"Prying" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... could tell you where the Earl of Lancaster mustered his forces, the day of their march, and the very purposes and projects of that turbulent noble. Even the secrets of my lady's bower did not elude the prying of this indefatigable artist; at any rate, he had the credit of knowing all that he assumed, which amounted very much to the same thing as though his knowledge were unlimited: a nod and a wink supplying the place of intelligence, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... had suffered from hunger, cold, fatigue, and watchfulness; after all their perils from treacherous and savage men, they exulted in the snugness and security of their isolated cabin, hidden, as they thought, even from the prying eyes of Indian scouts, and stored with creature comforts. They looked forward to a winter of peace and quietness; of roasting, broiling, and boiling, feasting upon venison, mountain mutton, bear's meat, marrow-bones, buffalo humps, and other hunters' dainties; of dozing ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... which is here forbidden is rather knowledge as such, general knowledge, or getting the eyes opened, as it is afterwards called. This is what transcends, in the writer's view, the limits of our nature; prying out the secret of things, the secret of the world, and overlooking, as it were, God's hand to see how He goes to work in His living activity, so as, perhaps, to learn His secret and imitate Him. For knowledge is to the ancient world also power, and no mere metaphysic. This ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... with Napoleon," says Lucien, "I at once went into the cabinet where Bourrienne was working, and found that unbearable busybody of a secretary, whose star had already paled more than once, which made him more prying than ever, quite upset by the time the First Consul had taken to come out of his bath. He must, or at least might, have heard some noise, for enough had been made. Seeing that he wanted to know the cause from me, I took up a newspaper to avoid being bored by his ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... advancing menacingly upon Christine. "I always felt you were a spy. But you shall not stay prying here another day. Pack your things and ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... one day—for so runs the tradition— While idling and lingering about The low city streets, a Magician From Africa, swarthy and stout, With his wise, prying eyes ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... wrong," said the Jew, "that was the part of a fool. No Christians here could buy so many horses and armour—no Jew except myself would give him half the values. But thou hast a hundred zecchins with thee in that bag," said Isaac, prying under Gurth's cloak, ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... childish foreboding on your part, the result of an agitated mind and a weakened body. Can anything be more absurd than to suppose, that a secret confided to me can be pregnant with danger, unless it be, indeed, that my zeal to assist you may lead me into difficulties. I am not of a prying disposition; but we have been so long connected together, and are now so isolated from the rest of the world, that it appears to me it would be a solace to you, were you to confide in one whom you can trust, what evidently has long preyed upon your mind. The consolation ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... time Odin, Loki, and Hoenir started on a journey. They had often traveled together before on all sorts of errands, for they had a great many things to look after, and more than once they had fallen into trouble through the prying, meddlesome, malicious spirit of Loki, who was never so happy as when he was doing wrong. When the gods went on a journey they traveled fast and hard, for they were strong, active spirits who loved nothing so much as hard work, hard blows, storm, ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... descended, he plainly saw the form of the witch, coming to wash in the stream just below him. The water was clear reflecting her visage, fearsome in its hideous detail. Up in the tree brave Eut-le-ten saw her, he thought himself safe from her fierce prying eyes; he forgot that he too was mirrored below in the still water which lay at her feet. When she had finished her morning ablutions, she filled her vessel with water and turned to depart, when she saw just below her, the features of Eut-le-ten in the still water. Upturning her ...
— Indian Legends of Vancouver Island • Alfred Carmichael
... and prying with the iron bar to get the wheel itself free from where it was jammed by the cable against the side of the block. After that Jerry replaced the wheel, and by means of the rope, heaved up on the car till the trolley once more ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... I know," replied the irritated Cockney, who swiftly resented this prying into his affairs. Remembering himself instantly, he turned with a fine red in his face to the girl on the dais. "I beg your pardon, Your Grace, for forgetting myself. It was none of 'is business," ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... sacrifice all to the well-being and happiness of those she loved. With Nan self held a particularly subservient place to every other emotion. And when it did manage to obtrude itself it was her way to fight her battle alone, at a time when no prying eyes were there to witness her sufferings. To the daylight she presented a pair of sweet brown smiling eyes, and lips as full, and ripe, and firm as though no shadow of doubt and unhappiness had ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... occurred to the Anarchist, but, were I myself organising secret committee meetings for unholy purposes, I should invite my comrades to meet in that section of the local museum devoted to statuary. I can conceive of no place where we should be freer from prying eyes and listening ears. A select few, however, do appreciate statuary; and such, I am inclined to think, will not be weaned from their passion by the contemplation of the opera singer in his ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... Abe was prying at that hole with a dead branch of a tree, and, almost while he was speaking, a great piece of the loose pudding-stone fell off and came thumping down at ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... herself an ambush from prying eyes in one corner of the apartment. She turned her boudoir into a bedroom and sitting-room combined. From there she heard the shuffling of feet as the people assembled in the large dismantled drawing-room without. She was writing ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... a crime to drive a prying miscreant from his door? Crime! Oh, no, sir; if there be a criminal involved in this affair, it is ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... you want it for?" said the postmaster, in a tone which Andy considered an aggression upon the sacredness of private life. So Andy, in his ignorance and pride, thought the coolest contempt he could throw upon the prying impertinence of the postmaster was ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... snoring pig is not a poem, whatever may be said of a little roast pig; and what an escape from books and people and parlors (in this country) is the feeding and littering and scratching of him! You put on your old clothes for him. He takes you out behind the barn; there shut away from the prying gaze of the world, and the stern eye, conscience, you deliberately fill him, stuff him, fatten him, till he grunts, then you scratch him to keep him grunting, yourself reveling in the sight of the flesh indulged, as ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp
... chief of the Civil Guard and two gentlemen carrying papers and bottles of ink; all with an escort of men wearing three-cornered hats and carrying guns. These omnipotent personages, after a rest at Can Mallorqui, had climbed up to the tower, examining everything, prying all around, running over the ground as if to measure it, compelling him, the Little Chaplain, to lie down in the very spot where Don Jaime had been found, adopting a similar posture. After the visit of the magistrate some pious neighbors had borne the body of the Ironworker to the cemetery ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... her scat and asked him, as a particular favour, not to allude again to his discovery. It was no concern of hers at all, and she had no warrant for prying into his secrets. She was very sorry to have been for a moment so absurd as to appear to do so, and she humbly begged his pardon for her meddling. Saying this she walked on with a charming colour in her cheek, while he laughed ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... swelt'ring Jove and the sacred sepulchre of ancient Battus, or as the thronging stars which in the hush of darkness witness the furtive loves of mortals, to kiss thee with kisses of so great a number is enough and to spare for passion-driven Catullus: so many that prying eyes may not avail to number, nor ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... interchanging a joke with the dwellers in the house. While all these pleasing occupations proceeded, the hour of Cudmore's trial was approaching. The tea-pot which had stood the attack of fourteen cups without flinching, at last began to fail, and discovered to the prying eyes of Mrs. Clanfrizzle, nothing but an olive-coloured deposit of soft matter, closely analogous in appearance and chemical property to the residuary precipitate in a drained fish-pond; she put down the ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... keep a very sharp look-out on all political offences, but are more indulgent towards all moral ones, as long as public decorum is not infringed, and then it is severely punished. But they have none of that censoriousness or prying spirit in France which is so common in England to hunt out and criticise the private vices of their neighbours, which, in my opinion, does not proceed from any real regard for virtue, but from a fanatical, jealous, envious, and malignant ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... of pursuit. The soldiers kept unsuspiciously at their mid-day meal. The swamp-lined creek-sides served well as a shelter from prying eyes. For hours Cushing pursued his slow course. The sun sank; darkness gathered; night came on. At the same time the water widened around him; he was on ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... gentlemen who would freely open their gates to respectable visitors, provided they could be assured of every party being contented with a general view of the local beauties, without indulging a too prying curiosity; and at the same time would refrain from plucking choice flowers, fruits, and shrubs, many of which may perhaps have been cultivated by the hands of the owner with an affection of no little ...
— Brannon's Picture of The Isle of Wight • George Brannon
... buried treasures of light, the million-fold ensemble of lustres dancing schottishe with the eye, as it moved or was still: this place, I should guess, being quite half a mile from the entrance. My prying lantern showed me here only nineteen dead, men of various nations, and at the far end two holes in the floor, large enough to admit the body, through which from below came up a sound of falling water. Both of these holes, I could see, had been filled ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... men pried with their crowbars, and the big stone started from its place and rolled down from the pile. And the men got it over to the trench, sometimes prying it with their crowbars and sometimes rolling it with their hands, and they set it in its place on top of the small ...
— The Doers • William John Hopkins
... A waking eye, a prying mind; A heart that stirs, is hard to bind; A hawk's keen sight ye cannot blind; Ye ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... put his mug down and leaned with both elbows upon the rough deal table, because he wanted to talk confidentially with his friend, and there was never any knowing what prying ears might be about. ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... the most prying and adroit of politicians were puzzled to read the signs of the times. Despite Henry's garrulity, or perhaps in consequence of it, the envoys of Spain, the Empire, and of Archduke Albert were ignorant whether peace were likely to be broken or not, in spite of rumours which ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... good natural Notions, and will soon learn Arts and Sciences; but are generally diverted by Business or Inclination from profound Study, and prying into the Depth of Things; being ripe for Management of their Affairs, before they have laid so good a Foundation of Learning, and had such Instructions, and acquired such Accomplishments, as might ...
— The Present State of Virginia • Hugh Jones
... himself—"it is all very well for you to prate of forgiveness; but I'll have you in the 'Chambers' in less than a month—then see if you can again escape me! In that luxurious underground retreat, from whose mysterious recess no cry can reach the ears of prying mortals above—there, amid the sumptuousness of an Oriental palace, will I riot on those charms of thine, which now I dare but gaze upon! I'll make thee a slave to every extravagant caprice of my passion; I'll become a god of pleasure, and thou, my beautiful blonde, shall be my ministering ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... light flickered in Puma's eyes, but the cool smile lay smoothly on his lips, and he did not even turn his head to watch them as they passed along the walls, sounding, peering, prying, and jerking open the door of the cupboard—the only furniture there except the desk and the chair ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... close of his first year Goriot began to practise little economies; at the end of the second he removed his rooms to the second floor, and did without a fire all the winter. This although, as Madame Vauquer's prying eyes had seen, Goriot's name appeared in the list of state funds for a sum representing an income of from eight to ten thousand francs. Henceforth she denounced him to the other paying-guests as an unprincipled old libertine, who lavished his ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... caught the children prying into the cupboard. She will be angry with them, I am sure, for ...
— Child-Land - Picture-Pages for the Little Ones • Oscar Pletsch
... were asked, for it was necessary now to be very careful. Half-a-dozen might be invited, as if to supper; but the times when a hundred or more had assembled to hear the Word of God were gone by. Would they ever come again? They dared not begin to read until all prying eyes and ears were likely to be closed in sleep; and the reader's voice was low, that nobody might be roused next door. Few people could read then, especially among the labouring class, so that, except on these occasions, ...
— The King's Daughters • Emily Sarah Holt
... Mr. Derwentwater, "if there is any mystery, all right; I don't want to be prying;" but, as was natural, this only increased his curiosity. After an interval, he broke forth again. "A little mystery," he said, "suits them; a woman ought to be mysterious, with her long robes falling round her, and her mystery of long hair, and all the natural ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... them, carrying a round stick, a piece from a small sapling that the guide had picked up for firewood. This she cautiously slipped under the rope at the edge of the shelf, prying the rope up a little in order to do so, thus sending Tommy into a fresh outburst of terror when she felt the added movement of ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls in the Hills - The Missing Pilot of the White Mountains • Janet Aldridge
... struck fiercely at the bait. She soon had plenty for supper and breakfast. Wherefore she abandoned that diversion, and took to prying tentatively in the lee of certain bowlders on the edge of the creek—prospecting on her own initiative, as it were. She had no pan, and only one hand to work with, but she knew gold when she saw it—and, after all, it was but an idle method of ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... earlier emigrants went forward, driving their heavily laden wagon by day and sleeping at night by the camp. After they had passed the region of roads and bridges they had to literally hew their way; cutting down bushes, prying their wagon out of bog-holes, building bridges or poling themselves across streams on rafts. But, in defiance of every ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... enjoyed the services of a physician named Rouget, whom they held to be a man of consummate malignity. Were we to believe certain bold tongues, he made his wife extremely unhappy, although she was the most beautiful woman of the neighborhood. Perhaps, indeed, she was rather silly. But the prying of friends, the slander of enemies, and the gossip of acquaintances, had never succeeded in laying bare the interior of that household. Doctor Rouget was a man of whom we say in common parlance, "He is ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... Budlong felt of the water. It was, as Hicks had said, even warmer than tepid from standing—an ideal temperature. The brush grew high around the pond formed by the back-water and made a perfect shelter. No fear of prying eyes ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... dug a monstrous pit To hold his wealth, and buried it By night, alone; then smoothed the ground So that the spot could not be found. But he gained nothing by his labor: A curious, prying, envious neighbor, Who marked the hiding, went and told The Sultan where to find the gold. A troop of soldiers came next day, And bore the hoarded ...
— Harper's Young People, December 9, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Bob flushing; "I just meant supervisors' salaries, of course. I wasn't prying, really. It's all a matter ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... and leads us all on and we do tell him everything; especially Mamie Sue, if we don't warn her beforehand and make her wear a horsehair ring not to forget when he asks her questions. It makes Belle mad for him to do Mamie Sue that way, and she calls it "prying"; but I think it is just kindness. How can you sympathize with your friends' affairs if you don't make them tell you all? And sympathy applied to life is like the gasoline in a motorcar, ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess
... path, Where the shy stream's encircling heights Shut out all prying eyes, invites Her lily daughters ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... fair shrine of that holy love! Tears of tenderness rose to his eyes, and in the midst of them he thought his mother sat before him. Her head was bent; an all-eating shame was crimsoning her pale cheek. Then he knew that other eyes were upon her, looking into her heart, prying deep down into her dead past, keeping open the heavy eyelids that could never sleep. He looked up; his own shadow was silently gazing ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... some days, the guest of Mountjoy. There, on 7 July, a letter found him, written on 18 April by his superior, the prior of Steyn, his old friend Servatius Rogerus, recalling him to the monastery after so many years of absence. The letter had already been in the hands of more than one prying person, before it reached him by ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... Afterwards, prying for epitaphs, we found a marble crusader with a broken nose, under a battered canopy of fretted stone, outside the restricted limits of the present Duffield church, and half buried in nettles. "Ichabod," said my uncle. "Eh? We shall be like that, Susan, some ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... "and he said I'd no business to ask; and if Bet went prying about everywhere, I'd better ask her. Have ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge
... him. It was Henrietta Hen. Being a prying sort of person she had followed Turkey Proudfoot around the house to see what happened when ...
— The Tale of Turkey Proudfoot - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... dining-room furniture has been replaced; the tables are as nicely polished as formerly; the horsehair chairs are ranged against the wall, as regularly as ever; Venetian blinds have been fitted to every window in the house to intercept the prying gaze of Mrs. Joseph Porter. The subject of theatricals is never mentioned in the Gattleton family, unless, indeed, by Uncle Tom, who cannot refrain from sometimes expressing his surprise and regret at finding that ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... a narrow lane between high walls, a place where refuse collected and was allowed to remain undisturbed, a place upon which looked no prying window and which echoed ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... The Gays are hard up and proud and the Hildreths are busy and like to keep to themselves. I don't know now whether Louisa and Alec will be glad to see me bringing three strangers to meet 'em, but my honest opinion is they need someone to say 'Hello' and be friendly without prying." ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence
... Indians now swarmed about the place. Some brought a few land-otter and sea-otter skins to barter, but in very scanty parcels; the greater number came prying about to gratify their curiosity, for they are said to be impertinently inquisitive; while not a few came with no other design than to pilfer; the laws of meum and tuum being but slightly respected among them. Some of them beset the ship in their canoes, among ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... the purpose of my visit, the nature of my business, how long I intended to stay, did I have a place to stay arranged for, and if so, where and through whom. It looked for all the world as though they had something to conceal; Czarist Russia couldn't beat that for keeping track of people and prying into their business. Sign here, the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... which her father's sense of the antique nobility of his family was highest, and his sensitiveness to the smudge which Tess had set upon that nobility most pronounced, for he had just returned from his weekly booze at Rolliver's Inn. No parson should come inside his door, he declared, prying into his affairs, just then, when, by her shame, it had become more necessary than ever to hide them. He locked the door and put ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... doubtful that my former trance Could not as yet be o'er. A slender girl, long-haired, and tall, Sate watching by the cottage wall. The sparkle of her eye I caught, Even with my first return of thought; For ever and anon she threw 810 A prying, pitying glance on me With her black eyes so wild and free: I gazed, and gazed, until I knew No vision it could be,— But that I lived, and was released From adding to the vulture's feast: And when the Cossack maid beheld My heavy eyes at length unsealed, She smiled—and I essayed to speak, But ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... to walk down the hill instead of riding down in the finiculaire, down the stairs which form another of the pictures in Louise, with the abutting houses, into the rooms of which one looks, conscious of prying. And you see the old in these interiors, making shoes, or preparing dinner, or the middle-aged going to bed, but the young one never sees in the houses in the summer.... It was early and we decided to dance; I thought of the Moulin de la ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... thou be prying into God's secret decrees, or entertain questions about nice curiosities, thou mayest stumble and fall to thine eternal ruin. Take heed of that lofty spirit, that, devil-like, cannot be content with its own ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... not allow it," she said simply. "He says that servants are always prying into one's concerns. Good night, Capitaine Rotherby! Thank you so much for taking me out this evening. After all, I cannot help feeling that it has been rather like the ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... taken her sunbonnet off, and was enjoying the cool of the evening. He carried the rifle over the crook of his arm, and watched her pensive face. The poor little chipmunk lay stiffening in the cleft of the rock, forgotten. The next morning a prying jay discovered him and carried him away. He was only a little chipmunk after all—a very little chipmunk—and nobody and nothing missed him in all the wide world, not even his mate and his young, for mercifully grief in the animal world is generally short-lived where tragedies are frequent. ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... Mrs. Peaches," said Doctor John teasingly, as he stooped beside me. "Leave a few for—for the others." I waked up in a half-second and so did all those prying ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... moment when she saw the stranger, and had been growing ever since. One circumstance after another had increased it till now it was definite, concrete. She wondered that she did not feel ashamed of such a feeling so unusual in her, and surely unworthy, like a prying thing. Of all her old indifference that side which confronted people had always been the most sturdy, the most solidly built. Without affectation she had been a profoundly incurious woman as to the lives and the concerns of others, even of those ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... his, and the small mouth Seemed almost prying into his for breath; And, chafing him, the soft, warm hand of youth Recalled his answering spirits back from death; And, bathing his chill temples, tried to soothe Each pulse to animation, till beneath Its gentle touch and trembling care, a ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... four days after Calhoun's return from the Oaks, the thought suggested itself to mischievous, prying Dick and his coadjutor Walter, that the key of some other lock in the house might fit that of the door they so ardently desired to open. They only waited for a favorable opportunity to test the question in the ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... face, saying, "Get thee behind me, Satan," so that he let her go. Whereupon she ran out at the door so suddenly that she threw me on the ground, and fell upon me with a loud cry. Hereat the sheriff, who had followed her, started, but presently cried out, "Wait, thou prying parson, I will teach thee to listen!" and ran out and beckoned to the constable who stood on the steps below. He bade him first shut me up in one dungeon, seeing that I was an eavesdropper, and then return and thrust my child into another. ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... greater volume. Between his clinched teeth the naked one cursed fiercely, and then, as though to avoid further questions, burst into a fit of coughing. Trembling and shaking, he drew the canvas cloak closer to him. But at no time did his anxious, prying eyes ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... sit in his office and write up his diary, and recruit, and keep quiet, instead of showing up the incapacity of his seniors?" So the Nasiban Murder Case did him no good departmentally; but, after his first feeling of wrath, he returned to his outlandish custom of prying into native life. By the way, when a man once acquires a taste for this particular amusement, it abides with him all his days. It is the most fascinating thing in the world; Love not excepted. Where other men took ten days to the Hills, Strickland took leave for what ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... that to speak against one's mind is intrinsically, necessarily, and always evil. But when a thing is thus evil in itself, there is no need to bring into the definition of the act, from a moral point of view, the intention with which it is done. There is no use in prying into ends, when the means taken is an unlawful means for any end. If a person blasphemes, we do not ask why he blasphemes: the intention is not part of the blasphemy: the utterance is a sin by itself. But if a person strikes, we ask why he strikes, to heal or to slay, ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... chief, on one of these pieces of matting, the dwarf was regaling himself in the parlour, with bread and cheese and beer, when he observed without appearing to do so, that a boy was prying in at the outer door. Assured that it was Kit, though he saw little more than his nose, Mr Quilp hailed him by his name; whereupon Kit came in and demanded ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... stretching out thorny sprays, and twining tendrils, to catch and detain her prisoner?—or would they not rather, in their sweet liberty of air, and dew, and sunshine, have done their best to help forward this poor little captive in her flight, aiding her in her descent, and shielding her from all prying eyes with their leafy branches, their interlacing sprays of red buds, and soft, ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... out of the box, feeling that he had intruded into private places. He had intended to be considerate and had achieved only the appearance of prying. "That's like me!" he thought, as he descended the stairs that led to the stalls. "I wonder why it is that I'm full of sympathy and understanding and tact in my books, and such a clumsy fool ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... the remembrance of the other letter—Otto's. She rose and went speedily, her brain still wheeling, and burst into the Prince's armoury. The old chamberlain was there in waiting; and the sight of another face, prying (or so she felt) on her distress, struck ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... prying hussy!" he began, in a rage at last—but the eager, tearful earnestness of her face made him bethink himself: it would not do to make an enemy of her! "Tell me, Dawtie," he said, with sudden change of tone, "how it was you came ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... itself as a possible subject for artistic treatment. They had been called the detectives of history; they became detectives, inquisitors in real life, and, much as they loathed the occupation, they never rested from their task of spying and prying and "documentation." As with Charles Demailly, so with their other books: each character is studied after nature with a grim, revolting persistence. Their aunt, Mlle. de Courmont, is the model of Mlle. de Varandeuil in Germinie Lacerteux; Germinie herself is drawn from their ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... folly, to compare it to the conduct of some convicted rebel, who, when brought into the presence of his Sovereign, instead of seizing the occasion to sue for mercy, should even neglect and trifle with the pardon which should be offered to him, and insolently employ himself in prying into his Sovereign's designs, and criticising his counsels. Our case indeed is, in another point of comparison, but too much like that of the convicted rebel. But there is this grand difference—that at the best, his success must be uncertain, ours, if it be not our own fault, is sure; and ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... we beg For a devouring despot, lank of leg, Of prying eye, and frog-transfixing beak; Though singly we seem weak, United we are strong to smite or scoff. Off, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 21, 1891 • Various
... the manner of a petulant child. "I'll annoy them. I tell you I am not going to stand for a lot of people's coming here, sneaking and prying around to see what they can see. If anybody wants to enjoy a place like this let him work for it as ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... Axphain, and they were invariably meant to establish communication between separated squads of robbers, all belonging to one band. My friends and I on more than one occasion narrowly escaped disaster by prying into the affairs of these signalers. I take it that the squads have been operating in the south and were brought together last night by means of the fires. Doubtless they have some big project of their own sort ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... can't," I said; and so Aaron went on, pulling and prying, but not one inch did the determined ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... her as much pleasure as the other did pain. This was the writing of a story which she intended to send away to a magazine. She wrote it in the back of an old notebook, and when she was not working at it she kept it carefully in the bottom of her shirtwaist box, where the prying eyes of her younger sister would not find it. She had all the golden dreams and aspirations of a young authoress writing her first story, and her days were filled with a secret delight when she thought of the riches that would soon be hers ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... stepped to a good-sized window near the head of the workbench. "Here's the fellow's private entrance!" And he pointed to where a heavy nail locking the lower sash had been forced aside, also to a series of indentations in the outer sill, where some prying tool had ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... unusually moved. Instead of answering, she hastily collected all the walking things, and carried them off to her room. Much astonished, as well as conscious that she had asked an unwise question, which must have sounded like prying, Estelle, in distress, ran ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... official knowledge of the result of our election, because the return of Mr. Van Benthuysen, one of your electors and neighbors, offers me a safe conveyance, at a moment when the post-offices will be peculiarly suspicious and prying. Your answer may come by post without danger, if directed in some other hand-writing than your own: and I will pray you to give me an answer as soon as you ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... to prevent 826 B from seeing her. A sudden thought took possession of her mind; she would overthrow Frederika just as she herself had been overthrown. Yesterday, Saturday afternoon, she watched for 826 B in the hallways and chambers. The snuffling old wretch has a fashion of prying around in all parts of the house, under the fear that he is being robbed by the servants; and it was not long until Celestine encountered him. She threw herself ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... usually watchful. The injunction had a remarkable effect. At the dead of night, a soldier of the watch was going his rounds on the outside of the breastwork, listening, if perchance he might catch, as was not unusual, a portion of the conversation among the beleaguered burghers within. Prying about on every side, he at last discovered a chink in the wall, the result, doubtless, of the last cannonade, and hitherto overlooked. He enlarged the gap with his fingers, and finally made an opening wide enough to admit ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... found out the cause of this awe-compelling miracle by inquiring, for it is not infrequent at Mont Blanc,—but I did not wish to know. We have not the reverent feeling for the rainbow that a savage has, because we know how it is made. We have lost as much as we gained by prying into the matter. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... chance coming your way now—or I'm much mistaken—which it would be madness to miss. This Miss Moore—she's dropped from the skies, but she's charming, she's a lady, she's just the woman for you. What, Dick? Think so yourself, do you? No, it's all right, I'm not prying. But this is a chance you'll never get again. And you can't ask her, you can't have the face to ask her, as long as you keep that half-witted creature dangling after you. It wouldn't be right, man, even if she'd have you. Look the thing in the face, and you'll be the first to say so! It ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... destiny, but one didn't pick a husband or lover as one chose a gown or a hat. One went along living, and the thing happened. Chance ruled there, she believed. The morality of her class prevented her from prying into this question of mating with anything like critical consideration. It was only to be thought about sentimentally, and it was easy for her to so think. Within her sound and vigorous body all the heritage of natural human impulses bubbled warmly, but she recognized neither their source ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... amounts, defying those in authority to take the plunder from them. However, such a course could not be entertained for one moment, and, moreover, were we to possess ourselves of all the contents of the jar, there was no secure place of concealment to be found, and unpleasant inquiries and prying eyes would soon have revealed to the world our ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths
... any one who goes meddling in my brush cupboard now that I've just put all in order against the prying and nozzling of the good-for-nothing baggage what's coming ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... great deal of curiosity, a very great deal, indeed. He was forever pushing his prying little nose into other people's affairs, which, you know, is a most unpleasant habit. In fact, Mr. ...
— Mother West Wind's Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... A prying rat, believing that She needed change of diet, In search of such disturbed this much- To-be-desired quiet. To say the least, this tactless beast Was apt to rudely roister: She tapped his shell, and called him—well, A name that hurt ...
— Fables for the Frivolous • Guy Whitmore Carryl
... distrustful question:—"Excuse me for asking, Mrs. Peckover, but are you quite sure you have kept what you know about little Mary and her mother, and dates and places and all that, properly hidden from prying people, since you were here last?" At which point Mrs. Peckover generally answered by repeating, always with the same sarcastic emphasis:—"Properly hidden, did you say, sir? Of course I keep what I know properly hidden, for of course I can hold my tongue. ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... resident court. Richard hurrying hither and thither, and waiting upon every one, had little of the diversion of the affair; but he would willingly have taken treble the care and toil in the relief it was to be free from the prying mistrustful eyes of Hamlyn de Valence. Looking after little John of Dunster was, however, no small part of his trouble; the urchin was so certain to get into some mischief if left to himself— now treading on a lady's train, now upsetting a flagon of wine, now nearly ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of the spinning-mule, born near Bolton; for five years he worked at his project, and after he got it into shape was tormented by people prying about him and trying to find out his secret; at last a sum was raised by subscription to buy it, and he got some L60 for it, by which others became wealthy, while he had to spend, and end, his days in comparative poverty, all he had to subsist on being a life annuity of L63 which ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... an hour before I was saying to myself that it was impossible to tell what was in people's heads or at the back of their talk, or what they were likely to be up to. And here I found myself up to as low a trick as you can well think of. For, after I had stooped, there I remained prying, spying, anyway looking, where I had no business to look. Not consciously at first, may be. He who has eyes, you know, nothing can stop him from seeing things as long as there are things to see in front of him. ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... Britain and her Colonies deliberately chose the dearest market for their purchases. In the same spirit, the price of freights was wilfully heightened by the Navigation-laws. Important branches of home industry were crippled by prying, vexatious, and wasteful excises. And this system was conceived to be the highest wisdom; or at any rate, to be so invincible a necessity that it could not be avoided or altered without danger. The country, if it were to make ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... did not care for her mother, asked his usual questions: "What leads you to wish to take up nursing? Are you interested in medicine, and fond of caring for the sick? For you should be, to enter such an exacting life." She seemed to misunderstand him altogether and take his inquiry for prying. She coloured, bit her lip, then lost her head and blurted out: "Interested in the sick! Of course not. Who could be, for they are always so aggravating. I don't mean to stay so very long at it, but it's a good chance to go into some swell family, and ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... political and social institutions by custom. They look askance at the man who dares to question what is established, not reflecting that all orthodoxies were once heterodox, that without innovation there could never have been any progress, and that if inquisitive fellows had not gone prying about in forbidden quarters ages ago, the world would still be peopled by savages dressed in nakedness, war-paint, and feathers. The mental stultification which begins in youth reaches ossification as men grow ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... Dropping the cant-hook, I turned aft and crept forth through a small opening onto the wooden frame which supported the motionless paddlewheel, choosing for the scene of operations the river side, where the boat effectively concealed my movements from any prying eyes ashore. Everyone aboard would be clustered forward, curiously watchful of that line of soldiers filing across the gangplank and seeking quarters upon deck. The only danger of observation lay in some straggler along the near-by bank. I lowered ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... woodpecker is as terrifying to a little insect in the bark of a tree as the breaking open of our shutters by a burglar would be to us. But at night she was safe in her lofty nook. At night no creatures came prying. ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels
... there are tales enough told of his chats with child-maids in the Park, to ascertain the amounts of their wages, and with lounging footmen in Grosvenor Square, to learn how many guests had dined at a house the day previous. His curiosity seemed bent upon prying into small things; for secrets that involved serious matters he appeared to care nothing. "Pooh, pooh, Sir, don't tell me; I happen to know!" That phrase was continually coming ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... by the veranda door, because he bade me do so, to avoid what he termed 'the prying of servants.' I broke some clusters of chrysanthemums blooming in the rose garden, to carry to my mother, and then I hurried away. If the wages of disobedience be death, then fate reversed the mandate, and obedience exacts my life as a forfeit. Think of it: I ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... into a bad swale that afternoon and Samson had to cut some corduroy to make a footing for team and wagon and do much prying with the end of a heavy pole under the front axle. By and by the horses ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... him by bringing the matter into court. Stafford, for once becoming interested in the argument, declared decisively that the woman was right, that, having entered into a matrimonial compact, she was in honor bound to conceal from prying outsiders any domestic differences they might have. Virginia promptly differed with him and proceeded to give her reasons. Stafford was no match for her when it came to sociology and he could only grunt disapproval as she ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... accusation yet more malicious, an accusation not only of crimes which this gentleman did not commit, but which have not yet been committed, an accusation formed by prying into futurity, and exaggerating misfortunes which are yet to come, and which may probably be prevented. Well may any man, my lords, think himself in danger, when he hears himself charged not with high crimes and misdemeanours, not with accumulative treason, but with misconduct ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... head,—that there is not a drop in all thy bitter cup but what a God of love saw to be absolutely necessary! Wilt thou not trust Him, even though thou canst not trace the mystery of His dealings? Not too curiously prying into the "Why it is?" or "How it is?" but satisfied that "So it is," and, therefore that all must be well! "Although thou sayest, thou canst not see Him, yet judgment is before Him, therefore trust thou ...
— The Faithful Promiser • John Ross Macduff
... out, and in spite of Archelaus, who had brought his master's boat round and moored her cunningly under the lee of the rocks overhung by the Keg of Butter Battery. There, while the weather held, the Commandant and his guest could slip away without fear of prying eyes and sail off among the islands—as they had sailed off yesterday, Vashti sitting low and covering herself with a spare-sail, until beyond sight of St. Lide's quay and the houses on the slope. To ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... most striking feature of this striking scene was to be found in the custom of masking, then almost universal in Venice, and the origin of which may be traced in great part to dread of the Inquisition, and of its prying enquiries into the actions and affairs of individuals. Amidst the sea of faces that thronged roofs, windows, balconies, streets, and quays, the minority only were uncovered, and the immense collection of masks, of every form and colour, had ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... looking very black, "that no one, not even my daughter, is permitted to go where I forbid.—As for you, you prying fool," added he, turning on me, "you shall see whether I am to be obeyed ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... these years can be sent to the court; for the scriveners are intimidated and will not give official statements of anything of what occurs, except what may be in favor of the governor and the archbishop. Item, [this] is written in much distrust and fear, on account of the numerous spies who go about prying into and noting everything that is done. One notary is in prison on account of a statement that he drew up; ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... see no trace of her, nor of her water-cresses. She seemed to have vanished clean out of sight. "It is very odd," thought Little Red Riding Hood to herself, "for surely I can walk faster than she." Then she kept looking about her, and prying into all the bushes, to see for the green huntsman, whom she had never heard of before, and wondered why the old woman had given her such a message. At last, just as she was passing by a pool of stagnant water, so green that you would have taken it ...
— Bo-Peep Story Books • Anonymous
... to the depths of the silken bag, Inga fastened it securely around his neck and buttoned his waist above it to hide the treasure from all prying eyes. Then he slowly climbed down from the tree and returned to the room where King ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum
... for unfolding to you the mysteries of my conduct, the motives of which have baffled even your keen sight, your prying affection, and your subtlety. I am to be married in a country village near Paris. I love and am loved. I love as much as a woman can who knows love well. I am loved as much as a woman ought to be by the ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... ridiculous occurrences, it is said, that some of Charles's gallantries were discovered by a prying neighbour. A wily old minister was deputed, by his brethren, to rebuke the king for this heinous scandal. Being introduced into the royal presence he limited his commission to a serious admonition, that, upon such occasions, his majesty should always shut the windows.—The king ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... indicative of wounded pride and disappointed ambition. He seemed to feel deeply the degradation of his situation. Shorn of power among his people, compelled to acknowledge the authority of his rival, and bending beneath the infirmities of age, it is not singular that he should shrink from the prying gaze of curiosity, and sigh for the deep seclusion of ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake
... favorite location for him, the warm sawdust furnishing a good burrowing place for a nest or sleeping room. When a building is used as a nesting place, the bird very cunningly drills the entrance close up under the eaves, where it is sheltered from storms, and at the same time out of sight of all prying eyes. ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... an attic-window I found a Minie-ball. Prying it out with my knife, and holding it up to Turner, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... heavy and as she went on it became heavier. She meant to carry it slung across her shoulder on a stick as soon as she was well away from the prying eyes of Echo's inhabitants. Later, if she felt tired, she could easily hide it behind a bush along the road and send one of her father's cowboys after it. The road was very dusty and carried the wind-blown traces of automobile ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... from Sardis a Syrian sausage-seller, named Bargus, who, with native address, had insinuated himself into his good graces and obtained a subordinate command in the army. The prying omniscience of Eutropius discovered that, years before, this same Bargus had been forbidden to enter Constantinople for some misdemeanor, and by means of this knowledge he gained an ascendency over the Syrian, and compelled him to accuse his benefactor, Timasius, of a treasonable conspiracy, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... gay scene, then, there were anxious and thoughtful bosoms. Lord Rivers was silent and abstracted; his son's laugh was hollow and constrained; the queen, from her pavilion, cast, ever and anon, down the green alleys more restless and prying looks than the hare or the deer could call forth; her mother's brow was knit and flushed. And keenly were those illustrious persons watched by one deeply interested in the coming events. Affecting to discharge ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... almost reconciled to my new situation when who should rush into the kitchen but le fils de la maison, my young master, an ugly urchin of thirteen years, or thereabouts. He bore in his hand a manchet of bread, which, after prying about for a moment, he proceeded to dip in the pan where some delicate woodcocks were in the course of preparation. You know, mon maitre, how sensitive I am on certain points, for I am no Spaniard, but a Greek, and have principles of honour. Without a moment's hesitation I took my young master by ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... pleasure; but if the Fates bring us two together I will owe heaven a favor. I don't know what it is, but some god's silent purpose is beneath this. Circe loves not Polyaenos without some reason; a great torch is always flaming when these names meet! Take me in your arms then, if you will; there's no prying stranger to fear, and your 'brother' is far away from this spot!" So saying, Circe clasped me in arms that were softer than down and drew me to the ground which was covered with ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... will then be in my opinion in all respects an excellent fellow." For he who receives pardon on small matters is content that his friend should rebuke him on matters of more moment: but the man who is ever on the scold, everywhere sour and glum, knowing and prying into everything, is scarcely tolerable to his children or brothers, and ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... DYSON (says Hearne) a person of a very strange, prying, and inquisitive genius, in the matter of books, as may appear from many libraries; there being books, chiefly in old English, almost in every library, that have belonged to him, with his name upon them." Peter Langtoft's ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... what went on in my household, and anything of value that could be discovered there. Doubtless the girl, for whom my wife, in spite of her occasional fits of reserve and temper, entertained no little liking, enjoyed many opportunities of prying; and would have continued still to serve him had not this last piece of villainy, with the stir which it caused in the house and the rigorous punishment to be expected in the event of discovery, proved too much for her nerves. Hence this burst of confession; which once allowed ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... reason, when your engagements forbid me the ecstatic happiness of seeing you, I am always desirous to be alone; since my sentiments for Leonora are so delicate, that I cannot bear the apprehension of another's prying into those delightful endearments with which the warm imagination of a lover will sometimes indulge him, and which I suspect my eyes then betray. To fear this discovery of our thoughts may perhaps appear too ridiculous ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... piercing eyes, made more prominent by the unusual lowness of the forehead, told more surely than language, of their owner's propensity to investigate the affairs of her neighbor, and proved her claim to the complimentary title, they had bestowed upon her, viz:—"That prying old mother, Wynn." But what was still more strange, was the silver hair of both these old people, and which their age did not seem to warrant. The lady, however, with a little lingering of feminine vanity in her heart, had made an awkward attempt ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock |
