"Pluck" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and all the others, And pluck green branches from the budding trees To mark you suppliants. 'Tis the custom here. And keep a quiet, peaceful mien. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... and generally inconsiderate period as the age of courtship and marriage.... Women more than all are the element and kingdom of illusion. Being fascinated they fascinate. They see through Claude Lorraines. And how dare any one, if he could, pluck away the coulisses, stage effects and ceremonies by which they live? Too pathetic, too pitiable, is the region of affection, and its atmosphere ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... ["Let us pluck life's sweets, 'tis for them we live: by and by we shall be ashes, a ghost, a mere subject of talk." —Persius, Sat., ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... forgot the way to "Hawaiki," and even at last the art of building double-canoes, yet they never wanted for pluck or seamanship in fishing and voyaging along the stormy New Zealand coasts. Their skill and coolness in paddling across flooded rivers may still sometimes ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... length assumed, so Lois thought, a purely personal character, as if the young man had forgotten the occasion, and even the people present, but was searching into the nature of the diseases that beset his own sick soul, and spreading them out before the Lord. He was brought back by a pluck at the coat from Prudence; he opened his shut eyes, cast an angry glance at the child, who made a face at him for sole reply, and then he sat down, and they all fell to. Grace Hickson would have thought her hospitality ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... up town, and there was no one in the house except Margaret, whose pluck was not to be depended on. The case was urgent. With the energy of despair Mrs. Bilkins suddenly placed the toe of her boot against Mr. O'Rourke's invading foot, and pushed it away. The effect of this attack was to cause Mr. O'Rourke to describe a complete circle on one leg, ...
— A Rivermouth Romance • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... opponent's goal. Now there was a general and terrific rush up towards Lemon's goal, and his followers found that they had good reason to dread the impetuosity and courage of the smaller boys. Ernest had chiefly selected his side from among those who possessed most pluck and endurance. Fearless of kicks, overthrows, or crushes, on they dashed at the ball. Now and then a big fellow like Barber would try and get a kick at it; but immediately he was met by a dozen sharp-moving toes, which ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... weep no more, Thy sorrow is in vain; For violets pluck'd the sweetest showers Will ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... can hardly be distinguished from the parental affection of certain savages, who leave their children to shift for themselves as soon as they are "tall enough to look into the pot"; or, until, as Reclus declares of Apache babies, "they can pluck certain fruit by themselves, and have caught a rat by their own unaided efforts. After this exploit they go and ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... house,—call up Bill", said she to the girl. I saw that a bully was about to be let on me, and my heart beat hard and fast; but give up my watch I made up my mind I would not unless they murdered me. I had an undefined suspicion that they would illtreat and rob me, and prepared for the worst,—my pluck ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... years to pay the mortgage on his home which came with the purchase. The little farmhouse, clinging to the bleak hillside, seemed daring to the point of recklessness when the winter's winds swept down the valley, and the icy fingers of the storm reached out as if to pluck it bodily ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... Dipped, washed, and shining in it, he walked the Earth as she lay radiant in her early youth. The crystal presence of her everlasting Spring flew laughing through a world of light and flowers—flowers that none could ever pluck to die, light that could never fade to darkness within ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... in the street, he saw the window of Elodie's chamber half unclose and a little hand pluck a red carnation, which fell at his feet like ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... grant," returned the doctor; "but you should see him feed! He eats enough for two, but he can't make fat: all goes to muscle and pluck." ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... lad!' said Black Thompson; 'he's got his father's pluck after all, as I've always told thee, Davies, and we'll see him righted. He's got his eyes in his ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton
... came Capt. B., the worst of the Plundering Crew that pluck'd Richard. 'Sirrah,' says he, impudently, 'thy Brother owe'd me three thousand pounds.' And he pulls me out a great ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... place; Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway, And fools, who came to scoff, remain'd to pray. 180 The service pass'd, around the pious man, With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran; Even children follow'd with endearing wile, And pluck'd his gown, to share the good man's smile. His ready smile a parent's warmth express'd, 185 Their welfare pleas'd him, and their cares distress'd; To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given, But all his serious thoughts had rest in Heaven. As some tall cliff, that lifts ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... it! Why, you ain't got no more spirit in you than a pilchar'—no more'n one o' these as run its head through the net last night, hung on by its gills and let itself die, whar it might ha' wriggled itself out if it had had plenty o' pluck. If you don't take care, my lad, you'll get a name for being a regular soft. I believe if one of the lads o' your own size hit ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... a clear shooting space in front of them. Billy McKay stood directly facing the opening, as if for the purpose of tempting one of those desperate men in there to take a shot at him. None had the pluck to try it. ...
— The Pony Rider Boys with the Texas Rangers • Frank Gee Patchin
... With yellow marigold. I too will pick Quinces all silvered-o'er with hoary down, Chestnuts, which Amaryllis wont to love, And waxen plums withal: this fruit no less Shall have its meed of honour; and I will pluck You too, ye laurels, and you, ye myrtles, near, For so your sweets ye mingle. Corydon, You are a boor, nor heeds a whit your gifts Alexis; no, nor would Iollas yield, Should gifts decide the day. Alack! alack! ...
— The Bucolics and Eclogues • Virgil
... matter? But when the flames have done their work, I would fain go to God bearing with me your forgiveness. But if this be too much to hope—why, then, Martin, I will beseech God to pluck you forth of this place of horror and to give you back to England, to happiness, to honour and all ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... Herbert's interest, who gave a small ticket for sixpence, unlocked the little arched door and admitted the stranger into this temple of nature and art. A board hung on a tree was the first object, warning visitors not to pluck ferns or flowers, the man at the gate having notice to deprive marauding visitors of anything so gathered. There is a winding gravel walk leading up the height almost alongside of the brawling stream that leaps from rock to rock. I did not see any flowers at all, ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... the Corporal, "I have been over head and ears; but that was afore I learnt to swim. Love's very like bathing. At first we go souse to the bottom, but if we're not drowned, then we gather pluck, grow calm, strike out gently, and make a deal pleasanter thing of it afore we've done. I'll tell you, Sir, what I thinks of love: 'twixt you and me, Sir, 'tis not that great thing in life, boys and girls ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to tell it, replied, "I didn't want you to think that the Britishers had more pluck ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... said the artist, gravely; "but as I promised, I won't be hard, for anyhow you've got some pluck. Look here, how did you manage to ...
— Will of the Mill • George Manville Fenn
... recruit plunged at once into oratory—only to have his maiden effort drowned by the jeers of his hostile hearers, led by O'Connell's "tail" of Irish members. They mocked at his appeals for a hearing, and though the Tories cheered his pluck, he could not make it go. "At last, losing his temper, which until now he had preserved in a wonderful manner, he paused in the midst of a sentence, and looking the Liberals indignantly in the face, raised his hands and ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... were letters sent to every bishop to pluck down the altars, in lieu of them to set up a table in some convenient place of the chancel within every church or chapel to serve for the ministration of ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Chichester (1901) - A Short History & Description Of Its Fabric With An Account Of The - Diocese And See • Hubert C. Corlette
... calm pluck of Hayward touched even his murderers, callous as they are to bloodshed It makes a sensational picture: a solitary figure in the foreground standing alone on the edge of a pine wood high up in the lonely grandeur of the everlasting hills, the first ...
— With Kelly to Chitral • William George Laurence Beynon
... thee down and write In a book that all may read." So he vanish'd from my sight; And I pluck'd a ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... softer feelings were forgotten now; again she was the unhappy woman at war with all the world, but especially with her own sex. "Very straight of her to elope with another man, wasn't it? And as for pluck, why, she couldn't even stick to him when ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... have married him by this," she said to herself, as she sat alone in her grandfather's drawing-room, while her busy fingers ran swiftly through the meshes of her knitting, and the doctor and the hired nurse paced about the room overhead. "But she has not the pluck for it; his heart may be hers, but, for all that, I shall win him; and how bitterly she will repent that she ever interfered with him when she sees him daily there—my husband! And in time he will forget her and learn to love me; Maurice will ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... govern men and things and obey them, are the really great and successful men in this world. The great mass of mankind are the "Poll," who pick up just enough to get through without much discredit. Those who won't learn at all are plucked; and then you can't come up again. Nature's pluck means extermination. ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... with the Providential development of its events and questions; not only abreast of them, but, in important respects, ahead of them. No periodical press in the nation deserves better of the country for its faithfulness and "pluck" in all matters relating to the great struggle. And we should do it injustice were we not to add that, with its outright loyalty and bravery, it combines commanding ability. The editorial leaders which ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... fast, and not many hours had passed before the foresters heard that their master was in prison. They wept and moaned and wrung their hands, and seemed to have gone suddenly mad, till Little John bade them pluck up their hearts and help him to deal ...
— The Book of Romance • Various
... hosts of stories of ruffianism are located there, rightly or wrongly. This man said, "There's a bad breed of ruffians, but the ugliest among them all won't touch you. There's nothing Western folk admire so much as pluck in a woman." I had to get on a barrel before I could reach the stirrup, and when I was mounted my feet only came half-way down the horse's sides. I felt like a fly on him. The road at first lay through a valley without a river, but some swampishness nourished some rank swamp ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... to pluck a sprig of rosemary. "Will you tell me," she said, "what it is that you ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... color of the white ivory keys of a new piano, beautiful, and possessed by the exquisite solemnity and pathetic witchery of an unsophisticated angel doomed to live in a small, dull, Texas prairie-town. She had a spirit and charm that could have enabled her to pluck rubies like raspberries from the crown of Belgium or any other sporty kingdom, but she did not know it, and I did not paint the ...
— Options • O. Henry
... thought it in the land of oil-wells and unmeasured floods of kerosene. Some fellows turned up the back of a seat so as to make it horizontal, and began gambling or pretending to gamble; it looked as if they were trying to pluck a young countryman; but appearances are deceptive, and no deeper stake than "drinks for the crowd" seemed at last to be involved. But remembering that murder has tried of late years to establish itself as an institution in the cars, I was less tolerant of the doings ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... 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
... is a very ancient one and is always held back to be used in case Number Two fails. It is for the benefit of the people who do not pass readily under hypnotic control. If there are too many of these, they have been known to pluck up courage and answer back to the speeches, sermons and editorials. Sometimes they refuse to hurrah when the bass-drum plays, in which case they have occasionally been arrested for contumacy and contravention by stocky men, in wide-awake ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... why hadn't you the pluck to hurt me at the beginning, and tell me what you thought of me and life? You didn't give me a chance; not a chance. I suppose you couldn't. All these things you and I stood away from. You let my ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... at home, there is distinctly less of the matinee hero business than in either England or France. The high official in the civil government who said that the women were the best fighters in the German army was not so far from the truth. The pluck of the women is astonishing. There isn't the slightest display of sorrow or call for sympathy. You see them everywhere in the streets, cafes, and shops of Berlin; not in such great numbers, however, as in the lesser ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green
... a snug cove near Manly for the night, the Sydney harbor police-boat giving me a pluck into anchorage while they gathered data from an old scrap-book of mine, which seemed to interest them. Nothing escapes the vigilance of the New South Wales police; their reputation is known the world over. They made a shrewd guess that I could give them some useful information, ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... even all the same with his; Would Sherwood (him of Paternoster), Assist my pilferings to foster, I'd turn free-booter—nay, I would E'en play the part of robbing Hood— But brother Wits should never quarrel, Nor try to "pluck each other's laurel," And tho' my income's scarce enough To find friend Petersham with snuff, Here's peace to all! and kind regards! And Brother Hood among ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... to besiege them. The men were taken to Gloucester, but the cannon was left there where it remained until it found a better place in the town-hall yard. There, all renovated, it now stands as a precious relic of American pluck. ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various
... the first time, he purposed giving at the full of the moon, in honour of the stars. And going out of Darvan's chamber he returned to his wife, and bade her rend her hair, and go at the dawn of day to the king her brother, and complain bitterly of Morven's treatment, and pluck the black plans from the breast of the king. "For surely," said he, "Darvan hath lied to thy brother, and some evil waits me ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... berries you were asking, Grania," he said, "and you may take what you like of them now." "I give my word," said Grania, "I will not taste a berry of those berries but the one your own hand will pluck, Diarmuid." Diarmuid rose up then and plucked the berries for Grania, and for the children of Morna, and they ate their fill of them. And he said then to the young men: "Take all you can of these berries, and bring them ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... good fight. Slavin had plenty of pluck, and for a time forced the fighting, Graeme guarding easily and tapping him aggravatingly about the nose and eyes, drawing blood, but not disabling him. Gradually there came a look of fear ...
— Black Rock • Ralph Connor
... he had seen English Lords before, and they weren't half bad when you knew 'em, and he took a particular fancy to Octavia because he said "her Nobs" (his late wife, or one of them) had red hair, too, and "ginger for pluck." He had several teeth missing, lost in fights, I suppose, and a perfectly delicious sense of humour. I wish we could have understood all he said, but our host insinuated it was just as well not! He led us first to "the theatre"—a den underground, with the stage ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... only by the exercise of sheer pluck that Grace Harlowe had held her seat on the saddle throughout that grilling ride. She had fought and won a battle with an "outlaw" pony that many a hard- muscled cowboy had fought only to lose. Now that she had conquered, however, Grace felt weak and dizzy, and the reaction, she found, ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower
... their afternoon's sleep, and this is that which maketh salt so dear. My lords, believe not when the said good woman had with birdlime caught the shoveler fowl, the better before a sergeant's witness to deliver the younger son's portion to him, that the sheep's pluck or hog's haslet did dodge and shrink back in the usurers' purses, or that there could be anything better to preserve one from the cannibals than to take a rope of onions, knit with three hundred turnips, and a little of a calf's chaldern of the best allay that the alchemists ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... throb of life in all creation could seem only poetic imagery before your advent, Professor! A saint I once knew would never pluck flowers. 'Shall I rob the rosebush of its pride in beauty? Shall I cruelly affront its dignity by my rude divestment?' His sympathetic words are verified ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... commotion was going on in the school-room, Mr Root was active in the field, endeavouring, with the aid of the men-servants, to pluck as much fuel from the burning pile as possible. The attempt was nearly vain. He singed his clothes, and burnt his hands, lost his hat in the excitement and turmoil, and sadly discomposed his powdered ringlets. Advices were brought ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... limbs were faint with hunger. No drop of water might cool his lips, no luscious fruit might soothe his agony. If he bowed his head to drink, the water fled away; if he stretched forth his hand to pluck the golden apples, they would vanish like mists before the face of the rising sun, and in place of ripe fruits glistening among green leaves, a mighty rock beetled above his head, as though it must fall and grind ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... hear of fighting brave, Of war's alarms and prisons dark, Then, listen to the tale I tell, Of Yankee pluck—and cruising barque, Which, battling on the rolling sea, There fought and won,—Can such ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... of my intrusion was limited solely to the nursemaid. Swooping suddenly upon Sarah Walker's too evident deshabille, she made two or three attempts to pluck her into propriety; but the child, recognizing the cause as well as the effect, looked askance at me and only stiffened herself the more. "Sarah Walker, ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... hanging on like a country visitor. He felt sure he had nailed the other dog, but he was equally confident the other dog had nailed him; so the problem was simplified to a mere question of endurance—and Jerusalem was an animal of pluck. The grim conflict was maintained all one day—maintained with deathless perseverance, until Dad Petto discovered the belligerent and uncoupled him. Then Jerusalem looked up at his master with a shake of the head, as much as to say: "It's a precious opportune arrival for the other pup; but who ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... dancing now, O chimney-sweeps of Cheltenham, And why are you singing of a May that is fled?— O, there's music to be born, though we pluck the old fiddle-strings, And a world's May awaking where the fields ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes
... gay month, th' enchantress of the year, To cheat poor me (no conjuror, God wot!) And Chisholm's self accomplice in the plot. Can you then wonder if I went astray? Not bards alone, nor lovers mad as they;— 45 All Nature day-dreams in the month of May. And if I pluck'd 'each flower that sweetest blows,'— Who walks in sleep, needs follow must ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... heavy, but short, and the note they emitted resembled that of the common goose, but was some-what shriller. In the box-flat we started a flock of emus, and Spring caught a fine male bird. It would have been highly amusing for a looker on to observe how remarkably eager we were to pluck the feathers from its rump, and cut the skin, to see how thick the fat was, and whether it was a rich yellow, or only flesh-coloured. We had, indeed, a most extraordinary desire for anything fat; and we soon found where to look for it. In the emu it accumulates all over the ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... like the gold lace and the white glove resting, with quite a nice awkwardness, on the sword. When I was a little boy I wanted to wear clothes like that. And the stars! He's got the V. C. Most of these people here have at any rate shown pluck, ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... lady, weep no more, Thy sorrow is in vain; For violets pluck'd, the sweetest showers Will ne'er ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... water, but without a shovel only a native could get any out of such a funnel-shaped hole. In sheer desperation I dismounted and picked up a small wooden utensil from one of the wurleys, thinking if I could only get a drink I should summon up pluck for the last desperate plunge. I could only manage to get up a few mouthfuls of dirty water, and my horse was trying to get in on top of me. So far as I could see, there were only two or three of these places where all those ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... responded the doctor. "I like your pluck, but there's no use making a martyr of yourself for nothing. Come into my den and let me put something on it." And after a moment's delay, he went striding away down the street, looking at his watch ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... very summit of their ambition, than some incompetent, or perhaps merely unfortunate, king appeared on the scene, and lost in a few years all the ground which had been gained at the cost of such tremendous exertions: then the subject races would rebel, the neighbouring peoples would pluck up courage and reconquer the provinces which they had surrendered, till the dismembered empire gradually shrank back to its original dimensions. As the fortunes of Babylon rose, those of Nineveh suffered a corresponding depression: ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... on which Disraeli's government fell he gave the House of Commons a last proof of his unconquerable "cheek and pluck." The Marquis of Hartington had delivered a speech which everybody knew to have sealed the fate of the party in power, but the great Jew statesman rose up imperturbable and audacious to the last "There is, sir," he said ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... pretense of working. To him it seemed that the climax of the turpentine had come instantly; there was no more working up about it than there was about a live red coal. The mordant tooth bit into his blood; he rose and tramped the floor, muttering savagely to himself. But he would not pluck the hateful thing off, no, no—for that would have been an admission that he was wrong in putting it on; and he ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... English Puritan turned into a wild Indian, with all his original honor, and morality, and civilization, combining itself with the intense animalism, the capacity for endurance, and the reckless valor of the savage? Surround all this with all that tenderness, domesticity, and pluck which are the ineradicable characteristics of the Saxon race, and then you have the Western American man—the product of the Saxon, developed by long struggles with savages and by the animating influences of ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... true, 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 Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... the habit of spreading slanderous reports once confessed her fault to St. Philip Neri, who lived several hundred years ago. She asked him how she could cure it. "Go," he said in reply, "to the nearest market-place, buy a chicken just killed, pluck its feathers all the way, and come back to me." She was greatly surprised, wondering in what way a dead chicken could help her overcome her evil habit; but she did as he bade her, and came back to him with the plucked chicken in her hand. "Now ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... denouement, not venturing to say a word, since it was their father himself who announced the decision which had been taken, with his usual air of composure. As for Antoine, who on his own side quivered with love for Lise, he gazed with doubting, anxious eyes at his father, who had thus had the courage to pluck out his heart. Could he really survive such a sacrifice, must it not kill him? Then Antoine kissed his father passionately, and the elder brothers in their turn embraced him with all their hearts. Guillaume smiled and his eyes became ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... you are wretched, must not I be? You pluck from me my last support. This, I petitioned Providence to hear from you—that you would be happy! I can have no ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the knuckles of the fellow who lost, and who was obliged to hold them down for you to shoot at. Fellows who were mean would twitch their knuckles away when they saw your toy coming, and run; but most of them took their punishment with the savage pluck of so many little Sioux. As the game began in the raw cold of the earliest spring, every boy had chapped hands, and nearly every one had the skin worn off the knuckle of his middle finger from resting it on the ground ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... we heerd as yo' spoke up bold, an' argied for us an' stood to what yo' thowt war th' reet thing, an' we set our moinds on tellin' yo' as we'd heerd it an' talked it over, an' we'd loike to say a word o' thanks i' common fur th' pluck yo' showed. Is na that ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... Come, Ursula, you know there's no other way. We've always known it must come to this. YOUR father will never forgive me for MY father. You won't fail me now. Think of the long parting if you send me away alone on such a voyage. Pluck up your courage, and we'll let Townleys and MacNairs whistle their mouldy feuds down the wind while we sail southward in The Fair Lady. I have ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... with parasites of this kind. It is certain that if in such a country as Brazil he possessed a hairy coat, affording cover to the tick and enabling it to get a footing on the body, his condition would be a very sad one. Savages abhor hairs on the body, and even pluck them off their faces. This seems like a survival of an ancient habit acquired when the whole body was clothed with hair; and if primitive man ever possessed such a habit, nature only followed his lead in ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... Histrio himself begin to be seen into, what hope is there for the seed of Adam here below? We are the doomed everlasting prey of the Quack; who, now in this guise, now in that, is to filch us, to pluck and eat us, by such modes as are convenient for him. For the modes and guises I care little. The Quack once inevitable, let him come swiftly, let him pluck and eat me;—swiftly, that I may at least have done with him; for in his Quack-world I can have no wish ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... and because there are things.... There.... It's like with this lad.... It would break your heart to see him.... Johann Baufeld his name is.... His father is just dead ... and he wants to go out to his mother, who was divorced and who lives in Algeria.... Such a nice lad, full of pluck...." ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... dumped in the deep water. The boy was an expert swimmer and was in no danger. Not so with the old man; he sank immediately, and it certainly seemed that his fishing days were over. The boy, however, with a pluck and skill that did him great credit, instantly dived to the bottom of the river, and with great difficulty and much personal peril finally succeeded in landing the old ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... what I call manly. You do seem to have some pluck in you, young sir, though you might make more use of it. I like a fellow that can feel when he's touched; and don't think a bit the worse of you that you think ill of me, and tell me so. But that's ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... and shooting out at last into a Grand Canal! There, in the errant fancy of my dream, I saw old Shylock passing to and fro upon a bridge, all built upon with shops and humming with the tongues of men; a form I seemed to know for Desdemona's, leaned down through a latticed blind to pluck a flower. And, in the dream, I thought that Shakespeare's spirit was abroad upon the water somewhere: stealing through ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... its sanctuary, and prevent us from communicating the essence of our ideas to the mind of our fellow-creatures, it would do so. But not being able quite to pluck out the philosopher's tongue, and cut off his hands, it establishes an inquisition, peoples the frontiers with searchers, spreads satellites, and opens every package, in order to interrupt the infallible progress of morality and truth. Useless and puerile effort! Vain attack on the natural ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... pluck up courage and come out," declared Professor Henderson. "Let him go now, and we'll go out and see what it is like ...
— Lost on the Moon - or In Quest Of The Field of Diamonds • Roy Rockwood
... long enough to pluck from the backs of the fallen birds the long, silky plumes, which they carefully placed in a stiff leather valise, then hastened on to another part of the island where the ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... ended, he shook him cordially by the hand, and said, 'My dear sir, your charming little daughter rendered my unlucky ancestor, Sir Simon, a very important service, and I and my family are much indebted to her for her marvellous courage and pluck. The jewels are clearly hers, and, egad, I believe that if I were heartless enough to take them from her, the wicked old fellow would be out of his grave in a fortnight, leading me the devil of a life. As for their being heirlooms, nothing is an heirloom that is not so ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... have come out alone to Holland on a mission of this description speaks volumes for your pluck and ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... to his wide eyes that the sea rose, heavenward as a wall; its foot set in foam, its summit on a level with his face. Against it a silver ladder leaned. He had but to mount that ladder to pluck the island-jewel, the desire of his heart ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... environment, antecedents, circumstances, and so forth, which nevertheless does remind us that there are limits to the number of cubits an individual can add to his stature morally or physically, and that it is silly as well as cruel to torment a man five feet high for not being able to pluck fruit that is within the reach of men of average height. I have known a case of an unfortunate child being beaten for not being able to tell the time after receiving an elaborate explanation of the figures on a clock dial, the fact being that she was short-sighted and could ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... any man, I am for an established church; as I ought to be, since the dean is my best customer. With regard to yourself I inclose you L10., and you will let me know when it is gone, and I will see what more I can do. You say you are very poorly, which I am sorry to hear; but you must pluck up your spirits, and take in plain work; and I really think you ought to apply to Mr. Robert Beaufort. He bears a high character; and notwithstanding your lawsuit, which I cannot approve of, I dare say he might ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... close body, they were thus hit and killed, dying, not by a quick and easy death, but with miserable pains and convulsions; for writhing upon the darts in their bodies, they broke them in their wounds, and when they would by force pluck out the barbed points, they caught the nerves and veins, so that they tore and tortured themselves. Many of them died thus, and those that survived were disabled for any service, and when Publius exhorted them to charge the cuirassiers, they ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... the devil," answered Sancho; "is it possible that three palfreys, or how do you call them, white as the driven snow, should look to you like asses? As the Lord liveth, you shall pluck off this beard of mine if it ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... may tell ye informally that I admire the pluck of ye. But, nevertheless, that will has ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... have skill. Being part women, we know how to approach women. We are not blundering and crude. Men want a certain thing from you. It is delicate and easy to kill. Love is the most sensitive thing in the world. It's like an orchid. Men try to pluck orchids with ice tongs, ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... and almost irresistibly persuade us to come and be fastened down! what aching head can resist the temptation to repose, which the crape shroud, the cap, and the pillow present; what sting is there in death, which the handles with wrought gripes are not calculated to pluck away? what victory in the grave which the drops and the velvet pall do not render at least extremely disputable? but, above all, the pretty emblematic plate, with the Angel above and the Flower ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... aptly said. But prithee, maid, Why thus your garden fill When ev'ry field the same flowers yield To pluck them ...
— Mother Goose in Prose • L. Frank Baum
... but in undertaking the defense of Mr. Nichols you showed a pluck and courage which most boys would not have exhibited. I am interested, like all good citizens, in the prevention of theft, and in this instance I am willing ...
— Brave and Bold • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... whom Dick had inherited much of his own pluck, was not the kind of woman to faint. She quickly followed Dr. ...
— The High School Pitcher - Dick & Co. on the Gridley Diamond • H. Irving Hancock
... made a fearful din on every side. Believing themselves surrounded by forces far superior in numbers, the invaders became paralysed with fear and fled in disorder from an enemy whom they could not see, and who might close upon them at any moment. In this way Canadian pluck and strategy won a famous victory which saved the province of Lower Canada at a most ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... I think they're pretty tol'able wonderful. But so's he—to let 'em do it. Now, this ain't the question, either, but—why does he allow it? It ain't for lack of pluck, senator. I know a coward's earmarks and he ain't got 'em. It ain't for religion; less'n two hours out of Orleans he'd offered them twins, I'm told, to take 'em down to the freight deck and dish up the brace of 'em at one fell scoop. And no more is it because his people won't let ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... said, had shown the utmost pluck and endurance throughout his painful convalescence after his rough-and-tumble with the burglars. She told me how he had from the first sat up in bed with his "honourable wounds" upon him, bandaged and swathed, joking ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... this kind, the Lord has given the following general RULE: "At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it: if that nation against whom I have pronounced turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... regiment went to the Curragh. That did it— separation! What I suffered in that hole, thinking of her, starving for her! In less than three months I was in London again, on leave, and in my old stall at the Pandora. But even then, Farncombe, I hadn't your pluck. ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... day or two before. Aunt Lizzie came into the nursery, where Una and I were building houses of blocks, and sat down in the big easy-chair. The cat was in the room, and she immediately came up to my aunt and began to mew and to pluck at her dress with her claws. Such attentions were rare on pussy's part, and my aunt noticed them with pleasure, and caressed the animal, which still continued to devote its entire attention to her. But there was something odd in the ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... said Jennings, "that the niggers don't forget what you have taught them, for our luck this time in the market depends upon their appearance. If any of them have so many gray hairs that you cannot pluck them out, take the blacking and brush, ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown
... seventy-five are the highly skilled mechanics who are still absolutely indispensable as supervisors at the steel-smelting furnaces and the rolling-mills. Work of this kind requires a powerful physique, long experience, and plenty of pluck. One has only to look at the muscular, hard-bitten Americans and Englishmen who stand round the furnaces to see that they represent a type of humanity which in India is still extremely rare. The Company have ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... especially in old age. With the tribes of North America, Catlin estimates that eighteen out of twenty men are completely destitute by nature of a beard; but occasionally there may be seen a man, who has neglected to pluck out the hairs at puberty, with a soft beard an inch or two in length. The Guaranys of Paraguay differ from all the surrounding tribes in having a small beard, and even some hair on the body, but ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... Lord! how we suddenly jump, as Scorpio, or the Scorpion, stings us in rear; we are curing the wound, when whang come the arrows all round; Sagittarius, or the Archer, is amusing himself. As we pluck out the shafts, stand aside; here's the battering-ram, Capricornus, or the Goat; full tilt, he comes rushing, and headlong we are tossed; when Aquarius, or the Water-bearer, pours out his whole deluge and drowns us; and to wind up with Pisces, or the Fishes, we sleep. There's ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... himself to the grass at her feet, glad that he had it, and yet almost afraid of the full view he now had of her face when he dared to look directly at her. He leaned forward and began to pluck blades of grass and twist them nervously ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... Carrie, and felt half ashamed of his caution. She was a partner and although she did not know the difficulties she would not hesitate. He did not know if he was weak or not, but he did not want her to think he had no pluck. While he mused, Carrie came in, looking pale and tired, but she stopped and gave Probyn a ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss
... restless sea, which seems ever to be moaning a requiem for the dead, I left the little "Jennie," a monument of American pluck, but, at the same time, a mortifying instance of the fruitlessness of our national spirit of adventure when there is no principle ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... pluck the leaves of bay That greenly deck the path of glory, The wreath will wither if you stay, So pass along your earnest way ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... he meant to take, but Gerald often, so to speak, eluded him. The lad had a way of hinting that they understood one another and Osborn vaguely suspected that he worked upon his prejudices; but he was a sportsman. He had pluck and knew what the Osborn traditions demanded. In fact, Gerald might go far, if ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... the work I was about When hands on me they laid, 'Twas this from which they pluck'd me out, And vilely ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... and flies fast and far till one day he is lost in the clouds. Therefore should we hold him fast if by any chance he rests for a little space upon our hand. It is not wise to neglect the present for the future, for who knows what the future will be, Incubu? Let us pluck our flowers while the dew is on them, for when the sun is up they wither and on the morrow will others bloom that we shall never see.' And she lifted her sweet face to him and smiled into his eyes, and once more I felt a curious pang of jealousy and turned and went ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... from earthland long ago; But Merlin stays still hanging on his cross. He would not move a nail that nails him there, He would not pluck a thorn that crowns him there. He hung himself upon the blessed cross With Ethel; she has gone to wear the crown That wreathes the brows of virgins who have kept Their bodies with their ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)
... Cyrus Field never gave himself rest until he had inspired others with some of the enthusiasm that burned so brightly in himself, which resulted in the renewed effort of 1865, with its failure and loss of 1213 miles of cable,—when I think of the indomitable pluck and confidence shown by such men as Thomas Brassey, Sir Samuel Canning, Sir James Anderson, Sir Daniel Gooch, Sir Richard Glass, Mr George Elliot. Mr Fender, Captain Sherard Osborn, and others—men ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... come on, the 'ole lot of ye! 'E ain't done no 'arm. He honly kissed the gal, as any man would. If ye want to cut off somebody's 'ed, cut off mine. I ain't afride!" There was such genuine pluck in this, and it formed so fine a contrast to the other's craven attitude (forgive me, Your Honour; but you want the truth!), that I was glad he was an Englishman, too. The mountaineers recognized his spirit, and saluted with their handjars, even Michael amongst the number. Half turning ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... human blood hath risen unto heaven, and, collected into thunder-clouds, hangs over the doomed and guilty city. And now, Ximen, I have a new cause for hatred to the Moors: the flower that I have reared and watched, the spoiler hath sought to pluck it from my hearth. Leila—thou hast guarded her ill, Ximen; and, wert thou not endeared to me by thy very malice and vices, the rising sun should have seen thy trunk on the waters of ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book I. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... he said, nearly wringing my hand off in his approval. "You can't beat 'em for pluck. My missus is one of 'em, and she went bush with me when I'd nothing but a skeeto net and a quart-pot to share with her." Then, slapping the Maluka vigorously on the back, he told him he'd got some sense ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... lines was dedicated, in 1756, the first volume of an Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope, which attempted, whether justly or not, to pluck from Pope his "wing of fire," and to reduce him to a rank at least one degree lower than the first class of English poets. If Young accepted and approved the dedication, he countenanced this attack upon the fame of him whom he invokes ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... Following Joe's example, I ate the fruit of the last, and also of the hobble-bush, but found them rather insipid and seedy. I looked very narrowly at the vegetation, as we glided along close to the shore, and frequently made Joe turn aside for me to pluck a plant, that I might see by comparison what was primitive about my native river. Horehound, horsemint, and the sensitive fern grew close to the edge, under the willows and alders, and wool-grass on the islands, as along the Assabet River in Concord. It was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... is as fine a fellow as one can see on a summer's day. It does one good to look at him. What a frank pair of bright blue eyes he has, or used to have, till this mishap overclouded them! What a pleasant laugh he has! What a well-built, agile figure it is—what pluck, and spirit, and honour, there is about my young chap! I don't say he is a genius of the highest order, but he is the staunchest, the bravest, the cheeriest, the most truth-telling, the kindest heart. Compare him and Hoby! Why, Clive is an eagle, ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... man, This marr'd one heedless day, This heart take thou to scan Both within and without: Refine with fire its gold, Purge Thou its dross away— Yea, hold it in Thy hold, Whence none can pluck ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... are not, it's not their fault. The Professor is right. Those boys have pluck enough to pull them through, but sometimes pluck alone will not do it. A prairie fire ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin
... how my life hath been A weary work of tongue and pen, A long, harsh strife with strong-willed men, Thou wilt not chide my turning To con, at times, an idle rhyme, To pluck a flower from childhood's clime, Or listen, at Life's noonday chime, For the ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... whim, heretofore crushed under her disapprobation, now loomed as a terrifying possibility. The girl had proved her mettle by living through the winter on a smaller allowance than Madam paid her cook. She had shown perseverance and pluck, and an amazing ability to get along without the aid of the family. In a few months she would be of age, and with the small legacy left her by her spendthrift father, would be in a position to snap her fingers in the face ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... to him one day: "Gorgo, I can't come to you any more with fish. Everything depends now upon your pluck—which means can you dare to venture into the glen, so I can continue to procure food for you? You must choose between starvation and flying down to the glen, but that, too, may ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... ever stands forth his own inexorable self. Delight is to him whose strong arms yet support him, when the ship of this base treacherous world has gone down beneath him. Delight is to him, who gives no quarter in the truth, and kills, burns, and destroys all sin though he pluck it out from under the robes of Senators and Judges. Delight,—top-gallant delight is to him, who acknowledges no law or lord, but the Lord his God, and is only a patriot to heaven. Delight is to him, whom all the waves of the billows of the seas ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... paragraph in the third chapter of Ecclesiastes: "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: a 'time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal: a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... the famous Naturalist, stating that there is not far short of 40,000 muscles, having distinct action, and so giving it an acute sense of touch and smell—so much so, that it can pick up a pin, or pluck the smallest leaf. The Elephant is generally about ten feet high, and sometimes reaches to twelve feet, and lives to the age of ...
— Chatterbox Stories of Natural History • Anonymous
... must go back to Edinburgh," she said, "and do as your father desired. God will provide." She had the most perfect faith in Providence, and believed that if she did her duty, she would be supported to the end. She had wonderful pluck and abundant common sense. Her character seemed to develop with the calls made upon her. Difficulties only brought out the essence of her nature. "I could not fail to be influenced by so ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... his helmet-clasps, behold! he was my friend! He knew me, smiled faintly, gasped, and died;—the same sweet smile upon his lips that I had marked, when, in adventurous boyhood, we scaled the lofty cliff to pluck the first ripe grapes, and bear them home in ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson
... messenger o' Justice, to whom vengeance belongs. I ca'd yon coward to the leap as I ca'd thee. He leaped to his death, an' thou hast leaped to safety, but no to revenge; that is for wiser hands than thine. Gang where his body lies, an' pluck the oak an' the scarlet ribbon frae him to show thy mither.' The lad did as he was bid, an' then the woman cam close to him an' laid her hand upo' his brow, sayin', 'Thou art a brave lad, an' I, Fate, do promise thee that thou shalt gang fearless a' thy days, an' they shall be ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... yet my sole aim was to surpass him in the little services he rendered her. We went out into the park. This was very large, and through it ran the Indre, here merely a pretty stream. During our walk he made himself agreeable in a thousand ways; not a violet did he see but he must pluck it to offer to my cousin. But, when we arrived at the banks of the stream, we found that the plank which usually enabled one to cross at this particular spot had been broken and washed away by the storms of a few days before. ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... she uttered this petition than she thought she heard a voice, and these were its words: "Say, 'O Lord, pluck me out of the fiery brands, and take my feet out of the miry pit, and make me stand on the everlasting rock; and, O Lord, save my soul.'" Tidy had heard a great many of her people tell about dreams and visions and voices, but she had never before had any such experiences. But this came to ...
— Step by Step - or, Tidy's Way to Freedom • The American Tract Society
... the state of the weather. 'Our star will be an evil one, indeed,' said I, 'if that destructive prince has left us nothing to glean. Some poet once said "no melon is so bad but hath its rind, and although a tyrant may pluck out a beard by the roots, yet still the chin is left upon which it grew."' With these thoughts in my head I went to my horse, which, with the other nasakchies' horses, was picketed near our tents, and prepared him for the journey. Casting off his head and heel ropes, I could ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... each other, with their gestures of impotence, their dejected faces, the words they get ready and pour out as they pass before me, and their dark costume. No one has come from the castle, but in spite of that there are many people and they all converge upon me. I pluck up courage. ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... cards and at bowls. So absorbed would he become in the former, that he would often lie in bed the greater part of the day studying their various changes. He became notorious in an age when every one played to excess. No one 'fought the tiger' (to borrow the modern expression) with more indomitable pluck than Sir John; for, as his friend Will Davenant tells us, 'at his lowest ebb he would make himself glorious in apparel, and said that it exalted his spirits'—a curious philosophy, suggestive not a little of Dickens' Mark Tapley. Pope has accused Suckling of being an 'immoral man, as well as debauched.' ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various |
