"Pluck" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Elder, give me some of thy wood; then will I also give thee some of mine, when it grows in the forest" (448. 318-320). In Huntingdonshire, England, the belief in the "elder-mother" is found, and it is thought dangerous to pluck the flowers, while elder-wood, in a room, or used for a cradle, is apt to work evil for children. In some parts of England, it is believed that boys beaten with an elder stick will be retarded in their growth; in Sweden, ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... yet most pardonable; for if a man feels that he can do many different things, how hard to teach himself that he must not do them all! How hard to say to himself, 'I must cut off the right hand, and pluck out the right eye. I must be less than myself, in order really to be anything. I must concentrate my powers on one subject, and that perhaps by no means the most seemingly noble or useful, still less the most pleasant, and forego so many branches of activity in which I might be so ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... screams and hootings rose again: They gaped with raucous beaks, they whirred Their noisy plumage; small but plain The lonely hidden singer made A well of grief within the glade. 'Whist, silly fool, be off,' they shout, 'Or we'll come pluck your feathers out.' ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... leave her she gains death, or life (which is worse), and if I take her with me it can only be one way. What then! a man can lay down his life in many ways, giving it for the life that needeth, whether by jumping a red grave or by means slower but not less sure. And if by any deed of mine I pluck this child out of the mire, put clear light into her eyes (which now are all dark), and set the flush on her grey cheeks which she was assuredly designed to carry there; and if she breathe sweet air and grow in the grace of God and sight of men—why then I have done well, ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... John Joseph of the Cross, the mirror of religious life, the father of the poor, the comforter of the distressed, and the unconquerable Christian hero: but when death came to pluck him from the tree he dropped like a ripe fruit, smiling, into his hands: or, even as a gentle stream steals unperceived into the ocean, so calmly that its surface is not fretted with a ripple, his soul glided into eternity. To die upon the ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... to pluck up courage and begin to talk and write soberly about the war. At first the mere horror of it stunned the more thoughtful of us; and even now only those who are not in actual contact with or bereaved relation to ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... like, with a wink, snugging up to the lady, I did; For she'd found a weak spot in my 'art, this cold classical gal, and no kid. I'd been 'aving a pull at my flask, up that tree, and her pluck and blue eyes Made me feel a bit spoony; in fact I was mashed. But, ...
— Punch Among the Planets • Various
... had recovered from the accident at the shoemaker's, he was placed with a designer and painter of ikons. But "here he could not get on"; his master treated him too harshly, and his pluck failed him. This time he found himself a place, and succeeded in getting on board one of the Volga steamboats as ...
— Maxim Gorki • Hans Ostwald
... that same sudden change on her face, surprise, almost fright; and I swear she shrank from me as though in terror, her hand plucking at Aunt Lucinda's sleeve; whereas, all Aunt Lucinda could do was to pluck at her ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... an unusual exhibition of moral courage on the part of a preacher. It was some months later, when the Rev. Cyrus W. Negus himself lay dead, and all the bells of the village rang his requiem, that a friend and admirer of Samuel Shaw could also fairly recognize the mettle of this preacher who had the pluck to speak out what he believed to be his message, with every worldly reason to be silent. He had dared to defy the conventions of indiscriminate eulogy at funerals, to stand practically alone against ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... Behold this poor old man, Last of a line of princes, stricken in years, As thy dead father would have been to-day. Was that white beard a rag for obscene hands To tear? a weed for lumpish clowns to pluck? Was that benignant, venerable face Fit target for their foul throats' voided rheum? That wrinkled flesh made to be pulled and pricked, Wounded by flinty pebbles and keen steel? Behold the prostrate, patriarchal form, Bruised, ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... slaughter, it rose more and more slowly, and then it rose no more. The bloody ax was wrenched from his nerveless fingers, and he was down, smothered by innumerable trampling bodies. Over him the tide swirled smooth. Heavy feet kicked and battered at his body, hands reached down to pluck and ...
— Slaves of Mercury • Nat Schachner
... you are willing, find out the truth concerning your husband. When he is in bed I will go to him, and then, while he is not thinking, you will pluck off his coif from behind, and we shall see whether he be tonsured like the ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. V. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... called for by her nurse, and went in and returned, and went and returned again, for she seemed as jealous of Romeo going from her, as a young girl of her bird, which she will let hop a little from her hand, and pluck it back with a silken thread; and Romeo was as loath to part as she; for the sweetest music to lovers is the sound of each other's tongues at night. But at last they parted, wishing mutually sweet sleep and ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... they (the priests) take no heed Their silly sheep to feed, But pluck away and pull The ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... we have shot a cat, and it is a terrible business, there is no doubt; and it makes no difference whatever whether I think the cat was only a cat if the people of Thebes considered it is a god. If it is found out it is certain death, and we shall need all our wits to save our lives; but unless you pluck up courage and look a little more like yourself, we may as well go at once and say what has happened and take the consequences. Only if you don't value your life I do mine; so if you mean to let your looks betray us, say so, ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... clearing, he held his gun under his arm and plucked carelessly a wood-pigeon which he had killed; three others were hung at his belt by a snare; he threw them to Peter, who immediately began to pluck and clean them with wonderful dexterity. These wood-pigeons, of the size of a partridge, were plump, fine and round as quails. As fast as Peter had one ready, he cut off its head and feet and put it to cook in the thick and abundant sauce which filled ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... favourable spots, on the adjacent islands. It is true, these trees were yet too young to produce very bountifully; but they had begun to bear, and it was thought a very delightful thing, among the fresh arrivals from Pennsylvania, to be able to walk in an orange grove, and to pluck ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... head. But I should like your pluck. If I saw you setting off for sea in earnest, I would run out and give you a chance to steer a woman instead of a ship. You would find ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... touch'd with human gentleness and love, Forgive a moiety of the principal; Glancing an eye of pity on his losses, That have of late so huddled on his back, Enough to press a royal merchant down, (c) And pluck commiseration of his state From brassy bosoms, and rough hearts of flint, From stubborn Turks and Tartars, never train'd To offices of tender courtesy. We all expect a ...
— The Merchant of Venice [liberally edited by Charles Kean] • William Shakespeare
... to command, 'Let him who is without sin cast the first stone,' look into your own hearts and answer me, how many of you would dare to lift a hand? How many of you have taken the beam out of your own eye before attempting to pluck the mote out of your brother's? O ye pharisaical ones, who stand in the public places and thank God that you are not as other men, beware, beware. The condemnation that surely and inevitably shall fall upon you is not the judgment of Jesus Christ. It is not the ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... La-Salle, Batavia, Peoria and Champaign in Illinois, and in Sturgis and Jonesvine, Michigan. I can tell you with emphasis that the fields are white unto harvest—waiting, waiting only the reapers. And it is a shame—it is a crime—for any of the old or new public workers to halt by the way to pluck the motes out of their neighbors' eyes. Not one of us but has blundered; yet if only we are in earnest, each will forgive, in the faith that the others, like herself, mean right. How any one can stand in the way of a united national organization ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... gingham dress is just the thing for running around in the woods and fields," said Mrs. Cole, who did not often pluck up courage sufficiently to oppose her own opinions to her daughter's superior wisdom. "I've seen her fixed up in white of an evening, and looking like a picture. But, as far as that goes," she concluded resolutely, "there's so much to her face, just as if her head ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... earthland long ago; But Merlin stays still hanging on his cross. He would not move a nail that nails him there, He would not pluck a thorn that crowns him there. He hung himself upon the blessed cross With Ethel; she has gone to wear the crown That wreathes the brows of virgins who have kept Their bodies with their souls ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)
... if I had been a horse between the shafts, and we went downstairs, while his wife lighted us. When we got outside, I held the body up, so as to deceive the coachman, and said: 'Come, my friend; it is nothing; you feel better already, I expect. Pluck up your courage, and make an attempt. It will soon be over.' But as I felt that he was slipping out of my hands, I gave him a slap on the shoulder, which sent him forward and made him fall into ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... and not Moses who makes the serpent pluck and eat the first apple from the tree. But Bp. Wilson comments upon the words of Genesis (iii, 6) as though they contained this ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... all the difference," Dan rejoined. "She set me at liberty, and you are free too; so who have we to consider but ourselves? I admire a woman who has the pluck to be free!" he ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... in a slommacking wunner," if ever a lad could, dear boy: But—well, there, you ain't scored this round; and yer foes is a-chortling with joy! 'Ow is it, my ARTHUR, 'ow is it! I've nurriged you up from a kid, And if ever a lathy young scrapper showed pluck and fair promidge, boy, you did; Wich I've cheridged and cracked you up constant, and backed you in all of your fights. And I've swore it was you, right as rain, as would do the Grand Ould 'Un to rights! But he's turned up more younger than ever—O drabbit him; 'ow he do wear!— ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, March 11, 1893 • Various
... his victim in a condition bordering upon the abject and ready to beg for mercy at any sacrifice of pluck or pride, Buxton had gone to the guard-house soon after retreat and told the sergeant that he desired to see O'Grady, if the man was ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... wool, making butter, and then caring for the garden! She had never seen celery in trenches, she said, and would not know beans from gourds if she saw them growing. It seems that in England ladies have nothing to do with their gardens—when, indeed, they have any at all—save to pluck a rose now and then, or give tea to their gentlemen under the shrubbery when it is fine. And I told her of our quilting and spinning bees, and the coasting on clear winter evenings, and of watching the blacks on Pinkster night, ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... he began to think there really was something creditable in it, and fancied the Illustrious Personage might be going to bestow upon him some recognition of the service he had done in blazoning abroad the pluck of the British soldier. On the contrary, he found the Illustrious Person almost speechless with wrath, and stuffed with oaths like ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... to-day, who may earn her own living, if she will, without loss of the elementary rights of womanhood, think of the bachelor girl of a short generation ago without admiration of her pluck? There were ladies in those day too "unwomanly" to remain helpless burdens on overworked fathers and mothers, too "unsexed" to marry the first man that came along for the sake of their bread and butter. They fought their way ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... clever girl; but, Alice, I'm determined to turn over a new leaf with Dame Van Winkle; the next time I see her, I'll pluck up [my] courage ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Rip van - Winkle • Charles Burke
... could express in words. He trusted that the success of Forrest and his party would be a solace to him in his latest day, and that in their latter days they would look back with pride to the energy and pluck they displayed in their younger. He called upon them to drink The health and success of Mr. Forrest and his companions during life. ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest
... the letter from the late Michael Turley's kinsman in Montreal and the question of the legacy. This was deliberate on his part. He wanted an excuse to visit Tralee and see its mistress with his own eyes. He had attempted to pluck many flowers in his day, and had not been unsuccessful. Out at Tralee was evidently a rare orchid carefully shielded by ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... technique tonight, but I'm not looking for fringe effects. If this hot-eyed swain of yours is any good at all, he'll bat a thousand." He got a deck of cards out of his desk drawer and fanned it out face up so that he could pluck the two of spades and the two of hearts from the deck. The rest he put back ...
— Card Trick • Walter Bupp AKA Randall Garrett
... considerable optimism to profound depression. I have met and talked to quite a number of young men in khaki—ex-engineers, ex-lawyers, ex-schoolmasters, ex-business men of all sorts—and the net result of these interviews has been a buoyant belief that there is in Great Britain the pluck, the will, the intelligence to do anything, however arduous and difficult, in the way of national reconstruction. And on the other hand there is a certain stretch of ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... to be practice neet an' as Ike wor gooin to th' church he bowt a sheep's pluck an' tuk it wi him, intendin to tak it hooam an have it cooked for ther supper. He happened to be th' furst 'at gate into th' bell chamer, soa he hung th' sheep pluck up agean th' wall, an' then went daan agean, leavin a little lamp burnin i'th' steeple. He'd hardly getten off th' step ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... really Elsie? I was just going to ask about her, Jean. But who are those children with her? I thought you told me in one of your letters that she lived quite alone?" asked Grace, stooping down to pluck a bluebell from Geordie's grave, instead of hurrying after this old friend, as the little Grace ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae
... the ship, which lay in the creek perhaps a hundred yards from the inn, and on the road along which the Queen was to come from Greenwich. Anthony felt his whole heart go out in sympathy to these joyous shouting folk beneath, who were here to celebrate the gallant pluck of a little bearded man and his followers, who for the moment stood for England, and in whose presence just now the Queen herself must take second place. Even the quacks and salesmen who were busy in their booths all round used ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... found setting to the S.W. On Thursday the 20th two more gulls were seen; some time after they took a black bird, having a white spot on its crown and feet like a duck; they killed a small fish, and sailed over large quantities of weeds. From all which tokens the people began to pluck up fresh courage. Next morning, three small land birds settled on the rigging of the admiral, where they continued singing till the sun rose, when they flew away. This strengthened their hopes of land; as, though the other ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... to pluck some small object out of the opened shell he held, though his fingers trembled like the ...
— In Camp on the Big Sunflower • Lawrence J. Leslie
... little 'uns," he said, nearly wringing my hand off in his approval. "You can't beat 'em for pluck. My missus is one of 'em, and she went bush with me when I'd nothing but a skeeto net and a quart-pot to share with her." Then, slapping the Maluka vigorously on the back, he told him he'd got some sense left. "You can't beat the little 'uns," he declared. ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... strong man, and by the side of the strong horse a little man of mean appearance. On a signal given to them, the strong man began to pull the tail of the horse with all his might towards him, as if he would tear it off; the weak man began to pluck out the hairs from the tail of the strong horse one by one. Now the strong man, after no small labour to himself to no purpose, and causing much mirth to the spectators, at last gave up; but the weak man in a trice, and with no trouble, bared the tail ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... post. Towards dawn, the enemy being more quiet, Mr Mainwaring, a cavalry cadet, one of Captain Thomson's picket, begged him to lie down, while he kept a look-out. Scarcely had the captain closed his eyes when Mainwaring shouted, "Here they come!" The enemy, with more pluck than they had hitherto shown, advanced close up to the doorway of the barrack. Mainwaring's revolver despatched two of the enemy. Stirling, with an Enfield rifle, shot one and bayoneted another. Captain Thomson fired both charges of his double-barrelled ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... thou minister to a mind diseas'd, Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, Raze out the written troubles of the brain, And with some sweet oblivious antidote Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff Which weighs ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... brought up in an outdoor school which taught that the rock-bottom factor of a man's character is gameness. Without it nothing else counted. This was as vital for a man as virtue for a woman. But it had begun to reach him that pluck is largely a matter of training. Arthur had lived soft, and his nerve, like his muscles, needed toughening. Were his gayety, his loyalty, his fundamental decency, the affectionate sweetness of his disposition, to count for nothing? He had a dozen advantages that Jack had not, and the ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... said old Joe, "of this tailor afore. His name's Sloper. I've never larnt why he mounted them guns, or where the little rooting hog got his pluck from to fire 'em. But there can be no shadder of a doubt, mates, that his object in firing to-day was ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... said Abner Joyce. He claimed as a matter of course the right to be present at such conferences. Joyce himself had the strength and the pluck to ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... men hesitated. The sight of our muskets, and old Trull holding a blazing splinter over the howitzer, was a little too much even for the sturdy pluck ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... asked himself. Safe! Was anything safe from this devilish mystery that could pluck each cowering human from the lowest depths of this steel freighter, that could drag her down in the water till the radio man sent his cry: ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... dancers tripping down the stage. While the head of the ostrich is unusually small, its eyes are large and have an expression of mischief which gives warning of danger. During a visit to one of the farms, I saw a male bird pluck two hats from unwary men, and it looked wicked enough to have taken their heads as well, had they not been more securely fastened. It is sometimes sarcastically asserted that the ostrich digests with satisfaction to itself such articles as gimlets, nails, ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... generally built according to the fantastic ideas of fashionable makers who have no practical experience of side-saddle riding. Unaided learners have such difficulty in acquiring security and grace of seat and good hands, that many ladies who have ridden all their lives, and have lots of pluck, are poor performers, particularly in the hunting-field. A beginner who is put on a properly made saddle and suitable horse, and is taught the right principles of riding, will make more progress in a month than she would otherwise do in, ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... You are a lying, ill-favoured knave! Keep the door, friends, this rogue has insulted me. Pluck ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... spring. But this did not last long; the bird must busy himself with nest-building. Clarian's ardent, impetuous nature must evolve results, would not content itself with mere sensations. So he began to study Shakspeare,—not, as he had studied the philosophers, to pluck out and make his own some cosmical, pervading thought, but to find matter for Art-purposes. I think, that, if ever there was a born artist, who united to a fine sthetic sense the fervor of a devotee, Clarian was that one, heart and soul. Some men make a mistress of Art, and sink ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... an astonishingly warlike spirit, and the English people are said to be delighted by the pluck and force which Lord Salisbury ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 2, No. 5, February 3, 1898 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... of good comfort, and pluck vp a good heart, and tell me how thou commest hither, and by what meanes, and how thou diddest escape that mortall and horrible Dragon? and how thou diddest finde away out of that odious and blinde darkenes, I haue beene tould of it: But I maruell me not a little, ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna
... anything else. His pluck is certainly wonderful, but even with his pluck he can't dissolve again. His Church Bill has given him a six months' run, ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... man has been whipped in a fight, defeated in a contest, or beaten at an undertaking, but he didn't show it or let the other fellow know it; he just kept on with a brave front and finally the other fellow quit, mistaking grim determination, pluck and perseverance for strength ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... before their talk turned from the incident of the morning, but when it did its subject was Richard Ferriss. Bennett was sounding his praises and commending upon his pluck and endurance during the retreat from the ship, when Lloyd, after ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... against it. She kept with difficulty to her negative frankness, and she let the girl leave the room with a fretful sigh, as if provoked that her mother would not provoke her further. There were moments when Mrs. Kenton believed that Ellen was sick of her love, and that she would pluck it out of her heart herself if she were left alone. She was then glad Bittridge had come, so that Ellen might compare with the reality the counterfeit presentment she had kept in her fancy; and she believed that if she could but leave him ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... yearning for the grand piano, could not pluck up courage to go to the 'Mansion of Bliss', as Meg called it. She went once with Jo, but the old gentleman, not being aware of her infirmity, stared at her so hard from under his heavy eyebrows, and said "Hey!" so loud, that he ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... yet; for government service it is late to begin, . . . Besides, where could I serve? Where could I be of use? Admitting that no great cleverness is needed for serving in our Zemstvo, for example, yet I suffer from . . . the devil knows what, a sort of faintheartedness, I haven't a ha'p'orth of pluck. If I went into the Service I should always feel I was not in my right place. I am not an idealist; I am not a Utopian; I haven't any special principles; but am simply, I suppose, stupid and thoroughly incompetent, a neurotic and a coward. Altogether not ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... their proper colours. Mr. Wallace has, also, recorded[695] a still more singular fact. "The Indians (of S. America) have a curious art by which they change the colours of the feathers of many birds. They pluck out those from the part they wish to paint, and inoculate the fresh wound with the milky secretion from the skin of a small toad. The feathers grow of a brilliant yellow colour, and on being plucked out, it is said, grow again of the same ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... though high, I covet to ascend, The difficulty will not me offend; For I perceive the way to life lies here. Come, pluck up heart, let's neither faint nor fear; Better, though difficult, the right way to go, Than wrong, though easy, where the end ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress - From this world to that which is to come. • John Bunyan
... for the Spirit land, and the tears of Peena were falling fast when the Long Beard came to her wigwam. And he stretched his arms over the boy and asked of the Great Spirit that he might stay to lead his mother by the hand when she should be old and blind, and to pluck the thorns from her feet. And the Great Spirit listened, for he loves the Long Beard, and unloosed the moccasins from the feet of the boy, and the fire in his breath went out, and he slept, and was well. Therefore is Peena a bird to fly with ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... that it had come; she bent under it as under a burden. But it was there. Life had made her into one of the human beings capable of feeling that responsibility, each for all, and the war had driven it home, deep into her heart, whence she could not pluck it out. ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... had been very quiet, but the rich golden corn-tassels, entangled with bright daisies, red poppies, and hollyhocks, and the humming concert of myriads of flies-blue, yellow, and reddishbrownwhich sported amid the sweets, excited her beyond self-control. Stopping here and there to pluck a flower, she would turn and cry, "Pardon, Monsieur;" until, at length, on an apple-tree growing near the path she descried on a low branch a green apple, no larger than her finger. This temptation proved irresistible, and with one spring into the midst of the corn, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... his life. He was about fifty years of age, and not disposed to alter his habits, but he required Mrs. Mumbles to alter hers. He proceeded, therefore, to give his worthy spouse some initiatory instructions in the art of jointing a scrag of mutton, cutting out a pluck, or chinning a whole sheep upon an occasion. This was very different from novel reading. She had, indeed, read of knights cleaving their adversaries from the 'chaps to the chine,' and of 'sticking to the heart,' and sometimes fancied, as she made a blow upon some unfortunate leg ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... can be prevented. The really great person is the one who even in a panic does not lose his head, and the next best thing to not being feazed at danger is, I believe, to be literally paralyzed. Total immobility often passes for pluck. ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... in succession; and, for this reason, is much prized by market-gardeners. The most of the pods being fit to pluck at the same time, the crop is harvested at once, and the land immediately occupied ...
— The Field and Garden Vegetables of America • Fearing Burr
... watched him through her tears as he went away across the low-lying shore fields to hide his broken heart under his own humble roof. She yearned to hurry after him and comfort him, but she knew that comfort was not what Robert needed now. Justice, and justice only, could pluck out the sting, which otherwise ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... they had taken, and as they had not thought of our building another, they were completely taken unawares, one with his rifle on the ground, and the others with theirs on their shoulders; so there was no fight, nor any need of pluck on our part. We simply crept noiselessly up and rising, when only a few yards distant, covered them with the cocked rifles while I told them to throw up their hands. They saw that we had the drop on them ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... with a single twitch of her playful fingers, that Fate will sometimes pluck from a man the mask that has obscured his real identity for many years. It is thus that Destiny will suddenly draw a bright ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... for her, but she mustn't ever have 'em! I'd rather they should pluck me from my bones, sir! And I ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... The pluck of the man was superb. I could see that the General, too, was moved, from the way he looked at him. And he speaks a little more abruptly at ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... either the witches or the wood. But ignorant people believe a great many foolish things, and the leaves and twigs of the ash tree were thought to have peculiar virtue. In some places it was once the practice to pluck an ash-leaf in every case where the leaflets were of even ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church
... even. When the war came on, the old man was right down sick. I do believe he saw the end from the beginning. I've heard him tell things almost to a fraction jest as they came out afterward. Well, the young man Hesden, he had his father's notions, of course, but he was pluck. He couldn't have been a Le Moyne, or a Richards either, without that. I remember, not long after the war begun—perhaps in the second year, before the conscription came on, anyhow—he came into town riding of a black colt that he had raised. I don't think it had ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... the Apostles, and the Holy fathers, give the people the Holy Communion, whole and perfect; but these men, contrary to all the fathers, to all the Apostles, and contrary to Christ Himself, do sever the Sacraments, and pluck away the one part from the people, and that with most notorious sacrilege, as ...
— The Apology of the Church of England • John Jewel
... came. I had my little court of flatterers; but the courtiers paid dearly for their allegiance to their queen. I was the snare which was set to entrap the birds whose feathers my husband was to pluck. If I had been like other women, my position would have been utterly intolerable to me. I should have found some means of escape from a life ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... mother and father were dead, and that under the will of the latter he was to receive a legacy of seven thousand pounds. Meanwhile, Gordon appears to have made no attempt to win any of the prizes that were the common reward of pluck and industry in the Australia of the fifties. He joined the mounted police force of South Australia, but, impatient of its discipline, soon left it, and for long afterwards was content with the ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... your benefit, that, whether true or false, your destiny is the same, and from it you cannot, shall not escape. I will now lay down the unalterable decree of fate, which you may as vainly attempt to avoid, as to pluck down the stars of heaven, or to blot out ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... just brought up now scrambled over the top, but No Man's Land had been largely stripped of dangers. Victory sparkled in the air; safety smiled at Jeb; with these fellows carrying the battle ever away from him, performing the unbelievable in pluck and endurance, he did not so much mind the thought of going for the wounded! But the uplift was transient—it fled in a ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... eager to gratify her every wish, while he can give her only the dry, crushed remains of his manhood, a bare scrap of his past affluence. He scorned the sweetest flower of womanhood that ever bloomed, and now crawls through his own mire to pluck it. It isn't right—it isn't right! God knows it isn't right to her; leaving me and my hopes out altogether—it isn't ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... the whimsical idea that, were he to close his eyes, beseech the blessed Saint Joseph to guide his hand, take three steps forward, and pluck the first blossom his fingers touched, he might put an ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... His companion seemed to pluck a little new spirit from the encouraging shout, and his lagging feet began to show more animation. In this way they hurried out of the already burning forest, and found themselves on the brink of the swift current of the ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... shrink to threaded rills; The ramparts of the mountains loom around, Like splintery fragments of a ruined world; The cliff-bound dashing cataracts, downward hurled In thunderous volumes, shake the chasms profound: The imperial eagle, with a dauntless eye Wheels round the sun, the monarch of the sky; I pluck his eyrie in the blasted wood Of ragged pines, and when the vulture screams, I track his flight along the solitude, Like some dark spirit in the world of dreams! When Noon in golden armor, travel spent, Climbing the azure plains of Heaven, alone, Pitches upon its topmost steep his tent, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... holding out as long as any youngster ever did," said Adair. "The others have not less pluck in them." ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... girl writhed, but did not cry quits. Beads of perspiration glistened on the jailer's face. The girl shook off his lax grip on her arms ... the sheriff's son was holding her legs. We were crowded against the bars, angry and silent. We admired the girl's hopeless pluck. We saw she was holding out just to, somehow, have vengeance on the jailer for her being held in unwilling concubinage by him, hoping he would catch it hard for having let the keys hang carelessly in open ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... melodramatic in the same way as Nash's novel. Thus the above conversation is interrupted by the entrance of the coquette Emilia, long before loved by Peregrine who had vainly asked for her hand. "Peregrine would have answered, but a pluck by the sleeve obliged him to turn from Selinda to entertain a lady mask'd who had given him the nudg. He presently knew her to be Emilia, who whispered him in the ear: I find sir, what Guyomar said just ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... that I was in was foremost of all the company, and as we travelled, I being alone in the waggon, began to try if I could pluck my hands out of the manacles, and as God would, although it were somewhat painful for me, yet my hands were so slender that I could pull them out and put them in again, and ever as we went when the waggons made most noise and the men busiest, I would be working to file off my bolts, and travelling ...
— Voyager's Tales • Richard Hakluyt
... after she had tasted the bitter-sweet of living and learned what it was that she missed; the tug of strong emotions, the hopes and fears and heartaches that are the fruits of the great Tree of Life? She wanted to pluck the fruits, be they bitter or sweet, and drain the world's wine to the dregs; and then, if life went ill, she could return to her House with something about which to dream. But now she only sighed and Wunpost took her hand and drew her down ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... of fire indeed waiting thee? Will God desert His own? But was not Christ crucified?—and the disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord. But surely Florence will not consent. The whole city will make a stand for him;—they are ready, if need be, to pluck out their eyes and give them to him. Florence will certainly be a refuge for him. But why do I put confidence in man? In the Lord alone have I ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... soldiers, I seemed utterly alone within some rural solitude upon a quiet Sabbath morning. Not an unwonted sound reached me to make discord; so quiet, indeed, was all the earth that I became startled by the sudden chatter of a squirrel disturbed at my approach, and unthinkingly I stooped to pluck a delicate pink flower blooming in the grass, and placed it in a ragged buttonhole ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... So absorbed would he become in the former, that he would often lie in bed the greater part of the day studying their various changes. He became notorious in an age when every one played to excess. No one 'fought the tiger' (to borrow the modern expression) with more indomitable pluck than Sir John; for, as his friend Will Davenant tells us, 'at his lowest ebb he would make himself glorious in apparel, and said that it exalted his spirits'—a curious philosophy, suggestive not a little of Dickens' Mark Tapley. Pope has accused Suckling ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the Hittite empire, which was pressing forward from the neck of Asia Minor through the passes of Issus into Syria, and was rapidly increasing in power, Mitani stood on the eve of its fall. Babylonians and Hittites were alike watching to pluck the ripe fruit, and perhaps it lacked little to decide Tushratta, instead of fighting once more for the crown, to capitulate to the invading Hittites and see the end of the kingdom of Mitani. The great "love" of this king for Egypt was not, therefore, called forth merely by the glitter of ...
— The Tell El Amarna Period • Carl Niebuhr
... trailing arbutus in the air around her. In a sheltered, sunny nook, she found a single erythronium, lured forth in advance of its proper season, and gathered it as a relic of the spot, which she might keep without blame. As she stooped to pluck it, her own face looked up at her out of a little pool filled by the spring rains. Seen against the reflected sky, it shone with a soft radiance, and the earnest eyes met hers, as if it were her young self, evoked from the past, to bid her farewell. ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... youngest well over fifty. This, however, seemed to depress him little. His eyes would sadden for a moment, then laugh again. "Well, well," he said, "wrinkles, bald heads, and the deafness of the tomb—we have our day notwithstanding. Pluck the bloom of it—hey? a commonplace ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... cried Mr. Willoughby; "and if the rest of us have half the pluck shown in that printing-house, we'll ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... singed! Glorious! I hurriedly packed my things and whispered to Beverly-Jones farewell messages for the sleeping household. I never felt so jolly and facetious in my life. I could feel that Beverly-Jones was admiring the spirit and pluck with which I took my misfortune. Later on he would ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... below, now from above. They buffet him from one side and from the other. They circle round him like a pair of swift gunboats round an antiquated man-of-war. They even perch upon his back and dash their beaks into his neck and pluck feathers from his piratical plumage. At last his lumbering flight has carried him far enough away, and the brave little defenders fly back to the nest, poising above it on quivering wings for a moment, then dipping down swiftly ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... gold! I am made up of gold! I pluck a rose, a silly, fading rose, Its soft, pink petals change to yellow gold; Its stem, its leaves are gold—and what before Was fit for a poor peasant's festal dress May now adorn a Queen. I lift a stone, A heavy, useless mass, a slave would spurn, What is ...
— Proserpine and Midas • Mary Shelley
... Batouch had said. There was pluck in this man, pluck that surged up in the blundering awkwardness, the hesitation, the incompetence and rudeness of him like a black rock out of the sea. She did not answer. They rode on, always slowly. His horse, having had its ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... destroy thee forever, He shall take thee away and pluck thee from thy dwelling, And root thee out of ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... in his experience that he had had to face similar outbursts. It was the first time, however, that he had not felt like striking back. Other women's outbreaks had bored him and generally had ended his interest in them—this one was more charming than ever. He liked, too, her American pluck and savage independence. Jealous she certainly was, but there was no whine about it; nor was there any flop at the close—floppy women he detested—had always done so. Lucy struck straight out from her shoulder ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... surrounded. His troops ran in wild disorder. Men, horses, baggage-wagons, ambulances, bounded over logs and stumps and through thickets in indescribable confusion. Colonel Peabody was shot from his horse, mortally wounded, and his troops, which had begun to show pluck and endurance, joined ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... hour,—how swift it flies When poppies flare and lilies smile; How soon the fleeting minute dies, Leaving us but a little while To dream our dream, to sing our song, To pick the fruit, to pluck the flower, The Gods—They do not give ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... because of the phone that I'm here. To-day you are talking to me Because of the grit and the pluck of a boy. His title was Runner McGee. We were up to our dead line an' fighting alone; some plan had miscarried, I guess, And the help we were promised had failed to arrive. We were ...
— Over Here • Edgar A. Guest
... to disengage his weapon, but Hordle John bent his arm slowly back until, with a sharp crack, like a breaking stave, it turned limp in his grasp, and the mace dropped from the nerveless fingers. In vain he tried to pluck it up with the other hand. Back and back still his foeman bent him, until, with a roar of pain and of fury, the giant clanged his full length upon the boards, while the glimmer of a knife before the bars of his helmet warned him that ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... in accordance with a recognized code, concealing their feelings. If she rode or drove, somebody got ready the horse for her; it was the same with the car. When she strolled through an English garden, she might pluck a flower or take pleasure in the smoothness of the lawn, but it was always with the feeling that others had planted and mown. She could take no active part in things; there was little that she could ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... have sixty dollars a month and board. The company operated a commissary store, a regular "pluck-me" concern, and I shortly understood the incentive in offering me such good wages. All employees were encouraged and expected to draw their pay in supplies, which were sold at treble their actual value from the ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... result of my own incompetence in a bit of speculation and didn't worry me a great deal. But other things did. There were a couple of the fellows that I thought were friends of mine. I found out that they had knifed me; had helped pluck me to feather their own nests. It hurt, Dick; hurt like hell. Losing the big ranch in the South was a jolt, I'll admit; seeing those fellows take it over and split it two ways between them, sort of knocked the props out ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... "You and I were turned out differently, Julie," he said. "But I like you awfully. You attract me so much that I don't know how to express it. There's nothing mean about you, and nothing sham. And I admire your pluck beyond words. It seems to me that you've looked life in the face and laughed. Anybody can laugh at death, but very few of us at life. I think I'm terrified of it. And that's the awful part about it all, for I ought to know the secret, and I don't. I feel an absolute ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... with her watry eyes Bent on the earth: the unfrequented woods Are her delight; and when she sees a bank Stuck full of flowers, she with a sigh will tell Her servants what a pretty place it were To bury lovers in, and make her maids Pluck'em, and strow her over like a Corse. She carries with her an infectious grief That strikes all her beholders, she will sing The mournful'st things that ever ear hath heard, And sigh, and sing again, and when the rest Of our young Ladies in their ...
— The Maids Tragedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... Between the two windows I can handle him alone. I only hope we shan't be noticed, for that might prove awkward. Now take hold. That's it. When I'm through the window just push his legs outside." Panting, Kitty obeyed. "All right," said Cutty. "I like your pluck. You run along ahead and be ready to help me in with him. A ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... for a cent, does he?" was his comment. "Strikes me I got out of the ranks of the ungodly just in time. If I were still gambling, I believe I'd take some of those bets he speaks of. He won't last—in this town. But I like his pluck—kind of. Only he's damn bad ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... Pluck the others, but still remember Their herald out of dim December,— The morning star of all the flowers, The pledge of daylight's lengthened hours, Nor, midst the roses, e'er ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... a howling House, which had listened quietly to me, but was determined to have no more, with remarkable pluck, equal to that with which he had faced bullets in the Danish lines; but it was partly useless and ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... help an Englishman to understand Plato's comparison, if instead of concupiscible part and irascible part, we call the one steed Passion and the other Pluck. Pluck fails, and Passion runs to excess, till Pluck is formed to ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... ships, and the kingdom, one in itself, sits secure behind her well-defended bulwarks. Such have I, through the strength of the Almighty arm, made Scotland! Beloved by a grateful people, I could wield half her power to the destruction of the rest; but I would not pluck one stone out of the building I have raised. To-day I deliver up my commission, since its design is ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... more than illustrations of pluck in the face of apparent failure. Our heroes show the stuff they are made of and surprise their most ardent admirers. One of the best ...
— Carpentry for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... said, "let me pluck some of those beautiful white hairs as souvenirs. I never saw ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh
... him here to judge him, and he is already bored," she continued. "He pines for Paris, I tell him; the nostalgia of criticism is on him; he has no author to pluck, no system to undermine, no poet to drive to despair, and he dares not commit some debauch in this house which might lift for a moment the burden of his ennui. Alas! my love is not real enough, perhaps, to soothe his brain; I don't intoxicate him! Make him drunk at dinner to-night and I shall ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... her, and contrived to thwart her, to do the very thing she would not have done, and to do it in the most obnoxious way. The puzzle was—could he help it? Was he one of those tactless persons who are for ever blundering, or had he the will to assert himself, and not the pluck to do it boldly? His refuge was in round-about manoeuvres, and my lady felt towards him as those intolerant Cumberland statesmen felt before their enmity made the bleak moorland too hot for him. He was called an able man, but his foibles were precisely of the sort to create in the large-hearted ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... days as these the men scarcely left the house except to care for the beasts, and came back on the run, their faces rasped with the cold and shining-wet with snow-crystals melted by the heat of the house. Chapdelaine would pluck the icicles from his moustache, slowly draw off his sheepskin-lined coat and settle himself by the stove with a satisfied sigh. "The pump is not frozen?" he asks. "Is there plenty of ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... listing. By such speeches was the herdsman made curious, and would fain have wist wherefore the Dwarfs hid so carefully their feet, and whether these were otherwise shapen than men's feet. When, therefore, the next year, summer again came, and the season that the Dwarfs did stealthily pluck the cherries, and bear them into the garner, the herdsman took a sackful of ashes, which he strewed round about the tree. The next morning, with daybreak, he hied to the spot; the tree was regularly gotten, and he saw beneath in the ashes the print of many geese's ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... John Macdonald had refused to say a word. Now that the fever had run its course, now that the one able leader of the repeal cause realized the impasse into which he had brought his beloved province, Macdonald saw that it was the time for him 'from the nettle danger to pluck the flower safety.' He entered into negotiations with Howe, employing all his art and all his sagacity. Clearly he put the choice. Nova Scotia was in the Dominion, and the only way out led direct to Washington. Was not the only possible course for the greatest Nova Scotian to sink his personal ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... spoke for just a moment. Their silence meant that they thought Susan's pluck in "working out" quite wonderful. But Susan mistook their meaning and her sun-burned face ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... to shine upon the subject from the laboratory table. I began to perceive more deeply than it has ever yet been stated, the trembling immateriality, the mist-like transience, of this seemingly so solid body in which we walk attired. Certain agents I found to have the power to shake and to pluck that fleshy vestment, even as a wind might toss the curtains of a pavilion. For two good reasons, I will not enter deeply into this scientific branch of my confession. First, because I have been made to learn that ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Christian, you talk of ease in the grave, but can a man go to bliss who takes his own life? All the law is not in the hands of Giant Despair. Who knows but that God, who made the world, may cause him to die, or lose the use of his limbs as he did at first. I have made up my mind to pluck up the heart of a man, and to try to get out of this strait. Fool that I was not to do so when first he came to the cell. But let us not put an end to our own lives, for a good time ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress in Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin
... elder brother. Ch'iu asked, 'Shall I do all I am taught?' and you answered: 'Do all thou art taught.' I am puzzled, and make bold to ask you, Sir." The Master said:—"Ch'iu is bashful, so I egged him on. Yu has the pluck of two, so ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... scarlet geranium was all that I ventured to pluck. But the odours and the colours were there for all comers, and were as much mine for the time being as if the flowers themselves had belonged to me. Suddenly I turned and glanced up at the many-windowed house with a sort of guilty consciousness ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... Jesus. I have been told by one that is looked up to as a strong believer in the second coming of the Lord this fall, that Jesus broke the Sabbath. Jesus says, I have kept my Father's commandments. It is said that he 'broke the Sabbath,' because he allowed his disciples to pluck the corn and eat it on that day, and the Pharisees condemned them. He says, "If ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless." Then they were not guilty. See Deut. xxiii: 25. He immediately cites them ...
— The Seventh Day Sabbath, a Perpetual Sign, from the Beginning to the Entering into the Gates of the Holy City, According to the Commandment • Joseph Bates
... a good little chap, that Dick; he has stuck to me well these five years. I wouldn't like to trust him with another man's horse, though. But this other one is no good; he's got all the inclination to go the whole hog, and none of the pluck necessary. If he ever is lagged, he will be a worse one than ever I was, or Dick either. There he is, for ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... rash hand in evil hour Forth reaching to the fruit, she pluck'd, she eat: Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat Sighing through all her works gave signs of woe, ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... Hayden set his nice, square jaw firmly, and when Hayden set his jaw that way, you might look for things to happen. He might be over-impulsive and lacking in caution, but he had plenty of initiative, pluck and determination. Then, his face relaxed and softened. He threw his cigarette into the bed of ashes on the hearth and stretched his arms above his head. Ah-h-h! He felt like Monte Cristo. Surely, surely, the world was his. Had he ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... and collected. We have had several famous elephant-hunters among the Dutch farmers. I remember that one of them, after a return from a successful chase, made a bet that he would go up to a wild elephant and pluck eight hairs out of his tail. He did so and won his bet, for the elephant can not see behind him, and is not very quick in turning round. However, a short time afterward he made the same attempt, and being foolhardy from success, ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... of these. A sardonic dignity hedged him about with peculiar sacredness. He was chivalrous and baronial in his instincts, surroundings, and characteristics. He was nervous, excitable, and bloodthirsty. He would "pluck up drowned honor by the locks" and make a target of everyone who laughed. He hunted, fought, gambled, made much of his ancestors, hated niggers, despised Yankees, and swore and swaggered on all occasions. That was the way he was pictured in the ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... flutters upon the bough, A moment, and it is gone,— A bubble amid the fountain spray,— Ah, pause, and think thereon; For such is youth and its passing bloom That wait for thee this hour, If aught in thy heart incline to me Ah, stoop and pluck thy flower! ...
— Last Poems • Laurence Hope
... Lord! how we suddenly jump, as Scorpio, or the Scorpion, stings us in rear; we are curing the wound, when whang come the arrows all round; Sagittarius, or the Archer, is amusing himself. As we pluck out the shafts, stand aside; here's the battering-ram, Capricornus, or the Goat; full tilt, he comes rushing, and headlong we are tossed; when Aquarius, or the Water-bearer, pours out his whole deluge ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville |
