"Pluck" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... society: make thy books thy companions. Let thy bookcases and shelves be thy gardens and pleasure grounds. Pluck the fruit that grows therein; gather the roses, the spices, and the myrrh. If thy soul be satiate and weary, change from garden to garden, from furrow to furrow, from scene to scene. Then shall thy desire renew itself, and thy soul ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... make sure that it does not get out. The young cub has a deal of spirit and pluck, and he would not live long if he were shut up on such rations as our ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic
... will pluck me! But to save her the trouble of trying to get Daniel away from here I'll send ...
— The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan • Honore de Balzac
... from the devil," cried the Squire, "is it possible that a magistrate, or what d'ye call him, green as a fig, should appear no better than an ass in your worship's eyes? By the Lord, I'll give you leave to pluck off every hair of my beard ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... Spanish fly, and dragon roots, given three mornings before the new or full moon, was suggested as a specific by Sir Robert Gordon. Theodore De Vaux remarks that the person bitten should immediately pluck the feathers from the breech of an old cock and apply them bare to the bites. If the dog was mad the cock was supposed to swell and die. If the dog was not mad the cock would not swell; in either case the person so treated was immune. Mad-stones, as well ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... the toil, the frost, and starvation. Buck was the exception. He alone endured and prospered, matching the husky in strength, savagery, and cunning. Then he was a masterful dog, and what made him dangerous was the fact that the club of the man in the red sweater had knocked all blind pluck and rashness out of his desire for mastery. He was preeminently cunning, and could bide his time with a patience that was nothing less ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... defeat, From doubt and lame division, We pluck the fruit and eat; And the mouth finds it bitter, and the spirit sweet.... O sorrowing hearts of slaves, We heard you beat from far! We bring the light that saves, We bring the morning star; Freedom's good things we bring you, whence ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... said, nearly wringing my hand off in his approval. "You can't beat 'em for pluck. My missus is one of 'em, and she went bush with me when I'd nothing but a skeeto net and a quart-pot to share with her." Then, slapping the Maluka vigorously on the back, he told him he'd got some sense left. "You can't beat the little 'uns," he declared. ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... still much a stranger; no more able to command the mob of unquiet thoughts than to hush the winds. At other times, as this evening in my chamber, a sort of strained anguish of soul, wherein my desire has been that my eyes might he ever toward the Lord, that He, in His own time, may pluck my feet out of the net. The mental pain I have passed through makes some escape seem most desirable. If to lay down the body were all I needed to escape, and I were fit for it, how willingly would I accept such an invitation! But I dare ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall
... another, until we had been imprisoned in that loathsome place not less than twenty days. By the end of that time, as may be supposed, we were as desperate as men could well be. I must, however, admit that anything like the patience and pluck of my companion under such circumstances I had never in ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... of being plucked feather by feather. Not that he thinks it agony; on the contrary, he decidedly likes it, which is a wonderful proof of his simplicity, and the difference in people's tastes. But in order to pluck a human pigeon at leisure, you must first catch him. May is a good month for this operation. About now he begins to resort to the Opera and the park, and in the purlieus of either a fine specimen may be flashed. A clever sportswoman will get the earliest possible information about his movements. ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... me,' Derrick cried bitterly. 'You have set evil reports afloat against me, lest I stand in your light with the Mayor's daughter. What are you that you should dare to raise your eyes to her! A mere vagrant and masterless man, coming none know whence. Why should you aspire to pluck the flower which has grown up amongst us? What had you to do with her or with us? ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... poison or sleeping off the effects. There he was to be found, she was sure of it, at the Bar of Gold, in Upper Swandam Lane. But what was she to do? How could she, a young and timid woman, make her way into such a place and pluck her husband out from among the ruffians ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... centres, and it's not much consequence; but there's no harm in having as many centres as possible. But I am quite at ease about you, though I am leaving you almost alone with those idiots. Don't be uneasy; they won't turn traitor, they won't have the pluck.... Ha ha, you going to-day too?" he cried suddenly in a quite different, cheerful voice to a very young man, who came up gaily to greet him. "I didn't know you were going by the express too. Where are you ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... more on his green native braes of the Nith, He pluck'd the wild bracken, a frolicsome boy; He sported his limbs in the waves of the Frith; He trod the green heather in gladness and joy;— On his gallant grey steed to the hunting he rode, In his bonnet a plume, on his bosom a star; He chased ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... on the sixth he marched as well as any of us. This case is mentioned in order to illustrate what we have often observed, that moving the patient from place to place is most conducive to the cure; and the more pluck a man has—the less he gives in to the disease—the less ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... the ages and the truth preached by 141:3 Jesus. More than profession is requisite for Christian demonstration. Few understand or adhere to Jesus' divine precepts for living and 141:6 healing. Why? Because his precepts require the disci- ple to cut off the right hand and pluck out the right eye, - that is, to set aside even the most cherished beliefs 141:9 and practices, to leave all ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... meant to break off or not. I don't cherish any rancor. I don't see any use in carrying the war into friendships. We made the best fight we could. We did better than your side. You had the most men and the biggest fellows. We showed good pluck, if we did get licked. If you hadn't come to-day I should have been gone without seeing you, for I began to think that you were as narrow as these prating abolitionists. My commission is ready for me now at Richmond, and ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... plucked, the one that seemed to be most wonderful was the one most bright, gleaming yellow as the sun. "It is yellow like gold," she said. "If I come with the sign of gold, I shall be welcome. I will pluck it everywhere I can and carry only yellow flowers." And soon her arms were full, but somehow her fingers seemed hot and unpleasant and her arms were heavy, so she dropped some by the way and carried only those that seemed ...
— Fireside Stories for Girls in Their Teens • Margaret White Eggleston
... a babe's cry," said the boy. "Oh, lawk! if it be dead and ha' become a wanderer! I shu'd never have the pluck to go home alone." ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... Italy for two years. Then he went back to Berlin for another year of grinding work, of passing discouragements, and of ultimate success. There had been many and many a day when his pluck had failed him, when he had questioned whether his voice was really good, whether, after all, it were possible to make an artist out of gritty Puritan stock; whether, in fact, he was not a thing of fibre, rather ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... want to do. No, not if she staid there alone for a week; not if she starved, she said aloud, stamping her foot and growing indignant over the thought. Alfred came as often as his Saturday occupations would admit, and held emphatic talks with the little prisoner above, admiring her "pluck," and assuring her that he "wouldn't give ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... looked back I saw those bent and dwindling figures still standing in the mud. The woman continued to pluck at her dress; the man gazed at the horizon with the same dull vacancy. They had the weary humility of the figures in Millet's "Angelus," without their inspiration, and in their eyes was ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... wide-awake, and on his guard. Should Mr. Bear pluck up courage enough to return, he meant to be ready to give him ...
— The Outdoor Chums - The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club • Captain Quincy Allen
... securely as upon my knavery. If a single head escape me, pluck out my eyes and shoot at ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... numberless tortoises, we are told, but see none, for just now they prefer taking a siesta. A little further on, and what is this with large pink flowers in such abundance? - the oleander in full flower. At first I fear to pluck them, thinking they must be cultivated and valuable; but soon the banks show a long line of thick tall shrubs, one mass of glorious pink and green. Set these in a little valley, framed by mountains whose rocks gleam out blue and purple colours such as pre-Raphaelites only dare ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the rosary. It follows her, gathering its immense body into horrible and hideous heights. How will she save herself? She will pluck roses, and build a wall between her and it. She collects huge bouquets, armfuls of beautiful flowers, garlands and wreaths. The flower-wall rises, and hoping to combat the fury of the beast with purity, she goes ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... and it was not a pleasant time for me. But, thank goodness, you are safe—aye, and safe, thanks to your own pluck." ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... Iceland main Round veered the wind to the east again. And west they drave, and long they ran Till they saw a land was white and wan. "Yea," Snbiorn said, "my home it is, Ye bear a man shall have no bliss. Far off beside the Greekish sea The maidens pluck the grapes in glee. Green groweth the wheat in the English land, And the honey-bee flieth on every hand. In Norway by the cheaping town The laden beasts go up and down. In Iceland many a mead they mow And Hallgerd's grave grows green enow. But these are Gunnbiorn's skerries wan, Meet harbour for ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... was too much honor, and that rot. By Jove, she didn't look it. I rather liked her pluck. She didn't flinch." ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... apart, glaring the one upon the other. They seemed ill enough matched; Blunt was fully half a head taller than Myles, and was thick-set and close-knit in young manhood. Nothing but Myles's undaunted pluck could have led him to dare to face an enemy so much older and stouter ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... though none came nigh you, being dead, Who were in life so thronged about and pressed, One hand at least would duly pluck you flowers, One hand at least would strew them on your grave. Sleep now, and I will ...
— Nero • Stephen Phillips
... a sincere belief in that personality. The forces of evil were always active, and the Puritan believed in combating them in the most vigorous and trenchant fashion. The Scripture enjoined upon him to pluck out his own eye if it offended, and it was natural that he should not hesitate to sacrifice others when they offended. With all his severity he took good care to let transgressors know what they had to ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... melts, and gladdens, but that which consumes. The fire is one, but its effects are twofold. God is for us either that fire into which it is blessedness to be baptized, or that by which it is death to be burned up. And what can Bethel, or calves, or all the world do to quench it or pluck us out of it? ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... me. It will force on me the necessity of again asserting myself as an artist, and as soon as I possibly can. If I can produce only one beautiful work of art I shall be able to rob malice of its venom, and cowardice of its sneer, and to pluck out the tongue ...
— De Profundis • Oscar Wilde
... Yea, my spear Slew him, for all his might. But thou—thine heart Is utterly mad, that thou hast greatly dared To threaten us with death this day! On thee Thy latest hour shall swiftly come—is come! Thee not thy sire the War-god now shall pluck Out of mine hand, but thou the debt shalt pay Of a dark doom, as when mid mountain-folds A pricket meets a lion, waster of herds. What, woman, hast thou heard not of the heaps Of slain, that into Xanthus' rushing stream Were thrust by these mine hands?—or hast thou heard In vain, because ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... movement, few dogs can equal the Whippet, for which reason his popularity as a companion has increased very greatly within the past decade. No more affectionate creature is to be found, yet he possesses considerable determination and pluck, and on occasion will defend himself ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... ORSBACH, they would dare all "riders!" Then as to the Princes, his pupils, cannot we conceive of the first Prince THURN how he has been turned out a perfect 'orseman by VON ORSBACH, and how it would tax all an Examiner's ingenuity to pluck TAXIS. Pity that when one Prince was called TAXIS the other wasn't named RATES. But evidently this was an oversight. A neat couplet might head this advertisement, and add to its attractiveness, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 20, 1892 • Various
... Muawiyeh had drawn a curtain between himself and Meisoun, that she might hear what they said without being seen herself; and he said to Ahnaf, 'O Abou Behr,[FN39] pray, near and tell me what counsel thou hast for me.' Quoth Ahnaf, 'Part thy hair and trim thy moustache and clip thy nails and pluck out the hair of thine armpits and shave thy pubes and be constant in the use of the toothstick, for therein are two-and-seventy virtues, and make the Friday (complete) ablution as an expiation for ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... years old, with the energy and pluck of his soldier days, Dix had no ambition to be in advance of his party. He favoured the Crittenden compromise, advocated Southern rights under the limits of the Constitution, and wrote to leaders in the South with the familiarity of an old friend. ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... and a beer-bewitched slattern of a mother,—with his living to get, in San Francisco, too, and the world to make friends with,—who has never enjoyed the peculiar advantages to be derived from the society of little dirty boys, never been admitted to the felicity of popular songs, nor exercised his pluck in a rough-and-tumble, nor ventilated himself in wholesome "giddy, giddy, gout,"—to whom dirt-pies are ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... away from the scene of action, and struck the road running south, it would be better not to enter any place where they would be questioned. Choosing an open space among the trees, Leigh took off the bridles to let the horses pluck what grass they could, after giving to each a hunch of bread from their store. Then he returned, with the blankets that had been rolled up and fastened ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... One who saw, as massed in one black whole, the entire sorrows that affected physical humanity, and rose in a holy passion of indignation and of sorrow at the sight of that enemy, Death, with whose beginnings He had wrestled in many a miracle of restoration, and whose sceptre He was now about to pluck from his bony clutch. Therefore I say that Christ the healer bore, and thereby bore away, the sicknesses and the infirmities ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... feet in an instant, and with a wild whoop and shout he was scudding across the green, his curls flying in the wind, and his little feet hardly seeming to touch the ground. There was none in the village so quick-footed as Teddy, and for daring feats and downright pluck he held the foremost place. Perhaps this accounted for his popularity, perhaps it was his marvellous aptitude for telling stories, many of them wild productions from his fertile brain, but certain it was that he was the pet and the darling of the village, and none as yet ...
— Teddy's Button • Amy Le Feuvre
... the event might be sanctified to their spiritual good. Powers of darkness and of light were struggling for the possession of every soul, and it was the duty of parents, ministers, and teachers to lose no opportunity to pluck the children as brands from the burning." (Johnson Clifton, Old-Time ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... pleasure is not; neither is it self-sacrifice, but self-culture. But giving up right pleasure is. If you surrender the pleasure of walking, your foot will wither: you may as well cut it off: if you surrender the pleasure of seeing, your eyes will soon be unable to bear the light; you may as well pluck them out. And to maim yourself is partly to kill yourself. Do but go on maiming, and ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin
... that I can't remember when first I saw Marion, who became my wife—whom I was to make wretched, who was to make me wretched, who was to pluck that fine generalised possibility of love out of my early manhood and make it a personal conflict. I became aware of her as one of a number of interesting attractive figures that moved about in my world, ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... meet with obstacles on the route to fame undoubtedly, as others have done, and, like the others who have finally arrived, you must overcome them one at a time as they appear, by sheer force of willpower, determination, pluck or whatever you desire to call it. If you are a weakling and lack strength of character do not ever take up a stage career, for you will get many a bump; so be prepared to stand it. For only those who are determined to succeed will ever reach ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... will they pluck themselves, to see me laugh; Good flowers bring cash; but who will pay for chaff? But haply thus the true poet intervenes, To make us wonder what on ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... brought Harry's courage back. To the young hero-worshiper Lee himself was at least fifty thousand men, and even with his scanty numbers he would pluck victory from the ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... us more than illustrations of pluck in the face of apparent failure. Our heroes show the stuff they are made of and surprise their most ardent admirers. One of the best stories ...
— Hallowe'en at Merryvale • Alice Hale Burnett
... trees, all in flower!' exclaimed Donna Maria, stretching out her hand to pluck a spray ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... drowning myself. But every boy in the street thinks he has a right to throw stones at me; and tie tin-kettles to my tail; and chase me when I have had the good luck to find a bone; and to set big dogs upon me to worry me when I am faint from hunger and haven't much pluck; and worse than all, chase me and cry "Ki-yi," when I am almost ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 18, July 30, 1870 • Various
... same of young sportsmen at a Leicestershire or Northamptonshire meet. It is not that they will not ride when the occasion comes. They are always ready enough to break their bones. There is no greater mistake than to suppose that dandyism is antagonistic to pluck. The fault is that men train themselves to care for nothing that is not as costly as unlimited expenditure can make it. Thus it comes about that the real love of sport is crushed under a desire for fashion. A man will be almost ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... He has done such things for us, what shall He not do for those for whom I speak? Yet He works through man. 'How shall they hear without a preacher?' Do you see to it then that there are not wanting labourers in that vineyard of which you have heard. Already the grapes hang ready to pluck, and it is but we that are wanting. . . . Send forth then labourers into My vineyard, cries the Lord ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... bombarding, nearly one and a half hours earlier than usual, so I will postpone my little walk and finish this instead. Yesterday we had one man killed and two wounded, the first casualties for over a week. The story of one of the wounded is worth telling to show you the pluck of these men. He told me he noticed some new digging going on on the side of the enemy in front of his firing post. One can see the spadefuls of earth coming up from below the ground level when new trenches are being dug. Although this was in broad daylight, our man ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... fruit of victory who are ignorant of war; we, God helping us, will reign; we will consult for the safety of the State, while your name marks the year. You overtop Sovereigns in your good fortune, since you wear the highest honours, and yet have not the annoyances of ruling. Wherefore pluck up spirit and confidence. It becometh Consuls to be generous. Do not be anxious about your private fortune, you who have elected to win the public favour by your gifts. It is for this cause [because the Consul has to spend lavishly during his year of office] that we make a difference between your ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... convictions. In middle life he gave up the practice of medicine and founded the National Life Insurance Company, to whose interests he devoted his time and ability, and met with a good degree of success. George was gifted by nature with rugged health, high spirits and indomitable pluck and fearlessness. None could surpass him in running, leaping, swimming and in boyish sports. He was fond of fishing and of rough games, and as a fighter few of his years could stand in front of him. In numerous athletic trials he was invariably the victor, and it must be admitted that ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... force of Marion was so insignificant, was something in favor of that courage and patriotism, that confidence in his own resources and his men, which, defying all the inequalities of force, could move him to traverse the very paths of the conqueror, and pluck his prisoners from his very grasp. The audacity and skill of Marion, exhibited in numerous small achievements of which history furnishes no particulars, extorted a reluctant confession from the enemy, whose unwilling ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... Christendom centre themselves to one focus of taste and merge into one plastic commonwealth, to be shaped and moulded virtually by a common tailor. Their coats, vests, pantaloons, boots and shoes are made substantially after the same pattern. For a while, hats stood out with some show of pluck and patriotism, and made a stand for national individuality, but it was in vain. They, too, succumbed to the inexorable law of Uniformity. That law was liberal in one respect. It did not insist that the stove-pipe form should rule inflexibly. It admitted several variations, ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... this a neighbourhood of men endued With voice articulate? But what avails To ask; I will myself go forth and see. So saying, divine Ulysses from beneath His thicket crept, and from the leafy wood A spreading branch pluck'd forcibly, design'd A decent skreen effectual, held before. So forth he went, as goes the lion forth, The mountain-lion, conscious of his strength, Whom winds have vex'd and rains; fire fills his eyes, 160 And whether herds or flocks, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... filled his house with smoke and illumined it not at all. He was a tree which seemed noble to those who gazed upon its leaves from afar, but to those who came nearer and examined it more closely was revealed its barrenness. When, therefore, I had come to this tree that I might pluck the fruit thereof, I discovered that it was indeed the fig tree which Our Lord cursed (Matthew xxi, 19; Mark xi, 13), or that ancient oak to which ...
— Historia Calamitatum • Peter Abelard
... hour they fought, and mountains rolled beneath their feet like pebbles in a flood; now Makoma would break away, and summoning up his strength, strike the giant with Nu-endo his iron hammer, and Sakatirina would pluck up the mountains and hurl them upon the hero, but neither one could slay the other. At last, upon the second day, they grappled so strongly that they could not break away; but their strength was failing, and, just as the sun was sinking, they fell ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... Paw Hoover, as he saw the rescue of Minnehaha, "that young one's got pluck, so she has! And, what's more, Miss, I've a suspicion I've seen ...
— A Campfire Girl's First Council Fire - The Camp Fire Girls In the Woods • Jane L. Stewart
... . . . . . . . Now, 'tis strange, We never see such souls as we had then; Perpetual larcenies and such small change! No single cracksman paramount, no code, No master spirit, that will take the road, But equal dearth of pluck and highwaymen!" ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... cheers and congratulations from the people about in the square or at the windows, who seemed delighted to see them. The men were in capital spirits, and told us they were carrying everything before them, that the Insurgents fought often well enough so far as mere pluck went, but were everywhere outmanoeuvred, and at nearly every barricade found themselves taken at once in front, flank, and rear. This exactly tallied with what we had already heard and seen. An officer told his men to keep a sharp look out on the windows of the houses about, lest they ...
— The Insurrection in Paris • An Englishman: Davy
... this, there is yet that which thou wilt not get. There is no one in the world that can pluck it out of his head except Odgar the son of Aedd, king ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest
... too much agitated to speak; but, without waiting for an answer, she turned away her glistening eye and crimson cheek, and threw up the window and looked out, whether to calm her own, excited feelings, or to relieve her embarrassment, or only to pluck that beautiful half-blown Christmas-rose that grew upon the little shrub without, just peeping from the snow that had hitherto, no doubt, defended it from the frost, and was now melting away in the sun. Pluck it, however, ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... "a very little made him happy, and at night he would sing and amuse himself like a child. He gave me ten dollars for my trouble, and I never saw him again; but I often think of him, when hunting in the woods that we wandered through together, and I pluck the wee plants that he used to admire, and wonder why he preferred them ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... cherub flying past, Plucked thee, and placed within his breast, And there by guardian angel nurst, Thou took'st a shape of human grace, Until, a lowly flower at first, Thou grew'st the first of mortal race. Alas! if I who still was blessed When thou wast but a lowly flower— To pluck thy image from my breast, Though thus thou will'st it, have no power; Thou still to me, though lifted high In hope and heart above the glen, Where first thou won my idol eye, Must spell my worship just ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... incidents,—how much we live when we acquire the knowledge of a single truth! What an inexhaustible power!—what an immeasurable experience it is! We are made absolutely stronger by it; we receive more life with it,—a new and imperishable fibre of being. Fortune cannot pluck it from us, age cannot weaken it, death cannot set limits to it. And now, with the fulness of this one experience as a test, just consider our whole mortal experience as filled up with such revelations of truth. Suppose we improve all ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin
... Well knowing the pluck of the little community at Phillips's, the Indians had not come within long rifle range of the ranch, but on the last two visits the warriors seemed to have grown bolder. While most of the Indians were rounding up cattle and scurrying about in the valley, two ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... would have thought anything as it was, if Papa hadn't been such a frantic fool about it. It he'd had the pluck to stand by her, if he'd kept his head and laughed in their silly faces, instead of grizzling and growling and stampeding out of the parish as if ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... punish it; but the whole service, with that whole mass of enormity which he attributes to it, slept, as it were, at once, under his terror and his protection: under his protection, if they did not dare to move against him; under terror, from his power to pluck out individuals and make a public example of them, whenever he thought fit. And therefore that service, under his guidance and influence, was, beyond even what its own nature disposed it to, a service of confederacy, a service of connivance, a service composed of various systems of ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... these trees were yet too young to produce very bountifully; but they had begun to bear, and it was thought a very delightful thing, among the fresh arrivals from Pennsylvania, to be able to walk in an orange grove, and to pluck the ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... your being so sinful," said Mr. Smith, severely. "Emma told me wot you said, but I never thought as you'd got the pluck to go and do ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... Horsemanden had pluck as well as sentiment, and he went on. Moreover he had his revenge, for at bottom the 65th was itself tender-hearted, not to say sentimental. It believed in lost loves and lost blossoms, muslin dresses, and golden chains, cypress shades ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... favorite language! It was the happiest Christmas I ever spent. Quam bonus Israel Deus! So too said Father Letheby. But I had some dim presentiment that all his well-merited pleasure would not be quite unalloyed,—that some secret hand, perhaps a merciful one, would pluck a laurel leaf or two from his crown. We had a pleasant academic discussion after dinner about the honorable retention of ancient Irish customs,—he quite enthusiastic about them, I rather disposed to think that the abuses which invariably accompanied ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... had to control herself, for Charlie was waiting for her. "When these fogs are gone, and the spring comes, and the sunshine," she said, trying to pluck up hope, "he will be better, I ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... consciously sought for. She felt no dutiful welcome that it had come; she bent under it as under a burden. But it was there. Life had made her into one of the human beings capable of feeling that responsibility, each for all, and the war had driven it home, deep into her heart, whence she could not pluck ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... BARN Every member of the family will enjoy this spirited chronicle of a young girl's resourcefulness and pluck, and the ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford
... appear like as though luck had helped you much when I found you, Walt," remarked the captain, dryly. "It sorter looked to me like only hard work an' an amazin' lot of pluck an' grit had ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... make the offer for you, that's all, if you haven't the pluck to do it yourself. Lammeter isn't likely to be loath for his daughter to marry into my family, I should think. And as for the pretty lass, she wouldn't have her cousin—and there's nobody else, as I see, could ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... in her brother-in-law, sharply, "I can still raise enough to meet all ordinary expenses. If I let down in my household, my creditors would see I was pinched, and begin to pluck me. I can weather the storm. But look here: Cornelia must have an end with that young Drusus. I can never pay her dowry, and would not have him for a ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... of, say, an Arabian Night's entertainment. Over the dining-room mantel hung a curious and colorful landscape, in which two brown girls, naked to the waist and from thence to the knees wrapped in straight, bright-colored stuff, raised their angular arms to pluck queer ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... but once more British pluck attempted the impossible, and the Highland brigade was chosen to lead this forlorn hope. That night the pipers wailed Lochaber no more for the mangled dead of the MacGregors, the MacLeans, and the MacDonalds who lay in windrows with their faces to the foe. This was no Bladensburg ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... asked himself. Safe! Was anything safe from this devilish mystery that could pluck each cowering human from the lowest depths of this steel freighter, that could drag her down in the water till the radio man sent his ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... Weisinger, cried out "Forward!" and eight hundred brave Virginians sprung to their feet and rushed two hundred yards up the hill. It had not the precision of a West Point drill, but it exhibited the pluck of Grecians at Thermopylae. The men disappeared irregularly as they reached the numerous ditches that led to the main ditch until all were hid from view. The firing was not very great for the bayonet and butt of the muskets did more ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... his wit, but he is not lacking in fine and manly virtues. He is a loyal comrade; a good officer concerned for the welfare of his crew. He is even kindly to his captives when he finds they are docile victims. He is also willing to credit his adversary with pluck and courage. He is never sparing of his own person, and shows admirable endurance under pressure of intense work and great responsibility. He is full of enthusiastic love for his profession, and in describing a ...
— The Journal of Submarine Commander von Forstner • Georg-Guenther von Forstner
... all this progress along so many lines, the days of his apprenticeship in the Herald office came to an end. He was just twenty. With true Yankee enterprise and pluck, he proceeded to do for himself what for seven years he had helped to do for another—publish a newspaper. And with a brave heart the boy makes his launch on the uncertain sea of local journalism and becomes editor and publisher of a real, wide-awake sheet, which he calls ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... broke, how everyone joined in the great chorus of "I told you so." There was a great jubilee in that choral society of wise know-nothings. Thirty times the grapnel searched the bottom of the sea and finally caught the broken cable, and the pluck and ingenuity of Cyrus W. Field was celebrated. Ocean cablegrams had ceased to be a curiosity, but some of us remember the day when they were. I kept a memorandum of the two first messages across the Atlantic that passed between Queen Victoria and President Buchanan ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... making love. I am full of generous impulses and sentiments, but what's the use of them? Everything grows cold and I am a dumb icicle when it comes to action. I knew all this before, but I thought I had kept my bodily courage. I've had a good enough training, and I used to have pluck." ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... repair, with a prayer for their welfare if they do and a heavy curse if they fail in this duty: "Whoever alters the works of my hand, destroys my constructions, pulls down the walls which I have raised,—may Asshur, Nineb, Raman and the great gods who dwell there, pluck his name and seed from the land and let him sit bound at the feet of his foe." Most inscriptions end with invocations of the same kind, for, in the words of Menant: "it was not mere whim which impelled the kings of Assyria to build so assiduously. Palaces had in those times a destination which ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... appeared in a Boston uniform until the time that he left the club and cast his fortunes with the Chicagos he was a great favorite with both press and public. As Harry Chadwick once wrote of him, "In judgment, command of the ball, pluck, endurance, and nerve in his position he had no superior." He could disguise a change of pace in such a manner as to deceive the most expert batsman, while as a scientific hitter himself he had few superiors. He had brains ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... isn't because of the phone that I'm here. To-day you are talking to me Because of the grit and the pluck of a boy. His title was Runner McGee. We were up to our dead line an' fighting alone; some plan had miscarried, I guess, And the help we were promised had failed to arrive. We were showing all signs ...
— Over Here • Edgar A. Guest
... here you'll find Sweets to your mind. On every tree Sugar-plums you'll see; In every dell Grows the caramel. Over every wall Gum-drops fall; Molasses flows Where our river goes Under your feet Lies sugar sweet; Over your head Grow almonds red. Our lily and rose Are not for the nose; Our flowers we pluck To eat or suck And, oh! what bliss When two friends kiss, For they honey sip From lip to lip! And all you meet, In house or street, At work or play, Sweethearts are they. So, little dear, Pray feel no fear; Go where you will; ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... from whence, knows no waking. 'She is gone for ever!' cries the mother over her daughter. And that is why such things are not to be mentioned, because in their hearts they have no hope, and in their minds no courage to face the facts of existence. We haven't the pluck of the old fellows, who, that they might look death himself in the face without dismay, accustomed themselves, even at their banquets, to the sight of his most loathsome handiwork, his most significant symbol—and enjoyed ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... and sure, my dear,' she said, 'and that is as follows: ayther you must find a mind to wed one of 'em, or you must pluck up a spirit and ...
— Bulldog And Butterfly - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray |
