"Pluck" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... we walked, we saw the eunuchs looking and lurking, and finally disappearing whenever they thought that they were seen. There were more of them now, too, and, seeing us quite alone, they were beginning to pluck up courage and wished once more to interfere. I thought for an instant as I looked at their evil faces of tearing down some rich embroidery and fashioning from it a sack just as I had seen those Indian troopers do so few days before; then of setting ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... art makes, by coincidence, the same demands as noble thinking and acting. For, even as all noble sports develop muscle, develop eye, skill, quickness and pluck in bodily movement, qualities which are valuable also in the practical business of life; so also the appreciation of noble kinds of art implies the acquisition of habits of accuracy, of patience, of respectfulness, and suspension of judgment, ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... republican," said Santerre, "or why would he come here? Take a glass of wine, friend Denot, and pluck up your courage," and Santerre passed the wine-bottle to him. "If you are true to us, you need not ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... communications. If our legislature dispose of it with the wisdom we have a right to expect, they may make it the means of tempting all our Indians on the east side of the Mississippi to remove to the west, and of condensing instead of scattering our population. I find our opposition is very willing to pluck feathers from Monroe, although not fond of sticking them into Livingston's coat. The truth is, both have a just portion of merit; and were it necessary or proper, it would be shown that each has rendered peculiar services, and of important value. These grumblers, too, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... want of the tillage of heat, had overgrown in our bodies, and which was cast, like a blockish stay-fish in the way, to stay the free course of the ship of life: these flying out of all sides, abundantly pluck up all the old leavings of hair, nails, and teeth, by the roots, and drive them out before them: in the mean while, our medicine makes not onely clear way and passage for life, if she list to stir and run her wonted race (which ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... she made no answer, but taking a rose from out of a vase near her began to pluck the petals in an absent manner and lay them beside her. When a woman's wits are pitted against those of a man it is well for him to disregard nothing, and, slight as this action was, I took note of it. I counted the petals as she plucked them. ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... war under the superintendence of a limited number of our citizens, it is obvious that we could put forth more strength in such an emergency, at less sacrifice, than any other people of the same numbers. And thus we should in every point of view, "out of this nettle danger, pluck ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... gleamed when he saw us coming, and his eyebrows went up to his hat brim at sight of us bareheaded and alone, who always handed our coppers through the palings. And Anita, the monkey, was there, looking rather pale and sickly after the long Winter, but full of pluck, grinning, as she ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... determined what form that game should take. He was born on an Iowa farm, and his father had emigrated to eastern Oregon, in which mining country Elam's boyhood was lived. He had known nothing but hard knocks for big stakes. Pluck and endurance counted in the game, but the great god Chance dealt the cards. Honest work for sure but meagre returns did not count. A man played big. He risked everything for everything, and anything less than everything meant that he was a loser. So for twelve ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... him and occasionally a tongue of flame seemed to reach for him. But Gummy Carringford possessed a good deal of pluck, and he was strong and wary for so young a boy. Shielding his face as best he could from the heat and smoke, he began to cast double handfuls ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... pain, In fair proportions to thy Giant form? Did ever wife, by whatsoever name Or tie of union, with her ministries Of love, caress and cheer thy way through life? Were children in thy home, to climb thy knee And pluck thy beard, secure, and dare thy power Or, was thy nature as its substance now, Like stone—as cold and unimpressible? Over these hills, with spear like weaver's beam, Dids't thou pursue the chase and track thy foe, Holding all fear and danger in contempt? And, did at last, ...
— The American Goliah • Anon.
... not minister to a mind diseased, Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, Raze out the written troubles of the brain, And, with some sweet oblivious antidote, Cleanse the foul bosom of that perilous stuff, Which ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... me to give him up at first—" Mr. Linden went on softly; and the voice said it was yet; "but that answers all questions. 'The good Husbandman may pluck his roses, and gather in his lilies at mid-summer, and, for aught I dare say, in the beginning of the ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... the open windows, looking out at the moonlit lawn; one of them supremely happy, and yet with a kind of undefined sense that this supreme happiness was a dangerous thing—a thing that it would be wise to pluck out of his heart, and have ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... knee, "th' owd parson's lass. A little wench not much higher nor thy waist, an' wi' a bit o' a face loike skim-milk, but steady and full o' pluck as ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the great cardinal virtues of dog or man—courage, endurance, and skill—in intense action. This is very different from a love of making dogs fight, and enjoying, and aggravating, and making gain by their pluck. A boy—be he ever so fond himself of fighting, if he be a good boy, hates and despises all this, but he would have run off with Bob and me fast enough; it is a natural, and a not wicked, interest that all boys and men have in ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... good humor, as if he liked her pluck] Well thats not what I came to say. [Sitting down beside her] Now listen, Miss Vivie. I'm quite aware that I'm not a young ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... saw A forked stick to pluck the fruit, His wife, the basket lined with straw; He talks, but she is almost mute, And very pale. The minutes pass; The basket has no further space, Now on the fruits they flowers amass That with their red flush all the place While twilight lingers; then for wood ...
— Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan • Toru Dutt
... paused only long enough to pluck from the backs of the fallen birds the long, silky plumes, which they carefully placed in a stiff leather valise, then hastened on to another part of the island where the ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... had laughed at. We were proud of him, and right glad to see him, and a little bit uneasy, but vastly amused over his peppery dealings with the Royal Geographers. [Laughter.] In spite of our admiration for his pluck and his luck we did not take him quite seriously. [Laughter.] In fact we did not take anything very seriously in those days. The Lotos Club at first was younger in that hearty enthusiastic reception to Stanley fourteen years ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... fresh voice from behind; "and fox-hunting is an epitome of human life. You chop or lose your first two or three: but keep up your pluck, and you'll run into one before sun-down; and I seem to have run ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... pound of this poor merchant's flesh), Thou wilt not only lose the forfeiture, But 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
... do not commend me so; I am flesh and blood, and you do not know what you may pluck upon that reverend person of yours.—Come on, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... do. Look alive, senor," the turnkey ordered, and to emphasize his words reached a hand forward to pluck away the sobbing lad. Bucky caught his wrist and tightened on it like a vise. "Hands off, ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... wild spirits, though pale with heat and fatigue. He had nothing to say of himself, but much of his aunt and of the boy Mohammed. "Ripping little chap," he exclaimed, when Saidee had gone indoors. "You never saw such pluck. He'd die sooner than admit he was tired. I shall be quite sorry to part from him. He was jolly good company, a sort of living book of Arab history. And what do you say to our surprise,—the twins? My aunt sent them off at the same time with the telegram, but of course they ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... for the maiden's pillow, Far beyond the Atlantic's billow, Love's apple, and when we have found it, Draw the magic circle round it;(1) Fearless pluck it, then no charm That it bears may do us harm; Place it near the sleeper's head, It will bring love's visions nigh, And when the pleasing, dreams are fled, The waking, pensive maid will sigh, Till her bosom has possessed, The ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands
... taught almost by compulsion, and at the first opportunity they will fall back into their own ways. The farmers will not change their methods. If one among them did so he would be a mark for derision. No Irish villager has the pluck to say, I will do this or that because it is the best thing to do. He must do as the others do, even to planting his farm, selling the produce, and also in disposing of the proceeds. Nowhere is public opinion so powerful, ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... '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," ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... Pluck an apron full: lay them one against another so that they shall stick fast together, and make in this manner the bottom of a small basket of any shape you like,—round, square, ...
— The Nursery, July 1873, Vol. XIV. No. 1 • Various
... additional matter. We were especially obliged to have it out this morning, that it may operate as a gentle preparative for the meeting of inhabitants at two o'clock. Vogue la galere—we shall see if Scotsmen have any pluck left. If not, they may kill the next Percy themselves. It is ridiculous enough for me, in a state of insolvency for the present, to be battling about gold and paper currency. It is something like the humorous touch in Hogarth's Distressed Poet, where the poor starveling of the Muses is engaged, ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... 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 ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... you ever hear of such pluck? A sort of heroic madman, something absolutely wonderful! And then there's that nickname of Arsene Lupin which he earned among his messmates for the way in which he used to boss them and astound them! ... How long is it since the death ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... unimaginable by really clever fellows. And as always, too, these methods are unfair to us clever fellows. Well, I am willing to taste any drink once: but this is a very horrible device, none the less; and I wonder if I have the pluck to endure it?" ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... the greatest misfortune of all. Emily, Bob's little sister, ventured too far out upon a cliff one day to pluck a vagrant wild flower that had found lodgment in a crevice, and in reaching for it, slipped to the rocks below. Bob heard her scream as she fell, and ran to her assistance. He found her lying there, quite still and white, clutching the precious blossom, and at first he ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... your pluck. When a girl has never had to work, and takes hold the way you do, I admire it. You ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... continued the old miner, "may however ascend a great deal higher; for such things after all would be merely a jest. If he has a spite against any one, he can pluck his heart out of his body with a look, just as easily as his money out of his pocket. The enemy he sets eye on will waste away and die miserably, or will sink into beggary, while he himself becomes as rich as ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... Noen. "If God will, we shall defeat the king. Even if he has Bruja to send, you have some one also: so pluck up ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... "Mournful Monday," when, seeing a trooper fall, he walked back where bullets were falling thick, and brought the wounded man back on his shoulders in full view of several regiments. The Boers, inappreciative of pluck in that form, kept up a steady fire on the wounded trooper and his heroic officer until they ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... which do not require much nourishment, such as snail clover and the legumes, except always chick peas (for this also is a legume like the other plants which are not reaped but from which the grain is plucked) because those things which it is the custom to pluck (legere) are called legumes. In rich land should be sown what ever require much nourishment, such as cabbage, spring and winter, wheat and flax. Certain plants are cultivated not so much for their immediate yield as ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... said he; "you'd go anywhere. Just because a fellow a peg above you asks you, you'll go and make a fool of yourself and risk every chance you've got, because you've not the pluck to make yourself disagreeable!" ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... tail tight, and the horse "went into figures," as the cow-puncher phrase of that day was. There was a cut bank about four feet high on the hither side of the river, and over this the horse bucked. We went into the water with a splash. With a "pluck" the calf followed, described a parabola in the air, and landed beside us. Fortunately, this took the rope out from under the horse's tail, but left him thoroughly frightened. He could not do much bucking in the stream, for there were one or two places where we had ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... nothing.[1429] The device of the East Greenland Eskimo is also evidently for utility, not for modesty.[1430] In order to escape flies, Brunache and his companions took refuge under a tree which is shunned by flies. It is from this tree that the women pluck the bunches of leaves which they ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... temine, or petticoat, of cotton or silk, lined with muslin, extending from the arm-pits to the ankles. Over this is sometimes worn a jacket, open in front with close, long sleeves. Both sexes wear ornaments in the ears. Men wear mustachios, but pluck out the beard with tweezers. Women, in order to render their complexions more fair, rub over the face a delicate yellow powder; and they occasionally stain the nails of the fingers and toes with a scarlet pigment. All ranks are exceedingly ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... with Khartoum at least suspended Gordon's constant representations as to what he thought the right policy, as well as his demands for the fulfilment by the Government of their side of the contract. It was then that Lord Granville seemed to pluck up heart of grace, and to challenge Gordon's right to remain at Khartoum. On 23rd April Lord Granville asked for explanation of "cause of detention." Unfortunately it was not till months later that the country ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... thank God!" proclaimed Stefan devoutly. "What magnificent pluck, and how divine of you to tell me it all! You've saved me from suicide, almost. These people ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... ritualistic religion of the ages and the truth preached by 141:3 Jesus. More than profession is requisite for Christian demonstration. Few understand or adhere to Jesus' divine precepts for living and 141:6 healing. Why? Because his precepts require the disci- ple to cut off the right hand and pluck out the right eye, - that is, to set aside even the most cherished beliefs 141:9 and practices, ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... a dangerous errand again without speaking to me about it. It is a perfect miracle that you have come back alive! We have good reason to be thankful as long as we live that you didn't miss your footing or get killed by that savage vulture. But what I wonder most at is that you could muster up the pluck for such a risky ...
— Harper's Young People, November 18, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... that you weathered Such a storm as that of Sunday, which upset our nerves on land, Though in fire-side comfort tethered. How it blew, and blared, and blethered! All your passengers, my Captain, say your pluck and skill were grand. Much to men like you is owing, when wild storms around are blowing, As they seem to have been doing since the opening of the year: Howling, hailing, sleeting, snowing; but for captains calm ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 8, 1890 • Various
... marked 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
... Stretched up their dishes, Panniers and plates: "Look at our apples Russet and dun, Bob at our cherries, Bite at our peaches, Citrons and dates, Grapes for the asking, Pears red with basking Out in the sun, Plums on their twigs; Pluck them and suck them, ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... to a flower-bed, to pluck some roses. Her eyes were fixed on her new bracelet, the stones of which sparkled in the sun, and she did not notice a richly-dressed man peering in at one of the windows of the room where Nitetis lay ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... possession in one case, which is not esteemed such in another. A person, who has hunted a hare to the last degree of weariness, would look upon it as an injustice for another to rush in before him, and seize his prey. But the same person advancing to pluck an apple, that hangs within his reach, has no reason to complain, if another, more alert, passes him, and takes possession. What is the reason of this difference, but that immobility, not being natural to the hare, but the effect of industry, forms in that case a strong relation ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... remembering the position of adjacent coverts, will give a good guess as to the direction in which the field will move. No; he must make an effort. The time of his penance has come, and the penance must be borne. There is a spark of pluck about him, though unfortunately he has brought it to bear in a wrong direction. The blood still runs at his heart, and he resolves that he will ride, if only he could ...
— Hunting Sketches • Anthony Trollope
... whole service, with that whole mass of enormity which he attributes to it, slept, as it were, at once, under his terror and his protection: under his protection, if they did not dare to move against him; under terror, from his power to pluck out individuals and make a public example of them, whenever he thought fit. And therefore that service, under his guidance and influence, was, beyond even what its own nature disposed it to, a service of confederacy, a service of connivance, ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... mind diseased; Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow; Raze out the written troubles ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... pluck the glowing fruit, their lips and cheeks are smeared and dyed; Their snowy bonnets brush the grass like lifting top-sails on a tide; And when their little pails brim red and rosy hands will hold no more, They steer long shadows down the waves that ...
— England over Seas • Lloyd Roberts
... merciful God! The old testament is full of curses, vengeance, jealousy and hatred, and of barbarity and brutality. Now, do you for one moment believe that these words were written by the most merciful God? Don't pluck from the heart the sweet flower of piety and crush it by superstition. Do not believe that God ever ordered the murder of innocent women and helpless babes. Do not let this superstition turn our heart into stone. When anything ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... they start to fly away many, if not all, will drop something. I have found these to be acorns, walnuts, hickory nuts, buckeyes, sycamore balls, sticks, eggshells, pebbles, etc. As a crow leaves an oak he will pluck an acorn, which he may carry five miles and light on a beech tree where something else will attract his attention, when he will drop the acorn and maybe pluck a pod of beechnuts and fly away somewhere ...
— Seed Dispersal • William J. Beal
... sprung up under the footsteps of the sainted Ann Hutchinson as she entered the prison-door, we shall not take upon us to determine. Finding it so directly on the threshold of our narrative, which is now about to issue from that inauspicious portal, we could hardly do otherwise than pluck one of its flowers, and present it to the reader. It may serve, let us hope, to symbolise some sweet moral blossom that may be found along the track, or relieve the darkening close of a tale of human frailty ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... door, when opened, grated on the stone floor, and made a noise which could not fail to rouse the whole household. Everything, looked strange and uncanny in the dim light, but Paul was too anxious and eager to feel fear, and of ordinary pluck and spirit he had plenty; it was moral courage, which is, after all, the true courage, that he lacked. His spirit was dashed, though, when he reached the back door and saw the huge bolts by which it was secured. ...
— Paul the Courageous • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... the face, especially in old age. With the tribes of North America, Catlin estimates that eighteen out of twenty men are completely destitute by nature of a beard; but occasionally there may be seen a man, who has neglected to pluck out the hairs at puberty, with a soft beard an inch or two in length. The Guaranys of Paraguay differ from all the surrounding tribes in having a small beard, and even some hair on the body, but no whiskers. (19. Catlin, 'North American Indians,' 3rd. ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... marriage, and although many a noble youth sighed away his heart for love of her, she remained in her father's palace like an exquisite rose whose thorns make those who fain would have it for their own, fear to pluck it from the parent stem. Her sisters married, and her father marvelled why so strange a thing should come about and why the most beautiful by far of his ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... my noble youths of oak, pluck up your hearts with me. Will you come, sir I come on, i'faith: keep in order you thereby. We shall find her i'faith, master prince, anon, I know, And then I'll trounce him for running away with ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... 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 forget The ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... language! It was the happiest Christmas I ever spent. Quam bonus Israel Deus! So too said Father Letheby. But I had some dim presentiment that all his well-merited pleasure would not be quite unalloyed,—that some secret hand, perhaps a merciful one, would pluck a laurel leaf or two from his crown. We had a pleasant academic discussion after dinner about the honorable retention of ancient Irish customs,—he quite enthusiastic about them, I rather disposed to think that the abuses which invariably accompanied ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... straightened him out sadly—putting his hat over his face and drawing his arms to his sides. Above, he saw with sudden nausea, buzzards circling—little cared they whether the dead were American or Spaniard, as long as there were eyes to pluck and lips to tear away, and then straightway, tragedy merged into comedy as swiftly as on a stage. Out of the woods across the way emerged a detail of negro troopers—sent to clear the woods behind of sharpshooters—and last came Bob. The detail, passing along the creek ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... unaffected grace, His looks adorn'd the venerable place; Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway, And fools, who came to scoff, remain'd to pray. 180 The service pass'd, around the pious man, With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran; Even children follow'd with endearing wile, And pluck'd his gown, to share the good man's smile. His ready smile a parent's warmth express'd, 185 Their welfare pleas'd him, and their cares distress'd; To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given, But all his serious thoughts had rest in Heaven. As some tall cliff, that lifts ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... drink milk, and beneath my tree let him play; and, when he shall be able to speak, make him salute his mother, and let him in sadness say, 'Beneath this trunk is my mother concealed.' Yet let him dread the ponds, and let him not pluck flowers from the trees; and let him think that all shrubs are the bodies of Goddesses. Farewell, dear husband; and thou, sister; and, {thou} my father; in whom, if there is any affection {towards me}, protect my branches from the ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... from the trader, Hezekiah walked to Richmond and was there secreted under a floor by a friend. He was a tall man, of powerful muscular strength, about thirty years of age just in the prime of his manhood with enough pluck for two men. ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... yourself on a point like that," said he, quickly, "for, you know, we are not well acquainted. I like your pluck, and I offer you what is given to ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... once, and discover for himself the harm that had come to his friend. He was devoted to Beulah. He had always felt that he saw a little more clearly than the others the virtue that was in the girl. He admired the pluck with which she made her attack on life and the energy with which she accomplished her ends. There was to him something alluring and quaint about her earnestness. The fact that her soundness could be questioned came to him with something ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... the absolute object that interests this poet, rather than vague or futile speculation about it. The flower in the crannied wall he would leave there. He would never pluck it out, root and all, wondering about the mystery of the life principle. No poet is more clean-eyed. His eyes are achromatic. He has lost his illusions gladly; every time he has lost an illusion he ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... arriv'd, That never sailing on its waters saw Man, that could after measure back his course, He girt me in such manner as had pleas'd Him who instructed, and O, strange to tell! As he selected every humble plant, Wherever one was pluck'd, another there Resembling, straightway ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... 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 road ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... the Wars in your country against the Red Indians, of the gallantry of your soldiers against the cunning of the Red Man, and what is more, of the pluck of your ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... I could have been down at the Hall, in hopes to have confirmed the poor woman in her newly assumed penitence. God give her grace to persevere in it!—To be an humble means of saving a soul from perdition! O my dear Miss Darnford, let me enjoy that heart-ravishing hope!—To pluck such a brand as this out of the fire, and to assist to quench its flaming susceptibility for mischief, and make it useful to edifying purposes, what a pleasure does this afford one! How does it encourage one to proceed in the way one has been ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... they forgot the way to "Hawaiki," and even at last the art of building double-canoes, yet they never wanted for pluck or seamanship in fishing and voyaging along the stormy New Zealand coasts. Their skill and coolness in paddling across flooded rivers may ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... to-day—for that matter I passed it half a dozen times, but I could not screw up my courage to do any more. The look of the place daunted me, to begin with. To think of Alice Beveridge shut up there! Besides, I'm a soldier; my life has been spent among men; I haven't the pluck to face a houseful of women. Be a good angel, and let us meet here once more! I was too much overcome yesterday to know what I was saying, but something must be done, and done quickly. I can't go on living as I am, and think of her working for her living. Of course, you know what it all means. You ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... I never advocated stolen pistoles and suborned witnesses and angered nephews and deceived sons and the rest of your cumbrous machinery. I would have had you stab him as he bent over his papers, and walk out of the house before they discovered him. But you had not the pluck for that; you must needs plot and replot to make some one else do your work. Now, after months of intriguing and waiting, you come to me to tell me you have failed. Morbleu! is there any reason why I should not have you kicked into the gutter, ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... time, below the window, facing the mirror, and adjusting her toilette. Upon hearing Pao-yue mention that he was on his way to school, she smiled and remarked, "That's right! you're now going to school and you'll be sure to reach the lunar palace and pluck the olea fragrans; but I can't go ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... gale might make them seem to shine with such a movement in the veritable sky; yet nothing but deep water, seeming still in its incessant flight and rebound, could really show such altered stars. The flood lets a constellation fly, as Juliet's "wanton" with a tethered bird, only to pluck it home again. At moments some rhythmic flux of the water seems about to leave the darkly- set, widely-spaced Bear absolutely at large, to dismiss the great stars, and refuse to imitate the skies, and all the water is obscure; ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... outrages committed at Lexington and Bunker's Hill had, in truth, exasperated the people at large, and this exasperation was increased tenfold when, at a later period, news arrived of the invasion of Canada. They saw that it was a rude attempt to pluck a jewel from the British crown, and it excited feelings of resentment in their breasts deep and lasting. Not a few Englishmen who maintained that the Americans were justified in taking up arms to assert their own rights were converted by this step adopted by congress. In ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... low voice] Mabel's just going, mother! [Almost whispering] Where's Freda? Is it—Has she really had the pluck? ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... I call real double lock-stitch pluck! That goes back of everything. You needn't shut up any more. Now let's come ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... with the other all depart; One goes in front, and one behind doth pluck him, And at his side ...
— Dante's Purgatory • Dante
... could not think of deserting France in this her hour of need! Much had been done; but much yet remained to do. If she were to quit her post, there could be no telling what might not follow. The English, cowed and bewildered now, might well pluck up heart of grace, and sweep back through the country once owning their sway, driving all foes before them as in the days of old. The victories won in these last weeks might soon be swallowed up in fresh defeat and disaster. How could we expect it to be otherwise if the presence ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Brother Copas. "There are two at least: the first, that here we are, two jolly Protestants, who might be as comfortable as rats in a cheese—you conscious of a duty performed, and I filled with admiration of your pluck—and lo! when old Biscoe annoys us by an act of petty spite, we turn, not on him, but on one another. You, already more angry with yourself than with Biscoe, suddenly take offence with me because I didn't join you in standing between a good man and ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Unnaturally hoar with rime, do now From my high nest of penance here proclaim That Pontius and Iscariot by my side Show'd like fair seraphs. On the coals I lay, A vessel full of sin: all hell beneath Made me boil over. Devils pluck'd my sleeve; [5] Abaddon and Asmodeus caught at me. I smote them with the cross; they swarm'd again. In bed like monstrous apes they crush'd my chest: They flapp'd my light out as I read: I saw Their faces grow between me and my book: With colt-like whinny and with hoggish whine ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... captains like Blake and Billy Ray, married men both whose wives he worshipped, the major's rugged heart went out especially to Beverly Field, his boy adjutant, a lad who came to them from West Point only three years before the autumn this story opens, a young fellow full of high health, pluck and principle—a tip top soldier, said everybody from the start, until, as Gregg and other growlers began to declaim, the major completely spoiled him. Here, three years only out of military leadingstrings, he was a young cock of the walk, "too dam' independent for a second ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... nowadays to claim success is to obtain it, and since, after all, great works are only due to the expansion of little ideas, I do not see why I should not pluck the laurels, if only for the purpose of crowning those dirty bacon faces who join us in swallowing a dram. One moment, pilot, let us not start ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... retorted to all Josephine's charges that he needed but one reply, the persistent I: "I am different from every one else, and accept the limitations of no other." Her continuous weeping, he wrote to his consort, showed neither character nor courage. "I don't like cowards; an empress should have pluck." The second sign of weakness was the growing neglect of detail in his work. Life has always been too short for a despot both to gratify his passions and at the same time to be a beneficent ruler, even under the simplest conditions. On the recovery of Maret, the ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... Tom continued, "and she rode the beast home. He was a wild one, I can tell you, and she's got pluck. That's the first time I ever met her, although I had often seen her and thought she was a stunner to look at. She talked as if she took an ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... various colours, from light pea-green to brown and rich yellow. Jack said that the yellow was the ripe fruit. We afterwards found that most of the fruit-trees on the island were evergreens, and that we might, when we wished, pluck the blossom and the ripe fruit from the same tree. Such a wonderful difference from the trees of our own country surprised us not a little. The bark of the tree was rough and light-coloured; the trunk was about two feet in diameter, and it ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... that we go to sleep, and then we shan't hear what he says," said Meredith. "They talk of his not having pluck enough to speak, but he can do it when he pleases," he remarked in a low tone to his next companion, Frank ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... "that letter is three days delayed. Patsy couldn't cross the river. She'll be there before we can possibly get down. If no one meets her I wonder if she'll have pluck enough to get into the coach and come on ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... most vindictive assaults ever made upon any official, by either friend or opponent, from the Senator from Ohio [Mr. Wade]—an assault upon my personal friend, a man who for two years sat side by side with me here, whom I learned to respect and admire for his pluck, his ability, and integrity, and to love for his manly virtues; a man whom I originally selected as the candidate of the Republican party for the second office within the gift of that party; a man whom I ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... dry months the angler often has to put up with indifferent sport. The fish will, however, rise in tidal water and in a few localities even in the sea itself, or in salt-water lochs into which streams run. Sea-trout have an irritating knack of "coming short," that is to say, they will pluck at the fly without really taking it. There are occasions, on the other hand, in loch-fishing where plenty of time must be given to the fish without tightening on it, especially if it happens to be a big one. Like salmon, sea-trout are to be caught with spinning-baits and also with ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... lesson—a momentous lesson. Hitherto I have been driven with revolt to what I would not; I was a bond-slave to poverty, driven and scourged. There are robust virtues that can stand in these temptations; mine was not so; I had a thirst of pleasure. But to-day, and out of this deed, I pluck both warning and riches—both the power and a fresh resolve to be myself. I become in all things a free actor in the world; I begin to see myself all changed, these hands the agents of good, this heart at peace. Something comes ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... change occurred. "The relish continued to increase as our bullocks grew poorer; and we became as eager to examine the condition of a slaughtered beast as the natives, whose practice in that respect we had formerly ridiculed." When they caught an emu, their first and eager care was to pluck the feathers and cut into the flesh, "to see how thick the fat was, and whether it was a rich yellow." The Spartan Doctor himself was not proof against the greasy fascination. Hear his confession of a frailty, and record of its quick-succeeding punishment. 'Tis a propos of kites, which ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up ... God requireth that which is past ... man hath no pre-eminence above a beast, for all is vanity.... a man should ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... restoration to liberty seemed insufficient to lift them out of it. But after they had been made to bathe and thoroughly cleanse themselves from the dust and other impurities of the march, prior to being housed in the barracoons, they seemed to pluck up a little spirit,—a salt-water bath is a wonderful tonic,—and later on in the evening, when a plentiful meal was served out to them, they so far recovered their spirits as to begin to jabber among themselves. It was close upon sunset ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... temporary difficulties. Up to date the people of this old, loyal colony have received no response. They have been struggling against difficulties in the past, and if they still have to trust to their own inherent pluck, and to the resources of the country, they must only passively submit, although they may the more bitterly feel the heartless treatment of ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead
... tomb and the laurel, seems to be at length settled, by the testimony of two travellers, given separately, and without a communication with each other. These both say, that attempting to pluck off a branch of the laurel, it followed their hand, being, in fact, nothing more than a plant or bough recently cut, and stuck in the ground for the occasion. The Cicerone acknowledged the roguery, and said they practised it with almost every traveller, to get money. You will, of course, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... foot at the break of a day after a night of lonely anguish. And now while she sat there veiled from his keen sight there was that other man, that d'Alcacer, prophesying. O yes, triumphant. She knew already what that was. Mrs. Travers became afraid of the ring. She felt ready to pluck it from her ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... could see that the effect produced upon Lopez was of the most desirable kind, and that the dreaded captain was now in a mood from which no danger was to be apprehended. And therefore it was that the virtuous, yet undeniably timid Russell, began to pluck up heart. To such a degree was his late terror surmounted, that he now became conscious of a fact which had hitherto been suppressed under the long excitement of hurried flight and sudden capture; and this fact was that he had been fasting for ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... I said before; but no one had ever heard of any coming back to be rich. I didn't go. Hadn't pluck enough, I s'pose, or else you might have seen me come back like that poor chap there. Don't ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... sigh, nor groan, Sorrow calls no time that's gone: Violets pluck'd, the sweetest rain Makes not fresh nor grow again. Trim thy locks, look cheerfully; Fate's hid ends eyes cannot see. Joys as winged dreams fly fast, Why should sadness longer last? Grief is but a wound to woe; Gentlest fair, mourn, mourn ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... as cares for the lives of such men as you, as haven't half the pluck of curs, lets a man kill a dog how he likes,' replied Sikes, shutting up the knife with a very ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... of the fringes off. Ten women suddenly surround a man wearing fringes, pull off his coat and put his fringes and laces into their bags, just as if a bold flock of tomtits, fluttering and chattering in the air, should suddenly dart on a jay to pluck out its feathers; thenceforth a man who enters a circle of women stands in danger of being stripped alive. All this pretty world has the same pastimes, the men as well as the women. Scarcely a man ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... interesting incident connected with that," he said. "And one that shows the pluck and common sense of radio operators in general—don't think that I'm throwing bouquets at myself, now, for first and last, I am a pilot, even if sometimes I find it necessary ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... "this situation is unsuitable to a sick man. I only ask you to come into my house, and receive all the kindness that it is in our power to bestow. Pluck up courage, and I will answer for your recovery, provided you submit to directions, and do as we would have you. Rise, and come along with me. We will find you a physician and a nurse, and all we ask in return is good ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... These champions fresh of Colonial Cricket. He will not "butter" you, boys, for that you'll hate. Only he must most sincerely congratulate His old friend MURDOCH on starting so well. Go it, Sir, keep it up, W. L.! Here's wishing the lot of you health and pluck, Decent weather and level luck. And when your last "four" to the boundary flashes, Take all good things home with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, May 17, 1890. • Various
... uncle, I shall have to live in the world, to hold intercourse with my fellow-beings, to see them, and I can not, for that reason, pluck out my eyes. You have told me many times that you wish me to devote myself to a life of action, preaching the divine law, and making it known in the world, rather than to a contemplative life in the midst of solitude and isolation. ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... almost exhausted, and if he survives us at all, it can only be for a few days. Whenever I raised my head I always failed to see him, but he was probably lying sheltered somewhere beneath the sails. Curtis was the only man who remained on his feet, but with indomitable pluck he continued to stand on the front of the raft, waiting, watching, hoping. To look at him, with his unflagging energy, almost tempted me to imagine that he did well to hope, but I dared not entertain one sanguine thought, and there I lay, ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... been in the habit of spreading slanderous reports once confessed her fault to St. Philip Neri, who lived several hundred years ago. She asked him how she could cure it. "Go," he said in reply, "to the nearest market-place, buy a chicken just killed, pluck its feathers all the way, and come back to me." She was greatly surprised, wondering in what way a dead chicken could help her overcome her evil habit; but she did as he bade her, and came back to him with the plucked chicken ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... comin' out to watch us ye are, Miss?" said Muldoon. "Sure the wind will blow ye away entirely. It's admiring the pluck of ye I am, but ye'd better stay indoors. 'Tis no ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies;— Hold you here, root and all, in my hand, Little flower,—but if I could understand What you are, root and all—and all in all, I should know what ...
— Graded Memory Selections • Various
... round the fire, Popo came back with a breaker of water, saying that Mr Mudge would soon follow. Wishing to surprise him, we set to work to pluck the ducks, and spit a couple, and roast some eggs. We were thus employed when we saw him coming leisurely towards us; but discovering the fire, he held up his hand with a look of ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... realistic—the tendency of the tales is to the formation of an honorable and manly character. They are unusually interesting, and convey lessons of pluck, perseverance and ...
— From Farm to Fortune - or Nat Nason's Strange Experience • Horatio Alger Jr.
... is one frown; About me the black waters rave; To the deep I go dreadfully down; O pluck my feet out of the grave; Lord! I am sinking, I drown, O save, for Thou ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... before me a boy, one of those delightful English boys overflowing with pluck and spirits. His mother had come to one of my meetings, and, like so many other mothers, I am thankful to say, had received a lifelong impression from what I said with regard to the training of boys, and she resolved, ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... Indians and hearing the shots, came rushing forward to our assistance, but by the time they reached us the redskins had almost disappeared from view. The teamsters eagerly asked us a hundred questions concerning our fight, admired our fort, and praised our pluck. Simpson's remarkable presence of mind in planning the defence was the general topic of conversation ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... pluck was not quite equal to it, and the grim, determined look on Ken's face daunted him. With a muttered oath, he dropped ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... to herself, perhaps not displeased at the reflection that it lay with her to enlighten him. "No wonder he looked at me as if I were a mammoth squash, or something. I'm going down in the garden to pluck a tea-rose bud," added she ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... sight of our muskets, and old Trull holding a blazing splinter over the howitzer, was a little too much even for the sturdy pluck of English sailors. ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... look around and see that glaring eye looking straight at him, he would shut his own eyes and shriek, and then go dashing frantically on. Some even threw themselves prostrate when the flood overtook them, and uttered invocations to their gods for protection from the monster, until they could pluck up courage enough ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... say, brain-electrified—by Heliobas, would fetch anything that was named to him through his master's force, providing it was light enough for him to carry; and he would go into the conservatory and pluck off with his teeth any rare or common flower within his reach that was described to him by the same means. Spoken to or commanded by others, he was simply a good-natured intelligent Newfoundland; but under the authority of Heliobas, he became more than human in ready wit and quick ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli |
