"Ply" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Delaware. Hence the trip out into the waters of the Atlantic, a journey that was not undertaken without trepidation. But, despite the fact that a great storm arose, the Phoenix made the trip in safety; and continued for many years thereafter to ply the Delaware between Philadelphia ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson
... old woman had, till her sight failed her, not only earned a sufficient livelihood, but had saved a little money, by making that kind of lace for the manufacture of which Honiton is so widely famed. When, from the infirmities of age, she could no longer ply her vocation successfully, it happened fortunately that her son, by his labour as a farm-servant, was able to make up the deficiency. He was a fine spirited young fellow, who went through his laborious occupations ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... is in the moral straits a current from right to wrong, but no re-flux from wrong to right; for which destination we must hoist our sails aloft and ply our oars incessantly, or night and the tempest will overtake us, and we shall shriek out in vain from the billows, ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... together, began ye Divell to discourse of theologies and hidden mysteries, and of conjurations, and of negromancy and of magick, and of Chaldee, and of astrology, and of chymistry, and of other occult and forbidden sciences, wherein ye Divell and all that ply his damnable arts are mightily learned and practised. Now wit ye well that this frere, being an holy man and a simple, and having an eye single to ye blessed works of his calling, was presently mightily troubled in his mind by ye artifices of ye Divell, and ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... shows knotty and tangled skein, * Fate downs from Heaven and straightens every ply: In patience keep thy soul till clear thy lot * For He who ties the knot can ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... returned with a couple of shovels, and, springing ashore from the canoe, he handed one to Winter, and began at once to ply the other most vigorously himself, exclaiming as he ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... a considerable traffic. Bayonne furnishes carts, Biarritz carriages. Omnibuses ply to and fro; market-barrows are drawn frequently past; burden-bearers and peasants are met or overtaken trudging contentedly on. The latter cheat both the omnibus and themselves, for the fare is but a trifle, and the road hot and sandy. It is abundantly shaded by trees, but we agree that it is far ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... ENGINEERING.—The Empress of India.—The pioneer of a fast mail service to ply in connection with the Canadian Pacific Railway between Vancouver, China, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 • Various
... the tilt in which Allen Goudy and Duncan lived at the time they came to my rescue in 1903, and where I spent three days getting strength for my trip down Grand Lake to the Post. It is Duncan's sup- ply base in the winter months when he hunts along the Nascaupee River, one hundred and twenty miles inland to Seal Lake. On this hunting "path" Duncan has two hundred and fifty marten and forty fox traps, and, in the spring, ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... their production. On one side we see ploughing, sowing, reaping, the carrying of the corn, the storing of the grain, the fattening of the poultry, and the driving of the cattle. A little further on, workmen of all descriptions are engaged in their several trades: shoemakers ply the awl, glassmakers blow through their tubes, metal founders watch over their smelting-pots, carpenters hew down trees and build a ship; groups of women weave or spin under the eye of a frowning taskmaster, who seems impatient of their chatter. Did the double in his hunger desire ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... ply their trade simply from poverty and want, being ashamed of it but profiting by it to maintain their family. But poverty acts chiefly ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... character in his way, and in the winter he "goes a loggin'". On learning this we ply him with questions in such manner as would surprise a lawyer, eliciting in return graphic pictures of camp life in New Brunswick wildernesses, and the amusements with which they while away the long evenings in their ...
— Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase
... boat, intended to ply regularly between Cincinnati and St Louis. She had made but two or three trips, but had already established a high reputation for speed; and, as is usual in such cases, those by whom she was owned and commanded, became ambitious ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... Prague's obscurest 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 Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... regions of the Alpujarras, on a skirt of which stands Granada. A common occupation of the Gitanos of Granada is working in iron, and it is not unfrequent to find these caves tenanted by Gypsy smiths and their families, who ply the hammer and forge in the bowels of the earth. To one standing at the mouth of the cave, especially at night, they afford a picturesque spectacle. Gathered round the forge, their bronzed and naked bodies, illuminated by the flame, appear like figures of demons, while the cave, with ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... in this world, I say you'd better have satisfaction. Is that Josiah Whitman's hearse goin' past?" she asked, rising from her chair, and craning forward to bring her eyes on a level with the window, while she suspended the agitation of the palm-leaf fan which she had not ceased to ply during her talk; she remained a moment with the quiescent fan pressed against her bosom, and then she stepped out of the door, and down the walk to the gate. "Josiah!" she called, while the old man looked and listened at the window. ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... number of the felucca's people with us, sang out "Palanca," and we began to pole along a narrow marshy lagoon, coming so near the shore occasionally, that our sides were brushed by the branches of the mangrove bushes. Again the channel seemed to widen, and I could hear the felucca once more ply her sweeps. In about ten minutes after this the anchor was let go, and for a quarter of an hour, nothing was heard on deck but the bustle of the people furling sails, coiling down the ropes, and getting every thing in order, as is usual in coming into port. ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... summer just before the marriage, and lodged with Jean Jacques. Jean Jacques, having spent a year at Laval University at Quebec, had almost a gift of thought, or thinking; and he never ceased to ply the visiting philosopher and musician with questions which he proceeded to answer himself before they could do so; his quaint, sentimental, meretricious observations on life saddening while they amused his guests. They saddened the musician more than the other because ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... burns somewhere 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 ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... fragments 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 ordained that, whoever proposed a new law should do it with ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... 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 on ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... from his first coming, having kept those within hotly ply'd with Ball, both from Cannon and Mortars, Monsieur Chamilly, the Governor, after a few Days, being weary of such warm Work, desired to capitulate; upon which Hostages were exchanged, and Articles agreed on next Morning. ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... presently she came out, dragging another rocker. Then she re-entered the cabin, returning with a strip of striped cloth and a sewing basket. She seated herself in the chair, placed the basket in her lap, and with a half smile on her face began to ply the needle. He lay ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... ply to the south for several days, till he reached the latitude of 35 deg. 41', when he again changed his course to the north. It is highly probable that if the journal of the voyage had been kept by Hudson himself we should ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... across at the opposing hillsides. Black dots, dozens of them, were moving from ledge to ledge, pausing here and there to ply pick and shovel. Now and then from some one of the dry arroyos came the echoes of a surface shot; dynamite cartridges thrust into the earth to clear away the drift to bed-rock. Ford called his companion's attention to ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... spies, spying, spied, espial; Dry, drier, driest, dryly, dryness."—Cobb's Dict. "Cry, cried, crying, crier, cryer, decried, decrier, decrial; Shy, shyly, shily, shyness, shiness; Fly, flier, flyer, high-flyer; Sly, slily, slyly, sliness, slyness; Ply, plyer, plying, pliers, complied, compiler; Dry, drier, dryer, dryly, dryness."—Webster's Dict., 8vo. "Cry, crier, decrier, decrial; Shy, shily, shyly, shiness, shyness; Fly, flier, flyer, high-flier; Sly, slily, slyly, sliness, slyness; Ply, pliers, plyers, plying, complier; Dry, drier, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... She polished his manners as much as she could,—and 'twas much, for women, even of the lowest classes, have gentle tastes and delicacy. She could not bear to think that her darling should one day sit cross-legged on the paternal bench, and ply needle and scissors. She breathed her own aspirations into the boy's ears, and filled his mind with them. O mothers, ye do make us what ye please! Your tears and caresses are the rain and the sun that mature the seed which time and the accidents of life sow in our tender minds! ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... and brought to a stand by an equal or greater number of government officials, deeply intent on a seizure, a most furious conflict would ensue, in which the combatants, growing desperate for the seizure or defence of the prize, would ply their hard yeoman fists, clubs, loaded whipstocks, or whatever was at hand, with terrible effect, and often prolong the melee till the snow or ground was encrimsoned with blood, and scarcely an uninjured man remained on the ground. ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... 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 ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... ply knife and fork again, and I went on with my story, continuing it until the parting with Salter Quick. When I came to that, the footman who stood behind Mr. Cazalette's chair was just removing his last plate, and the old man leaned back a little and favoured ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... Might be, you know, but there is so much mull and moriantique and all that sort of thing that there ain't guns enough to go round, so you can smile and nod on the street; but you can't do it here. Here you've got to have a three-ply, doubled and twisted introduction before you can smile even at cottonade. I've been here a week, and hold about the most responsible position in the town, and society hasn't taken me up yet, but I reckon ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... 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 and night, at ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... 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 ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... Serapis, and put themselves under then country's flag, he coolly set them to working the pumps, to save the sinking ship. Human courage and resolution have seldom been more severely tried than in the exigencies of this terrible night on board the Richard. Jones continued to ply his feeble cannonade from the deck, levelled at the mainmast of the adversary. Both vessels were on fire, when, at half-past ten, the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... by caricaturing the manners of a class of women who are even greedier but more wheedling and mealy-mouthed than the Malay woman, and who put a gloss of the best motives on the trade they ply. Asie affected to have lost all her illusions, five lovers, and some children, and to have submitted to be robbed by everybody in spite of her experience. From time to time she exhibited some pawn-tickets, to prove how much bad luck there was in her line of business. She represented ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... year grows darker, And gray winds hunt the foam, They go back to Little Brixham, And ply their toil at home. And thus it chanced one winter's night, When a storm began to roar, That all the men were out at sea, And all the wives ...
— Monkey Jack and Other Stories • Palmer Cox
... a time there lived a barber, who was such a poor silly creature that he couldn't even ply his trade decently, but snipped off his customers' ears instead of their hair, and cut their throats instead of shaving them. So of course he grew poorer every day, till at last he found himself with nothing left in his house ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... the bribe paid for each chest of opium sold at Macao; and if it goes to Canton, it pays sixty more on its arrival there. Large boats armed, and having from thirty to forty men, called opium boats, ply between Macao and Canton, when that market offers an advantage in price. These boats carry this drug, and are sanctioned by the custom-house officers, who, of course, receive for this ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... in action's storm, I float and I wave With billowy motion! Birth and the grave A limitless ocean, A constant weaving With change still rife, A restless heaving, A glowing life— Thus time's whirring loom unceasing I ply, And ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... to that labor, and forced to the oar by violence; or because they were fatigued, and harassed by those who commanded them. Other contrary winds assailed them, which further impeded the voyage. In order to double certain promontories of the land, it was necessary to ply the oars, and to urge on the rowers with the severity and punishment generally used in galleys. They thought that harsh, and contrary to the governor's assurance, when he promised them that they would be treated with ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... 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 by one the ...
— The Children of the Night • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... postal cars, and baggage, too; a vestibule of patent make; With buffers, duffers, switches, and the soughing automatic brake— This is the Orient's novel pride, and Syria's gaudiest modern gem: The railway scheme that is to ply 'twixt Jaffa and Jerusalem. ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... upon to do work of greater precision and fineness, in the construction of tools and experimental models. This is the realm presided over lovingly by John F. Ott, who has been Edison's designer of mechanical devices for over forty years. He still continues to ply his craft with unabated skill and oversees the work of the mechanics as his productions are wrought into ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... as built—a goodly ship of stout timber frame covered two-ply with hides seasoned and sea-worthy, well found in provisions against a long voyage, fitted with sturdy mast of pine and broad sail. And think of the Mass as sung, with special prayer to Him who is the confidence ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... life," 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—— What are ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... "That wonderful organ, my brain, is working." Rapidly he began to write upon the back of a menu. "We must inform the world through the medium of the Press. An attractive paragraph must appear in The Times. What could be more appropriate than an epitaph? Ply me with wine, child. The sage is in labour with a song." Jill filled his glass and he drank. "Another instant, and you shall hear the deathless words. I always felt I should be buried in the Abbey. Anybody give me a rhyme for 'bilge'? No, it doesn't ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... the Romans assaulted the walls in two places at once, fear and consternation stupefied the Syracusans, believing that nothing was able to resist that violence and those forces. But when Archimedes began to ply his engines, he at once shot against the land forces all sorts of missile weapons, and immense masses of stone that came down with incredible noise and violence, against which no man could stand; for they knocked down those upon whom they fell, in heaps, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... it up) What can he do, that young chap, if I ply my secret arts freely? Be he god or devil, I will grasp him and grind him. I will offer his body as sacrifice to those whom he has slain. So he drew back, and holding his long spear against his side he hid himself behind the door and ...
— Certain Noble Plays of Japan • Ezra Pound
... 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 desert's haunter, slay— Whilst with applause ...
— Targum • George Borrow
... return, before any of the passengers ventured to smile. The excursion, like most travelling, was likely to be most productive of happiness by the recollections. But the women were no sooner landed, than that rash adventurer, the husband, brother, and father, seized an oar, and began to ply it with all his force. He merely wished to tell his confreres of the Rue Montmartre how a punt might be rowed. Pierre had gallantly landed to assist the ladies, and the boat, relieved of its weight, slowly ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... shown at the exposition by the Filipinos and the Indian tribes that women have not only, from the remotest times of which we have record, originated and practiced most of the industrial arts, but, among primitive nations, they still continue to ply the same occupations. The exhibits showed that the work of the men was still that of the hunter and trapper, while the Filipino woman who sat on the floor making cotton cloth, would indicate that it had fallen to the share of women not only to fashion garments, ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... of those Valkyrs who carry off the valiant dead to the halls of Valhalla and ply them with mead at the banquet. But many years ago I gave dire offence to All-Father Odin, as ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... In the season these inns are full to overflowing, and the roughest and smallest of water-side hamlets holds its accommodations at lofty premiums. A number of public pleasure-steamers and many private steam-launches ply up and down, making the whole trip in two or three days, drawing up at night at towns, and by day provoking curses both loud and deep by the swash of their tidal waves against the liliputian navy. Many of the merry boating-parties of men and women seek only sleeping-accommodations at the inns, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... of two things, Gordon," Sawtelle said in disgust. His sneer was plainly visible through the six-ply, plastic-backed lead glass of his face-plate. "Either shut up or accept my personal invitation to come to Ardvor and try to go through the wringer. That's an invitation to your own funeral." Five-Jet Admiral Gordon, torn inwardly to ribbons, ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... conquered Crete with horn and cry, For this was fain a maid to be And learn with girls the thread to ply; King David, wise in prophecy, Forgot the fear of God for one Seen washing either shapely thigh; Good luck has he that deals ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... manager's favorite with an arrogance that secretly delighted her; he displayed the assurance of one reared to selfish exactions, and his rival writhed under it. But Bergman was slow to admit defeat, and when his unspoken threats failed to impress the girl he began to ply Wharton with wine. Bob accepted the challenge blithely, and ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... kingfisher darts down 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
... slow process at the best of times, for it must be remembered that, behind the fighting-lines of such an army as opposed the Germans, rails are always more or less congested, while an enormous mass of vehicles ply the roads, bringing up ammunition and food, and hundreds of other articles necessary for the fighters. Time, then, was required in which to gather French forces, and time in which to rush them over the rails, and by motor-transport along the roads, ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... to my attention in South America was three- strand hemp, a hard material, good for standing rigging but not good for tackle or for use aboard canoes. A four-ply bolt rope of best manilla, made in New Bedford, Mass., should be taken. It is the finest and most pliable line in the world, as any old whaler will tell you. Get a sailor of the old school to relay the coils before you go into the field so that the rope will be ready ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... at the end of a couple of fields he began to gain. Tinker was soon aware of the painful fact, and knew that retribution was on him. But, though he could not escape, he could postpone; and his quick mind leaped to the fact that the more done Alloway was, the less vigorously would he ply his whip; besides, there was a chance that he might ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... complexions And cheeks of every grain will serve to ply The sampler, and to teaze the housewife's wool; What need a vermeil, tinctured lip for that, Love-darting eyes, and tresses like ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 561, August 11, 1832 • Various
... cooked by the devil. The discipline observable on board was perhaps as good as it is anywhere in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. The ship was not very well arranged for tropical service; but that is nothing, for this is the rule for ships which ply in the tropics. She had an over-supply of cockroaches, but this is also the rule with ships doing business in the summer seas—at least such as have been long in service. Our young captain was a very handsome man, tall and perfectly formed, the very ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... bloud did wade, Oxford, the foe inuade, And cruel slaughter made; Still as they ran up, Suffolk, his axe did ply, Beavmont and Willovghby, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 20, No. 562, Saturday, August 18, 1832. • Various
... an all too enterprising individual chartered one of the fast little Seine boats, always so beplastered with "Dubonnet" advertisements, which ply along the river between the Quai du Louvre and St. Cloud. He announced that since it was now no longer possible to reach London via the train to Havre, he would transport Americans on his little boat to England, going down the Seine past Rouen and across the Channel. For ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... the Skipper said; "He vanished with the coal we burn; Our dial marks full steam ahead, Our speed is timed to half a turn. Sure as the tidal trains we ply 'Twixt port ...
— The Seven Seas • Rudyard Kipling
... by 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
... were made in Genoa. The process consisted in leaving the main ground in the original fine rib which resulted from weaving, while in the pattern these little ribs were split open, making that part of a different ply from the rest of the material, in fact, being the finished velvet as we now know it, while the ground remained uncut, and had more the appearance of silk reps. Velvet is first mentioned in England in 1295, but probably existed ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... blackest secrecy, and were about to ply him with a hundred questions, when we saw a maid carrying a large tray enter the room ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... called "bowk," was attached to the steel wire rope which hung about the smouldering shaft. The man stepped into this, the chain was passed about his waist, he was smothered in heavy flannels which were tied about him with cords; the end of a long coil of dirty, oily, coaly, three-ply twine was fastened round his right wrist, and he was swung into the smoke. The word was passed to the engine-room, the little tin pot of an engine began to pant and snort 30 or 40 yards away and the man ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... that's what he said—and he also assured me that the Government had realized it, too, for was it not going to hew a provincial highway clean through the forest to Spearhead? Was it not going to build a fleet of steamers to ply upon the lakes and rivers in that section? And was it not going to build a line of railroad to the town itself in order to connect it with the new transcontinental and thus put it in communication with the great commercial ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... the kind of grain. Again, near Marktl, in Upper Bavaria, the sheaves are called Straw-goats or simply Goats. They are laid in a great heap on the open field and threshed by two rows of men standing opposite each other, who, as they ply their flails, sing a song in which they say that they see the Straw-goat amongst the corn-stalks. The last Goat, that is, the last sheaf, is adorned with a wreath of violets and other flowers and with cakes strung together. It is placed right in the middle of ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... Which drowsily, like humming beetles, rise From our loved earth, where peacefully we slept, And, far from heaven, a long possession kept. The frighted satyrs, that in woods delight, Now into plains with pricked-up ears take flight; And scudding thence, while they their horn-feet ply, About their sires the little silvans cry. A nation loving gold must rule this place, Our temples ruin, and our rites deface: To them, O king, is thy lost sceptre given. Now mourn thy fatal search, for since wise heaven More ill than good to mortals does dispense, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... He marks the smiler of the streets, The singer upon garden seats; He sees the climber in the rocks: To him, the shepherd folds his flocks. For those he loves that underprop With daily virtues Heaven's top, And bear the falling sky with ease, Unfrowning caryatides. Those he approves that ply the trade, That rock the child, that wed the maid, That with weak virtues, weaker hands, Sow gladness on the peopled lands, And still with laughter, song and shout, Spin the great wheel of ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson
... place. Because the two roadways of getting into Hudson Bay happen to be only a certain number of miles wide, Canada has always tried to claim it as her private preserves. Lots of whalers has been chased for darin' to ply their trade in these same waters. Course, they got the right to that three-mile from shore limit, but they want the whole hog up here. We been keepin' a lookout right along, while we sent boats out after the seal. It's late in the season for the work, but skins is so skeerce ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... old Marowsko—le pere Marowsko, he called him—in the hospitals in Paris. He was a Pole, an old refugee, it was said, who had gone through terrible things out there, and who had come to ply his calling as a chemist and druggist in France after passing a fresh examination. Nothing was known of his early life, and all sorts of legends had been current among the indoor and outdoor patients and afterwards ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... domestic Andromache. In this she instructed her sisters; and such was the fruit of their application and constant industry, that her mother abandoned the design of keeping school, and continued to ply her little huxtry in more easy circumstances. The fluctuations of trade in time taught them that it would not be wise to trust to the loom, and accordingly Nanny was at some pains to learn mantua-making; and ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... thus: Three holes were bored in the upper plank and three in the lower,—the holes being above each other, that is, in a vertical line. Through these holes the cord was passed, and, when tied, formed a powerful stitch of three ply. Besides this, we placed between the edges of the planks, layers of cocoa-nut fibre, which, as it swelled when wetted, would, we hoped, make our little vessel water-tight. But in order further to secure this end, we collected ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... continued to ply his pen, and the just but annoying complaints which came from Great Britain, that English creditors could not collect their ante-bellum debts from their American debtors, stimulated him to a bit of humor at which his own countrymen at least were sure to laugh, however ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... necessary article of household furniture. The free-born citizen of the States laughs at the aristocratic restrictions imposed on smoking in England, where, on board of the numerous steamboats that ply on the Thames, conveying the pride of the city to Gravesend and Margate, no smoking is allowed abaft the funnel, and where, in public-houses ashore, no gentleman is permitted to smoke in the parlor before two o'clock in the afternoon. ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... fled, and it seemed to me it had fled forever. A life of living death, 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 ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... elder exclaimed. "Have you no shame to ply your lewd vocation before a priest of God? Verily, you do well to hide your ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... battle-field of Marston Moor was the most exciting episode of my stay in York. In fact, I think it was much surpassed in a climax of dramatic poignancy incident to our excursion to Bishopsthorpe, down the Ouse, on one of the cosey little steamers which ply the stream without unreasonably crowding it against its banks. It was a most silvery September afternoon when we started from the quay at York, and after escaping from embarkment on a boat going in the wrong direction, began, with no unseemly swiftness, to scuttle ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... it was midnight, there came in two little naked dwarfs; and they sat themselves upon the shoemaker's bench, took up all the work that was cut out, and began to ply with their little fingers, stitching and rapping and tapping away at such a rate, that the shoemaker was all wonder, and could not take his eyes off them. And on they went, till the job was quite done, and the shoes stood ready for use upon the ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... we had had great comfort in our own home,—had entertained unnumbered friends, and had only ingrain carpets on our chambers and a three-ply on our parlor, and she doubted if any guest had ever thought of it,—if the rooms had been a shade less pleasant; and as to durability, Aunt Easygo had renewed her carpets oftener than we. Such as ours were, they ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... chase. Let her escape unmangled, it will pass in the record that she did once publicly run, and some old dogs will persist in thinking her cunninger than the virtuous, which never put themselves in such positions, but ply the distaff at home. Never should reputation of woman trail a scent! How true! and true also that the women of waxwork never do; and that the women of happy marriages do not; nor the women of holy nunneries; nor ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... his son; And whilst I at a banquet hold him sure, I'll find some cunning practice out of hand To scatter and disperse the giddy Goths, Or, at the least, make them his enemies. See, here he comes, and I must ply my theme. ...
— The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... the name imposed on a romantic defile, whose rocky walls, rising perpendicularly to the height of sixty or eighty feet, hem in the stream for three quarters of a mile, in many places so narrowly, that there is a want of room to ply the oars. In passing through this chasm we were naturally led to contemplate the mighty but, probably, slow and gradual effects of the water in wearing down such vast masses of rock; but in the midst of our speculations, ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... on hearing the razor-grinder ply his vocation in the very depths of our solitudes; for here he is a flying instead ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... if a few 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
... pour out a volley of questions about the river and the steamers we saw, and I answered them as well as I could; but Colonel Hungerford was better acquainted with the scene, and he took the task upon himself of informing her, leaving Miss Blanche to ply me with ...
— Up the River - or, Yachting on the Mississippi • Oliver Optic
... trains go out from here to the various army posts to carry food and other supplies, while ships, like farm yards adrift, ply on the same errand between port and port. Cebu and Negros ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... Massacre of St. Bartholomew. He ran in great danger on that eventful night, and states that he would have been slaughtered but for the kindness of Hubert Languet, who lodged in his house. Andrew Wechel fled to Frankfort, where he continued to ply his trade in safety; and when more favourable times came re-established his presses at Paris. He had the reputation of being one of the most able printers and booksellers ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... consent to the murder, but she doubted his resolution; and she 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 something in his face, as he slept, which resembled her own father; and she ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... the water had fallen about a foot during the night, so that Tay ought soon to be in ply, for another frost occurred in the night, and the snow did not appear to be serious. The order of the head boatman was for harling. You have two boatmen on this river, and they had to exert themselves to the utmost to ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... soon as Mrs. Stanhope left her husband. He went 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, ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... axe, fling by the spade: Leave in its track the toiling plough; The rifle and the bayonet-blade For arms like yours were fitter now; And let the hands that ply the pen Quit the light task, and learn to wield The horseman's crooked brand, and rein The charger ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... of the actions of the Queen's galleys and their brave crews in the Chinese waters? Men not more worthy of human renown and honor to-day in their victory, than last year in their glorious hour of disaster. So with stout hearts may we ply the oar, messmates all, till the voyage is over, and the Harbor ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... deaf and blind, Force and savage, king and seer Labour still, they know not why; At the dim foundation here, Knead and plough and think and ply. ...
— Poems • G.K. Chesterton
... Montague and her young companion left the Southern Hotel and proceeded directly on board one of the palatial steamers which ply between St. Louis ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... once a sharp cry rang from a boat off to the right, a cry taken up and echoed all along the line. The paddles ceased to ply; the canoes now drifted idly forward, their wakes trailing out behind in long "slicks" of greasy blackness flecked with sparkles from the reflected light ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... another-guess customer. Look at that strange fellow—see how he gapes at every shop, as if he would swallow the wares.—O! Saint Dunstan has caught his eye; pray God he swallow not the images. See how he stands astonished, as old Adam and Eve ply their ding-dong! Come, Frank, thou art a scholar; construe me that same fellow, with his blue cap with a cock's feather in it, to show he's of gentle blood, God wot—his grey eyes, his yellow hair, his sword with a ton of iron in the handle—his grey thread-bare cloak— ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... old days are flown, And now we ply our labours: We cook and scrub, We scour and rub, Regardless of our neighbours; The steps we bravely stone, Nor care a straw who passes The while we clean With shameless mien ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, Feb. 7, 1917 • Various
... now sail’d they all, And to Bergen o’er their course they ply; They laid in grave the Monarch brave, In the spot where the Monarch wish’d ...
— King Hacon's Death and Bran and the Black Dog - two ballads - - - Translator: George Borrow • Thomas J. Wise
... matters of his person that the simple operation of clipping the hair from between his toes, to prevent the "balling-up" of the snow, took two men to perform, one to sit on the dog and the other to ply the scissors, and was accompanied always with such howls and squeals as would make a hearer think ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... decente or upper class, nor do they desire to do so. They take their fill of the music quite indifferent to the presence of their superiors in the social grade, and the vendors of native sweetmeats, cooling drinks, and fruits ply their trade among them. On one side of the plaza, in the smaller towns, there are booths or tables where food is being cooked and displayed for the lower orders; and the savoury odour of frijoles and tortillas, or other matters of satisfaction to the peon, greet the nostrils ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... with France. She was full of life,—a discordant and struggling vitality. Her monks and priests, unlike those of Spain, were rarely either fanatics or bigots; yet not the less did they ply the rack and the fagot, and howl for heretic blood. Their all was at stake: their vast power, their bloated wealth, were wrapped up in the ancient faith. Men were burned, and women buried alive. All was in vain. To the utmost bounds of France, ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... ply about the shores of the bay in quest of recruits. The bush was full of armed natives; all willing enough to talk with the recruiter, but not one would engage to sign on for three years' plantation labour at six pounds per year. Yet they were anxious enough to get our people ashore. On the ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... love's fulfilment by snuffing out little lives in embryo? He thought not. He recalled an evening in New York when he had watched a policeman following a drab of the streets who sought to evade him and ply her sorry trade in the vicinity of Herald Square; he remembered how that same policeman had abandoned the chase to touch his cap respectfully and open her limousine door for the heroine (God save the mark!) ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... name from some fancied contrast to the garrulous rocks that lie up yonder, half concealed by the forest. If you will ply the oars, gentlemen, we will now hold a little communion with the spirit ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... The boats are large side-wheel vessels, capable of carrying pedestrians, horses and vehicles. The fare to the Jersey shore is three cents, to Brooklyn two, and to Harlem and Staten Island ten cents. On some of the lines the boats ply every five minutes; on others the intervals are longer. The Staten Island and Harlem boats ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... neck with a sharp and heavy butcher's knife, and the corpse is given over to the relations for Moslem burial. If the blow prove ineffectual a pardon is generally granted. When a citizen draws dagger upon another or commits any petty offence, he is bastinadoed in a peculiar manner: two men ply their horsewhips upon his back and breast, and the prince, in whose presence the punishment is carried out, gives the order to stop. Theft is visited with amputation of the hand. The prison is the award of state offenders: it is terrible, because the captive is heavily ironed, lies in a ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... completed when to its din was added the menacing sound of cannon. The besiegers began to ply the town with shells, and those who looked out over the ramparts could see in the darkness the flash of guns. Soon began from behind ridges of snow, within eighty yards of the walls of Cape Diamond, the patter of musketry. The Americans were seeking ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... may occur that would not otherwise have occurred.") To take the woman's point of view first, it is, I believe, a common experience with prostitutes that, in the earlier days at any rate, they find it difficult to ply their trade unless under the influence of alcohol. Turning to the man's point of view, there is quite a considerable proportion of young men who, however strong their sexual impulse, object to meretricious intercourse at ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... thought. She spoke not; but the knight, under cover of his errand, continued the discourse without awakening her alarm. He excelled in that specious, though apparently heedless raillery, which is so apt to slip without suspicion into a lady's ear; and he could ply his suit, under this disguise, with such seeming artlessness and unconcern, that a lodgement in the citadel was sometimes effected ere the garrison was aware ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... the whispering seethed over like a boiling pot. The knots were sundered; and gradually, one following another, the whole mob began to form into a procession and escort the curtained litter. Soon spokesmen, a little bolder than their mates, began to ply the Chancellor with questions. Never had he more need of that great art of falsehood, by whose exercise he had so richly lived. And yet now he stumbled, the master passion, fear, betraying him. He was pressed; he ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in the evening, all the other large ships, having silenced the guns to which they had been respectively opposed, joined the rest of the fleet. The four bombs being anchored near the shore, began to ply the town with shells and carcasses; so that in a little time the houses were in flames, the magazines of gunpowder blew up with the most terrible explosion; and about ten o'clock the whole place blazed out in one general conflagration. Next day, at two in the afternoon, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... ft. from the center of the boat, consists of a 5 ply rubber belt 36 in. wide; running over iron drums at each end and intermediate iron friction rollers at 3 foot centers. Ratchet and pinion on each side of conveyer ladder give means for taking up the slack of the belt and adjusting the drums ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 595, May 28, 1887 • Various
... the river's brink, and 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 ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... 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 from the shelf, and read a chapter aloud. When her aunt went to sleep during ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... while he marches up and attacks their main body, but are opposed again by a party of men as lay in Black Raven Court; but they are forced also to retire soon in the utmost confusion; and at the same time those brave divisions in Paul's Alley ply their rear with grenadiers, that with precipitation they take to the rout along Bunhill Row: so the General marches into the Artillery Ground, and being drawn up, finds the revolting party to have found entrance, and makes a ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... near Where dwelt the Muses' worshipper, Two pines have joined their tangled roots, A rivulet beneath them shoots Its waters to the neighbouring vale. There the tired ploughman loves to lie, The reaping girls approach and ply Within its wave the sounding pail, And by that shady rivulet A simple tombstone ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... tables of the rich, and enlivens the social circles of the poor; goes with the laborer as his most cheering companion; accompanies the mariner in his long and dreary voyage; enlivens the carpenter, the mason, the blacksmith, the joiner, as they ply their trade; follows the merchant to his counter, the physician to his infected rooms, the lawyer to his office, and the divine to his study, cheering all and comforting all. It is the life of our trainings, and town-meetings, and elections, and bees, and raisings, and harvests, ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... Varro plied 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
... by this inverted order of society that woman is obliged to ply the needle by day and by night, to procure even a scanty pittance for her dependent family. Let men become producers, as nature has designed them, and women be educated to fill all those stations which require less physical strength, and we should soon modify many of our social evils. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... might menace on high, I would still push my vessel from shore; At my calling undauntedly ply, And sing ...
— Poems • Matilda Betham
... threatened them that, if they did not make themselves busy, the king would have them hanged. The poor devils, unable to do aught else, thereupon answered, 'Ha! is that the way you take it, sir, and you, monsieur? We swear to you that you shall hear news thereof, for we will ply our hands so well right and left that the memory shall abide forever of a right well kept St. Bartholomew.'" "Wherein they did not fail," continues Brantome, "but they did not like it at first." According ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... to, the polite officers of the station gave Madame and myself some excellent coffee. Beyond the formal: "Madame has nothing to declare for His Majesty's customs?" and my companion's equally formal: "Nothing, Monsieur, except my personal belongings," they did not ply us with questions, and after half an hour's halt we again proceeded on ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... knack of enlarging a hole in a man's purse. They cannot give the price of anything upon inquiry; and as the paroxysm of longing cannot abide delay, orders are given by the feeble light of an approximate estimate of cost. The same people never send in the bills at once, but ply the purchaser with furniture till his head spins. Everything is so pretty, so charming; ...
— Melmoth Reconciled • Honore de Balzac
... the dining-room all day, every moment expecting the news of her son's acceptance by Miss Hale. She had braced herself up many and many a time, at some sudden noise in the house; had caught up the half-dropped work, and begun to ply her needle diligently, though through dimmed spectacles, and with an unsteady hand! and many times had the door opened, and some indifferent person entered on some insignificant errand. Then her rigid ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... first and later Agrippina;—at present their chief is Nero, in name a man, in fact a woman, as is shown by his singing, his playing the cithara, his adorning himself:—but ruling as I do men of Britain that know not how to till the soil or ply a trade yet are thoroughly versed in the arts of war and hold all things common, even children and wives; wherefore the latter possess the same valor as the males: being therefore queen of such men and ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... interested and impulsive psychophysical organism whose springs of action the teacher must divine, and to whose ways he must become accustomed. He must start with the native tendencies, and enlarge the pupil's entire passive and active experience. He must ply him with new objects and stimuli, and make him taste the fruits of his behavior, so that now that whole context of remembered experience is what shall determine his conduct when he gets the stimulus, and not the bare immediate impression. As the pupil's life thus enlarges, ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James
... for he was afraid that she might sense his mood and ply him with sympathetic queries: "Sometimes people are too tired to sleep. I am, and so I was lying here ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... harsh, easterly weather, the swell ran pretty high, and out in the open there were "skipper's daughters," when I found myself at last on the diver's platform, twenty pounds of lead upon each foot and my whole person swollen with ply and ply of woollen underclothing. One moment, the salt wind was whistling round my night-capped head; the next, I was crushed almost double under the weight of the helmet. As that intolerable burthern was laid upon me, I could have ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the finest river in Australia—namely, the Murray, on which steamers will soon ply as far as five hundred miles up the country. On either side of this river is a thick and dry scrub—sometimes ten, sometimes thirty miles wide. In this scrub, manna is not unfrequently found, to the great ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... 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 shatter'd ...
— The Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaire's Henriad • Virgil and Voltaire
... Gabrielle. Then he turned to his friends. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "our good AEsop desires to speak to the lady of his love in private. We are all, I am sure, too sympathetic with his amorous ambition to interfere with his wishes. Let him ply his wooing untroubled. Stand apart, please, and give AEsop ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... her fresh young form like the filmy wings of a butterfly, had Bond Street stamped all over it, as they who ran might read; but it had not been paid for, although it was already tumbling into little tears and tatters. For Gay was no Penelope to sit patiently at home and ply the nimble needle. She had worn it to six dances already, and would probably wear it another six before she summoned up the nerve to present ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... quit the 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, d—me, you'll be sicker, Ere you've been an hour on board." Thus ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... of the great Simiacine Scheme—the wonder of a few seasons. Some day, when the great Sahara is turned into an inland sea, when steamers shall ply where sand now flies before the desert wind, the Plateau may be found again. Some day, when Africa is cut from east to west by a railway line, some adventurous soul will scale the height of one of many mountains, one that seems no different from the rest and yet is held in awe by the phantom-haunted ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... furnished literal transcripts of what I heard in my conversations with my heroes and heroines, but my purpose throughout has been to hold a mirror up to Nature, to give a faithful interpretation of thought and character, and to show my readers some of the ply of mind and habits of life that still prevail among Yorkshiremen whose individuality has not been blunted by convention and who have the courage to express their reasoned or instinctive ...
— Songs of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... a broken 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 ...
— The Ghetto and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... a final blast of the highly polished brass instruments and the thunderous roll of the drums by a simultaneous uneasy trumpeting of their own, with which were mingled the cries of the mahouts, who had to ply their sharp-pointed goads to keep ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... pony-carriages, palanquins, etc., instead of the invariable barges and sampans of a few years ago, when the river was the "Broadway" of the city and the canals its cross-streets. Steamers of various dimensions now busily ply the river: the kings own several, which they use for pleasure-boats; eight or ten are fitted up as war-steamers, and others are packets to Singapore, China and elsewhere, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... 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
... courses the ring is kept well away from the enclosure. Last year the V.R.C. obliged the bookmakers to take out licenses to ply their craft at all on the course. And this brings me to the subject of betting and gambling generally. If the Australians are a racing community, so also are they a gambling community. The popularity of the Melbourne Cup is largely due to its being the great gambling event of the year. ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... principle. The 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 force, it does not cover the ground. A better ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... hinted by Mrs. Kelsey, and thus was he more willing to have him come. But on the subject of the carpet he was inexorable, and with tears of anger in her large blue eyes Nellie gave up the contest, while Maude very quietly walked over to the store and gave orders that a handsome three-ply carpet which she had heard her sister admire should be sent home as soon as possible. "You are a dear good girl, after all, and I hope James De Vere will fall in love with you," was Nellie's exclamation as she saw a large roll deposited at their door, but not a stitch in the making of the carpet ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... to be negotiated between the two countries, and my patron was appointed one of the plenipotentiaries on the part of the Shah. Although this was matter in which one of my insignificance could not expect to be employed, yet I did not cease to ply about the negotiators, like a dog at an entertainment seeking for a chance bone; and every now and then I got so much of the scent as to make me almost sure of springing ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... moon she 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 ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... was cast in the flames, and with renewed caution not to forfeit their success by inattention, Sindri passed out, leaving Brock to ply the bellows as before. Loki was now in desperation and he prepared for a final effort. This time, still in the guise of the gadfly, he stung the dwarf above the eye until the blood began to flow ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... oar, and turn mine eager prow, Back to the quiet waveless source again, Where no harsh sound breaks on the dreaming brain, And winds steal softly round the careless brow,— Swift as a dream my tiny bark hath gone, And stoutly though I ply the oar, yet now My weary shallop still goes sadly on, ...
— Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... resolutely rejected, he swore that if Kesa remained obdurate, he would kill her mother. From this dilemma the brave woman determined that self-sacrifice offered the only effective exit. She promised to marry Morito after he had killed her husband, Wataru; to which end she engaged to ply Wataru with wine until he fell asleep. She would then wet his head, so that Morito, entering by an unfastened door and feeling for the damp hair, might consummate his purpose surely. Morito readily agreed, but Kesa, having dressed ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... were within hail of fellow-creatures, and that vacant beach was but a pistol-shot from the capital city of the archipelago. But the life of an atoll, unless it be enclosed, passes wholly on the shores of the lagoon; it is there the villages are seated, there the canoes ply and are drawn up; and the beach of the ocean is a place accursed and deserted, the fit scene only for wizardry and shipwreck, and in the native belief a haunting ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... an American gourd. But that growing weaker, the flame appeared to gain ground, breaking forth and roaring most dreadfully, which so frightened the servants that many of them, like persons in despair, began to leave him. But he, still undaunted, continued to ply it with water, animating the servants at the same time, both by his words and actions. For a long time the contest appeared very doubtful; but at length a venerable old man, with a tall cap and an iron rod in his hand, like a lightning-rod, reached out to him ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer |
