"Plod" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the shoddy goods And plod and plot and plan, And if you win the paltry prize Go prize it—if you can, But I would hurl it in your face To hold myself ...
— Bars and Shadows • Ralph Chaplin
... my humble feet did plod, My bosom beating with the glow of song; And high-born fancy walk'd with me along, Treading ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 343, November 29, 1828 • Various
... altogether well fitted by his tailor. His face was not unlike that of an otter. He used grand words when he spoke, but did not tire his companions by quite as voluble a tongue as did his mother. He was one of those fine gentlemen who would, or could neither plod nor dash at his studies, and who was quite willing to take all his knowledge second hand from any one who would kindly ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... written on poor Methuen's. So you must figure to yourself a small army, an army almost all infantry, and an army tied to the railway on this march; and if we bring off no brilliant strategy, but simply plod on and take hard knocks, well, what else, I ask, under ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... Auersperg had gone in that direction with Julie, and he meant to find her. But how? He prayed silently for the coming of Lannes with the Arrow. For such a search as this the swift aeroplane could serve while one might plod in vain over the ground. Lannes would come before the next night! He must come! If he had made an appointment for such a meeting nothing could delay him ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... was clever. But hard. Man wanted to tear down, not build up. Cynical. Oh, I do hope I'm not a sentimentalist. But I can't see any use in this high-art stuff that doesn't encourage us day-laborers to plod on." ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... with a wretched present from Chitunkue; bad flour and a fowl, evidently meant to be rejected. He sent also an exorbitant demand for gunpowder, and payment of guides. I refused his present, and must plod on without guides, and this is very ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... into view something just a little better. At the top of one of the deep cuts on the bank two bullocks plod slowly round and round in a circle as if they were threshing corn; they work a wheel, which revolves horizontally and is fitted into another which turns vertically, deep down into the hole it reaches, low enough to touch the water at the bottom. Earthenware jars are strung ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... no more useful or willing animal than the Mule. And perhaps there is no other animal so much abused, or so little cared for. Popular opinion of his nature has not been favorable; and he has had to plod and work through life against the prejudices of the ignorant. Still, he has been the great friend of man, in war and in peace serving him well and faithfully. If he could tell man what he most needed it would ...
— The Mule - A Treatise On The Breeding, Training, - And Uses To Which He May Be Put • Harvey Riley
... the doubly bereaved man started on his lonely journey back to the Dakota claim, back to an empty house, with a gnawing pain in his heart and a constriction like an iron band about his throat; back to his broad fields to plod ...
— A Little Norsk; Or, Ol' Pap's Flaxen • Hamlin Garland
... the slender stem of a wild sunflower, warbles a sweet assurance of this as I pass near by. Breaking off the clear crystal song, he turns his wee head from side to side eyeing me wisely as slowly I plod with moccasined feet. Then again he yields himself to his song of joy. Flit, flit hither and yon, he fills the summer sky with his swift, sweet melody. And truly does it seem his vigorous freedom lies more in his little spirit ...
— American Indian stories • Zitkala-Sa
... up courage an' plod along, that's my advice. If she's meant fer you, ye'll win her all right. I'm a great believer in the idea that our own'll come to us some day, an' often in ways we least expect. ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... tread Hover the spirits of our dead; We cannot see them as we could In bygone days, when near they stood And shared the joys and griefs that came, But they are with us just the same. They see us as we plod along, And proudly smile when we are strong, And sigh and grieve the self-same way When ...
— The Path to Home • Edgar A. Guest
... thou rest, and what if thou withdraw In silence from the living, and no friend Take note of thy departure? All that breathe Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care Plod on, and each one as before will chase His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave Their mirth and their employments, and shall come And make their bed with thee. As the long train Of ages glides away, ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year - Edited by Katherine D. Blake and Georgia Alexander • Various
... submit. Submission would come easier if you took up some of those neglected duties, and you would be stronger for patience, if you used more of your strength for service. You do well if you do not sink under your burden, but you would do better if, with it on your shoulders, you would plod steadily along the road; and if you did, you would feel the weight less. It seems heaviest when you stand still doing nothing. Do not cease to toil because you suffer. You will feel your pain more if you do. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... bottom of the winding canyon, the air palpitated with the fervor of the torrid zone. He who attempted to plod forward panted and perspired, but a little way up the mountain side, the cool breath crept downward from the regions of perpetual ice and snow, through the balsamic pines and cedars, with a revivifying power that was grateful to all who ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... and gaiety were going out of my quest. I could only plod along dismally, attentive to every movement of Shalah, praying incessantly that we might get well out of it all. To make matters worse, the travelling became desperate hard. In the Tidewater there were bridle paths, and in the vales of the foothills the ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... visible anywhere; neither was he waiting, for the rope was still moving, consequently he was doing the same. This argued that he had not found the road, yet, but was marching to it with some peasant. There was nothing for us to do but plod along—and this we did. At the end of three hours we were still plodding. This was not only mysterious, but exasperating. And very fatiguing, too; for we had tried hard, along at first, to catch up with the guide, but had only fagged ourselves, in vain; ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Cov. To celebrate your father's exequies. But is that wicked Gaveston return'd? K. Edw. Ay, priest, and lives to be reveng'd on thee, That wert the only cause of his exile. Gav. 'Tis true; and, but for reverence of these robes, Thou shouldst not plod one foot beyond this place. Bish. of Cov. I did no more than I was bound to do: And, Gaveston, unless thou be reclaim'd, As then I did incense the parliament, So will I now, and thou shalt back to France. Gav. Saving your reverence, you must pardon ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe
... On still, though, plod, plod, till the loose drift was passed as if in a nightmare, and he felt as if his legs were moving mechanically. How long this had been going on he could not tell, for at last the horror of the pursuit had numbed his brain, and he could not think of anything but that ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... associated, the stately birds stand in the foreground of the scenery of the valley.... Such ponderous bodies moving with slowly-beating wings give a great idea of momentum from mere weight, a force of motion without swiftness; for they plod along heavily, seeming to need every inch of their ample wings to sustain themselves." [Footnote: Birds of the Northwest, 1874, ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... they use their raped and stolen power to intrench themselves in their privileges, to dig wider and deeper the channels through which the river of profits flows to them!—And you, workingmen, workingmen! You have been brought up to it, you plod on like beasts of burden, thinking only of the day and its pain—yet is there a man among you who can believe that such a system will continue forever—is there a man here in this audience tonight so hardened ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... could never go from one place to another in a slow, sober walk. He always moved by leaps, as if he felt too gay to plod along like Daddy Longlegs, for instance. Chirpy himself often remarked that he hadn't time to move slowly. And almost before he had finished speaking, as likely as not he would jump into the air and alight some distance away. It was all done so quickly that a person could ...
— The Tale of Chirpy Cricket • Arthur Scott Bailey
... that which was not his own back to the spot whence he had started. His transgression was now to be traced from the moment—day or night, or sunrise or sunset; what mattered the moment?—when the thought passed through his brain, "Why should I plod ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... No answer can be given; but those who know the Malays best will find reason to doubt whether the energy of the race would ever, under any circumstances, have been sufficient to grapple with these great questions. The raayat would have been content, I fancy, to plod on through the centuries 'without hope of change'; and, so far as the past history of a people can be taken as giving an indication of its future, it would seem that, in Malay countries, the growing tendencies made rather for an absolute than for a limited monarchy. The genius of the ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... is the way of it, dear boy, you must be an Alexander, or to the hulks you go. For my own part, I am quite contented with the little lot I mean to make for myself somewhere in the country, when I mean to step into my father's shoes and plod along. A man's affections are just as fully satisfied by the smallest circle as they can be by a vast circumference. Napoleon himself could only dine once, and he could not have more mistresses than a house student at the ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... in the way of her attaining any distant end had always been her reluctance to plod through the intervening stretches of dulness and privation. She had begun to see this, but she could not always master the weakness: never had she stood in greater need of Mrs. Heeny's "Go slow. Undine!" Her imagination was incapable of long flights. She could not cheat her impatience with ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... curious one. Nowhere else can such a mixture of races be seen, and each nationality was enjoying itself in its own peculiar fashion—all except the Chinese, who were, as usual, hard at work in their little dens. No recreation for this people. Work, work, work! They never play, never smile, but plod away, from early morning until late at night. The Chinaman's objection to giving his creditor in New York a note was because it "walkee, walkee alle timee; walkee, walkee, no sleepee." They seem to me to emulate ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... How could I plod through the dull routine of an agent's work, or interest myself in the thatch of this tenant's bothy or the sails of that one's boat, when my mind was taken up by the chain of events which I have described, and was still busy ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... The snow had turned to cold dull rain, which was far more depressing. I wished the mineral springs at Borsek had never been discovered. It was too late to turn back to St Miklos, where I devoutly wished myself, so I had nothing to do but plod on with my waterproof tight round me. It was impossible to go fast, for in places the mud was very deep and the road ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... bump grab fled ship blot lump drab sled whip spot pump slab sped slip plot jump stab then drip trot hump brag bent spit clog bulk cram best crib frog just clan hemp gift plod drug clad vest king stop shut dash ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... His reports were accurate and racy, even when they happened to be written in the pouring rain, in a shaking stagecoach, or by the light of a lantern. They were also promptly handed in at the office, despite the fact that the stages sometimes broke down and left their passengers to plod on foot through the miry roads leading into London. These reports and newspaper articles soon attracted attention; and Dickens received an offer for a series of humorous sketches, which grew into the famous Pickwick Papers, and earned L20,000 for the ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... footprints he had trodden, vengeance should demand them all. In a tempest of murderous hate he followed on in haste, for the track was plain enough, starting with such a burst of speed as could not be maintained, but brought him back soon to a plod for the spent, sobbing breath to be regulated. He cursed Christian aloud and called White Fell's name on high in a frenzied expense of passion. His grief itself was a rage, being such an intolerable anguish of pity and shame at the thought of his love, White Fell, ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... my country! city of the soul! The orphans of the heart must turn to thee, Lone mother of dead empires! and control In their shut breasts their petty misery. What are our woes and sufferance? Come and see The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way O'er steps of broken thrones and temples, ye Whose agonies are evils of a day!— A world is at our feet as fragile ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... burst into tears, Then calmed again: "my reindeer fleet, I gave them up: on foot, my dears, I now must plod through snow ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... guarding against waste and each contributing his or her part, great or small, for that national economy which alone can hope to sustain the terrific pace that victory demands. Finally, out in the great open spaces, faithful and unassuming and backing his country to the limit, must plod the Man Behind The Plow, working silently and steadily from dawn till dark to enlist and re-enlist the ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... blood, nor read by chills, Earth admonishes: Hast thou ploughed, Sown, reaped, harvested grain for the mills, Thou hast the light over shadow of cloud. Steadily eyeing, before that wail Animal-infant, thy mind began, Momently nearer me: should sight fail, Plod in the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... speak to him, and what was he going to say? He would have to introduce this—this septuagenarian: "This is my son, born early this morning." And then the old man would gather his blanket around him and they would plod on, past the bustling stores, the slave market—for a dark instant Mr. Button wished passionately that his son was black—past the luxurious houses of the residential district, past the home for ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... "O Daphnis, lovely is thy voice, thy music sweetly sung; Such song is pleasanter to me than honey on my tongue. Accept this pipe, for thou hast won. And should there be some notes That thou couldst teach me, as I plod alongside with my goats, I'll give thee for thy schooling this ewe, that horns hath none: Day after day she'll fill the can, until the ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... coupled with being called upon to pose as a genius at the comparatively early age of twenty-six. Popular theory to the contrary, notwithstanding, it is easier to plod slowly along on the path to fame. Greatness does not repeat itself, every day in the week. But fate had overtaken Gifford Barrett, and had hung a wreath of tender young laurels about his boyish brow. He deserved ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... may hide 'Mong the grass, where they abide. We, in box carts slowly borne, On the great roads plod and mourn. ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... everything to make them happy, plod their discontented and melancholy way through life, less grateful than the dog that licks ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... who has the ability and might easily learn the profession and adapt himself to it, could as easily establish himself in a well-paying business in that way as to plod along in the same old rut year in and year out, without any future prospect for obtaining ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... in any vocation requiring quick thought and quick decision. You like to reason things out; you want to know why before you go ahead. Your success lies in lines which require slow, thoughtful, careful reasoning, mature deliberation, and an ability to plod diligently through masses ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... a world where we shall not have to plod through so much doubt and misgiving, and where our real feelings will ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams
... begin in Saxony. Carl Proch was an honest farmer, who tilled a small tract of crown land and thereby supported his aged mother. Faithful to his duties, he had never a thought of discontent, but was willing to plod on in the way his father had gone before him. Filial affection, however, did not so far engross him as to prevent his casting admiring glances on the lovely Katrine, daughter of old Rauchen, the miller; and no wonder, for she ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... honest chat. Said one, "To-morrow we shall be Plod-plod along the featureless sands, And coasting miles and miles of sea." Said one, "Before the turn of tide We will achieve the eyrie-seat." Said one, "To-morrow shall be like To-day, but much ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... uprears; Plac'd on his chair of state, he seems a God, While Sophs and Freshmen, tremble at his nod. Whilst all around sit wrapt in speechless gloom, His voice in thunder shakes the sounding dome; Denouncing dire reproach, to luckless fools, Unskill'd to plod in mathematic rules. ...
— Fugitive Pieces • George Gordon Noel Byron
... hapless cattle, and yell their "Ah—h—h! Ah—h—h!"—where teams of horse, ox, and ass, the three abreast, drag piles of country produce, jingling their fantastic harness, and primitive carts laden with red-soaked wine-casks rattle recklessly along; where bare-footed, girdled, and tonsured monks plod on their no-business, and every third man one passes is a rotund ecclesiastic, who never in his life walked at more than a mile an hour; where, at evening, carriages returning from the Villa Nazionale cram the thoroughfare from side to side, ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... to be followed by a rise. That has been the history of trade and agriculture for generations. Nothing will ever convince me that it was intended for English agriculturists to go on using wooden ploughs, to wear smock-frocks, and plod round and round in the same old track for ever. In no other way but by science, by steam, by machinery, by artificial manure, and, in one word, by the exercise of intelligence, can we compete with the world. It is ridiculous to suppose ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... good reason for alarm. They were forced to plod through a narrow pass in the Biggarsberg range of mountains, so narrow indeed that a hundred Boers might have effectually barred their way. Here, through this perilous black cylinder of the hills, they marched at dead of night. It took ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... acquisitions, too numerous and too burdensome, constantly drop of their minds and they make no new ones. Their mental vigor has given way, the fecund sap has dried up; the finished man appears, often a finished man content to be put away, to be married, and plod along indefinitely in the same circle, entrenched in his restricted vocation and doing his duty, but nothing more. Such are the average returns—assuredly, the profits do not make up for the expenses. In England and in America where, as before 1789 ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... There is in this Satanist a religious fond; the very fierceness of his attacks, of his blasphemies, betrays the Catholic at heart. If he did not believe, why should he have displayed such continual scorn? No, Rops was not as sincere as his friends would have us believe. He made his Pegasus plod in too deep mud, and often in his most winged flights he darkened the blue with his satyr-like brutalities. But in the gay middle period his pages overflow with decorative Cupids and tiny devils, joyful girls, dainty amourettes, ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... also aware of a sympathy of mood between himself and the road he travels. We have all seen ways that have wandered into heavy sand near the sea-coast, and trail wearily over the dunes like a trodden serpent: here we too must plod forward at a dull, laborious pace; and so a sympathy is preserved between our frame of mind and the expression of the relaxed, heavy curves of the roadway. Such a phenomenon, indeed, our reason might perhaps resolve with a little trouble. We might reflect ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... these simple men; for many sweat Under this act, that knows not the law's debt Which hangs upon their lives; for silly men Plod on they know not how, like a fool's pen, That, ending, shows not any sentence writ, Linked but to common reason or slightest wit: These follow for no harm; but yet incur Self penalty with those that raised this stir. A God's name, ...
— Sir Thomas More • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... Balfour and the late Mr. George Wyndham were the only pupils of Chittenden's who made names for themselves. The rest of us were content to plod along in the rut, though we had been taught to concentrate, to ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... tremulously and faltered his promise to do so, and the next moment the train crawled away and left Darby to plod back to camp in the rain, vague and lonely in the remnant of what had once been a gray uniform. If there was one thing that troubled him it was that he could not return Vashti the needle-case until he replaced the broken needles—and ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... the extent that it seemed true to Davie. His grandfather was afraid of the boy's eager craving, and of what might come of it, and would far rather have seen him content, as his father had been, to plod through the winter, busy with the occupations which the season brought, than so eager to get away to Mr Burnet and his books. The grandfather had his sorrowful reasons for wishing to keep the lad ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson
... influence there had been a change of the olden customs, and instead of the long chapter, through which Uncle Ephraim used to plod so wearily, there was now read the Evening Psalms, Aunt Betsy herself joining in the reading, which she mentally classed with the "quirks," but confessed to herself that it "was most as ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... plod, till the loose drift was passed as if in a nightmare, and he felt as if his legs were moving mechanically. How long this had been going on he could not tell, for at last the horror of the pursuit had numbed his brain, and he could not think of anything but that he must ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... think you have learned it well. Then, you can play the violin, and not one of the lads can, though they want to do it very much. But, best of all, Nat, you really care to learn something, and that is half the battle. It seems hard at first, and you will feel discouraged, but plod away, and things will get easier and easier as ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... Little Sutton at seven. Just as he had traveled third-class, so he had preposterously planned to send his luggage on by carrier, and plod the five miles between town and station on foot. He wanted to ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... which is reflection. He visits the Grundyite, who says "Shocking," "Not nice," when human nature writhes in its agony and cries aloud for that drop of water which he, the virtuous conformist, refuses. He goes to the flat-footed and broad-waisted; those who plod along the beaten highway, and turn neither to the right hand nor to the left, neither to the hills nor the hollows. But he speaks a foreign language, and they heed him not. The iron-bound care nought. Does that cry of ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... sir. Science knows no party lines. Your chosen subject rises above the valley of partisanry where we old wheel-horses plod—stinging each other in the dust, as the poet finely says. Mr. West has told me of ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... and a short rest were welcome as the heat of the day came on, making the old dog plod wearily on with his tongue out, so that Stephen began to consider whether he should indeed have to be his bearer—a serious matter, for the creature at full length measured nearly as much as he did. They met hardly ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... indulge myself, and the record may serve me. How it had snowed all day! how it did snow this afternoon when I started out, wrapped in my waterproof, accoutred to encounter the storm, and rejoicing in the absence of long skirts and hooped petticoats! With my India-rubber boots I felt I could plod through any snow-drift, and I gained a pervading sense of exhilaration from the beating of the storm in my face. I chose a certain street I had come to know, which ran straight through the town and on into a more thinly-settled suburb. It was a good, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... man, too, who used to come up our street with a little coal cart; he wore a coal-heaver's hat, and looked rough and black. He and his old horse used to plod together along the street, like two good partners who understood each other; the horse would stop of his own accord at the doors where they took coal of him; he used to keep one ear bent toward his master. The old man's cry could be heard up the street long before ...
— Black Beauty • Anna Sewell
... tells thee true, my noble neophyte; my little gram maticaster, he does: it shall never put thee to thy mathematics, metaphysics, philosophy, and I know not what supposed Suficiencies; if thou canst but have the patience to plod enough, talk, and make a noise enough, be impudent enough, and ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... listened to their honest chat: Said one: "To-morrow we shall be Plod plod along the featureless sands, And coasting miles and miles of sea." Said one: "Before the turn of tide We will achieve the eyrie-seat." Said one: "To-morrow shall be like To-day, ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... thought I saw my wife. And often, often throughout those terrible days her voice came to me, kindly and low and encouraging. When I felt I really could plod no farther through the snow, her voice would tell me not to lose heart, but to do my best, and all would be right in the end. And when, wearied beyond measure at night, I would fall into a heavy sleep, and my fire would burn low, a hand on my ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... tin dinner service, while one man in each division stood guard. Special duties were assigned to the "extras," and Will's was to ride up and down the train delivering orders. This suited his fancy to a dot, for the oxen were snail-gaited, and to plod at their heels was dull work. Kipling tells us it is quite impossible to "hustle the East"; it were as easy, as Will discovered, to ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... instructive, but the gradual falling away of our members makes evident to me how unlikely it is that any official commission will ever settle the claims of spiritualism. As Maxwell has said: 'It is a slow process, and he who cannot bring himself to plod patiently and to wait uncomplainingly for hours at a time will not go far.' I confess that the half-heartedness of our members has disappointed me. I told them at the outset not to expect entertainment, but they did. It is tiresome to sit night after night and get nothing for one's pains. It ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... am sometimes inclined to think that the proficiency of the French in philosophy, the arts, and sciences, is not so much the result of patient investigation and laborious and continued study, as a kind of intuition which amounts to genius. The French mind is quick, and does not plod slowly toward eminence; it leaps to it. Certainly, in brilliancy of talents the French surpass every other nation. I will not do them the injustice to speak of them as they are at this moment—crushed under the despotism of Louis Napoleon—but ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... railway, which had progressed at the rate of about half a mile a day, had reached and was working to Ambigole Wells, where a four-gun fort and entrenchment had been built. The distance over which convoys must plod was reduced by half, and the business of supply was doubly accelerated. By degrees the battalions and squadrons began to move forward towards Akasha. Sarras, deprived of its short-lived glory, became ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... grind and plod here," he said, "while every one else is enjoying himself? If young Charlie were here, I'm pretty sure he'd be in for some of their sprees, and laugh at me for wearing my ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... advantages, for it makes us throw off all ideas of soft ease we may have harboured in Kashmir, and reminds us that we have to prepare ourselves to face beauties of a far sterner kind. So we insensibly alter our whole attitude of mind, and as we plod our way through the mountains we summon up from within ourselves all the austerer stuff of ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... the trail, and, glancing down it, from out of the silence reached him the distant, soft plod of hoofs in its heavy covering of sand. His look of satisfaction deepened as he turned back to his horses and tightened the cinchas of the saddles, and replaced the bits in their mouths. Then he picked up the Winchester rifle propped ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... with rhyme, Her hair unfilleted, her feet unshod, Naked and not ashamed demands of God No covering for her beauty's youth or prime. Clad but with thought, as space is clad with time, Or both with worlds where man and angels plod, She runs in joy, magnificently odd, Ruggedly wreathed with flowers of every clime. And you to whom her breath is sweeter far Than choicest attar of the martyred rose More deeply feel mortality's unrest ...
— Walt Whitman Yesterday and Today • Henry Eduard Legler
... ready-made disguises—unhook them, rather. He must know all the cant-phrases, the cant-references. There are very, very many of them, and belike it is hard to keep them all at one's finger-tips. But, at least, there is no difficulty in collecting them. Plod through the 'leaders' and 'notes' in half-a-dozen of the daily papers, and you will bag ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... to write my Life, I will give you a criterion by which you may judge of its correctness. If he give me credit for being a plodder he will describe me justly. Anything beyond this will be too much. I can plod. I can persevere in any definite pursuit. To this I ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... patience than those dealing with Psychology. Even those who put their knowledge to a practical use in such studies as divination by tea-leaves, must still plod patiently along a path thickly strewn with new knowledge. The powers of clairvoyance, for instance, cannot be forced or hurried; such arbitrary laws as time have no meaning for the subconscious self, therefore the need for hurry ...
— Telling Fortunes By Tea Leaves • Cicely Kent
... I won't press you further to voice your suspicion—right now. In the meantime, I'll plod along with my investigation on ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... Ohio River; for to drift down stream in a scow was easier and quicker, and no more dangerous, than to plod through thick mountain forests. Moreover, it was much easier for the settler who went by water to carry with him his household goods and implements of husbandry; and even such cumbrous articles as wagons, or, if he ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... Plod, plod, plod away, Step by step in mouldering moss; Thick branches bar the day Over languid streams that cross Softly, slowly, with a sound Like a smothered weeping, In their aimless creeping ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... charge, and good liquor for Watch and himself; Watch, like other sheep dogs, being accustomed to live chiefly on bread and beer. His master, though not averse to a pot of good double X, preferred gin; and they who plod slowly along, through wet and weary ways, in frost and in fog, have undoubtedly a stronger temptation to indulge in that cordial and reviving stimulus, than we water-drinkers, sitting in warm and comfortable rooms, can readily ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... white; or wasted itself in a bitter cry, Why did God make me an outcast and a stranger in mine own house? The shades of the prison-house closed round about us all: walls strait and stubborn to the whitest, but relentlessly narrow, tall, and unscalable to sons of night who must plod darkly on in resignation, or beat unavailing palms against the stone, or steadily, half hopelessly, watch ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... alone.— So shalt thou rest—and what if thou withdraw In silence from the living, and no friend Take note of thy departure? All that breathe Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care Plod on, and each one, as before, will chase His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave Their mirth and their employments, and shall come And make their bed with thee. As the long train Of ages glides away, the sons of men The youth in life's green spring, and ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... again—to plod once more down the narrows to the base of Blow-me-Down Dick and search the vague light of the coast for the first sight of Doctor Rolfe. It was not time; he knew that. There would be hours of waiting. ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... Thor, and yet he could not break down the wall of reserve he had builded around himself. He had deluded himself that this comradeship was not for him, that he could never mingle with these happy-go-lucky youths, that he must plod straight ahead, and live to himself, because ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... lasting varieties of sport. He will joyfully chase the wild boar, when horses, dogs, and horns, with the admiration of his friends and servants, concur to keep his blood boiling; but he will not care to plod alone through the woods for a long afternoon on the chance of bringing home a brace of woodcock; nor can he mention fishing without a sneer. Being thus deprived of the chief resource by which Anglo-Saxons ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... path, however, we are soon amid the groves of olive and other trees, while the horses plod their slow way beside the brook. Not a few citizens going or coming from Athens meet us, for this is really one of the parks and breathing spaces of the closely built city. The Athenians and Greeks in general live in a land of such natural beauty that they take this ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... customer are waiting in the man shambles, while the negro messenger with his boy article of trade plod their way along through the busy streets. The negro looks on his charge with a smile of congratulation. "Mas'r 'll laugh all over 'e clothes when he sees ye-dat he will!" he says, ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... We sometimes have at Talladega applications from fifty such in a single year. It is often pitiful to hear their appeals to be admitted to school, when denial is forced upon them, since there is neither room nor money. Still, there are many who secure books, seek help, and blindly plod on. ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 52, No. 1, March, 1898 • Various
... re-learning some favorite study, momentarily forgotten. And in the case of the disliked study, every step is attended with toil. In some cases the child seems to learn every branch with the minimum effort, and with practically no effort; while in other cases the child has to plod wearily over every branch, as if breaking entirely new ground. And this continues into after life, when the adult finds this thing or that thing into which he naturally fits as if it were made for him, the knowledge concerning it coming to him ...
— Reincarnation and the Law of Karma - A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect • William Walker Atkinson
... among strangers"—"leaving her sisters,"—"abandoning her charities," &c., the real one probably being the fear to trust their impressionable young member to Presbyterian influence. And so she must content herself to sink down in the old ruts, and plod on in work which was daily becoming more insufficient to her intellectual and spiritual needs. Her chief pleasure was her correspondence with her brother Thomas, with whom she discussed controversial Bible questions, and various moral reforms, ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... man, who made another remark about the state of the country and so on, to which the reddleman again abstractedly replied, and then again they would lapse into silence. The silence conveyed to neither any sense of awkwardness; in these lonely places wayfarers, after a first greeting, frequently plod on for miles without speech; contiguity amounts to a tacit conversation where, otherwise than in cities, such contiguity can be put an end to on the merest inclination, and where not to put an end to it is intercourse ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... little housewives, the angels of many a happy hearth, whose busy fingers, beaming smiles and gentle accents are the rest and refuge of many a toil-worn weaver at life's heavy loom. To lay aside the world's distressing cares at sunset, to wipe his moistened brow, and "homeward plod his weary way" to his cabin small and lowly, where glows this cheerful love in one dear breast, in one sweet face, is to the uncouth "ploughman" a joy, a comfort, which many a ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... 500l.; fear made them obdurate; and so, depressed and crestfallen, Donald returned to Kildun and urged the Prince to instant flight. But not even the fear of immediate capture could induce the three wearied men to set out again in the wet and darkness to plod over rocks and morasses with no certain goal. So Donald had to control his fears and impatience till ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... man's fugitive castaway soul upon a doomed and derelict planet. The minds of all men plod the same rough roads of sense; and in spite of much knavery, all win at times "an ampler ether, a diviner air." The great poets, our masters, speak out of that clean freshness of perception. ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... I plod through miry ways Of antic wit, and quibbling mazes drear, Let not thy shade malignant censure fear, If aught of inward mirth my search betrays. Long slept that mirth in dust of ancient days, Erewhile to Guise or wanton Valois ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... there are some, who 'twixt me and the youth Have heard this discourse, whose sole aim is the truth, Will see and acknowledge, as homeward they plod, Each thing is arrang'd by the ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... swung into line with Armstrong, have you? You mean to plod along in some professional rut too. What has got ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... split lips and rasping, dry-puffed tongue; the sickening ache in the pit of his stomach; the insupportable silence, the empty space, the utter desolation, the contempt of life; the weary ride, the long climb, the plod in sand, the search, search, search for water; the sleepless night alone, the watch and wait, the dread of ambush, the swift flight; the fierce pursuit of men wild as Bedouins and as fleet, the willingness to deal sudden death, ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... "well—I'll tell him in the morning." Then, smiling vaguely, he dropped down into his shabby old easy-chair, and watched Martha's darning-needle plod in and out. "Martha," he said after a while, "what shade would you call your hair if it was—well, ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... away and went back across the lawn, only to stop at the well in the garden, fill two buckets, and plod back to the firing-line again. He found plenty to do there; he helped Alixe, following her with his buckets where she passed among the wounded, the stained cross on her breast. Once a bullet struck a pail full of water, and ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... least as often as once a week or his passion will cool and he will put up his tackle. The tiger-sportsman must find a tiger at least once a fortnight or he will get tired and quit. The elephant-hunter's enthusiasm will waste away little by little, and his zeal will perish at last if he plod around a month without finding a member of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... he turned the corner he glanced up and down the empty sidewalk in a quick, furtive fashion, and after he had swung into the side street a trifle of the steam seemed gone from his stiff-spined, hard-heeled gait. It ceased to be a strut; it became a plod. ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... eyes of most of the town the Wheelers were objects of envy. They had an automobile. They could ride while others must plod along behind them on foot, blinded by their dust and sickened by their noisome odor ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... no enjoyment within my vocation, at least it offered no allurements out of it; and henceforth I would put my shoulder to the wheel and toil away, like any poor drudge of a cart-horse that was fairly broken in to its labour, and plod through life, not wholly useless if not agreeable, and uncomplaining if ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... looking at things, precisely as if she had the full use of her eyes. Indeed, I question whether those wonderful fingers of hers were not as good as many pairs of eyes we see. How many people go half-blind through the world, just for want of the habit of looking at things! How many plod onward, with eyes fixed on the ground, when they might be raised to the skies, seeing the glory of the Lord, which He has spread abroad over hill and meadow, for all eyes to behold! How many walk with introverted gaze, seeing only themselves, while their neighbor walks beside them, unseen, ...
— Melody - The Story of a Child • Laura E. Richards
... given to hospitality," he said; "we're always looking for the angel we are going to entertain unawares. Come along home with us, Lewis." And Lewis would plod up the hill and take his turn at the tin washbasin, and then file down the men's side of the stairs to the dining-room, where he and the three old brothers sat at one table, and Athalia and the eight sisters ...
— The Way to Peace • Margaret Deland
... combines more virtues to the square foot than the mule. With the mule emblazoned on our banners, we should be a terror to every foe. We are a nation of uncomplaining hard workers. We mean to do the fair thing by everybody. We plod along, doing as we would be done by. So does the mule. As a nation we occasionally stick our ears forward, and fan flies off of our forehead. So does the mule. We allow parties to get on and ride as long as they behave themselves. So do does ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... fewer, and Felicia, looking across at her brother's brown, handsome face, found it tranquil and sober, an earnest absorption in his gray eyes and a gently whimsical smile about his mouth. She knew of whom he was thinking, and smiled tenderly herself as she watched his big hand plod systematically and doggedly across the unfamiliar way. Bedtime found Ken elated and exhibiting to his sister several neatly embossed sheets ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price
... of all when thou dost plod, Alone, upon these wintry days, Along the old familiar ways Wherein his ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... decayed vegetable matter. This slime had hardened in the sun and formed a cake over the soft mud beneath. Upon this treacherous surface a man could walk with great care. Should the thin covering break through, he would be immediately waist-deep in the soft mud. To plod through this was the elephant's delight. Smearing a thick coat of the black mud over their whole bodies, they formed a defensive armour against the attacks of mosquitoes, which are the greatest torments that an elephant has to ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... step throughout, but with a difference. It is more of a plod, with less of stamping and much less lifting of the feet. Morris Off, danced in the traditional manner, gives one the impression of a company agreeably tired, but pleased and comfortable, having rollicked to their hearts' content, and to the contentment of the lookers-on; and being ...
— The Morris Book • Cecil J. Sharp
... tired and glad when we reached a camping-place. We could not stop on this high ridge for lack of water, although the feed was very good. We were forced to plod on and on until we at last descended into the valley of a little stream which crossed our path. The ground had been much trampled, but as rain was falling and darkness coming on, there was ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... up to fever-heat. Why plod along years making a fortune, when here you could dig it out of the ground in a few months! As if wealth was the great ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... morning; but Patrasche, who understood him aright, would no more have consented to stay at home than a veteran soldier to shirk when the charge was sounding; and every day he would rise and place himself in his shafts, and plod along over the snow through the fields that his four round feet had left their print upon ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various
... Andy about it, and he liked the idea immense. Andy was a man of an involved nature. He was never content to plod along, as I was, selling to the peasantry some little tool like a combination steak beater, shoe horn, marcel waver, monkey wrench, nail file, potato masher and Multum in Parvo tuning fork. Andy had the artistic temper, ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... cities sapped by slow decay, A hundred codes and systems proven vain Lie hearsed in sand upon the heaving plain, Memorial ruins mounded, still and gray; And we who plod the barren waste to-day Another code evolving, think to gain Surcease of man's inheritance of pain And mold a ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... to a secluded spot,—throw myself down on the flooded ground, and sleep a few minutes; then would awaken, almost drowned by the pitiless rain, and so sore and benumbed that I could scarcely stagger to my feet, and plod onward. ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... some people (or races) jump from one subject to another naturally, as some animals (I mean the noble deer) go by bounds. While there are other races (or individuals—heaven forgive me, I am no ethnologist) who think you a criminal or a lunatic unless you carefully plod along from step to step like a hippopotamus out of water. When, therefore, I asked this family-drilling, house-managing, mountain-living woman whether she could make omelettes, she shook her head at me slowly, keeping her eyes fixed on mine, and said in what was the corpse of French ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... Magnificent Puna, fertile from rain, 5 At all times weaving its mantle. Aye Puna's a land of splendor, Proudly bedight with palm and lehua; Beauteous above, but horrid below, And miry the plain of Mau-kele. 10 Apua upturned, plod on ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... and sad, you feel But one long wish to go to heel; You cannot scent for cutting mugs— Your nose is turning up, like Pug's; You can't hold up, but plod and mope; Your tail like sodden end of rope, That o'er a wind-bound vessel's side Has soak'd in harbor, tide and tide. On thorns and scratches, till that moment Unnoticed, you begin to comment; You never felt such bitter brambles, Such heavy soil, in all your rambles! ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... to transform the aristocracy, instead of the aristocracy transforming them. He knew that Veneering had carried off Twemlow in triumph. He very nearly knew what we all know to-day: that, so far from it being possible to plod along the progressive road with more votes and more Free Trade, England must either sharply become very much more democratic or as rapidly ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... awake. Nor could he fix it upon business. It would interest itself only in the hurrying throngs of foot passengers and the ideas they suggested: Here am I—so ran his thoughts—here am I, tucked away comfortably while all those poor creatures have to plod along in the storm. I could afford to be sick. They can't. And what have I done to deserve this good fortune? Nothing. Worse than nothing. If I had made my career along the lines of what is honest ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... this man was "an infidel!" Ah, no! The tale's incredible—it was not so. The untutored savage through the world may plod, Reckless of Heaven and ignorant of his God; But that a mind that's culled improvement's flowers From all her brightest amaranthine bowers, A mind whose keen and comprehensive glance Comprised at once a world—should worship chance, Is strangely inconsistent—seems to me The very essence of absurdity; ...
— Heart Utterances at Various Periods of a Chequered Life. • Eliza Paul Kirkbride Gurney
... contemplate. They wend; amid the infinitude of doubt and dim peril; they not doubtful: Fate and Feudal Europe, having decided, come girdling in from without: they, having also decided, do march within. Dusty of face, with frugal refreshment, they plod onwards; unweariable, not to be turned aside. Such march will become famous. The Thought, which works voiceless in this blackbrowed mass, an inspired Tyrtaean Colonel, Rouget de Lille whom the Earth still holds, (A.D. ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... none the easier to resist because it is unusual. When a young girl, with hot impatience, feels she is not advancing as rapidly as she should, the wealthy "patron of Art" declares it is folly for her to plod along so slowly, that he will free her from all trammels, he will provide play, wardrobe, company, and show the world that she is already an artist. To her trembling objection that she could only accept such tremendous aid from ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... day make himself an authority over the very persons, who, in the rough and tumble working-days of his younger manhood, would not so much as cast him a word or a look. He knew that the first thing necessary to attain for this purpose was money; and he had, by steady and constant plod, managed to enlarge and expand all his business concerns into various, important companies, which he set afloat in all quarters of the world,—with the satisfactory result that by the time his years had run well into ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... be a sufficient recompense for the labour of the search. Fortunately for his design, he lived in the time when a poet might have spoken without hyperbole of the 'fairy tales of science.' To us, who have to plod through an arid waste of painful observation, and slow piecing together of cautious inferences before reaching the promised land of wondrous discoveries, the expression sometimes appears to be ironical. Does not science, we may ask with a prima facie ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... would be inconsiderable. They don't hear of it, to begin with, and if they did they wouldn't care for it. I am surprised to find how little most of these people appreciate their present prospects. Once in a while you find an intelligent man who does so, but the mass plod along in the beaten track with little thought about the future and no sort of feeling of responsibility. They feel a sense of relief that no one stands to force them to labor, and they fall back with a feeling of indifference as to whether they exert themselves ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... in the game, anyway. Land of love! if man and woman was all, then when they came face to face with life they would get smashed; but housework tempers the matter powerfully; and man's work out among other men; and then when children come and you have to contrive and pinch, why you just plod along and don't ever get flustered. It's just the first dash of cold water in the face, child; after that all lives is ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... all bein' neck and neck when we hit the nursery may be true, but, believe me, some guys are born to run second! They get off on the wrong foot, trailin' the leaders until the undertaker stops the race. They plod through life takin' orders from guys that don't know half as much about any given thing as they do; they never get a crack at the big job or the big money, although accordin' to Hoyle they got everything that's needed for both. Take Joey ...
— Alex the Great • H. C. Witwer
... dragging their heavy load up the slope to Castle Rock: "It took us all the morning to reach Saddle Camp with the loads in two journeys. I found a steady plod up a steep hill without spells is better and less exhausting than a rush and a number of rests. This theory I put into practice with great success. I don't know whether everybody saw eye to eye with me over the idea of getting to the top without a spell. After the second sledge ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... It is full of improbable combinations. Persons and scenes are brought into juxtaposition, in a manner to violate every principle of vraisemblance. The effect is so to blunt the interest of the story, that we can hardly plod ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... chance of birth ne'er gave To them a right to carve another's fate; Nor yet to make the humbler born a slave, Whose heart with goodness may be doubly great. Tell the hard-handed poor, yet honest man, That though through roughest ways of life he plod, Nature hath placed upon his birth no ban,— All men are equal in the sight ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... iron ring in its nostrils, Covered with crimson cloth, and a cushion placed for a saddle. She should not walk, he said, through the dust and heat of the noonday; Nay, she should ride like a queen, not plod along like a peasant. Somewhat alarmed at first, but reassured by the others, Placing her hand on the cushion, her foot in the hand of her husband, Gayly, with joyous laugh, Priscilla mounted her palfrey. "Nothing is wanting now," he said with a smile, "but the distaff; Then you would be in ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... varied circles of society, you will there see this axiom demonstrated; you will there see how few among the sentimentally refined are even apparently at ease; while those, insusceptible of what you name tender attachments, or who receive them only as things of course, plod on through life, without even experiencing the least inconvenience from a want of the pleasures they are supposed to bestow, or the pains they are sure to create. Beware, then, my son, beware of yielding ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... to go back to the house, but another thought had suddenly occurred to her. "Miss Davis! She's not with them. Can it be she didn't come? Was Gloriana right after all? She surely would not let the children plod home in the heat while she rode in the 'bus. No, there are only eight people in that bunch and they are all children. Oh, dear, suppose Glory's dream ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... now, he yielded the contest, and said discontentedly,— "Have your own way, Steenie, since you will make a solitary bachelor of yourself, but at least give up your useless toiling at the wine- office. To what end do you plod there every day,—you who are wifeless and childless, and have no need of money for yourself? Give me up this great house in which you live all alone, like an owl in an oak-tree, and let me find you a cottage somewhere in the neighborhood, where I can often come and see you, and where you ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... the "rig" was that while it was a tongued wagon with whiffletrees for two horses, there was only one horse. The driver, a bearded farmer, was urging the patient animal on, although it was impossible for it to do more than plod in its ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... rough road, and under a broiling sun, at length became too oppressive. Oftentimes I felt, as it were, unable to proceed a step further; but my proud spirit with a stern determination of will, exerted every possible energy, and I continued day after day to plod along with my foot-sore and way-worn companions. Our fatigues were however occasionally relieved by a general rest for a few days. But before one third of the journey had been completed I was seized one night with a severe ...
— The Black-Sealed Letter - Or, The Misfortunes of a Canadian Cockney. • Andrew Learmont Spedon
... sirrah, bear you these letters tightly; Sail like my pinnace to these golden shores. Rogues, hence, avaunt! vanish like hailstones, go; 75 Trudge, plod away o' the hoof; seek shelter, pack! Falstaff will learn the humour of the age, French thrift, you rogues; myself ...
— The Merry Wives of Windsor - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... plod up the treadmill it had labored on for so many black hours. He set himself to get it clear in his own mind, forcing those fierce, burning thoughts of his into words, as if he had been speaking aloud. "Now, now here I am. What must I do? What ought I to do? There must be some answer if I can only ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... himself—he wished to do so—that the obscure power that moved him had an exact meaning, and that its meaning was in accordance with his will. His free instinct, risen from the unconscious depths, was willy-nilly forced to plod on under the yoke of reason with perfectly clear ideas which had nothing at all in common with it. And work so produced was no more than a lying juxtaposition of one of those great subjects that Christophe's mind had marked out for itself, and those wild forces which had an altogether different ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... your Strad and your heart at her feet, and said take my all!" But now that he had been so far disillusioned by Sally's robust and breezy treatment of the position, he was not quite sure the spook had not something to say for himself. Mr. Bradshaw was content to come down off his high horse, and to plod along the dull path of a mere musical evening visitor at a very nice house. Pleasant, certainly, but not the aim of his aspirations from afar at St. Satisfax's. His amour propre was a little wounded by that ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... for it, but to turn back and begin all over again. It was very hard, but I turned back, though with a heavy heart, and began laboriously and methodically to plod over the same tedious ground at a snail's pace; stopping to examine minutely every speck in the way, on all sides, and making the most desperate efforts to know these elusive characters by sight wherever I met them. I was always punctual ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... November, "and by no means the minority, who, however wealthy in regard to facts, can never rise into the region of principles; and they are sometimes intolerant of those that can. They are formed to plod meritoriously on in the lower levels of thought; unpossessed of the pinions necessary to reach the heights, they cannot realize the mental act—the act of inspiration it might well be called—by which a man of genius, after ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... Pieters without a check at the same toilsome plod and on to Nelthorpe. Here we began to approach the Dutch lines of investment round Ladysmith, and the advance of half an hour brought us to a very strong picket, where we were ordered to halt and rest. Nearly two hundred Boers swarmed round ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... is always with me. It has me in its clutches, a horrible monster dragging me down. My friends misinterpret me and wonder what I mean by doing so when all the time I want to do what is for the best and cannot for this tyrant who is ever present with me. I will plod for hours and hours at a time, and at every turn I am handicapped. I am intelligent naturally ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... trial of strength. Studas tried to dissuade his son, telling him that his presumption would cost him his life; but Heime answered: "Thy life and thy calling are base and inglorious, and I would rather die than plod on in this ignoble round. But, moreover, I think not to fall by the hand of Theodoric. He is scarce twelve winters old, and I am sixteen; and where is the man with whom I need fear to fight?" So Heime rode over the rough mountain ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... Dashwood had a spare one he remembered, and there was a blacksmith, not half a mile distant. He looked round—no sign of him of course; he was sailing away with a good start, fields ahead, in that contented ecstasy that stops not for friend or foe. There was nothing for it but to plod on to the forge, trusting to nick in later in the day. As the shoe had to be made, delay was inevitable. Dutton lit a cigar to while away the term of durance, and was disconsolately looking out at the door of ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... the young men, who came "sidling" slowly up to me. I asked him where they came from, and he said, "Ash'n." In answer to another question, he said, "We're o' one family. Me an' yon tother's wed. That's his wife wi' th' chylt in her arms, an' hur wi' th' plod shawl on's mine." I asked if the old man was his father. "Ay," replied he, "we're o' here, nobbut two. My mother's ill i' bed, an' one o' my sisters is lookin' after her." " Well, an' heaw han yo getten on?" said I. "Oh, we'n done weel; but we's come no moor," replied he. Another ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... employer of Master Bean had to cringe before two. Nobody can last long against an office-boy whose eyes shine with quiet, respectful reproof through gold-rimmed spectacles, whose manner is that of a middle-aged saint, and who obviously knows all the Plod and Punctuality books by heart and orders his life by their precepts. Master Bean was a walking edition of Stepping-Stones to Success, Millionaires who Have Never Smoked, and Young Man, Get up Early. Galahad, Parsifal, and Marcus ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... again found a little mutton; but, contrary to Michael's hopes, there was not a single beast of burden in the country; horses, camels—all had been either killed or carried off. They must still continue to plod on across this weary steppe ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... Washington, he was compelled by his agreement to devote himself mainly to the musical telegraph, although his heart was now with the telephone. For exactly three months after his interview with Professor Henry, he continued to plod ahead, along both lines, until, on that memorable hot afternoon in June, 1875, the full TWANG of the clock-spring came over the wire, ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... the song. He leaned forward, interested, amused, alert. The voice was a big voice, mellowed by distance. There was a take-it-or-leave-it swing to the melody that suggested the singer's absolute oblivion to anything but the joy of singing. Again the plod, plod of ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... went before without force. They are all trimmed as much as possible to one pattern, and all make the same sad plaint. It is a day on which to thank God for the unknown tongue. The drover and his lad in dusty blue coats plod along stolidly, deaf and blind to all but the way before them; no longer wielding the crook, instrument of deliverance, or at most of gentle compulsion, but armed with a heavy stick and mechanically dealing blows on the short thick ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless
... flank, and sends orders to throw back his right to face the attack. The order is not obeyed. Almost at the same moment the French rush is made, the Spanish and Portuguese allies of the English are beaten beck, and the hill is won. But two English divisions bear from the centre of their front, and plod desperately up the hill to ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... plod, plod away, Step by step in mouldering moss; Thick branches bar the day Over languid streams that cross Softly, slowly, with a sound In their aimless creeping Like a smothered ...
— Music and Other Poems • Henry van Dyke
... you had been trying to corrupt a voter. When people take the trouble to do dignified acts, it is worth while to take a little more, and allow the dignity to be common to all concerned. But in our brave Saxon countries, where we plod threescore years and ten in the mud, and the wind keeps singing in our ears from birth to burial, we do our good and bad with a high hand and almost offensively; and make even our alms a witness-bearing and an act of war ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... going out as a governess, if she can find any one to take her, and Arthur is to plod on with Joe Jenkins, and Tom means to apply for the post of bell-ringer to the cathedral," interposed the incorrigible Annabel, who had once more darted in, and heard the last words. "Can you recommend Constance ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood |
