vain to limit a character like hers within ordinary boundaries—she will overstep them. I am morally certain Mary will establish her own landmarks, so will the ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... devotion. His gallantry is an impulse to sacrifice himself for the beloved—an instinct so inbred by generations of practice that now even a child may manifest it. I remember how, when I was six or seven years old, I once ran out the school-house during recess to pick up some Missouri hailstones, while others, large as marbles, were falling about me, threatening to smash my skull. I gave the trophies to a dark-eyed girl of my age—not with a view to any possible reward, but simply because I loved her more than all the ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... for instance, one man was sent away from one 'job' to another, the others would go into his room and look at the work he had been doing, and pick out all the faults they could find and show them to each other, making all sorts of ill-natured remarks about the absent one meanwhile. 'Jist run yer nose over that door, Jim,' one would say in a tone of disgust. 'Wotcher think of it? ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... notes from the street below resound, And the voices of jubilant masses proclaim a glorious holiday, I painstakingly pick out words on the typewriter, By fits and starts, thinking up a story about the great Metropolitan tenor. The typewriter keys now hold no rhythmic tingle. But the local manager in Iowa wants the story. He has engaged the great tenor for a date next March When the Tuesday musicale ladies give ...
— The Broadway Anthology • Edward L. Bernays, Samuel Hoffenstein, Walter J. Kingsley, Murdock Pemberton
... presently wanted. At the time when he published this volume of Letters he seems to have had some foresight into his future life. "I am thinking," he says, "of the intimacies which I shall form with the learned and ingenious in every science, and of the many amusing literary anecdotes which I shall pick up." When fame did come upon him by his book on Corsica, no one could have relished it more. "I am really the great man now," he writes to his friend Temple. "I have had David Hume in the forenoon, and Mr. ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... of her words was unexpected; for several of the crowd, annoyed at the little serious attention they had hitherto received, and worked up to considerable excitement, by the shouting and drumming began to pick up stones and fling them at the house. At first they were merely thrown against the house, then, the spirit of mischief increasing, they were sent with better aim, and one crashed through the window above ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... us went to work. Before night we were hunting over the yard, and beside the road, to see if we could find anything to pick up. Six chickens were in the cellar, father was to bring meat and a long list of groceries from town in the morning. He was to start early, get them before train time, put them under the back seat, and take them out after he drove into the lane, ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter |
