"Poll" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... individualist, carrying out Emerson's doctrine by becoming independent of others' opinions. What he thought right, he said or did. He disapproved, for example, of slavery, and consequently refused to pay his poll tax to a government that upheld slavery. When he was imprisoned because of non-payment, Emerson visited him and asked, "Why are you here, Henry?" Thoreau merely replied, ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... out of this power of internal taxation, to excite the apprehensions of the people: double sets of revenue officers, a duplication of their burdens by double taxations, and the frightful forms of odious and oppressive poll-taxes, have been played off with all the ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... question, it is individually considered and the respective answers sent to the master brain; they are there coordinated and the result spoken to me by means of the mechanical mouth. When the opinions of the individual brains do not agree, the answer is in the form of a poll, often with brief mention of points pro and con. Sometimes their meditations take considerable time; but simple questions always bring a prompt and unanimous answer. Shall we try ...
— The Affair of the Brains • Anthony Gilmore
... a-scuddin' by all taught and under storms'ils for the harbour; not a blessed star a-twinklin' out aloft—aloft, your honour, in the little cherubs' native country—and the spray is flying like the white foam from the Jolly's lips when Poll of Portsea took him for ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... Mass Joe?" whispered Jimmy excitedly. "Talk, talk, poll parrot can't say know what um say. Come along run way fas. Fight nunner time o," he added. "Black ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... o' the best men that ever trod shoe-leather, husband was, though Miss Jinkins says (she 't was Poll Bingham), she says, I never found it out till after he died, but that 's the consarndest lie, that ever was told, though it 's jest a piece with everything else she says about me. I guess if everybody could ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... counties or boroughs, are fixed, all soldiers quartered in the place are to remove, at least one day before the election, to the distance of two miles or more; and not return till one day after the poll is ended. Riots likewise have been frequently determined to make an election void. By vote also of the house of commons, to whom alone belongs the power of determining contested elections, no lord of parliament, or lord lieutenant of a county, hath ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... mouth was still twitching under the influence of nervous excitement. But as they rolled along between the dark hedges, the carriage-lamps shining on their wet branches, green yet, in spite of November, he began to recover a half-cynical self-control. The poll for the Market Malford Division of West Mercia had been declared that afternoon, between two and three o'clock, after a hotly contested election; he, as the successful candidate by a very narrow majority, had since addressed ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... were electors whom Murphy and Dick in their zeal for their party were going over to greet with hearty welcomes and bring up to the poll the next day. By no means. They were the friends of the opposite party, and it was with the design of retarding their movements that this night's excursion was undertaken. These electors were a batch of plain citizens from Dublin, whom the Scatterbrain interest had induced to leave ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... long lock upon the shaven poll is a very ancient practice: we find it amongst the old Egyptians. For the Shushah or top-knot of hair, see vol. i. 308. It is differently worn in the several regions of the Moslem world: the Maroccans of the Rif country ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... all," laughed Molly. "I'd rather be called a raven than a catbird or a poll parrot or ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed
... shown that those colonies have, been always able to pay most, which have the most inhabitants, whether they be black or white: and the practice of the Southern colonies has always been to make every farmer pay poll taxes upon all his laborers, whether they be black or white. He acknowledges indeed, that freemen work the most; but they consume the most also. They do not produce a greater surplus for taxation. The slave is neither ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... palings of pedantry. Some of his most characteristic utterances owe their flavour to combining the language of the schools with the language of the tavern: as when he said of that strange inmate of his house, Miss Carmichael, "Poll is a stupid slut. I had some hopes of her at first: but when I talked to her tightly and closely I could make nothing of her; she was wiggle waggle, and I could never persuade her to be categorical." He was the very antipodes of a retailer of other men's ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... spear then after Ferbaeth so that it hit the hollow of his poll, and came out at his mouth in front, so that he fell ...
— The Cattle-Raid of Cualnge (Tain Bo Cualnge) • Unknown
... heart! Miss, why so impatient? Hav'n't you as genteel a parlour as any lady in the land could wish to sit down in?—The bed's turn'd up in a chest of drawers that's stain'd to look like mahogany:—there's two poets, and a poll parrot, the best images the jew had on his head, over the mantlepiece; and was I to leave you all alone by yourself, isn't there an eight day clock in the corner, that when one's waiting, lonesome like, for any body, keeps going tick-tack, and ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman
... the suffrages of the electors. Sidney Blenheim succeeded in getting a close personal friend of his own, who was also his private secretary, accepted by the Conservative Committee, and he was returned at the head of the poll by a slightly ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... 'Pollus Morton he's A-go' to speak a piece, w'y, nen The Teacher smiles an' says 'at she's Most proud, of all her little men An' women in her school—'cause 'Poll He allus ...
— The Book of Joyous Children • James Whitcomb Riley
... what a name!" adding affectedly, "yet it seems to me, on reflection, I have heard it before. He is a Yankee, of course! Now, do you earnestly believe a native of New England, by descent a legitimate witch-burner, you know, can be any thing better than a poll-parrot in ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... the thought of paying taxes to such masters was almost unbearable. Yet each adult Jewish man and woman was required to pay a personal or poll tax besides taxes on his property or income. To make matters worse, the Romans were accustomed to hire Jews to collect these taxes, giving these men the right to extort whatever they could, provided the required tribute was paid to Rome. Of course all true Jews hated and despised these ...
— Hebrew Life and Times • Harold B. Hunting
... comment in detail, are appropriate methods of strengthening these basic rights which have our full support. The right to vote, for example, should no longer be denied through such arbitrary devices on a local level, sometimes abused, such as literacy tests and poll taxes. As we approach the 100th anniversary, next January, of the Emancipation Proclamation, let the acts of every branch of the Government—and every citizen—portray that "righteousness does exalt ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... at Old Hungerford Stairs, Strand, in which Charles Dickens was shown by Bob Fagin how to tie up the pots of paste, has rotted down and been carted away. The coal-barges in the muddy river are still there, just as they were when Charles, Poll Green and Bob Fagin played on them during the dinner-hour. I saw Bob and several other boys, grimy with blacking, chasing each other across the flatboats, but Dickens ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... brooding, the tears his thoughts reveal; Beset with a thousand fancies, and crazed with honest care, Sensitive to a footfall lest some foe were lurking there, When Rod'rick, bearing by the locks the Count's dissevered poll, Tracking the floor with recent gore, advanced along the hall. He touched his father's shoulder and roused him from his dream, And proudly flaunting his revenge he thus addresses him: "Behold the evil tares, sir, that ye may taste the wheat; Open thine eyes, my father, and lift thy head, ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... now I'll tell the best thing in the day: My poll between the teeth of a beast of prey! Walk in! Tho to be sure the show's not new, Yet everyone takes pleasure in its view! Wrench open this wild animal's jaws I dare, And he to bite dares not! My pate's so fair, So wild, so gaily decked, it wins respect! I offer ...
— Erdgeist (Earth-Spirit) - A Tragedy in Four Acts • Frank Wedekind
... purposes for which its heroes staked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, that in ordinary times we see little of the strength that stands quietly but firmly behind every law's enactment and every poll's decision. The "strong arm" of the law would lose its power to compel obedience if behind the decree of judge, jury, and legislators there was not a sheriff or a body of militia ready to commit the unconsenting criminal to prison, or to take care of an unruly minority. At an election, ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... took pity because no one else would. They were ungrateful and undeserving, and quarreled constantly among themselves, so that his home could have been no peaceful spot. "Williams hates everybody," he writes; "Levett hates Desmoulins and does not love Williams; Desmoulins hates them both; Poll loves none of them." It does not sound peaceful ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... insisted on a personal answer. Miss Aline came in and stood shyly while Sir Bunny pointed out the advantages of his proposal—the estates joined, the parish under control, and the family name changed by poll ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... another act was passed taxing imported slaves, because it had "been found very easy to the subjects of this colony, and no ways burthensome to the traders in slaves." The additional reason for continuing the law was, "that a competent revenue" might be raised "for preventing or lessening a poll-tax."[167] And in 1738, this law being "found, by experience, to be an easy expedient for raising a revenue towards the lessening a pooll-tax, always grievous to the people of this colony, and is in no way burthensom ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... much of respect as he hath of hair," answered naughty Nancy. "His poll is nearly ...
— The Puritan Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... week, to rest and regale myself after my long journey; during which most of the time was taken up in the weighty affair of making a cage for my Poll, who began now to be a mere domestic, and to be well acquainted with me. Then I began to think of the poor kid which I had penned in within my little circle, and resolved to go and fetch it home, or give ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... Hamilton argued the case before the Supreme Court in support of the tax. The Court adopted his view and sustained the tax, holding that it was a tax on consumption and therefore a species of excise or duty. The Justices who wrote opinions expressed doubt whether anything but poll taxes and taxes on land were "direct" within the meaning of the Constitution. That point, however, was not necessarily involved and was not decided, though later generations came to assume that ...
— Our Changing Constitution • Charles Pierson
... in Kingsgate Street, Holborn—foreign gents and refugees. Such a cove my eagle eye detected in a man who entered the shop wearing a long black beard streaked with the snows of age, and who requested Poll to shave him clean. He was a sailor-man to look at; but his profile, David, might have been carved by a Grecian chisel out of an iceberg, and that steel grey eye of his might have struck a chill, even through a chink, into any heart less ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang
... a friend who left his country-house, and came to Paris without voting, and told those who consulted him that, in the difficulties of the case, he thought abstaining was the safest course. Immediately after the poll was over the Prefect sent to arrest him for malveillance, and he congratulated himself upon being out ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... clear of all quit-rents, or any public demands by way of tax whatever, to them the said Tuscarora Indians, and their heirs and successors: and that they, the said Tuscaroras, and their heirs and successors, shall forever be clear and exempt from every kind of poll tax. ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson
... has been stated, are levied on real and personal property. Some states have in addition a poll tax. This is levied on the individual without any regard to his property, and a receipt for it may be a requirement before a ...
— Business Hints for Men and Women • Alfred Rochefort Calhoun
... on all sides; horsemen after horsemen, freeholders of all degrees, now flocked to the house, hearing that Mr. Vivian had thoughts of standing for the county. They were unanimously loud in their assurances of success. Old and new copies of poll books were produced, and the different interests of the county counted and recounted, balanced and counterbalanced, again and again, by each person, after his own fashion: and it was proved to Mr. Vivian, in black and white, and as ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... letter went on to say, "and have just heard the news. Though I have been here for three days, and have twice sent word to him to say so, he has not been near me. Perhaps it is best that he should stay away, as I do not know how any words could pass between us that would be pleasant. The poll was finished this afternoon, and he lost his election by a large majority. There were five candidates altogether for the two seats—three Liberals, and two Conservatives. The other two Liberals were seated, and he was the last of ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... negative, and that representing socially opposite poles they should come together and make an electric harmony, that two positives or two negatives repel each other, and if conventionally united end in divorce, and so on. We read that such a man is magnetic, meaning that he can poll a great many votes; or that such a woman thrilled her audience, meaning probably that they were in an electric condition to be shocked by her. Now this is what we want to find out—to know if persons are ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... in Nature's university, who learn the laws which govern men and things and obey them, are the really great and successful men in this world. The great mass of mankind are the "Poll," who pick up just enough to get through without much discredit. Those who won't learn at all are plucked; and then you can't come up again. Nature's ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... rapidity or speak our own language fluently. If he has not thereby learned the knowledge of things signified by such language, he is, in principle, advanced no farther than the parrot which says "pretty poll, ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... Childhood always should make a home bright and there came a time when the little house by the creek fairly blossomed with young faces. The children of the Kollanders, the Perrys, the Calvins, the Nesbits, and the Bowmans—girls and boys were everywhere and they knew all times and seasons. But the red poll and freckled face of Grant Adams was the center of this posy bed ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... and, though this way may seem uncertain, yet so merciful are the inclinations of that people, that they are plentifully supplied by it; but in other places public revenues are set aside for them, or there is a constant tax or poll-money raised for their maintenance. In some places they are set to no public work, but every private man that has occasion to hire workmen goes to the market-places and hires them of the public, a little lower than he would do a freeman. ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... formal name, but no one ever used it. Adam, on first lifting the blanket, had fancied the child resembled its mother and had called her "Little Poll." The name clung to her. Kate could not call such a tiny morsel either Kate or Katherine; she liked "Little Poll," better. The baby had three regular visitors. One was her father. He was not fond of Kate; ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... "talking away like a poll-parrot with the black-haired gent. That were last Monday; to-day's Friday, and this morning there comes this bit of a note to me at our house in Dawson Street. So my old woman says. 'Jim, you'd ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... 1381, the great uprising began—the Hurling time of the peasants—long to be remembered with horror by the governing classes. A badly ordered poll-tax was the match that ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... unseen, which made the navigation an anxious task for Tom. He was ably assisted by Mr. Milman. It was a most unpleasant morning, and, keeping quietly down in my berth, I think I was better off than some of those on deck. After passing Ninepin and Saddle Islands, and the three island-sisters, Poll, Bet, and Sue, we made Cocoa-nut Island, one of the few high islands we have seen to-day. During the afternoon the navigation continued to be intricate, but shortly after sunset we made York Islands, under ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... my time, and I've played the deuce with men! I'm speaking of ten years past—I was barely sixty then: My cheeks were mellow and soft, and my eyes were large and sweet, POLL PINEAPPLE'S eyes were the standing ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... not leave home without the consent of his parents, every opposition newspaper in the state would howl about the waste of time and money spent on ridiculous legislation passed to govern activities that are already under excellent control. They would poll the state and point out that for so many million children under age fourteen, precisely zero of them have left home to set up their own housekeeping. One might just as well waste the taxpayer's money by passing a law that confirms the ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... acid that the children get frightened and burst out crying, thinking something dreadful is going to happen. Learned Johnson, splashing his pompous wit over the table for Boswell to pick up, must have been a sublime nuisance. It was said of Goldsmith that "he wrote like an angel and talked like poor Poll." There is more interest in the dining-room when we have ordinary people than ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... day the Fewkes family hove into sight in a light democrat wagon drawn by a good-sized apology for a horse, poor as a crow, and carrying sail in the most ferocious way of any beast I ever saw. He had had a bad case of poll-evil and his head was poked forward as if he was just about to bite something, and his ears were leered back tight to his head with an expression of the most terrible anger—I have known people who went through the world in ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... exports. In relation to every other object within their jurisdiction, whether persons, property, business, or professions, it was secured in as ample a manner as it was before possessed. All persons, though United States officers, are liable to a poll tax by the States within which they reside. The lands of the United States are liable to the usual land tax, except in the new States, from whom agreements that they will not tax unsold lands are exacted when they are admitted into the Union. Horses, wagons, any beasts or ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson
... sprung nervously from the chair, and clasping her hands behind her back, raised her shapely head to address a large green parrot, that was whistling in his great iron cage, on the verandah beside her,—"Poor Poll, Pretty Poll"—came from the thin, pretty coral lips. Poll, thrust his head on one side, and looked almost calculatingly upon the svelte figure of his mistress, and said in a meaning croak, "come to dinner—the ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... black tings," replied the proud possessor of the new word, with a look of ineffable scorn, "you no know what um call Poton-hoton-poll-fuss. Me no tell you," continued she, as she walked away, leaving the others almost white with envy ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... UMBONATA (Lindl. MSS.); inermis, glaberrima, foliis coriaceis longissimis loratis obtusis in petiolum sensim angustatis, pedunculis solitariis (2 poll.) stipite ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... First, there was Poll, hopping up and down from her perch to the floor of the cage, chattering continually between her fits of coughing, "I'm sick! I'm sick! O, what a cold!" and then, changing her tone, ...
— Minnie's Pet Dog • Madeline Leslie
... was, in point of size, the finest man by far of the two. He stood over six feet high; he had a beautiful red and white colour; a smooth round face, shaved as bare as your hand; and a head of lovely long flaxen hair, falling negligently over the poll of his neck. But why do I try to give you this personal description of him? If you ever subscribed to a Ladies' Charity in London, you know Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite as well as I do. He was a barrister ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... those who fail, chants to Death—strong deliverer—and giving courage to a fear-stricken world; Thoreau, declining to pay the fee of five dollars for his Harvard diploma "because it wasn't worth the price," later refusing to pay poll-tax and sent to jail, thus missing, possibly, the chance of finding that specimen of Victoria regia on Concord River—Thoreau, most virile of all the thinkers of his day, inspiring Emerson, the one man America could illest spare; Spinoza, the intellectual ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... parrot screamed, And "Pretty Poll," repeated I, The while I stole a merry glance Across the room all on the sly, Where some one plied her needle fast, Demurely by the window sitting; But I beheld upon her cheek A multitude of ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... University distinctions and was not in the technical sense a reading man, but he passed through his course in a leisurely manner, amusing himself with music and drawing and poetry, and modestly went out in the Poll in January 1830, after a period of suspense during which he was apprehensive of not passing at all. Immediately after taking his degree he went to stay with his brother-in-law, Mr. Kerrich, at Geldestone Hall, near ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... was the squire's name) had got up from his seat and was striding about the room, and the doctor, as if to hear the better, had taken off his powdered wig and sat there looking very strange indeed with his own close-cropped black poll. ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... enforce the provisions of the Statutes of Laborers had undoubtedly produced much friction between the landlords and their employees. A new form of taxation also caused much irritation. A general poll tax, which was to be paid by every one above sixteen years of age, was established in 1379 and another one in the following year to meet the expenses of the hopeless French war which was now being conducted by incapable and highly ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... patched with gold ducats, and ride a good nag shod with silver shoes. I pray that your honour may not be able to count the hairs of your head, and that as many blessings may be showered upon your shoulders as you have lost hairs from your poll. I pray that all the ministering angels of heaven may have nothing else to do but sweep all earthly cares out of your honour's path. I pray that the golden-spurred csizmas of your felicity may never be bespattered by the puddles of tribulation. I pray that the field-flask of your good humour ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... of the ship captain; or of the ship that finally saved him? Who knows? The book is a desert as far as nomenclature goes—the only blossoms being his own name; that of Wells, a Brazilian neighbor; Xury, the Moorish boy; Friday, Poll, the ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... to ask for promotion on any other ground than that of family influence. As a parliamentary candidate, Burgoyne took our common expression "fighting an election" so very literally that he led his supporters to the poll at Preston in 1768 with a loaded pistol in each hand, and won the seat, though he was fined 1,000 pounds, and denounced by Junius, ...
— The Devil's Disciple • George Bernard Shaw
... shall hold the election in conformity with this act, and, so far as may be consistent therewith, shall proceed in the manner used in the State prior to the rebellion. The oath of allegiance shall be taken and subscribed on the poll book by every voter in the form above prescribed, but every person known by or proved to the commissioners to have held or exercised any office, civil or military, State or Confederate, under the rebel usurpation, or to have voluntarily borne arms against the United States, shall be excluded ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... and stood the poor simpletons, steadfastly looking up, while Master Poll cried sternly all the while, "Ami, make ready! Finette, attention!" Finette became almost wild with eagerness; and poor Ami could hardly stand on ...
— The Nursery, No. 103, July, 1875. Vol. XVIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... was it a beast. It had wings, though, and queer wings they were: shaped like an inverted chopping-bowl and covered with tough skin instead of feathers. It had four legs—much like the legs of a stork, only double the number—and its head was shaped a good deal like that of a poll parrot, with a beak that curved downward in front and upward at the edges, and was half bill and half mouth. But to call it a bird was out of the question, because it had no feathers whatever except a crest ...
— The Scarecrow of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... all was that my agent at the last moment threw up the sponge. The farmers formed a serried phalanx against Free Trade; it was useless to incur the expense of a poll. Then came the bill. It was a heavy one; for in addition to my London agent - a professional electioneering functionary - were the local agents at towns like Malmesbury, Wootton Bassett, Shrivenham, &c., &c. My eldest brother, who was a soberer-minded ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... who now on seeing him would fain run away. So the Jinn, without an instant's delay, raised his quarter staff of steel, and, swinging it twice in air, before Prince Ahmad could reach the throne or on any wise interfere, struck the Sultan so fiercely upon the poll that his skull was smashed and his brains were scattered over the floor. And when Shabbar had made an end of this offender, he savagely turned upon the Grand Wazir who stood on the Sultan's right and incontinently ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... merely to cling to existence is not an act in itself either righteous or courageous. If we owe obligations to individuals we should pay them to the last cent. If we owe obligations to society, we should pay those, too,—just as we pay our poll tax. But life is a straight business proposition—pay in some form for what you get out of it. There are no individuals in my life, as I said. And what do I owe society? Society does not like what I offer—the best of me—and will not give me what I want—the best of it. ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... that immensely, and when she told about the prim old gentleman who came once to woo Aunt March, and in the middle of a fine speech, how Poll had tweaked his wig off to his great dismay, the boy lay back and laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks, and a maid popped her head in to see what was ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... wagon and walked, as there were a good many warblers in the trees—the spring migration was on. It was pretty warm; I took off my overcoat and the President insisted on carrying it. We identified several warblers there, among them the black-poll, the black-throated blue, and Wilson's black-cap. He knew them in the trees overhead as quickly as ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... on your inimy. As for scalping, or even skinning a savage, I look upon them pretty much the same as cutting off the ears of wolves for the bounty, or stripping a bear of its hide. And then you're out significantly, as to taking the poll of a red-skin in hand, seeing that the very colony has offered a bounty for the job; all the same as it pays for wolves' ears ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... although his voice was childlike no longer and his face was covered with unsightly short hair, and he was large and strong, running mostly to legs and arms, he was simple and innocent. His clothes were much too small, and a thick growth of wild hair topped his poll, otherwise innocent ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... the classes they directly and indirectly encouraged, had at last brought the city fairly on the financial rocks. There was no more revenue. Everything taxable had been taxed. The poll tax was out of all reason; property paid 4 per cent. on an actual valuation; theatres, bankers, brokers, freight, miners, merchants, hotel, keepers, incorporations, every form of industry was levied upon heavily. Still that was not enough. ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... "Hush, Poll, nobody's talking to you! It's astonishing, my dear, how much that creature knows. She thinks when I nod my head I'm trying to convince her of something, and it always makes ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... feeble digestion, this sort of thing can lead to trouble. One waiter I met at an hotel in Dijon knew very little English—about as much as a poll parrot. The moment I entered the salle- a-manger ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... parish will be doing tomorrow, and the whole of Tweeddale in two weeks, and the black brothers - well, I won't put a date on that; it will be a dark and stormy morning! Your secret, in other words, is poor Poll's. And I want to ask of you as a friend whether you like the prospect? There are two horns to your dilemma, and I must say for myself I should look mighty ruefully on either. Do you see yourself explaining ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... none of Mr. Marmaduke's nonsense about you. She is a good girl, i' faith, and more of a lady now than many who call themselves such. And you shall have your present to boot. Hark'ee, Daniel," said he to the captain; "if the child comes to my house, the poll-parrots and follow-me-ups will ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... "Exactly; the poll is on Wednesday, and the poor man will have worked himself to a shadow by that time. Imagine what electioneering must be like in this awful soaking rain, going along slushy country roads and speaking to damp audiences in draughty schoolrooms, ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... have only taken a very temperate interest in woman's suffrage is that women themselves, in the mass, have taken an equally temperate interest in the matter when they have not been actually hostile to the movement. It may indeed be said, even at the present time, that whenever an impartial poll is taken of a large miscellaneous group of women, only a minority are found to be in favour of woman's suffrage.[56] No significant event has occurred to stimulate general interest in the matter, and no supremely eloquent or influential voice has artificially ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... different man from the old bachelor who used to come a-wooing every six months at the Home. Either marriage had brought him a new growth of hair, or else Blossy had selected a new wig for him—a modest, close, iron-gray which fitted his poll to perfection. Marriage or Blossy had also overcome in Samuel that tendency to hang his head "to starb'd"; and now he lifted his bright eyes with the manner of one who ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund
... English! Who knows but he understood all I said, and what the parrot said too. Poll, you go into your cage! 'At your service, madam!' And did you hear it, Lucy? No errand-boy ever spoke in the loikes o' that before! I'd think h'd been brought up among the quality. It maybe he's a Fairy Shoemaker, spaking the queen's court-language, ...
— Little Sky-High - The Surprising Doings of Washee-Washee-Wang • Hezekiah Butterworth
... than skill, the poll of the axe struck the animal just above the eyes at the root of the antlers. It staggered, holding its head to one side a moment, as if half-stunned or in pain. Then, recovering, it snorted, and with a bound through the brush, jumped into the stream, and either swam or waded across to ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... cosen Anthony Joyce's, and there took leave of my aunt James, and both cosens, their wives, who are this day going down to my father's by coach. I did give my aunt 20s., to carry as a token to my mother, and 10s. to Poll. [His sister Paulina.] With the Duke; and saw him with great pleasure play with his little girle, like an ordinary private father of ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... close of the poll, Mr. Bradlaugh was leaving the same night for America, having barely time to catch the boat at Liverpool. I drove round with him before leaving, on a visit to some of the polling stations. He had paid me a modest sum for my services, but he found he had hardly ...
— Reminiscences of Charles Bradlaugh • George W. Foote
... prey by poll; a maid or twain what parted have not they? Have they not parted, Sisera, a party-colour'd prey A party-colour'd neildwork prey of neildwork on each side That's party-colour'd meet for necks of ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... artistry, the Frenchman was in all points save one the superior. Sheppard's brain carried him not beyond the wants of to-day and the extortions of Poll Maggot. ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... be the major premise in the syllogism necessary to the establishment of his political status—a definition of "Democrat" or "Republican." Most of the statesmen in public and private life who are poll-parroting these words, do so with entire unconsciousness of their meaning, or rather without knowledge that they have lost whatever of meaning they once had. The words are mere "survivals," marking dead issues and covering allegiances of the loosest and most shallow ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... defiance of the feelings and opinions of his political associates, for sturdy and commendable independence. He alienated many friends by his conduct on this occasion, but he won his election, coming in at the head of the poll. By dint of strenuous exertions—made necessary by his obstinacy—Mr. Scholefield came in second. The poll stood at the close—Muntz, 2,830; Scholefield, 2,824; Spooner, 2,302; Allen, 89. From this time till his death, ten years ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... and goods against odds of at least four to one. Swinging a cold chisel, someone chipped a bit of bone out of the watchman's skull as expeditiously and almost as neatly as a visiting Englishman chips the poll of his breakfast egg; so that forever after the victim nursed an achesome and slightly addled brain. ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... must refer this correspondent also to a Law Dictionary for a full explanation of the terms Sergeant and Sergeantcy. A Deed Poll is plain at the top, and is so called to distinguish it from a Deed Indented, which is cut in and ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 72, March 15, 1851 • Various
... many Negroes, and indeed hundreds of thousands of white men as well, who might vote, but who, through ignorance, or inability or unwillingness to pay the poll-taxes, or from mere lack of interest, ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... the button for No. 1. Oh, his visitors had made matters appear justifiable. The presidential election campaign was going badly, Rakoff the chairman said, and his poll-quota for the election had been upped from twenty-five ...
— The House from Nowhere • Arthur G. Stangland
... gained for him many warm friends, while at the same time his earnestness and flowing eloquence proved that he was a true son of his father. He conducted the campaign with signal ability, and laid the foundation of a lasting reputation in the constituency. At the close of the poll the returning-officer declared Mr. Clark to have been duly elected, but, as it was notorious that corrupt practices had been resorted to, a protest was entered by the friends of the Reform candidate, who himself appeared in person ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... insincere caress, whereas it was a perfectly honest expression of hostility. This attack was all the more unjust and undeserved since the bear was a most hardworking and underpaid member of the community. When a politician reached the top of the poll he got L400 a year. When a bear did the same he only ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 8, 1914 • Various
... queen, Mary, rising majestically from her throne, with imperial, yet gentle look, exclaimed in a sweet voice—"Scratch Poll's head." ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 564, September 1, 1832 • Various
... already; don't you know what happened at Birr? They tore down all Miller's notices and mine, they smashed our booths, beat our voters out of the town, and placed Donogan—the rebel Donogan—at the head of the poll, and the head-centre is now M.P. for ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... themselves among the idlest and most noxious vagabonds in the country, and the authors of senseless wars which generated a mass of vagrancy, by filling the country with disbanded soldiers. In the reign of Richard II., the poll tax being added to other elements of class discord, labour strikes, takes arms under Wat Tyler, demands fixed rents, tenant right in an extreme form, and the total abolition of serfage. A wild religious communism bred ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... these hands have freed the land from destruction; behold the dragon's heads, which are the proofs of my valour; therefore recollect, every promise is a debt." As soon as the King heard this, he lifted the crown from his own head and set it upon the countryman's poll, who looked like a thief on ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... to me; but before its close it became abundantly evident that if the electors were allowed to exercise a free discretion and vote according to their consciences, I should have headed the poll by a large majority. However in Ireland man proposes and ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... of these delicacies when, to the sound of music, Trimalchio himself was carried in and bolstered up in a nest of small cushions, which forced a snicker from the less wary. A shaven poll protruded from a scarlet mantle, and around his neck, already muffled with heavy clothing, he had tucked a napkin having a broad purple stripe and a fringe that hung down all around. On the little finger of his left hand he wore a massive gilt ring, ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... Come, Poll, come, Bet! Escaped from school, We'll wade across the shallows cool Of Roaring Tom and Silver Pool, And climb the pines ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... text "Turtr"the Badawi's bonnet: vol. ii. 143. Mr. Doughty (i. 160) found at Al-Khuraybah the figure of an ancient Arab wearing a close tunic to the knee and bearing on poll a coif. At Al-'Ula he was shown an ancient image of a man's head cut in sandstone: upon the crown was a low pointed bonnet. "Long caps" are also noticed in i. 562; and we are told that they were "worn in outlandish ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... worshipper of mammon and the philosophical atheist hold no communion with the signers of the declaration that all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights. But, with these exceptions, poll the whole mass of Christian men, of every name, sect, or denomination, throughout the globe, and you will not hear a solitary voice deny that slavery is a wrong, a crime, ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... that sturdy, voyaging Englishman who was always on the lookout for adventures and was never discouraged by any circumstances in which he found himself. The picture of the brave captain in his hairy goatskin clothes, Poll on his shoulder, his faithful dog by his side, and Friday following along behind, is one that remains stamped for life on ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... for the sake of the congregation,—the "congregation" in the technical sense attached to that word in the Law. Hence the necessity for the general temple-tax, the prototype of which is found in the poll-tax of half a shekel for the service of the tabernacle in Exodus xxx. 11 seq. Prior to the exile, the regular sacrifice was paid for by the Kings of Judah, and in Ezekiel the monarch still continues to defray the expenses not only of the Sabbath ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... immaculate building, set in the cool shade, its straight-lined front broken only by a recessed balcony, whence, as occasion arose, Mr. George Bellingham, Chief Magistrate, delivered the text of a proclamation, royal or provincial, or declared the poll when the people of Port Nassau ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... Seraglio. He thus mentions them, together with honest Levett, in one of his letters to Mrs. Thrale: 'Williams hates every body; Levett hates Desmoulins, and does not love Williams; Desmoulins hates them both; Poll* loves none ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... delighted at hearing of your arrival. Give my love to Clive—a remarkable fine boy, Clive—good morning:" and the Baronet was gone, and his bald head might presently be seen alongside of Mr. Quilter's confidential grey poll, both of their faces turned into ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the kind," said Mr. Brooke. "The Tories bribe, you know: Hawley and his set bribe with treating, hot codlings, and that sort of thing; and they bring the voters drunk to the poll. But they are not going to have it their own way in future—not in future, you know. Middlemarch is a little backward, I admit—the freemen are a little backward. But we shall educate them—we ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... to have the happiness of cultivating the affectionate acquaintance of Amy. I may not myself,' said Mr Sparkler manfully, 'be up to the mark on some other subjects at a short notice, and I am aware that if you were to poll Society the general opinion would be that I am not; but on the subject of Amy I am up ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... and offered himself as a candidate for London. There, indeed, he did not succeed, though the populace was uproarious in his support, and drew his carriage through the streets as if in triumph. But, before the end of the month, he was returned at the head of the poll for Middlesex, when the mob celebrated his victory by great riot and outrages, breaking the windows of Lord Bute, as his old enemy, and of the Lord Mayor, as the representative of the City of London, ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... parrot, who had been half asleep in the corner, awoke on Lady Castlefort's pronouncing, in an elevated tone, "All, all!" and conceiving himself in some way called upon, answered, "Poll! Poll! bit o'sugar Poll!" No small difficulty had Lady Cecilia at that moment in keeping her risible muscles in order; but she did, for Helen's sake, and she was rewarded, for after Lady Castlefort had, all unconscious of ridicule, fed Poll from her amber bonbonniere, and sighed out once more ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... so well, That Fops and Knaves grow Drugs, and will not sell. In vain our Wares on Theaters are shown, When each has a Plantation of his own. His Cruse ne'er fails; for whatsoe'er he spends, There's still God's plenty for himself and Friends. Shou'd Men be rated by Poetick Rules, Lord, what a Poll would there be rais'd from Fools! Mean time poor Wit prohibited must lie, As if 'twere made some French Commodity. Fools you will have, and rais'd at vast expence; And yet as soon as seen, they give offence. Time was, when none would cry that Oaf was me, But now you strive about your ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... perceived that Mrs. Charmond must have recognized her plodding up the hill under the blaze of the lamp; recognized, probably, her stubbly poll (since she had kept away her face), and thought that those stubbles were the result ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... old man seemed to try and start; then he nodded, and held out the note he had written. Bob Pillin received it together with the impression of a murmur which sounded like: "Scratch a poll, Poll!" and passing the fine figure of a woman in a fur coat, who seemed to warm the air as she went by, he was in the hall again before he perceived that he had ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... C-a-t, cat. D-o-g, fox," with an affectation of juvenility which was grewsome. He resented an ill-advised attempt at familiarity by snapping at the finger which tried to scratch his poll, and barked out: ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 520, December 19, 1885 • Various
... whom your shadow touches Grudge you the glad, but deferential, eye; Should any cripple fail to hold his crutches At the salute as you go marching by; Draw, in the KAISER's name—'tis rank high treason; Stun them with sabre-strokes upon the poll; Then dump them (giving no pedantic reason) Down cellars with ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 14, 1914 • Various
... white faces, and white legs, and a hornless sheep is rarely to be seen; but as soon as you pass that river eastward, and mount Beeding Hill, all the flocks at once become hornless, or as they call them, poll-sheep; and have, moreover, black faces with a white tuft of wool on their foreheads, and speckled and spotted legs, so that you would think that the flocks of Laban were pasturing on one side of the stream, and the variegated ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White |
