"Pick" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a youth of not more than two score years, returns from his day's labour a while after I had arrived. And as he stands in the door, his pick-axe and spade on his shoulder, his sister runs to meet him, and whispers somewhat about the stranger. Sitting on the threshold, he takes off his spats of cloth and his clouted shoes, while she gets the pitcher ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... while agone he had made a vow to my lord St. Peter of Rome, and that of necessity he must accomplish it at the peril of his life. Behold him, then, entered into Rome," continues Brantome, "in bravery and triumph, himself armed at all points, with lance on thigh, as if he would fain pick forward to the charge. Marching in this fine and furious order of battle, with trumpets a-sounding and drums a-beating, he enters in and takes his lodging, by the means of his harbingers, wheresoever it seems to him good, has his bodies of guards ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... like a phantom, way up in the mist, I made out a blacker black in the black—the majestic poplars north of the "Range Line House." Not that I could really see them or pick out the slightest detail—no! But it seemed to my searching eyes as if there was a quiet pool in the slow flow of the fog—as the water in a slow flowing stream will come to rest when it strikes the stems of a willow submerged at its ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... were they to help, for after the first cheer of triumph they felt sick with horror at their own work, the fearful work of modern naval warfare. There were 550 men on board the doomed ship. Tegethoff shouted for the boats to be lowered, and signalled to the despatch boat Elisabeth to pick up all she could, but two Italian ironclads were bearing down upon him, and little could be done to save the drowning multitude either by the Austrians or by their own people. Persano did not know of the disaster till some ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... son, neither shall he serve them; he shall not lead them to victory; they are not of those who make a great nation." And being still further teased and tormented, she spake and said, "Ye fools, who by your own folly will kill yourselves; ye mud-wasps, who sting the fingers which would pick ye out of the water, why will ye ever trouble me to tell you what you well know? Can you not see who was the father of my boy? Behold his eyebrows; do ye not know Katahdin by them? But it shall be to your exceeding great ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... young Albert, set an example of enduring energy to his fellow-citizens. From morning till night he was to be seen going round and round the fortifications, showing were points might be strengthened with advantage, and to encourage the labourers, often himself taking a spade or pick in hand. Where fresh batteries had to be thrown up, the work was one which greatly taxed the strength of the citizens, but they all knew that their lives depended on their repairing and strengthening their defences before their foes should again attack ...
— The Lily of Leyden • W.H.G. Kingston
... by Merritt Crawford's house," proposed Rob; "then we'll pick up Tubby Hopkins. I guess we can handle any trouble that Hank wants to make, with ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... absence of her wedding-ring, and harshly, suspiciously, asks where it is. Melisande, confused and terrified, dissembles, and answers that she must have lost it in a grotto by the seashore, when she went there in the morning to pick shells for little Yniold. She is sure it is there. Golaud bids her go at once and search for it. She fears to go alone, and he suggests that she ask Pelleas ...
— Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande - A Guide to the Opera with Musical Examples from the Score • Lawrence Gilman
... to beam, but with continuous weft (that is in weaving so as to get selvedges) the weft has the tendency to slip up on one side and down on the other, hence the weaving is made laborious. With a separate weft for each pick, i.e., for every once the shed is opened, there is naturally not this tendency, but this alleged diagonally woven cloth frays just as easily as any other piece of cloth without selvedge, so in either case there is not only no advantage but distinct ...
— Ancient Egyptian and Greek Looms • H. Ling Roth
... I pick myself up quickly with the intention of taking my revenge upon Bettina, whom nothing could have saved from the effects of my rage at that moment. But I find her door locked; I kick vigorously against it, the dog starts a loud barking, and I make a hurried retreat to my room, in which I lock ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... this time, some dozen Devonshire correspondents will have informed you, for the benefit of CLERICUS RUSTICUS, that arrishers is the term prevailing in that county for "stubble." The Dorset harrisers are therefore, perhaps, the second set of gleaners, who are admitted to the fields to pick up from the stubble, or arrishes, the little left behind by the reapers' families. A third set of gleaners has been admitted from time immemorial, namely, the Anser stipularis, which feeds itself into plump condition for Michaelmas ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 74, March 29, 1851 • Various
... WAS TWO DEAD ONES! ISN'T THAT DREADFUL? But," she continued, her practical common sense coming to the rescue, "you've been in once and it's all over; it won't be so bad when you take in the flowers because you'll be used to it. The goldenrod hasn't begun to bud, so there's nothing to pick but daisies. Shall I make a long rope of them, as ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... exclaimed, glancing it through quickly,—"Savoy notepaper, too, so I suppose he has been here. He says that he may be a few minutes late and that we are not to wait. He will pick us up either here or at the theatre. Prince, shall we let these young people follow us? I haven't heard your excuses yet. Do you know that you were a quarter of ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... object appeared to be who should first escape; though, except by jumping overboard, there was no escape. Had they waited, and (as Philip would have pointed out to them) have one by one thrown themselves into the sea, the men in the boats were fully prepared to pick them up; or had they climbed out to the end of the lateen mizen-yard which was lowered down, they might have descended safely by a rope, but the scorching of the flames which surrounded them and the suffocation from the smoke was overpowering, and most of the soldiers sprang ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... hitherto concealed from it. Thus I understood in the outburst of my despair why all this had occurred, and why I had to undergo all these sufferings. Napoleon's poisoned arrow might have fallen powerless at my feet, if your uncle had not instructed you to pick it up and make me feel it. Hush! Do not utter a word of apology! Your uncle, General von Zastrow, is a patriot in his way, and intended to teach me by your intervention how to become a good patriot in his sense—that is to say, to hate Russia, ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... (half-and-half), or churedis, with hardly a drop of the kalo-ratt, flock with their cocoa-nuts and the balls, which have of late taken the place of the koshter, or sticks. With them go the sorceresses, old and young, who pick up money by occasional dukkerin, or fortune-telling. Other small callings they also have, not by any means generally dishonest. Wherever there is an open pic-nic on the Thames, or a country fair, or a regatta at this season, there are Romanys. Sometimes they ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... they had just been ascending. So narrow was it, and overshadowed by high precipitous cliffs, that the light of day had to struggle for entrance even at noontide. At night it was dark as Erebus. The horse had considerable difficulty in advancing. Indeed no horse that had not been trained to pick its steps among the confused masses of rock and debris that formed the bottom of that ravine or chasm, could have ascended it at all. But the fine animal which bore March and the Wild Man of the West seemed to act more like a human being than a horse in winding out and in among the intricacies ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... brother being similarly engaged with his own; and her face getting gradually paler and paler as she went on, at length she flung it on the floor with a passionate air, and burst into tears. Her brother, with astonishment, exclaimed—"Dear Kate, what is it?" and he rose and stooped to pick up the letter. ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... obeyed, but she had just stooped to pick the flower when she heard a piercing shriek from Dimple. Mrs. Dallas heard it, too, and came running in the greatest alarm, to find, when she reached the spot, Dimple almost paralyzed with fright, continuing her screams, ...
— A Sweet Little Maid • Amy E. Blanchard
... "at about nine o'clock, in a restaurant on the Boulevard, a quarrel took place. A person tried to pick a quarrel with another. ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... are often prepared, and still more frequently amended during passage, at the suggestion of the very parties against whom they are afterwards enforced. Our great clusters of corporations, huge trusts and fabulously wealthy multi-millionaires, employ the very best lawyers they can obtain to pick flaws in these statutes after their passage; but they also employ a class of secret agents who seek, under the advice of experts, to render hostile legislation innocuous by making it unconstitutional, often through ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... of you a jintleman! Wisha, by gor, that bangs Banagher. Why, you potato-faced pippin-sneezer, when did a Madagascar monkey like you pick enough of common Christian dacency to hide your ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... enjoying the cooling breeze and the speed of the boat, when suddenly the Whitewing brought up with a crash that pitched everybody into the bottom of the boat. She had struck a sunken rock, and the speed at which she was going was so great that one of her planks was stove in. Before the boys could pick themselves up, the water had rushed in, ...
— Harper's Young People, July 13, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... was called, the usual open carriage of the time. On crossing the moor, however, whether from greater exposure to the blast, or from the laird's unsteadiness of head, his hat and wig came off and fell upon the ground. Harry got out to pick them up and restore them to his master. The laird was satisfied with the hat, but demurred at the wig. "It's no my wig, Hairy, lad; it's no my wig," and refused to have anything to do with it. Hairy lost his patience, and, anxious to get home, remonstrated with his master, ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... Portugal Row. The history of Lincoln's Inn Fields is a curious combination of rascality and of aristocracy. The rascals infested the fields, which were filled with wrestlers, rogues and cheats, pick-pockets, cripples and footpads; the aristocrats occupied the stately houses on the west side. Among the residents here were Lord Somers, the Duke of Newcastle, Lord Kenyon, Lord Erskine, and Spencer Percival. ...
— The Strand District - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... mouse once from an owl's beak fell; I'd not have pick'd it up, I wis; A Brahmin did it: very well; Each country has its prejudice. The mouse, indeed, was sadly bruised. Although, as neighbours, we are used To be more kind to many others, The Brahmins treat the mice as brothers. The notion haunts their ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... stones. A band of arrieros cooking their scanty supper under a shelter tent asserted there were houses some two leagues on, but for hours I hobbled over mountains of pure stone, my maltreated feet wincing at every step, without verifying the assertion. Often the descents were so steep I had to pick each footstep carefully in the darkness, and more than one climb required the assistance of my hands. A swift stream all but swept me off my feet, and in the stony climb beyond I lost both trail and telegraph wire and, after floundering about for some time in a swamp, was forced to halt and ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... Now pick up one of your original strands and apply to its tapered end and lying along the last foot of its length one of the above described splices. Wax the two together. So ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... you have been here before this evening," retorted John, angrily; "but you shall not remain here now. If you wish to save yourself trouble, leave at once. If you stalk about in the forest, I will run you through and leave you for the crows to pick." ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... immediately informed you, the proper authorities. But whether from stupidity, dread, disinclination, a direct, definite refusal to have any dealings with this man, the lady would not—at any rate did not—pick up the ball, as she might have done easily when she in her turn passed the table on her ...
— The Rome Express • Arthur Griffiths
... thorough draining are universally recognized, and tiles are for sale everywhere. Mowing and reaping machines have ceased to be a novelty upon our plains and meadows. The natural fertilizers have been analyzed, and artificial nutrients of the soil have been contrived. The pick and pride of foreign herds have regenerated our neat stock, and the Morgan and the Black-Hawk eat their oats in our stalls. The sheepfold and the sty abound with choice blood. Sterling agricultural journals are on every farmer's table, and Saxton's hand-books upon agricultural ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... once; In a day he leaps complete with a few strong April suns, 'Mid the sharp short emerald wheat, scarce risen three fingers well, The wild tulip, at end of its tube, blows out its great red bell Like a thin clear bubble of blood, for the children to pick and sell. ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... the buccaneer, recovering his blade. "And you?" turning toward the other women. "Have you had lesson enough? Pick up those ladders, or ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... like pickaxes, with the knot of the said stake larger at the end of it, where, having pierced it, they fit into it a small narrow bit of iron about one palmo long. Then seated in the passages or works, as the veins prove, they pick out and remove the ore, which having been crushed by a stout rock in certain large receptacles fixed firmly in the ground, and with other smaller stones by hand, and having reduced the ore to powder, they carry it to the washing-places. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XX, 1621-1624 • Various
... the can away from his mouth and said, "You want to make me invisible. You want me to, like, kind of experiment on." His eyes thinned. "Why pick me?" ...
— The Common Man • Guy McCord (AKA Dallas McCord Reynolds)
... wont, when she sat by the fire with us, to tell us who were children many childish tales. But as Pliny saith that there is no book lightly so bad but that a man may pick some good thing out of it, so think I that there is almost no tale so foolish but that yet in one matter or another, it may hap to serve ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... better than the Newgate birds, pick pockets without bungling, outlie a Quaker, outswear a lord at a gaming-table, and brazen out all their villainies ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... out to try to pick up some news, but in an instant we heard him running back, and he dashed into ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... open spaces of the balustrades, I saw the narrow ground between the two wings simply strewn with dead or wounded men. The cross fire still poured from the windows, though here and there a marksman tried to pick off the fugitives. Rapidly did I cross the roof to my post. To my horror the skirmishers had advanced, as if at the signal of the firing, and were now running up at full speed and close to the walls of the house. At that moment ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... was to pick it up an' hit ye over the head with it, I guess ye wouldn't think so," ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... and commonest of all between Angouleme and Poitiers. He saw the coach from Bordeaux to Paris coming up at full speed behind him, and knew that the passengers would probably alight to walk up the hill. He did not care to be seen just then. Turning off sharply into a beaten track, he began to pick the flowers in a vineyard ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... tossing all kinds of feed to a flock of birds," he told Aunt Polly, "and letting the little devils pick as they can." ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... importance can be attached to Drayton's pretensions to greater originality than his neighbours. The very line in which he makes the claim ('I am no pick-purse of another's wit') is a verbatim theft from a sonnet of ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... just as you can often recognize a boy friend by his walk or the sound of his voice, without seeing his face. And what a new joy in life there is for anybody that really knows the birds about him. He can pick from the medley of bird songs the notes of the individual singers; he knows when to look for old friends of the year before; no countryside is ever lonely for him, for he finds birds everywhere and ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... suitable place of interment, is a remarkable death-feigner. Touch it, and at once it falls over, apparently dead. It draws in its legs, which become stiff and rigid; even its antennae are motionless. You may pick it up and examine it closely; it will not give the slightest sign of life. Place it on the ground and retire a little from it, and, in a few moments, you will see it erect one of its antennae and then the other. Its ears are in its ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... then you'll know the higher dance, the most difficult turns and twists—that is to say, if you should find them necessary. You'll know the proper deportment, and then you can show yourself in the very pick of society.' ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... to confront her fully, his elbow struck from the table, a bronze paper-weight which rolled just beyond his reach. Instinctively she stooped to pick it up, and in restoring it, her fingers touched his. Leaning suddenly forward he grasped her wrists ere she was aware of his intention, and drew her in front ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... do fall down and break me, mamma, you mus' pick up all my little bones and glue 'em togedder. God glued 'em in the firs' place, all but my tongue, and ...
— Aunt Madge's Story • Sophie May
... a liquid shining. Rosamond drew nearer, for the wonderful creature would have drawn a tiger to her side, and tamed him on the way, A few yards from her, she came upon one of her cast-away flowers and stooped to pick it up, as well she might where none grew save in her own longing. But to her amazement she found, instead of a flower thrown away to wither, one fast rooted and quite at home. She left it, and went to another; but it also was fast in the soil, and growing comfortably ...
— A Double Story • George MacDonald
... not rejoice. She did not like the poor girl to be left to such society as her aunt would pick up, and she wrote on her behalf to various county neighbours; but the heiress had already come to the house in Hyde Corner, chaperoned by her aunt, who, fortified by the trust that she was "as good as Mrs. Joseph Brownlow," had come to fight ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... box, attached to the fabric in the form of a snout. The cartridge provided a much greater protective range and capacity. It was clear that such German protection was evidence of their plans for the further use of gas. The new German cartridge mask appeared in the autumn of 1915. Doctor H. Pick, reviewing German protective measures in Schwarte's book, enumerates the various desiderata of the ideal mask and explains, "It was only our early recognition of these requirements which gave us an advantage ...
— by Victor LeFebure • J. Walker McSpadden
... ordinary press seems to think is all that is worth speaking of. Important because the rank and file is utterly ignored and positively unnoticed by the American white press (except as an example of the demonstrative inability to be an intelligent and thrifty citizen), and from which they pick from day to day the lowest as a ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... We are going to the entry of the Rue Charmilles and wait there. When our men come up with us I shall try to pick out Loupart and fly at his throat. There will be a struggle, no doubt, but in the meantime you must bellow with all your might: 'Murder' and 'Help.' I trust that succour will ...
— The Exploits of Juve - Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantmas" Detective Tales • mile Souvestre and Marcel Allain
... Nick dropped her hands and stooped to pick up the hockey-stick. His face as he stood up again flashed back to ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... I'd care not a pin for the waiting-lord; But I'd lie on my back on the smooth greensward With a straw in my mouth, and an open vest, And the cool wind blowing upon my breast, And I'd vacantly stare at the clear blue sky, And watch the clouds that are listless as I, Lazily, lazily! And I'd pick the moss and the daisies white, And chew their stalks with a nibbling bite; And I'd let my fancies roam abroad In search of a hint for ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... betrayed Ali Tebelen, Pasha of Yanina, and sold the latter's wife Vassiliki and daughter Haydee into slavery. Haydee herself denounced De Morcerf's infamy in the Chamber of Deputies. De Morcerf, forever dishonored, and knowing the blow came from Monte-Cristo, sought to pick a quarrel with the latter. But the count, glancing him full in ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... evidence, he would have a hard time to prove it. And that is not because when he advanced he was careful not to tramp on the grass or to pick the flowers. He did not obey even the warnings to automobilists: ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis
... learned to speak a form of the French language (Norman-French). In England Norman-French naturally was used by the upper and ruling classes—by the court, the nobility, and the clergy. The English held fast to their own homely language, but could not fail to pick up many French expressions, as they mingled with their conquerors in churches, markets, and other places of public resort. It took about three hundred years for French words and phrases to soak thoroughly into their speech. ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... wife did also this evening tell me a story of Ashwell stealing some new ribbon from her, a yard or two, which I am sorry to hear, and I fear my wife do take a displeasure against her, that they will hardly stay together, which I should be sorry for, because I know not where to pick such another ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... fearfully. They say he's looking out for a wife too, only she must not have a father living, as Mrs Stumfold has. It's astonishing how these parsons pick up all the good things that are going in the way of money." Miss Mackenzie, as she heard this, could not but remember that she might be regarded as a good thing going in the way of money, and became painfully aware that ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... young plants of the Boronias and other such families, and give them a liberal shift; they delight in good fibrous heath soil, with a good portion of sharp sand, and plenty of drainage. It is advisable to pick off the flowers, and to pinch off the tops of the young shoots during their growth, ...
— In-Door Gardening for Every Week in the Year • William Keane
... explosives,—while these men fought, the smiling, placid sea was alive with small white craft that bobbed in the gleaming sunlight, life-boats crowded to the gunwales with shuddering, bleak-eyed men, women and children waiting to pick up those who stayed behind, and who inevitably would be driven overboard ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... place on the western coast, where pearls are procured, a circumstance implied by the name of Maszdaf [Arabic], which he gives to it. The name is now unknown here, but I think it probable that Edrisi spoke of this part of the coast. The quantity of pearls obtained is very small, but the Heteym pick up a good deal of mother-of-pearl, which they sell to great advantage at Moeleh, to the ships ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... faintly hear, about the door, the "craw, craw," of some neighboring chickens, which have stepped around to consider the dinner baskets, and pick up the crumbs of the noon's repast. For a marvel, the busy school is still, because, in truth, it is too warm to stir. You will find nothing to disturb your meditation on character, for you cannot hear the beat of those little hearts, nor ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... always in our Power to demonstrate. The best Friend a King has, may want an Opportunity to shew his Loyalty: So a Man may be just and chaste, and yet not be able to convince the World that he is so; but he may pick a Quarrel, and shew, that he dares to Fight when he pleases, especially if he converses with Men of the Sword. Where the Principle of Honour was in high Esteem, Vanity and Impatience must have always ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... each left, and I don't think that we could lay it out better than in getting a Spanish master and some books, and in setting to in earnest at it. If we work with all our might for four hours a day with a master, we shall have made some progress, and shall pick up the pronunciation a little. I dare say we shall be another ten days or a fortnight on the voyage, and shall have lots of time on our hands. It will make it so much easier to pick it up when we get there if we know ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... They lowered their voices and spoke at length of the professor and of what should be done for him. They agreed perfectly that, while he was an unusually fine technical man and an able instructor in matters of geological theorizing, he was not the man to wander with a prospector's pick ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... the revolver," to pick a phrase from Mark Twain's unreverential treatment of them in Roughing It, often did society a service in shooting each other—aside from providing entertainment to future generations. As "The Old Cattleman" of Alfred Henry Lewis' Wolfville stories says, "A heap of people need a heap of killing." ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie
... participation of twenty-four cities and numerous incorporated villages, both in elementary and high school work, made the exhibits of those departments thoroughly representative of the work of the State as a whole. It is unfair to pick the work of a few progressive school systems, and endeavor to make it stand for the work of the ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... struck by the gold fever, were abandoning their trains even at way-stations and striking across the divide for Clark's Crossing. Men to run the trains were hard to get, and Tom Porter, trainmaster, was putting in every man he could pick up without reference to age or color. Porter (he died at Julesburg afterward) was a great "jollier," and he wasn't afraid of anybody on earth. One day a war party of Sioux clattered into town and tore around like a storm. They threatened to scalp everything, even to the ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... sea-fencibles, or long-shore organisation, because he considered it more useful to have the sea-going ships manned. Speaking of this coastal defence scheme, he said: 'It would be a good bone for the officers to pick, but a very dear ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge
... saplings as these? No! They would scorn to practice such pitiful torture. They would bring the tops of two tall pines together, trees a hundred and fifty feet high, and put their prisoner on the topmost boughs, for the crows and ravens to pick his eyes out. But you are miserable Injins! You know nothing. If you know'd any better, would you act such poor torment ag'in' a great brave? I spit upon ye, and call you squaws. The pale-faces have made women of ye. They have taken ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... equipment will be useful, at close quarters," he opined very coolly, unmindful of the dull uproar now battering at the inner door. "Pick up the cutlery, men, and don't forget the admirable qualities ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... them,—with answering volley, the police charged into the narrow opening. The rioters fled into a tenement-house, from which came yells and screams of terrified women and children. Walling had some sharpshooters with him, to pick off those beyond the reach of the clubs. One fellow, armed, was seen astraddle of the ridge pole of a house. The next moment a sharpshooter covered him, and he tumbled headlong to the ground. The same afternoon he saw some twenty or thirty men attempting to ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... we now know to be an element very widely distributed through the universe. It has since been found in several other nebulae. The ease with which the characteristic gaseous spectrum is recognised has suggested the idea of sweeping the sky with a spectroscope in order to pick up new planetary nebulae, and a number of objects have actually been discovered by Pickering and Copeland in this manner, as also more recently by Pickering by examining spectrum photographs of various regions of the ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... papa brought him from Chester, and dragging after him a portentous wooden cannon, which would not help to gain the smallest battle. It is actually a sunny day! . . . A very great joy it is to Rosebud to see the lovely little English robins come to pick up crumbs. They excite a peculiar love. They have great faith in man, and come close to the window without fear. They have told the linnets and thrushes of our hospitality, and the linnets actually come, though ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... must, I must go to the bottom of my garden to pick some strawberries and eat them, and I go there. I pick the strawberries and I eat them! Oh! my God! my God! Is there a God? If there be one, deliver me! save me! succor me! Pardon! Pity! Mercy! Save me! Oh! what ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... to bring a magnifying-glass with me, but my eyes are phenomenally sharp. Knowing where to look, I was able to pick out enough words here and there in the lines composing the hair, to feel quite sure that my wife had neither deceived me nor been deceived as to certain directions being embodied there in writing. Shaken in my last lingering ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... This battery commanded the road by which the main column of British advanced; and by its hail of grape and canister it beat back the advancing regiments, and for some time checked their further progress. The British thereupon opened with rockets, and sent out sharp-shooters to pick off the Yankee gunners. One of these riflemen was observed by the Americans to deliberately build for himself a small redoubt of stones from an old wall; and, lying down behind it, he began a deliberate fire upon the Americans. His first bullet went through the cap of one of the sailors, and ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... Most of those who were present mocked at me, and asked whether I myself could do as I had said, or whether I would dare to undertake it. I answered that if they wished, I was ready to try it. Forthwith they cried out and jeered all the more. "Well and good," said they; "we agree to the test. Pick out and give us an exposition of some doubtful passage in the Scriptures, so that we can put this boast of yours to the proof." And they all chose that most obscure prophecy ...
— Historia Calamitatum • Peter Abelard
... concern over the fact that Polly had fainted or had been in the water for a time, for he knew she was so healthy that no ill would occur to her from such causes. All he feared now, was his power of endurance to keep floating until some craft might pick them up, or he could reach ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... there is no doubt that it will turn out rich. In the channel we found an outcrop of slates, both crumbling and compact; this is always a welcome sign. To the east of the water there is a second quartz-reef, running parallel with the upper ridge, and apparently untouched by the pick. ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... be made pretty! It is small, and wouldn't take much furnishing. You could pick up a few odds and ends from other rooms that would not ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... into the popularity and sale-ability of a book, but no one seems to know just what they are. Even the best and most experienced readers fail to pick successes—let big books go by them, and conversely praise volumes that turn out flat failures. Yet certain things in the line of publicity can be counted upon to assist in making a volume's success. The name of a well-known author is the best asset a book can have. That gets ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... the foe without them Menaced them with fire and shot, Sickness creeping round about them, Fever, dysentery, and rot, Struck the rider and the stallion, Making merry as at feast On the pick of each battalion— ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... one of them is worth your little finger, not one who has your intelligence or your heart! You are more honest than all of us, more noble than all, better than all, more clever than all! There isn't one of these people who is fit to pick up the handkerchief you let fall, so why then do you humiliate yourself and place yourself below everybody! Why have you crushed yourself, ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... unlucky to hand any one a pin. A Charleston lady told me that when she was motoring and wished to pin her hat or her veil, she could never get her negro chauffeur to hand her pins. Instead he would stick them in the laprobe, or in the sleeve of his coat, whence she could pick them out herself. Another lady told me of the case of an old black slave who lived years ago on a plantation on the Santee River, owned by her family. This slave, who was a very powerful, taciturn and high-tempered ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... box, or any other cast-off thing, that will hold their food, is just as good as the most complicated invention; and, in common feeding, there is no better mode than to scatter abroad their corn, and let them pick it up at their pleasure—when spread on a clean surface. We think, also, that, except for fattening poultry, stated hours of feeding are best for the birds themselves, and that they be fed only such quantity as they ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... perfectly," asserted John, solemnly. "I can see them going by right now! Pretty soon we pick up old man Dorion, coming down from the Sioux, and hire him to go back as ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... appear the least averse to it, but did promise all assistance forthwith to set upon it. So Mr. Lee and I to our office, and there walked till Mr. Wade and one Evett his guide did come, and W. Griffin, and a porter with his pick-axes, &c.: and so they walked along with us to the Tower, and Sir H. Bennet and my Lord Mayor did give us full power to fall to work. So our guide demands a candle, and down into the cellars he goes, enquiring whether they were the same ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... tough old farm, then as now. As I tramped across its undulating acres, a week ago, and saw the stone fences and the piles of glacial drift that Jim Hill's hands helped pick up, I thought of the poverty of the situation when no railroad passed that way, and wheat was twenty cents a bushel, and pork one cent a pound—all for lack ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... went on the young inventor, "and sail over quite an area. I'll pick out a good place to land, and we'll make our camp there instead of here. Then I'll come back to this spot, and after dark I'll go up, without a light showing. There's no moon to-night, and they'll have pretty ...
— Tom Swift and his Great Searchlight • Victor Appleton
... however, some time before we could get a ship to our mind; and when we got a vessel, it was not easy to get English sailors; that is to say, so many as were necessary to govern the voyage, and manage the sailors which we should pick up there. After some time we got a mate, a boatswain, and a gunner, English; a Dutch carpenter, and three Portuguese foremast-men: with these we found we could do well enough, having Indian seamen, such as ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... charmingly inscrutable fashion, declaring for it as its favourite beverage for the moment, he had become "popular." Why worry himself ill over the concoction of the bitters; sharp and strong that was all it asked? Yes, yes, those snowballs on the floor were quite good enough, let him pick them up and uncrumple them and pin them back in their ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... that has catch'd a cold, sir, and can scarce be heard six inches off; as if he spoke out of a bulrush that were not pick'd, or his throat were full of pith: a fine quick fellow, and an excellent barber of prayers. I came to tell you, sir, that you might omnem movere lapidem, as they say, be ready ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson
... education of man and woman. Of these the modern average respectable English gentleman and gentlewoman know usually only a little of the last, and entirely hate the prudent applications of that: being unacquainted, except as they chance here and there to pick up a broken piece of information, with either grammar, rhetoric, music, [Footnote: Being able to play the piano and admire Mendelssohn is not knowing music.] astronomy, or geometry; and are not only unacquainted with logic, or the use of reason, themselves, but instinctively antagonistic ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin
... of the Greke worde / hairein, which signifieth to chose / to pick / or to cull out. For heretikes do chose out / vnto themselues sum doctrine which is contrarye to the holy scriptures / and do obstinatly defend the same. Vnto this euell they are brought / either bicause they do not know the holy scripture / either bicause ...
— A Treatise of the Cohabitation Of the Faithful with the Unfaithful • Peter Martyr
... upon our lips, and how deeply we regret in our hearts that the treachery of conspirators dragged us, unwilling, into a forced war. Cease, you publicists, your wordy war against hostile brothers in the profession, whose superiority you cannot scold away, and who merely smile while they pick up, out of your laboriously stirred porridge slowly warmed over a flame of borrowed alcohol, the crumbs on which their "selfishness" is to choke! That national selfishness does not seem a duty to you, but a sin, is something you ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... mother. And right glad was I, and I was thinkin' of a' at hame, and my sister Janet, and the kitten and the pymag, and Trimmer the tike, and all the rest, and I got sa fidgetty, I couldn't sleep, and the clock struck twelve, and me wide awake, and the room as dark as pick. My back was turned to the door, and my ...
— Madam Crowl's Ghost and The Dead Sexton • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... commanded. "After that crack I won't play with you any more at all—I'll pick up my ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... you as a morsel cold upon Dead Caesar's trencher; nay, you were a fragment Of Cneius Pompey's; besides what hotter hours, Unregist'red in vulgar fame, you have Luxuriously pick'd out:—for I am sure, Though you can guess what temperance should be, You know not what ...
— Antony and Cleopatra • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... not shown strength, the leader, against a No-trump, should open his own long suit. If he have two long suits, he should pick the stronger except when he has declared it, and has not received support from his partner, in which case it is generally wise to try the other. The possible exception to the lead of a long suit against a No-trump is when that suit has been declared, has ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work
... much better been left unspoken. The amateur strategist, that inexhaustible source of original and unprofitable proposals, was by no means inarticulate at these confabulations in 10 Downing Street. He would pick up Sir I. Hamilton's Army and would deposit it in some new locality, just as one might pick up one's pen-wiper and shift it from one side of the blotting-pad to the other. That is how some people who are simply bursting with intelligence, people who will produce whole newspaper columns ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... mining. I lay on my right side in obedience to his orders, stretched out at full length. The short-handled shovel was inverted and placed under my right shoulder. This lifted my shoulder up from the ground a little distance and I was thus enabled to strike with my pick. The vein of coal is about twenty-two inches in thickness. We would mine out the dirt, or fire-clay as it was called, from under the coal to the distance of two feet, or the length of a pick-handle, and to the depth of some six inches. We would ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... gee-pole. It will be comparatively easy going; the brush is covered with snow. The only thing that remains is to have Harold go over and get a supply of the grizzly meat. Or, better still, since he'll have to take the sled, we can pick it up on the way out. It's frozen hard and won't take harm, and it's only a half mile out of ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... "Pick up these things," said his father, pointing to the parapet, "and put them away. Look at me! You love your father and your mother, don't you?" The child flung himself on his father as if to kiss him, but Michu ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... one of the corners thus made, stood the Webb house, with its front door on the main street and its side door on one of the hillside lanes. As the group of men and boys who had been in search of Mr. Sutherland entered this last-mentioned lane, they could pick out this house from all the others, as it was the only one in which a light was still burning. Mr. Sutherland lost no time in entering upon the scene of tragedy. As his imposing figure emerged from the darkness and paused on the outskirts of the crowd that ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... there. He had wired to his mother the day before, telling her to write to Constance Bledlow and Mrs. Hooper by the evening's post, suggesting that, on Thursday before the Eights, Lady Laura should pick her up at Medburn House, take her to tea at Falloden's lodgings and then on to the Eights. Lady Laura was to ask for an ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... well; so let him clump. I want my son to be a manly boy, and this temporary roughness won't hurt him. We can polish him up by and by; and as for learning, he will pick that up as pigeons do ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... get the dictionary? Oh, yes. You remember he had said, "I must." After thinking and thinking how he could get the money to buy it, a bright idea flashed across his mind. The bushes in the fields about the farm seemed waiting for some one to pick the ripe whortle-berries. "Why," thought he, "can't I gather and sell enough to buy my dictionary?" The next morning, before any one else in the farmhouse was astir, Theodore was moving rapidly through the bushes, picking, picking, picking, with unwearied ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... make himself acquainted with the scientific and technical side of his trade ... French methods differ largely from our own: sometimes we think our ways the best, but not always. The practical man may pick up many useful hints which may help him to improve his methods." —Shoe Manufacturers' ...
— The Dyeing of Cotton Fabrics - A Practical Handbook for the Dyer and Student • Franklin Beech
... their own forms of industry and of government. This suggests the inquiry, whether it might not be well to turn over two or three Territories that might be named, to the Indians, with liberty to pick out white men for adoption and for instruction, in the hope that these communities might in time be brought up to the condition of that of which the Indians have had sole control ...
— The Indian Question (1874) • Francis A. Walker
... expecting what are called in the newspapers "revelations:" the defence was taken by surprise, and did not know what new piece of evidence was about to be produced: and even the examining counsel was, for such a man, subdued a little by the other complicating threads of the web among which he had to pick his way. ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... at his belt, and as it flopped in his progress it gathered prickers, which it shortly transferred to his luckless legs, until he at last detected the reason why he bristled so fiercely. And the poor dog—at every covey we had to stop and pick needles out of him. The haunts of the blue quail are really no place for a dog, as he soon becomes useless. One does not need him, either, since the blue quail will not flush until actually kicked into ...
— Crooked Trails • Frederic Remington
... believe him, but there they was. 'You don't mean,' says I, 'that you are goin' to fight with stones; because, if you are, you ought to give me a chance to get some,' and I thought to myself that I would pick up rocks that could be heaved. 'Oh no,' says he, with one of them smiles of his—'oh no; I just want to open our conference with a little gymnastic exhibition.' And so sayin', he rolled up his shirt-sleeves—he ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... would be very easy to pick holes in the details of Kant's speculations, whether cosmological, or specially telluric, in their application. But for all that, he seems to me to have been the first person to frame a complete system of geological speculation by ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... and I cannot make it out. When we were by the sea-side, mother took us a great way along the beach, to a place we did not know at all; and she bade us pick up shells, and amuse ourselves, while she went to see a poor woman that lived just out of sight. We played till we were quite tired; and then we sat down; and still she did not come. At last, we were sure that she had forgotten all about us; and we did not think she would remember us any more: and ...
— The Crofton Boys • Harriet Martineau
... her. It was that she seemed to be always thinking what she could do to please or help any one who needed either help or comfort. She was very fond, too, of animals, and she was so gentle in her way, that even the shyest of them would come quite close to her, and pick up whatever she flung down ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... riding-boots had caught in the meshes of the net. The boat, yielding to the push he gave it, glided away, and the king fell head foremost, with his feet on land and his face in the water. Before he had time to pick himself up, the populace had fallen on him: in one instant they had torn away his epaulettes, his banner, and his coat, and would have torn him to bits himself, had not Giorgio Pellegrino and Trenta Capelli taken him under ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... from the side of their own camp, and as we cleared the fence in the full blaze of a lightning flash, only two or three wild shots sang after us. In the black downpour Ferry reached me an invisible hand. I leapt astride his horse's croup, and trusting the good beast to pick his way among the trees himself, we sped away. Soon we came upon our three men waiting with the horses, and no great while afterward the five of us rejoined our command. The storm lulled to mild ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable |
