"Ply" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with a quick splash, and back to his bough with a fish in his beak. The canoe moves on, slowly, noiselessly; here the water is only three inches deep, but the soft bottom yields as the strong young arms ply the paddle. ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... latitude 55 deg. 12' S., longitude 50 deg. 15' W., the wind and weather continuing the same till towards midnight, when the latter cleared up, and the former veered to west, and blew a gentle gale. We continued to ply till two o'clock the next morning, when we bore away east, and at eight E.N.E.; at noon, observed in latitude 54 deg. 35' S., longitude 47 deg. 56' W., a great many albatrosses and blue peterels about the ship. I now steered east, and the next morning, in the latitude of 54 deg. 38', longitude ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... I presume to say that my good three-ply carpet that mother gave me when we was married is jest reddled with moths—if they're in that closet. If it wasn't for keepin' that spare room ready for the cousins in Maine when they come to the buryin', I'd have you take ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... past six. As every woman, no matter what her condition in life, works industriously knitting or crocheting lace or embroidering, each guest brings her bit of handwork and the afternoon is spent in chatting while fair fingers ply the needles. At five o'clock the guests are invited to the dining-room where they are seated ...
— Breakfasts and Teas - Novel Suggestions for Social Occasions • Paul Pierce
... right. An encounter with the DUNCAN would have been fatal to the MACQUARIE. There was every reason to fear such an engagement in these narrow seas, in which pirates could ply their trade without risk. However, for that day at least, the yacht did not appear, and the sixth night from their departure from Twofold Bay came, without the fears of John ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... ascend, her empire spread? Join'd by the arms of Troy, with such allies, Think to what height will Punic glory rise. Win but the gods, their sacred off'rings pay; 65 Detain your guest; invent some fond delay. See low'ring tempests o'er the ocean ply, The ...
— The Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaire's Henriad • Virgil and Voltaire
... Constantinople—heedless and weary already of the girl who had nothing to give him but her beauty—Dame Neforis found out her connection with her son and ordered the head overseer to take care that the unhappy girl should not "ply her seductive arts" any more. The man had carried out her instructions by condemning the fair Persian, according to an ancient custom, to have her ears cut off. After this cruel punishment the mutilated ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... condescends to be the wit of private circles and of public dinners. Still he met with many competitors in this line. In the metropolis, the mendicants for fame, like the professional beggars, portion out the town among them, and whoever ventures to ply beyond his allotted walk is immediately jostled and abused; and the false pretensions of the wit, and all the tricks to obtain admiration, are as sure to be exposed by some rivals of the trade, as the false legs, arms, and various impostures of the beggar are denounced by the brother-beggar, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... towed by small tugs, and by a number of native sailing craft. A stretch of seven miles of railway avoids the First Cataract, and joins Assuan and Shellal. Above Shellal a second flotilla of gunboats, steamers, barges, and Nile boats was collected to ply between Shellal and Halfa. The military railway ran from Halfa to Sarras. South of Sarras supplies were forwarded by camels. To meet the increased demands of transport, 4,500 camels were purchased in Egypt and forwarded in boats to Assuan, ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... his fad There was not in the shops of Greece A book or pamphlet to be had That was not minus frontispiece. Nor did he hesitate to ply His baleful practices at home; It was not possible to buy A perfect book in ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... railroads penetrate and intersect the state. The lines of steamboats that ply the navigable streams of eastern Virginia afford commercial communication for large sections of the state with the markets of this country and of Europe. Norfolk and Newport News maintain communication with the European ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall
... the subordination of the individual to duty? Pleasure may lie in ceasing to be individual, but duty lies in performing the microscopic task allotted to us. The problem set before us is to bring our daily task into the temple of contemplation and ply it there, to act as in the presence of God, to interfuse one's little part with religion. So only can we inform the detail of life, all that is passing, temporary, and insignificant, with beauty and nobility. So may we dignify and consecrate the meanest of occupations. So may we feel ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the shepherd shuns, And so do I; When beeches drip in browns and duns, And thresh, and ply; And hill-hid tides throb, throe on throe, And meadow rivulets overflow, And drops on gate-bars hang in a row, And rooks in families homeward go, And so ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... Walls.—"There shall be built in with the foundation walls, at a level of six (6) inches below the finished floor level, a course of damp-proofing consisting of not less than two (2) ply of tarred felt (not less than fifteen (15) pounds weight per one hundred (100) square feet), and one (1) ply of burlap, laid in alternate layers, having the burlap placed between the felt, and all laid in hot, heavy coal-tar pitch, or liquid asphalt, ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume V (of VI) • Various
... desire of blood: So, when the Father of the Flood appears, And o'er the seas his sov'reign trident rears, Their fury falls: he skims the liquid plains, High on his chariot, and, with loosen'd reins, Majestic moves along, and awful peace maintains. The weary Trojans ply their shatter'd oars To nearest land, and make ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... the pocket of Heron's coat there was a letter-case with some few hundred francs. It was amusing to think that the brute's money helped to bribe the ill-tempered keeper of the half-way house to receive guests at midnight, and to ply them well with food, drink, and the shelter ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... had never been taught to pray, "Lead us not into temptation." Now, with aching hearts and empty stomachs, they turned in silence to the richly lighted houses. Flukey dragged himself resolutely past Brimbecomb's as if he would avoid the desire that suddenly pressed upon him to ply the trade in which he had been darkly instructed. But he halted abruptly before the next house, the curtains of which were pulled up halfway. The long windows reached to the porch floor. Through the clear glass the children saw a table dressed in all the gorgeousness of silver and crystal. ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... weeks flew by, Ruby tramping the forest daily between us or sitting beside me as I painted, noting every stroke of my brush and asking me innumerable questions as to the choice of colors and the mixing of the tints. At other times she would ply me with questions, making me tell her of the things I had seen abroad and of the cities and peoples she had read of; or she would talk of the books she had studied, and of others she wanted to read. Jim would listen ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... he would bring them, and Mistress Ragnor, in a very smart cap and a gown of dark violet silk, was knitting by the large window in the living room—a very comfortable room carpeted with a good Kilmarnock "three-ply" and curtained with red moreen. There were a few sea pictures on the walls, and there was a good fire of drift-wood and peat upon the ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... half hour they arrived at the fountain, and immediately began to ply their tools. The wall was thick and firm, but could not long resist the united strength of the four men; they soon made a breach sufficiently large to allow them to slip through without difficulty. Orbasan was the first to emerge, and then ...
— The Oriental Story Book - A Collection of Tales • Wilhelm Hauff
... has been flowing northwest for thirty miles, takes a sudden sweep to the southwest, and thenceforward we have a rapid current. However, we need still to ply our blades, for there is a stiff head-wind, with an eager nip in it, to escape which we seek the lee as often as may be, and bask in the undisturbed sunlight. Right glad we were, at luncheon-time, to find a sheltered ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... noise of London traffic as heard from a balloon has diminished of late years owing to the better paving, yet in day hours the roar of the streets is heard up to a great height as a hard, harsh, grinding din. But at night, after the last 'bus has ceased to ply, and before the market carts begin lumbering in, the balloonist, as he sails over the town, might imagine that he was traversing a City ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... Gito had compassion and wou'd have succour'd the distrest Eumolpus; upon which, my rage continuing, I gave his pitying head two or three blows with my fist; he sate down on the bed and cry'd: but I so eagerly ply'd the hole, I made my eyes relieve each other; and, encouraging the people against him, with great satisfaction beheld the conflict: when the bailiff of the island, one Bargates, whom the scuffle had rais'd from supper; was brought into the room, supported by others legs, for ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... loaded with its twenty, but the rope-ladder was as full as ever. Out from the ship's side shoved the big canoe, its captain shaking his head vigorously at the passengers above and yelling: "No! No!" while his men began to ply ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... placed upon them, became an easy prey to those who looked upon them as victims. The angels of light were there to help them, but there were also many creatures of darkness who lured them to destruction, and these creatures of darkness were allowed to ply their ghastly trade often without ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... Maria. He found himself farther from success than ever, when he would have again urged Margaret to marry at once. A new duty seemed to have sprung up to keep her at Deerbrook. Maria wanted her. Her summer work lay clear before her. She must nurse and cheer Maria, she must ply her needle for Hester, and play the housewife, spending many of her hours in the business of living; a business which is often supposed to transact itself, but, which in reality requires all the faculties which can be brought to it, and all the good moral habits which conscience can originate. ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... For as whipp'd tops, and bandy'd balls, 55 The learned hold, are animals; So horses they affirm to be Mere engines made by geometry; And were invented first from engines, As Indian Britons were from Penguins. 60 So let them be; and, as I was saying, They their live engines ply'd, not staying Until they reach'd the fatal champain, Which th' enemy did then encamp on; The dire Pharsalian plain, where battle 65 Was to be wag'd 'twixt puissant cattle And fierce auxiliary men, That came to aid their brethren, Who ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... if, after all this, I find no intimation of pardon to my soul? Ans. As this should serve to keep thee humble, so it should excite to more diligence, in this duty of going with thy sins to Christ, and to ply him and his cross more, in and through the promises, and keep thy soul constant in this duty of the running to Christ, as an all-sufficient Mediator, and as an intercessor with the Father; and thus wait on him waiteth to be gracious, even in this particular, ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... us have cheaper Cabs in Greater London! The County Council should subsidise a lot of Cabs, to ply exclusively between London and the outskirts. Or why not a Government Cab Purchase Bill, like the Irish Land Purchase one? We want a special Minister for Public Locomotion—perhaps Lord RANDOLPH CHURCHILL would ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 16, 1892 • Various
... countries visited; that is, stop and let the custom-house officials inspect the baggage. I had nothing dutiable and was soon traveling on through Italy, toward Venice, where I spent some time riding on one of the little omnibus steamers that ply on its streets of water. But not all the Venetian streets are like this, for I walked on some that are paved with good, hard sandstone. I was not moved by the beauty of the place, and soon left for Pisa, passing a night in Florence on the way. The chief point of interest was the Leaning ...
— A Trip Abroad • Don Carlos Janes
... heard of a jolly young Waterman, At Blackfriar's Bridge who is used still to ply! Who feathers his oars ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... tucked in, I gave him a full cup of coffee, which he drank with some avidity as if thirsty. Then I sat down by the bedside, and, with a view to keeping him awake, began once more to ply ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... understanding of the art, they go from place to place on festival days, and gather all the money that should have enriched the true artists, those who really devote themselves to their profession and ply no manual craft. Vain efforts; decline was imminent; minstrels were not to recover their former standing. The Renaissance and the Reformation came; and, owing to the printing-press, gay scavoir found other means of spreading through ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... of the seed do remain, They’re vile as the thistles and briars of the plain; They ply for their neighbours the pick and the hoe: Thy murder, Brown William, fills ...
— Brown William - The Power of the Harp and Other Ballads • Thomas J. Wise
... to recount every thing: We went into the hot-house, and having sweated a little, into the cold bath; and while Trimalchio was anointed from head to foot with a liquid perfume, and rubb'd clean again, not with linnen but with finest flannen, his three chyrurgeons ply'd the muscadine, but brawling over their cups; Trimalchio said it was his turn to drink; then wrapt in a scarlet mantle, he was laid on a litter born by six servants, with four lacqueys in rich liveries running before him, and by his side a sedan, in ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... a man might easily admire either of these women. Her manner, in spite of herself, cooled towards them. She did not think of the third woman, who was married, except to ply her with cake and tea and inquire for her husband and children. The woman, after she had finished her cake and tea, sat sunken in her corsets, under her loosely fitting black silk, and looked stupidly amiable. She rose with a slight sigh of relief when at last the others made ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... heaving of a hand grenade, and they strike their colours. This is a craft of another guess build, and unless I steer wi' care she may put one in between wind and water before I so much as know that I am engaged. What think ye, heh? Should I lay myself boldly alongside, d'ye see, and ply her with small arms, or should I work myself clear and try a long range action? I am none of your slippery, grease-tongued, long-shore lawyers, but if so be as she's willing for a mate, I'll stand by her in wind and weather ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... fathom of stout fishing-line, which is in turn secured to the end of a five-foot pole. Seated in a boat with sail set, they slip along until a school of barracouta is happened upon. Then the peak of the sail is dropped, so as to deaden the boat's way, while the fishermen ply their poles with a sidelong sweep that threshes the bit of shining red through the water, making it irresistibly attractive to a struggling horde of ravenous fish. One by one, as swiftly as the rod can be wielded, the lithe forms drop off the barbless ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... interests are represented, the intercourse between buyers and sellers is less grave and methodical than in the bazaar. There are jokes, laughter, songs, and a constant play of that repartee in which even the serfs are masters. Here, too, jugglers and mountebanks of all sorts ply their trade; gypsies sing, dance, and tell fortunes; and other vocations, less respectable than these, flourish vigorously. For, whether the visitor be an Ostiak from the Polar Circle, an Uzbek from the Upper Oxus, a Crim-Tartar ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... happened that, returning to the East End after the motor 'buses had ceased to ply, I had to slip through the silent Leicester Square and the empty Strand to the Underground Railway on ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... biting spears Of the grim Lapithae, deg. and Theseus, deg. drive, deg.228 Drive crashing through their bones deg.; they feel deg.229 High on a jutting rock in the red stream 230 Alcmena's dreadful son deg. deg.231 Ply his bow;—such a price The Gods exact for song: ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... accumulated round the base of the mountains, and protected from the waves of the sea by a coral reef, which encircles the entire line of coast. Within the reef there is an expanse of smooth water, like that of a lake, where the canoes of the natives can ply with safety and where ships anchor. The low land which comes down to the beach of coral-sand is covered by the most beautiful productions of the intertropical regions. In the midst of bananas, orange, cocoa-nut, and bread-fruit trees, spots are ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... though dreams be sweet, Start up, and ply your heavenward feet. Is not God's oath upon your head, Ne'er to sink back on slothful bed, Never again your loans untie, Nor let your torches waste and die, Till, when the shadows thickest fall, Ye ...
— The Christian Year • Rev. John Keble
... lateen sails go by, To cast their lines outside the Golden Gate; And ferryboats their ceaseless traffic ply, From mole to mole, ...
— Byways Around San Francisco Bay • William E. Hutchinson
... direction which Spurge indicated. There, lying moored to the wharf, at a point exactly opposite a tumble-down sail-loft, was one of those strongly-built tugs which ply between the fishing fleets and the ports. It was an eminently business-looking craft, rakish for its class, and it bore marks of much recent sea usage. But Copplestone gave no more than a passing glance at it—what attracted and fascinated ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... the toil of their fellow insects. Whatever the job, whatever the plunder, you will find parasites there. And yet, for all my daily visits, I never catch one of these in the neighbourhood of the summer burrows. How cleverly the rascals ply their trade! How well aware are they of the guard who keeps watch at the Halictus' door! There is no foul deed possible nowadays; and the result is that no Fly puts in an appearance and the tribulations of ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... with chenille portieres—a bargain at two dollars and a half—admitted one to the bedroom. The bedroom could boast a carpet, three-ply ingrain, the design being bunches of red and green flowers in yellow baskets on a white ground. The wall-paper was admirable—hundreds and hundreds of tiny Japanese mandarins, all identically alike, helping hundreds of almond-eyed ladies into hundreds of ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... shines amid the starry sky, * Robing in tresses blackest ink outvie. The morning-breezes give her boughs fair drink, * And like a branch she sways with supple ply: She smiles in passing us. O thou that art * Fairest in yellow robed, or cramoisie, Thou playest with my wit in love, as though * Sparrow in hand of ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... leave a space of cultivable land, there the industrious Mormons have built log or adobe cabins, and converted the circumscribed domain into farms, gardens, and orchards. In one of these isolated settlements I seek shelter from a passing shower at the house of a "three-ply Mormon " (a Mormon with three wives), and am introduced to his three separate and distinct better-halves; or, rather, one should say, " better-quarters," for how can anything have three halves. A noticeable feature at all these farms is the universal plurality of women around ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... powerful at sea. The form of their vessels varies thus far from ours, that they have prows at each end, so as to be always ready to row to shore without turning nor are they moved by sails, nor on their sides have benches of oars placed, but the rowers ply here and there in all parts of the ship alike, as in some rivers is done, and change their oars from place to place, just as they shift their course hither or thither. To wealth also, amongst them, ...
— Tacitus on Germany • Tacitus
... fluttering leaves and mellow fruits which the wind tumbles all day from the branches. Silently all droops, all withers, all is poured back into the earth that it may recreate; all sleeps while the busy architects of day and night ply their silent work elsewhere. The same serenity reigns when all at once the soil yields up a newly wrought creation. Softly the ocean of grass, moss, and flowers rolls surge upon surge across the earth. Curtains of foliage drape the bare branches. Great trees make ready in their ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... 1st of September, the steamer was to come, and sail again after two hours. I therefore hastened to the commandant of the town to have my passport signed, and to request admittance to the ship. Government steamers ply twice every month, on the 1st and 15th, from Redutkale to Odessa, by way of Kertsch. Sailing vessels rarely offer an opportunity of passage. These steamers always keep close into the coast; they touch at eighteen stations ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... heed her, and continued to ply her with questions concerning Mr. Harrington, asking if he had formerly lived near Geneva, in western New York, if he had a crazy father, and if he ever came to ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... authority of the pope, the abuse of absolutions, dispensations, remissions of penalty, law-suits, in which there is much that a truly good man cannot see without a groan? The priests themselves prefer to study Aristotle than to ply their ministry. The gospel is hardly mentioned from the pulpit. Sermons are monopolized by the commissioners of indulgences; often the doctrine of Christ is put aside and suppressed for their profit. . . . Would that men were content ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... our boatmen quit their mooring, And all hands must ply the oar; Baggage from the quay is lowering, We're impatient, push from shore. "Have a care! that case holds liquor— Stop the boat—I'm sick—oh Lord!" "Sick, Ma'am, damme, you'll be sicker, Ere you've been an hour on board." Thus are screaming Men and women, Gemmen, ladies, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... closely watched by Barnstable and his cockswain, and when he was in a state of comparative rest, the former gave a signal to his crew to ply their oars once more. A few long and vigorous strokes sent the boat directly up to the broadside of the whale, with its bows pointing towards one of the fins, which was, at times, as the animal yielded sluggishly to the action of the waves, exposed to view. The cockswain poised his harpoon ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Mabel Dorrance, regretfully, from her corner of the hearth. "Hers was a kind heart, while she could think and act intelligently. One of my earliest recollections is of the dainties with which she used to ply me when I visited Rosa. She was an indulgent parent and mistress, yet I suppose few even of those most nearly related to her will ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... myself, I pity the little Marianne!—Her plan of battle was excellently arranged, well disposed and admirably put together! It was superb! And it failed!—Come, it amounts to this in everything: it is said that the pursuit of a great art is to ply the trade of a dupe! Destiny lacks morality! We should perhaps be happier, both, if she were simply a cocotte and I engaged in photography!—But!" the brave fellow added: "one has lofty ideas, as-pi-ra-tions, or one has not!—One ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... a hearty laugh, one of the good things not easy to get after middle age. There was a notice of steamboats which ply along the coast, steamboats recommended to the public as being "replete with lavatories and a ladies' saloon." Think how many people read this without ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... heartfelt and sincere terms, the tale of the great emperor's far-sightedness. "Charles, who was ever astir," says he, "arrived by mere hap and unexpectedly, in a certain town of Narbonnese Gaul. Whilst he was at dinner, and was as yet unrecognized of any, some corsairs of the Northmen came to ply their piracies in the very port. When their vessels were descried, they were supposed to be Jewish traders according to some, African according to others, and British in the opinion of others; but the gifted monarch, perceiving, by the build and lightness of the craft, that ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... the river bank, which is still so absorbing and, at certain hours, when the horizon is unsullied by the smoke of pit-coal, recalls you to the days of artless toil and healthy beauty. In the boats that meet us, half-naked men, revelling in their movement, in the sun and air, sing, as they ply their oars, those songs of the Nile that are as old as Thebes or Memphis. When the wind rises there is a riotous unfurling of sails, which, stretched on their long yards, give to the dahabiyas the air of birds in full flight. Bending right over in the wind, they skim along with ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... to breakfast and mutter the unwelcome tidings to one another that old Mehitable was out there waiting—tidings followed immediately by two gleeful shouts of, "It isn't my turn!"—and glum looks from the one of us whose unfortunate lot it was to ply ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... be in the proportion of the cube root of 1 to the cube root of 2, or it would be 1.25 times greater. If, therefore, the existing speed were 10 miles, it would be increased to 12-1/2 miles by doubling the power, and the vessel would ply with about a fourth less coals by increasing the power in ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne
... presents to some workmen who were most of them old and in ill-health. Conceive how much I was surprised and touched when I heard the whole scheme explained to me. They were to return to their provinces, and collect their families; some of the young men were to live in Apia with a boat, and ply up and down the coast to A'ana and A'tua (our own Tuamasaga being quite drained of resources) in order to supply the working squad with food. Tools they did ask for, but it was especially mentioned that I was to make no presents. In short, ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sensible how far, and to how little purpose I am gone on this Topic: The Ply is long since taken, and our raw Sallet deckt in its best Trim, is never like to invite Men who once have tasted Flesh to quit and abdicate a Custom which has now so long obtain'd. Nor truly do I think Conscience at all concern'd in the Matter, upon any Account ...
— Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets • John Evelyn
... halter, axe, and wheel. Go, hearts of sin and heads of trifling, From your vile streets, so foul and stifling, They sweep the dirt—no useless trade! But when, their robes with ordure staining, Altar and sacrifice disdaining, Did e'er your priests ply broom and spade? 'Twas not for life's base agitation That we were born—for gain nor care— No—we were born for inspiration, For love, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... of fourteen she left school and took up the needle that she might aid her sisters in gaining for the family an honorable maintenance. She has been known to ply the needle with all diligence till ten o'clock at night, and then turn to her Sunday school book to make preparation for the Sabbath. If this is an example of too severe application to toil, ...
— Our Gift • Teachers of the School Street Universalist Sunday School, Boston
... Union Square, at night, without his being accosted by one of these girls, who, instead of asking him to purchase flowers, would invariably remark, "Give me a penny, mister?" by which term, afterwards, all these girls of loose character were known to ply their trade. Many of these girls were so exceedingly handsome as to be taken by gentlemen of means and well cared for, and one instance is known where a flower girl married a very ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... there are to the house, and at each door a hundred warriors will fall by his hand. And when every one in the house has ceased to ply his weapon, 'tis then he will resort to a deed of arms. And if he chance to come upon you out of the house, as numerous as hailstones and grass on a green will be your halves of heads and your cloven skulls and your bones under ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... connects the Elizabeth and North Landing rivers. This canal was dug by dredging-machines. It is kept in a much better state for navigation, so far as the depth of water is concerned, than the old canal, which from inattention is gradually shoaling in places; consequently the regular steam-packets which ply between Elizabeth City and Norfolk, as well as steamers whose destinations are further north, have given up the use of the Dismal Swamp Canal, and now go round through Albemarle Sound up the North River, ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... flew, As Norsemen fly, They but retired, the fight anew Unawed to ply. Now o'er the bodies of his slain His way Carl makes; He thinks he has the city ta'en, But he mistakes. Thus ...
— Tord of Hafsborough - and Other Ballads • Anonymous
... into the primitive little houses upon their stilt-like posts, and the ladies had spent some time in watching a quaint little native mother making efforts to at once ply the queer sticks which helped her in a strange sort of mat-weaving, and keep an eye upon a preternaturally solemn-faced infant, who, despite his gravity, seemed capable of quite as much mischief as the average enfant terrible of civilization. ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... recent increase of immorality and crime is universally admitted. The usual explanation is that in olden times every slight offense was punished with death; the criminal class was thus continuously exterminated. Nowadays a robber can ply his trade continuously, though interrupted by frequent intervals of imprisonment. In former times, once caught, he never could steal again, except in the land of the shades. While this explanation has some ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... much used, it is poor economy to buy cheap ones. Ingrain carpets, of close texture, and the three-ply carpets, are best for common use. Brussels carpets do not wear so long as the three-ply ones, because they cannot be turned. Wilton carpets wear badly, and Venetians are good only for ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... to the nature of our next experience, suddenly a stern-wheel, flat-bottom boat backed up alongside of the Star of the West. She was of the pattern of the small freight-boats that still ply the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. If the Star of the West was small, this stern-wheel scow was infinitely smaller. There was but one cabin, and it was rendered insufferably hot by the boilers that were set in the middle of it. There was one flush deck, with an awning stretched above it that extended ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... Nu'uman."[FN258] Then said the Caliph, "Hearken now, O Sidi Nu'uman! Ofttimes have I watched the horsemen exercise their horses, and I myself have often done likewise, but never saw I any who rode so mercilessly as thou didst ride thy mare, for thou didst ply both whip and shovel-iron in cruellest fashion. The folk all stood to gaze with wonderment, but chiefly I, who was constrained against my wish to stop and ask the cause of the bystanders. None, however, could make clear the matter, and all men said that ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... rank of men with the paviours' rammers, which rise and fall at the sweep of the band-master's rods, keeping time in a stately music as they advance; the continuous falling and crashing of the trees as other thousands of hands ply the axes along the lines, that creep, slowly, but visibly, on through the Forest that no foot had ever trodden—the thud of the multitudinous machines driving the piles in the marshy spaces; the whole innumerable ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... more than double our speed, took twelve to accomplish the voyage between the same two places. And though the river is from thirteen to fifteen feet in depth at its lowest ebb, and broad enough to allow a steamer to ply upon it, the suddenness of the bendings would prevent navigation; but, should the country ever become civilized, the Chobe would be a convenient natural canal. We spent forty-two and a half hours, paddling at the rate of five miles an hour, in coming from ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... and, breathing with haste, Kalong appeared. In an instant he perceived how matters stood, and, making a sign to me to take my seat in the canoe, he stepped in after me, and, seizing a paddle, shoved her head off from the bank. He then began to ply it most energetically, and Blount and I followed his example, while Hassan ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... Wayne," and that fearless fighting youth, Decatur, are absolutely forgotten. Doctor Benjamin Rush, patriot, the near and dear friend of Franklin, and the man who welcomed Thomas Paine to Pennsylvania and gave him a desk where he might ply his pen and write the pamphlet, "Common Sense," sleeps in an unknown grave. You will look in vain for effigies of Edgar Allan Poe, who was once a Philadelphia editor; of Edwin Forrest, who, lionlike, trod her boards; of Rittenhouse, mapping the stars; of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... they behaved carelessly, remained sober and watchful. And the police soon drove out of the city all mimes and dancers and singers of the Anartta country. And all the bridges over rivers were destroyed, and boats forbidden to ply, and the trenches (around the city) were spiked with poles at the bottom. And the land around the city for full two miles was rendered uneven, and holes and pits were dug thereon, and combustibles were secreted below the surface. Our fort, ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... this instant, ye scoondrel!" came again the sharp voice. It was speaking from under three ply of blankets, in the ceiled room beneath. That is why it seemed a trifle more muffled than usual. It even sounded kindly, but Kit Kennedy was not deceived. He knew better ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... that they were but ill-manned, and had a great many prisoners on board, and that some of their own people were not very well to be trusted; that six of their best hands were on board the prize; and that all they had left were not sufficient to ply their guns and stand by the sails, and that therefore as they were under no necessity to engage, so he thought it would be next to madness to think ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... there one day after it was known, and no one saw him; finally he walked up to McLean, and would have sat down, but McLean said, 'Your company is not desired, Mr. Mostyn.' Mostyn said something in re-ply, and McLean answered sternly, 'True, we are none of us saints, but there are lines the worst of us will not pass; and if there is any member of this club willing to interfere between a bridegroom and his bride, I would like to kick ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... his neck. Had it not been for him we should have had to lie out all night; he sees in the dark like an owl. We've had a hard tramp." He stood steaming before the fire as he spoke—drenched to the skin, the others crowding round him, too happy for the moment to ply him with questions. He himself was quivering with an inward joy. Alice's kisses were still ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... depressing their contemplative part into the body, and dragging it down by their sensual and intemperate appetites, as by so many weights of lead, they make themselves appear little better than hostlers or graziers that still ply their cattle with hay, straw, or grass, looking upon such provender as the properest and meetest food for them. And is it not even thus they would swill the mind with the pleasures of the body, as hogherds do their swine, while they will not allow it can be gay any longer than it is hoping, ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... opens it to the sky. The stream is spanned by many bridges, and bridges cannot well be unpicturesque, especially if they have statues to help them out. The Spree abounds in bridges, and it has a charming habit of slow hay-laden barges; at the landings of the little passenger-steamers which ply upon it there are cafes and summer-gardens, and these even in the inclement air of September ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... much wood, my man," said my father, smiling, "and we shall have to ply the axe hard to clear ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... also the worship of trees, groves, stones, rivers, and wells. The sun and moon are not to be called lords. Wizardry, and divination, and the leapings and dancings, songs and choruses of the pagans, i.e. their orgiastic cults, are not to be practised. Tempest-raisers are not to ply their diabolical craft.[571] These denunciations, of course, were not without their effect, and legend told how the spirits of nature were heard bewailing the power of the Christian saints, their mournful cries echoing in wooded hollows, ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... what heed I can. Though you do, said Satan, I shall be too hard for you; I will cool you insensibly, by degrees, by little and little. What care I, saith he, though I be seven years in chilling your heart if I can do it at last? Continual rocking will lull a crying child asleep. I will ply it close, but I will have my end accomplished. Though you be burning hot at present, yet, if I can pull you from this fire, I shall have you cold before it ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... his Monguls continued to ply the walls of the fortress with battering-rams and other engines, in order to force their way in, but in vain. The place was too strong for them. At length Genghis Khan, hearing how the case stood, sent word to them to give up the attempt to make a breach, and to invest the place closely on all sides, ...
— Genghis Khan, Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... within a short distance of the enemy's columns and report to his chief that they could be assailed before their masses were fully deployed on the plateau. While Souham's force was still toiling up, Sacken's artillery began to ply it with shot, and had Yorck charged quickly with his corps of Prussians, the day might have been won forthwith. But that opinionated general insisted on leisurely deploying his men. Souham was therefore able to gain a foothold ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... even as she had done with the food: then she crowned a second and handed it to him. He drank and she said to him, "O Moslem, see how thou art here in all solace and delight of life!" And she ceased not to drink and ply him with drink, till he took leave of his wits,- -And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day, and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... vessel I knew of old as the brig Bride of Dunbar, one of the craft that ply between Dunbar and ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... or to hate, to like or contemn, to ply this way or that way to good or to bad, ye shall have as ye use a child ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... have rarely even single warships or freighters in the Mediterranean. The only American passenger line that serves Mediterranean ports is the old Turkish Hadji Daoud Line of five small and dirty Levantine ships, which ply along the coast of Asia Minor and in and out of the Greek islands, camouflaged ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... beetle— Sprawls without grace, Her face gray as asphalt, Her jaws sagging as on loosened hinges... Shadows ply about her mouth— Nimble shadows out of the jigging tree, That dances above her its dance of ...
— The Ghetto and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... may take it for granted that he early became a sailor. Brought up at such a time and place, he could hardly have failed to do so. Within a few years after the great discovery of Columbus, the Channel ports of St Malo and Dieppe were sending forth adventurous fishermen to ply their trade among the fogs of the Great Banks of the New Land. The Breton boy, whom we may imagine wandering about the crowded wharves of the little harbour, must have heard strange tales from the sailors of the ...
— The Mariner of St. Malo: A Chronicle of the Voyages of Jacques Cartier • Stephen Leacock
... been! If the farmer could get away from the shop to till his farm in the planting, growing, and harvesting seasons (they are only a small part of the year, after all), and if the builder could get away from the shop to ply his useful trade in its season, how much better they would be, and how much more smoothly the ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... coigne; Paraded past the churches of the Lord One who denied Him, one by them hailed Christ. Enough! This cloud, no bigger than one's hand, Gains overweening bulk. Prague harbored, first, Out of contemptuous ruth, a wretched band Of outcast paupers, gave them leave to ply Their money-lending trade, and leased them land On all too facile terms. Behold! to-day, Like leeches bloated with the people's blood, They batten on Bohemia's poverty; They breed and grow; like adders, spit back hate And venomed perfidy for Christian love. Thereat the Duke, urged ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... aunt's walking-boots. One corner was Lucy's, which she occupied in conjunction with a little table, at which, from seven in the morning until bedtime, she worked with pen or needle (it was provoking she could not learn to ply both at one time), when she was not running about the house, or nursing a boarder's baby. On the rare evenings when her aunt could not find work of any description for her, Lucy was requested to take the Bible ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... these tenants. In its decision, the court indulged in nauseating sanctimony of this sort: " It cannot be perceived how the cigar-maker is to be improved in his health, or his morals, by forcing him from his home and its hallowed associations and beneficent influences to ply his trade elsewhere." This was probably not the first time when Roosevelt was enraged to find the courts of justice sleekly upholding hot-beds of disease and vice, on the pretense that they were protecting liberty. ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... him. Even the common people—led as they were by hectoring preachers of sedition, of no more truth or honesty than the mountebanks that ply their knavish trade round Henry's statue on the Pont Neuf—even they, the very rabble, had their hours of loyalty. I rode with his Majesty from Royston to Hatfield, in '47, when the people filled the midsummer air with his name, from hearts melting with love and pity. They strewed ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... poor like ony whunstane, [any whinstone] And haud their noses to the grunstane; [hold, grindstone] Ply ev'ry art o' legal thieving; ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... these agents ply their nefarious skill without ceasing, and so have drawn large numbers away from their ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... from evading the gate, and of unceremoniously squeezing into the narrowest limits every person who prefers pavement to the highroad. Lockwood is also important enough to receive the attention of two or three 'buses which ply to and fro between there and Huddersfield, as well as to have the honour of a railway station on the L. and Y. line. Of course years ago, when Abraham Lockwood was brought into the world, this locality ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell
... is considered to be just a mile across from Point Levi to the landing-stairs below the custom-house in Quebec; and it was a source of amusement to me to watch the horse ferry-boats that ply between the two shores. The captain told me there were not less than twelve of these comical-looking machines. They each have their regular hours, so that you see a constant succession going or returning. They carry ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... the mystic Three Around me ply their merry trade? — And Charon soon may carry me Across the gloomy Stygian glade? — Be up, my soul! nor be afraid Of what some unborn year may show; But mind your human debts are paid, As one ...
— The Children of the Night • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... my breath and listened. I listened long and drank deep while the wondrous picture grew, but the tense cord at last snapped under the strain of the Murdstones and I broke into the sobs of sympathy that disclosed my subterfuge. I was this time effectively banished, but the ply then taken was ineffaceable. I remember indeed just afterwards finding the sequel, in especial the vast extrusion of the Micawbers, beyond my actual capacity; which took a few years to grow adequate—years in which the general contagious ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... he announced, "is to be prepared. Should the car overturn and it become necessary to ply me with cordial, just part my lips and continue to pour until I say 'When.' Should—— ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... the money. The same things do I with handicraftsmen. Hath he a good house? He pledgeth that house until I bring it behind me. Therewith gain I much in goods and money, and thus do I pass my days." "I thought," rejoined the peasant, "that 'twere only the Jew who did usury, but I hear that ye also ply that trade." The burgher answers that interest is not usury, to which the peasant replies that interest (Guelt) is only a "subtle name." The burgher then quotes Scripture, as commanding men to help one another. ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... permitted, on payment of an annual tax of three hundred and sixty-five francs, to stand at one of the one hundred and fifty-eight points designated by the police; these bear a yellow number. Secondly, the voitures mixtes, which may at will be hired from a livery-stable or stand or ply upon the public highway; these bear a red number. And thirdly, the voitures de remise, which can only be hired from a stable, and are prohibited from appearing on the stands; these also are numbered in red, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... I'm a Smouse, I'm a Smouse, and the trader is free! I heed not the Governor, I fear not his law, I care not for civilisation one straw, And ne'er to 'Ompanda'—'Umgazis' I'll throw While my arm carries fist, or my foot bears a toe! 'Trek,' 'trek,' ply the whip—touch the fore oxen's skin, I'll warrant we'll 'go it' through thick and through thin— Loop! loop ye oud skellums! ot Vikmaan trek jy; I'm a Smouse, I'm a Smouse, and the ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... of exalted wisdom which have floated down the stream of time from venerable antiquity, and been picked up by those humble but industrious wights who ply along the shores of literature, we find a shrewd ordinance of Charondas the Locrian legislator. Anxious to preserve the judicial code of the state from the additions and amendments of country members and seekers of popularity, he ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... and worship him, many a home-god grows heartily sick of the reverence with which his family-devotees pursue him, and sighs for freedom and for his old life, and to be off the pedestal on which his dependants would have him sit for ever, whilst they adore him, and ply him with flowers, and hymns, and incense, and flattery;—so, after a few years of his marriage my honest Lord Castlewood began to tire; all the high-flown raptures and devotional ceremonies with which his wife, his chief priestess, treated him, first sent him to sleep, and ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... Apennine slope, with the chestnut the oak-trees immingle, Where amid odorous copse bridle-paths wander and wind, Where under mulberry-branches the diligent rivulet sparkles, Or amid cotton and maize peasants their waterworks ply, Where, over fig-tree and orange in tier upon tier still repeated, Garden on garden upreared, balconies step to the sky,— Ah, that I were, far away from the crowd and the streets of the city, Under the vine-trellis laid, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... feared that the natural tenderness of his disposition (more humane than her own) would come between, and defeat the purpose. So with her own hands armed with a dagger, she approached the king's bed; having taken care to ply the grooms of his chamber so with wine, that they slept intoxicated, and careless of their charge. There lay Duncan in a sound sleep after the fatigues of his journey, and as she viewed him earnestly, there was ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... beset with the innumerable horrors of the cotton field, and the sugar plantation, seemed to be my doom. The fiends, who rushed into the prison when we were first put there, continued to visit me,{233} and to ply me with questions and with their tantalizing remarks. I was insulted, but helpless; keenly alive to the demands of justice and liberty, but with no means of asserting them. To talk to those imps about justice and mercy, would have been as absurd as to reason with bears and ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... work, you should buy a boat and ply your trade as a waterman," the sailor said, when the short voyage had come to an end, and Walter leaped ashore, impatient to conclude the mission with which ...
— Neal, the Miller - A Son of Liberty • James Otis
... from their fountains In Enna's mountains, Down one vale where the morning basks, 75 Like friends once parted Grown single-hearted, They ply their watery tasks. At sunrise they leap From their cradles steep 80 In the cave of the shelving hill; At noontide they flow Through the woods below And the meadows of asphodel; And at night they sleep 85 In the rocking deep Beneath the Ortygian shore;— Like spirits ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... grateful love! Go, thankless man, to Misery's cave—behold Captivity, stretched in her dungeon cold! Or think on those who, in yon dreary mine,[54] Sunk fathoms deep beneath the rolling brine, 30 From year to year, amid the lurid shade, O'er-wearied, ply their melancholy trade; That thou may'st bless the glorious sun; and hail Him who with beauty clothed the hill and vale; Who bent the arch of the high heavens for thee, And stretched in amplitude the broad blue sea! Now sunk ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... this? Who thus soils the triumph? What hideous, furtive hand is that which is slipped into the pocket of victory? What pickpockets are they who ply their trade in the rear of glory? Some philosophers—Voltaire among the number—affirm that it is precisely those persons have made the glory. It is the same men, they say; there is no relief corps; those who are erect pillage those who are prone on the earth. The hero of the day is the ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... the melting eye, Wreathed trunk and horny tegum- Ent, whom I have joyed to ply With the fugitive mince-pie And the seasonable legume, Youth has left me; fortune too Flounts my efforts to annex it; Still, I occupy the view, Bored but loath to leave, while you ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 10th, 1920 • Various
... pressed close upon the English with his lance; striving hard to reach the standard with the great troop he led; and seeking earnestly for Harold, on whose account the whole war was. The Normans follow their lord, and press around him; they ply their blows upon the English; and these defend themselves stoutly, striving hard with their ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... Messrs. Delavan and Moddridge that Tom Halstead and Joe Dawson should be able to keep their new prize and property running for their own pleasure. On the contrary the givers of this splendid present believed that the two boys would ply under charter for wealthy pleasure seekers, thus making a splendid living. In summer there were the northern waters; in winter the southern waters. Thus it was believed that Captain Tom Halstead and Engineer Joe Dawson would be in a position to earn a handsome income ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock
... exceeding half a mark in value. If disobedient they were liable to suffer pain of imprisonment for the first offence, a fine of half a mark for the second—a curious example of graduated punishment—and a prohibition to ply their trade within the precincts of ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... Shall the huge camel [1] pass, than the rich man Enter the gates of heaven. "Ye cannot serve Your God, and worship Mammon." "Missioned Maid!" So spake the Angel, "know that these, whose hands Round each white furnace ply the unceasing toil, Were Mammon's slaves on earth. They did not spare To wring from Poverty the hard-earn'd mite, They robb'd the orphan's pittance, they could see Want's asking eye unmoved; and therefore these, Ranged round the furnace, still must persevere In ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... India.—The pioneer of a fast mail service to ply in connection with the Canadian Pacific Railway between ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 • Various
... high land on both sides. By the night of 19th September the little Half-Moon had reached the spot where the river widens near the modern town of Albany. He had sailed for the first time the distance covered to-day by magnificent steamers which ply daily between Albany and New York city. Hudson now went ashore with an old chief of the country. "Two men were dispatched in quest of game," so records Hudson's manuscript, "who brought in a pair of pigeons. They ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... make mighty engines swim the sea, Like its own monsters—boats that for a guinea Will take a man to Havre—and shalt be The moving soul of many a spinning-jenny, And ply thy shuttles, till a bard can wear As good a suit of broadcloth ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... too low, too far forward nor too far aft, and that the surface of the water may nearly rise to the extreme breadth amidships, and thus the ship will be enabled to carry a good sail, incline but little, and ply well to windward. A want of true knowledge in this department has led to putting too great a weight in ships' bottoms, which impedes their sailing and endangers their masts by excessive rolling, the ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... of small tugs moored alongside, and one or two bigger craft—fruit boats, I judged, which used to ply in the Aegean. They looked pretty well moth-eaten from disuse. We stopped at one of them and watched a fellow in a blue nightcap splicing ropes. He raised his eyes once and looked at us, and then ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... of a mental dyspepsy. On a previous stage of existence, our Hero Had ridden outside, with the glass below zero; He had been, 'tis a fact you may safely rely on, Of a very old stock a most eminent scion,— 110 A stock all fresh quacks their fierce boluses ply on, Who stretch the new boots Earth's unwilling to try on, Whom humbugs of all shapes and sorts keep their eye on, Whose hair's in the mortar of every new Zion, Who, when whistles are dear, go directly and buy one, Who think slavery a crime that ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... and patriot ply alike the stocks; Peeress and butler share alike the box; And judges job, and bishops bite the town, And mighty dukes pack cards ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... himself to the rapid current, which in that place runs like a mill-stream, and soon swept him off from the neighborhood. It was not, however, until he had drifted a great distance that he ventured to ply his oars; when he made his skiff dart like an arrow through the strait of Hell Gate, never heeding the danger of Pot, Frying-pan, or Hog's-back itself; nor did he feel himself thoroughly secure until safely nestled in bed in the cockloft of the ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... I come by. I muse at how its being puts blissful back With yellowy moisture mild night's blear-all black, Or to-fro tender trambeams truckle at the eye. By that window what task what fingers ply, I plod wondering, a-wanting, just for lack Of answer the eagerer a-wanting Jessy or Jack There God to aggrandise, God ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... the railroad, and for three days the work went on of loading the weary men into the cars that were to take them to Chalons. Twenty-four hours after the last train rolled out of the station the Prussians entered the town. "Ah, the cursed luck!" said Picot in conclusion; "how we had to ply our legs! And we who should by ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... Saxony cloth, and wearing a spotless white kerchief around their necks, offer lead-pencils for sale. So respectable are they, that you start to see them, and are almost ashamed to offer them a dollar; but they will accept a cent, and will ply the same trade for years to come, in a suit equally as respectable. It is one of the mysteries connected with them, that their clothes never wear out. I grew familiar with the features of one of these respectable men, from ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... of the crew of the "Dolphin" was, however, still ringing in the ears of Wilder. He made an impatient gesture to his attendants to ply their oars, cautiously steering the boat on such a course as should soonest lead her from beneath the guns of the freebooters. While passing under the stern of the "Dolphin," a hoarse hail was sent across the waters, ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... Although bi-weekly steamers ply between England and the States, and many mercantile men cross the Atlantic twice annually on business, and think nothing of it, the voyage seems an important event when undertaken for the first time. Friends living in inland counties, and those who have been sea-sick in crossing ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, Or busy housewife ply her evening care; No children run to lisp their sire's return, Or climb his knees the ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... and yet I see an aunt of mine, the unacknowledged offspring of her white master, being sent away from the old homestead to be sold. The proud Anglo-Saxon blood in her veins will assert itself as she resists with all the power of her being the attempts of the overseer to ply lash to her fair skin, and for this she must be sold "Way down Souf." I see her now as she comes down from the "Great House," chained to twelve others, to be carried to Lumpkin's jail in Richmond to be put upon the "block." She had been ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... oars in the race— the ten tawny braves of Tamdoka; And hard on their heels in the chase ply the six stalwart oars of the Frenchmen. In the stern of his boat sits DuLuth; in the stern of his boat sits Tamdoka, And warily, cheerily, both urge the oars of their men to the utmost. Far-stretching away to the eyes, winding blue in the midst of the ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... broke in sunshine, and after early breakfast the launches began to ply again between the ship and the shore and continued till nearly all the first and second cabin people had been carried off. The people of the steerage satisfied what longing they had for strange sights and scenes by thronging to the sides of the ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... little use as a maid, but her conversation is pleasing and she has a most cheery grin. She reads the works of Florence Barclay, and doesn't care for music-halls—'low I call them, Miss.' I asked her if she were fond of music, and she said, 'Oh yes, Miss,' and then with a coy glance, 'I ply the mandoline.' I think she is about fifty, and not at all good-looking, so she will be a much more comfortable person in the house than Julie, who would have moped ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... impulse of her indomitable nature was, as usual in all times of danger, one of passionate and high-spirited defiance on discovering the seizure of her papers. A fortnight afterward her keys and her money were confiscated, while she, bedridden and unable to move her hand, could only ply the terrible weapon of her bitter and fiery tongue. Her secretaries were examined in London, and one of them gave evidence that she had first heard of the conspiracy by letter from Babington, of whose ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... out of tree trunks have gone up and down the river since we landed, each of the inward bound being paddled by four men, who ply their paddles facing forward, which always has an aboriginal look, those going down being propelled by single, square sails made of very coarse matting. It is very hot and silent. The only sounds are ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... changed into a snow-white bird; and when I looked towards the Prince, in his stead I saw a black bird. Now the stranger, who was no other than the enchanter, seized me, and shut me up in the golden cage which you have trodden to pieces. The apes began to ply the oars, and the ship moved with unusual swiftness over the sea. I still saw my father sitting on the terrace, and the wonder of the servants as they saw the ship depart: I believed that I heard their voices calling us back. But what could I do in my cage? The black bird flew to the promontory; ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... four or five hundred men of different sects and nations: the Director General told me that there were men of eighteen different languages; they are scattered here and there on the river, above and below, as the beauty and convenience of the spot invited each to settle: some mechanics however, who ply their trade, are ranged under the fort; all the others were exposed to the incursions of the natives, who in the year 1643, while I was there, actually killed some two score Hollanders, and burnt many houses and ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various
... intended voyage. Admiral Digby's fleet lay at the mouth of the river, and our adventurers had to pass through the midst of them, and then run the chance of capture by the numerous British cruisers, which continually ply about the channel. This was a daring undertaking, as the fleet, he thought, had doubtless received notice of his escape, and the enemy would be rigid in their search. He, therefore, determined to act with coolness, and, if intercepted, to give such answers to the ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... ply their task; with mutual chat, Beguiling each the sultry, tedious hours. Around them falls in rows the sever'd corn, Or the shocks rise ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... thrive. The reason of this state of affairs was the division of electorates on a population basis. This meant that a city electorate covered a very small area, and that practically all its wants were attended by the municipality, so that the city member had leisure to ply the trade of merchant, doctor, or barrister within a few minutes of the house of parliament; whereas the country member, to become acquainted with the vast area he represented and the requirements of its inhabitants ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... it, as though it was natural, without disturbance. The other Vecchio, father of the bridegroom, struck me as more sympathetic. He was a gentle old man, proud of his many prosperous, laborious sons. They, like the rest of the gentlemen, were gondoliers. Both the Vecchi, indeed, continue to ply their trade, day ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... the sight of the enemy in our front preparing for attack, the men eagerly relieved each other in handling the spades. As soon as a man working showed the least sign of fatigue, a comrade would snatch the spade out of his hands and ply it with desperate energy. Yet in spite of our utmost exertions when the attack came we had only succeeded in throwing up a slight embankment, which was high enough to give good protection against musket balls to the man squatting down in the ditch from which the ...
— The Battle of Franklin, Tennessee • John K. Shellenberger
... larger scale of the London river makes the forecast more difficult to bring into proportion. The intentionally decorative side, given on the upper river by the houseboats, will doubtless be supplied by a new service of public or municipal passenger steamers, able to ply continuously at all hours, independently of the tide, as fast as safety permits, and absolutely punctual because the stream will be under control. These should be as brilliantly carved, gilded, coloured, and furnished as possible, surplus ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... promises had begun to be fulfilled in reality. But bad habits are not to be conquered as one would pull up weeds: though both must be torn up by the roots, one might weed three gardens in the time it takes to destroy one fault; and so, without really meaning it, Bartlemy at last began to ply his needle less briskly; his thoughts wandered; he took a stitch that was three times too long, then another in a wrong place, a third and fourth all askew, and finally the work came to a dead stand-still. But, thimbles and thread! what happened? The instant ...
— Funny Big Socks - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Sarah L. Barrow
... borrow a carriage. Why this economy? In order to have a storehouse full of garments, shoes and blankets, which he distributed gratuitously, with paternal kindness and prudence. This was a business which he never ceased to ply, in which he trusted only to himself, and with which he concerned himself up ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... left a skirt of his garment behind him, which might be done without much violence, as we may reasonably conclude it to have been none of the soundest; and Coleman was so closely pursued, that he plunged into the river, and swam to the opposite shore: in short, so well did these cripples ply their limbs, that none of them could be taken, excepting a real object, a lame man, who, in spite of the fear and consternation he was in, could not mend his decrepid pace: he therefore was brought before ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... highest steeps, Hunt down the hare, along the plain which leaps. But though we slaughter, nor the work resign When stiff and wearied are each hand and spine, On field and mountain still the beasts are spied Plenteous as grasses in the summer tide; As at three points the fierce attack I ply, Seeing what numbers still remain to die, Captains, pick'd captains I with speed despatch, Who by the tail the spotted leopard catch, Crash to the brain the furious tiger's head, Grapple the bear so powerful and dread, The ancient sow, the ...
— Targum • George Borrow
... clutched at the relief; and I was soon glibly telling her the story in the doctor's letter: how I was a Miss Gould, of Nevada City, going to England to an uncle, what money I had, what family, my age, and so forth, until I had exhausted my instructions, and, as the lady still continued to ply me with questions, began to embroider on my own account. This soon carried one of my inexperience beyond her depth; and I had already remarked a shadow on the lady's face, when a gentleman drew near and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... which I travelled in the United States and Canada seemed to me as good as could be expected under the circumstances. There is, however, certainly room for improvement in some of the boats which ply on the St. Lawrence, and the Alaska service will probably grow steadily better with the ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... usually picked up with avidity by collectors, and they have thus grown into very general favor among book-lovers. Indeed, the high esteem in which they have come to be regarded offers a productive field for a few crafty publishers to ply their wily designs in. The audacity of these schemers carries them to such incredible measures that they sometimes buy sheet-stock from reputable publishing houses, change the name of the edition, and deliberately manufacture new titles on which they print the name of some book club or ...
— Book-Lovers, Bibliomaniacs and Book Clubs • Henry H. Harper |
