"Pry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... repute as a guide, and can make my way blindfold over the bogs and mosses hereabout; and I would pilot thee to the place yonder, if my fealty to the prior—that is—if—I mean—though I was never a groat the richer for his bounty; yet he may not like strangers to pry into his garners and store-houses, especially in these evil times, when every cur begins to yelp at the heels of our bountiful mother; and every beast to bray out its reproaches at her ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... a guard at every gun Was placed along the wall; The beacon blazed upon the roof Of Edgecombe's lofty hall; And many a fishing bark put out, To pry along the coast; And with loose rein, and bloody spur Rode inland ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... your pardon, I said I did not approve of getting furniture on the hire-system for myself; but I never criticised Eva. I know nothing of her private affairs, nor do I wish to pry into them, and you and Doreen have nothing to do with them either; so if that is all you have against her you had better put it out of ...
— A City Schoolgirl - And Her Friends • May Baldwin
... bold, shall pry into her apparatus for the beautification of her person, examining her patch-box and the innocent little pots of rouge, vermilion, and white lead for the complexion, and of soot to rub under the eyes? Who shall ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... reminded himself that if listeners hear no good of themselves, they also occasionally hear much that is valuable. So Bates and Miss Ocky were in conspiracy to conceal from him some conversation they had had! Um. It would be funny if he couldn't pry the truth out of one of them; mentally, he girded up his ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... Verner. It was a great point with Roy to find favour in the sight of Mr. Massingbird, his possible future master. Lionel partially saw through the man; he believed that he had some covert motive in seeking the interview with him, and that Roy was trying to pry into his affairs. But Roy found himself baffled also by Mr. Verner, as he had been by Matiss, in so far as that he could learn nothing certain of the existence ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... that Fortunato, uplifting his dull torch, endeavored to pry into the depths of the recess. Its termination the feeble light did ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Owls together sat, Conferring thus in solemn chat: "How is the modern taste decay'd! Where's the respect to wisdom paid? Our worth the Grecian sages knew; They gave our sires the honour due: They weigh'd the dignity of fowls, And pry'd into the depth of Owls. Athens, the seat of earned fame, With gen'ral voice revered our name; On merit title was conferr'd, And all adored th' Athenian bird." "Brother, you reason well," replies The solemn mate, with half-shut eyes: "Right: Athens was the seat of ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... formidable safe door itself. Durkin drew in a sharp breath of relief as he looked at it with critical eyes. It was not quite the sort of thing he had expected. If it had been a combination lock he had intended to tear away the woodwork covering it, pad the floor with the bed mattress, and then pry it over on its face, to chisel away the cement that he knew would lie under its vulnerable sheet-iron bottom. But it was an ordinary, old-fashioned lock and key "Mennlicher," Durkin at the first glance ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... he would assemble his officers, and consult them on the subject. He exhibited his folly, however, by allowing his people to make an inroad into Unyoro and carry off eighty cows belonging to Kamrasi. To their horror, Kyengo, the chief magician, informed them that the king, being anxious to pry into the future, had resolved to adopt a strong measure with that end in view. This was the sacrifice of a child. The ceremony, which it fell to the lot of Kyengo to perform, is almost too cruel to describe. The magician, having placed a large earthen ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... the benefit of the doubt. He would wait, he would school himself to patience. Perhaps she would come back for it,—and explain. Perhaps he could find her by advertising it,—and get an explanation. Pending which, he could wait a little while. It was not his wish to pry into her secrets, even ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... having the clue to the other's secret, they were respectively puzzled at what each revealed, and awaited new knowledge of each other's character and mood without attempting to pry into ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... hitting him, had embraced his knees. He was overwhelmed by this extraordinary coincidence. 'Approach. O heaven! O Providence! It is he, behold the object of my gratitude. ... My benefactor! My son!' But let us not pry further into so affecting a passage; it is sufficient to state that Don Alvarez, after promising his protection to Zamore, hurried off to relate this remarkable occurrence ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... you?" she cried. "Mind your own business!" The inn-keeper passed on without taking any notice of her, and entered the house. Most likely he wanted to see Martha; she followed on his heels. "You can save yourself the trouble, there's nothing for you to pry into!" she screamed. Shortly afterwards he came out again, with the woman still scolding at his heels, ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... and lies. Do you remember what I used to say in my lectures?—or were you asleep just then, or cutting your initials on the rail? (You see I can ask questions, my young friend.) Leverage is everything,—was what I used to say;—don't begin to pry till you have got the long ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... stood together for some little time, looking at nothing in particular. And yet it was borne in upon me that friend Barbara rarely thought of me when I was not present with her. I doubt much that this should have given annoyance, for why should we pry into another's thoughts? And yet it rankled in my bosom, and I could but feel that I knew the truth. I should have liked her to think much of me, in sooth: I should have liked her to think of me while she knitted the stockings in the bright leafy ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... a point of honor never to pry into Tish's secrets, so we did not, of course, look into the drawer. However, a moment later I happened to upset my glass of water and naturally went to the sideboard drawer in question for a fresh napkin. And Tish's revolver was lying underneath ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... jacket, upon systematic searches for her people. Doubtless she could have helped us to find them, but she wouldn't. She was very sullen on these expeditions and frightened. When Graves tried to put her down she would cling to him, and it took real force to pry her loose. ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... they have no perception of the cogency of arguments, the force of pathetick sentiments, the various colours of diction, or the flowery embellishments of fancy; of all that engages the attention of others they are totally insensible, while they pry into worlds of conjecture, and amuse themselves with ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... you are leaving us, I don't want to pry inter any man's business, and you know these islands as well as I do; but I guess I wouldn't stay here if I war you. Why, it won't pay a man to stay and trade on a bit of a place like this," and he cast a ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... became very uneasy. She ran to Ali Baba for comfort, and he told her that Cassim would certainly think it unwise to enter the town till night was well advanced. By midnight Cassim's wife was still more alarmed, and wept till morning, cursing her desire to pry into the affairs of her brother and sister-in-law. In the early day she went again, in tears, ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... other members of the family are wont to do, but there comes an awesome, shivering fear that it is true in some degree. How many times she has seen Gertrude check Marcia when Floyd was under discussion. She has never tried to pry into family secrets, but she knows there have been many about her; a certain kind of knowledge that all have shared, a something against her. She has fancied that she made some advances in living down the dislike; Mrs. Grandon has been kinder of late, and Marcia, since her marriage, ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... misery in a balldress. In the adjoining room, long tables were laid out, on which servants were placing refreshments for the fte about to be given on this joyous occasion. I felt somewhat shocked, and inclined to say with Paul Pry, "Hope I don't intrude." But my apologies were instantly cut short, and I was welcomed with true Mexican hospitality; repeatedly thanked for my kindness in coming to see the nun, and hospitably pressed to join the family feast. I only got off upon ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... behold! come to pry into things, and look about and find out, as the poet sez, that wuzn't a real ship a-sailin' round, as it looked like, but it wuz built up on what they call pilin'—jest as if Josiah should stick sticks up on the ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... the foregoing quotation occurs an anecdote of Rabbi Elisha ben Abuyah which is too racy to let pass, and too characteristic to need note or comment. One day Elisha ben Abuyah was privileged to pry into Paradise, where he saw the recording angel Metatron on a seat registering the merits of the holy of Israel. Struck with astonishment at the sight, he exclaimed, "Is it not laid down that there is no sitting in heaven, no shortsightedness or fatigue?" Then Metatron, thus discovered, was ordered ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... whether Mr. Poole, the author of Paul Pry, had Michael Angelo in his head when he wrote that well-known comedy; but certainly he might have sat for a character whose intrusive and inquisitive habits were so notorious, that people on seeing him approach always prepared for a string of almost ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... climb in at windows for a ball, can go the same way for money, and get it easy enough when they've only to pry ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... clan's shortcomings. But her selfishness had at least the virtue of a live-and-let-live attitude that contrasted with the futile aggressiveness of Mrs. Edward Ffinch-Brown. She asked Claire no questions concerning her life or her prospects; she did not even pry very deeply into the chances that her sister had for an ultimate recovery. Her philosophy seemed to be founded on the knowledge that uncovered cesspools were bound to be unpleasant, and, since she had no desire ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... not so. You can pry into the coaling company's affairs and, if you are caught, it would be looked upon as an individual impertinence. If I did anything of the kind, it would reflect upon the Foreign Office and compromise our relations with a friendly state. The Adexe wharf is registered ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... against these Mysteries, may endeavour to explode all Divination; yet when the Prophecy comes to be fulfilled, they will confess their own Ignorance, and give an implicit Belief to such Revelations, as are delivered to the Publick by those wise Men, who by their Art pry into the Cabinet of Futurity, and make to themselves Spectacles of the Planets, by which they are enabled to read the darkest Page in the ...
— The Theater (1720) • Sir John Falstaffe
... Sauney Pry came from Loudon Co., Va. He had been one of the "well-cared for," on the farm of Nathan Clapton, who owned some sixty or seventy slaves. Upon inquiry as to the treatment and character of his master, Sauney unhesitatingly described him as a "very mean, swearing, blustering ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... said at length, "to pry into a lady's private apartment! You will not dare enter ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... to Kan Pry in 1884. Two chillun was born. The girl is living and the boy might be, but I don't know. My daughter works out ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... now united their efforts at pulling, but her roots had evidently gone down to China without stopping; next they endeavored to pry her up, but she was manifestly stuck by some glue ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... mind as freely as I used to do. But whoever was in fault, self being judge? He complained of spies set upon his conduct, and to pry into his life and morals, and this by your brother ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... a learned body, are, as an order, the best friends of the people. They seem to mingle with them more immediately, as their counsellors and comforters; and to go among them more, when they are sick; and to pry less than some other orders, into the secrets of families, for the purpose of establishing a baleful ascendency over their weaker members; and to be influenced by a less fierce desire to make converts, and once made, to ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... breast, but these were always of the class he looked down upon, and he connected their bad luck in some way with their condition in life. Doubtless some one had to go where there was danger of being shot, as some one had to dig ditches and help to pry wagons out of the mud, but there was something rather preposterous in the thought that anything of this kind ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... rolled beneath the valance of the bed, touched her hand. It was a thing to which a riband was attached—an ivory miniature—and she picked it up wondering. She stood up gazing at it, in such bewilderment to find her eyes upon it that she scarce knew what she did. She did not mean to pry; she would not have had the daring so to do if she had possessed the inclination. But the instant her eyes told her what they saw, she started and blushed as she had never blushed before in her tame ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... men, five on a side, march like a chain-gang, backward and forward; placing one end of the pole in the bed of the stream, resting the other in the hollow of the shoulder near the arm-pit, and bracing themselves by their feet against these bars, they pry the boat along. ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... and alert—Malone strolled out of the office with a final wave to Boyd. He was thinking about Mike Fueyo, and he stopped his chain of reasoning just long enough to look in at the office of the Agent-in-Charge, and ask him to pry loose two tickets for The Hot ...
— The Impossibles • Gordon Randall Garrett
... out before the lieutenant got to us," Jimmie cut in. "I guess this bunch of Boy Scouts don't need any United States army to pry us out of our troubles. We almost got here first," he ...
— Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone - The Plot Against Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... is to get you to think and to examine and pry into the past history of Catholicism, and when you have examined the pages of Catholic history and then scrutinize her present, you must know that her future promises no more than her past and present would indicate her future ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg
... old lady of Forfarshire had one of those odd old Caleb Balderston sort of servants, who construed the Dean of St. Patrick more literally. On one occasion, when dispatch was of some importance, knowing his inquiring nature, she called her Scotch Paul Pry to her, opened the note, and read it to him herself, saying, "Now, Andrew, you ken a' aboot it, and needna' stop to open and read it, but just take it at once." Probably most of the notes you are expected to carry might, with equal harmlessness, be communicated to you; but it ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... eyes off that basket, Miss Pry!" John Fairmeadow commanded, again. "Huh!" he complained, emerging from his refuge and throwing his mackinaw and cap on the floor; "anybody'd think there was something in that basket ...
— Christmas Eve at Swamp's End • Norman Duncan
... pages full, straight across, they would turn the sheet sideways, and write at right angles to the other lines, and then corner-wise, perhaps, with a different-colored ink. There were no envelopes in those days, and the sheets had to be ingeniously folded, so that no curious postmaster could pry into family secrets. There was always a portion of the last page left blank, to form the outside of the letter, which, after being folded and directed, was sealed with a big red wafer. It was then ready ...
— Harper's Young People, November 4, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... little time to skip down to Sarita Creek and see if those girls are still there. If they took a notion to stick, they'd try to do it, whether McDonnell sent after them or not. But I'll pry them out. If the storm breaks in a hurry, get the men and teams into camp at once. Don't take any ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... a portrait grey as lead, Of many a mustard-coloured sky, Say much, where little should be said, Lay on thy censure dexterously, With microscopic glances pry At textures, Tadema's delight, Praise foreign swells they always sky, Take up the pen, my ...
— Rhymes a la Mode • Andrew Lang
... perfectly symmetrical. By standing on one foot, the hip and shoulder of one side approach each other, and so lessen the space within the abdomen on that side. On the other side a support has been removed for the contents of the abdomen, and they sag down until they pry the uterus out of place and press it over towards the side where there is less pressure. The broad ligament on one side is stretched from use and on the other side shortened from disuse, and so the uterus remains ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... get Fergus to pry open the drawer of the lowboy," said Grandmother. "It won't open at all." Then noticing Hortense's soiled dress for the ...
— The Cat in Grandfather's House • Carl Henry Grabo
... difficulty to his readers, is pleasing to those accustomed to find an American novel a good deal like the now extinct American stage-coach whose passengers not only walked over bad pieces of road, but carried fence-rails on their shoulders to pry the vehicle out of the sloughs and miry places. It was partly the fault of the imperfect roads, no doubt, and it may be that our social ways have only just now settled into such a state as makes smooth going ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... blooming old blighter," was Van Horn's greeting to the old chief, as the dandy, with a pry of his steering-paddle against the side of the canoe and part under its bottom, brought the dug-out broadside-on to the Arangi so that the sides of both ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... lightly, and disappeared between the woody banks. These boats have the two parallel sails attached to the same yard, and some have two sails, one surmounting the other. They trade to Waterville and thereabouts,—names, as "Paul Pry," on their sails. ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... adds, "Nor can it make any discoveries when it would pry into the nature and hidden causes of ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... was necessary. Julia has sacrificed herself for us. With another love in her heart, she has magnanimously thrown away her freedom and given up her maiden love for the promotion of our happiness. We owe it to her to preserve her honor untarnished, that the calumnious crowd may not pry into the motives of her generous act. For Julia's sake, the world must and shall believe that she is in fact your wife, and that it was love that united you. We must, therefore, preserve appearances, and you must conduct your wife to your estate ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... storks. In truth, I am by no means sure that everybody knew this before the publication of "The Man Shakespeare," and for the sake of a mystified posterity it may be well to explain that there was once a school of criticism that thought it indecent to pry into that treasure-house of individuality from which, if we reject the nursery hypotheses mentioned above, it is clearly obvious that authors derive their works. That the drama must needs be closely ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... innately honest person it went sorely against the grain with Josie to pry into anybody's private mail, even though he be an arch-villain who was doing his best to keep two poor little children out ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson
... the spheres, Captivate their mortal ears; While Jove descends into this tower, In a golden streaming shower. To disguise him from the eye Of Juno, who is apt to pry Into my pleasures: I to day Have bid Ganymede go to play, And thus stole from Heaven to be Welcome on earth to Danae. And see where the princely maid, On her easy couch is laid, Fairer than the Queen of Loves, Drawn about with ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... abominable manners and poisoning their nascent minds against him, and he has no redress. She may neglect her home, gossip and lounge about all day, put impossible food upon his table, steal his small change, pry into his private papers, hand over his home to the Periplaneta americana, accuse him falsely of preposterous adulteries, affront his friends, and lie about him to the neighbours—and he can do nothing. She may compromise his honour by indecent ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... a long thirst, a long purse, and a short memory!" was his toast, into whose cryptic meaning Gonzaga made no attempt to pry. As the fellow set down his cup, and with his sleeve removed the moisture from his unshorn mouth, "May I not learn," he inquired, "whose hospitality I have the ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... pry into your secret, Herr Count; I am no spy—you must have seen that ere this. All I know is that there is under your protection a woman to whom you are everything, and who will have no one should she ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... sharply, but still fearful of being heard. Silence. There could be no delay in action. With his nerves still a-tingle, the boy seized a stout bit of wood, evidently cut for the fireplace, inserted it between the window bars, bore down and with a low squeak of protest the nails came out. Another pry, with the sill for a fulcrum, and there was a hole big enough for a body to get through. The bit of wood now acted as a step and in a moment Gus was ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple
... watched the searchlight. He wondered how many pairs of lovers it had discovered along the shores of Pelham Bay, how many mint-juleps it had seen drunk on the veranda of the country club, how many kisses it had interrupted; and whether it would rather pry into people's private affairs or look for torpedo-boats and night attacks in time of war. But most of all he wondered why it spent so much of its light on space, sweeping the heavens like a fiery broom with indefatigable zeal. There were no lovers or torpedo-boats up there. Even the birds were ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... poor friend Le Geyt had murdered his wife, in a sudden access of uncontrollable anger, under the deepest provocation, the police naturally began to inquire for him. It is a way they have; the police are no respecters of persons; neither do they pry into the question of motives. They are but poor casuists. A murder is for them a murder, and a murderer a murderer; it is not their habit to divide and distinguish between case and case with Hilda Wade's ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... definiteness to particular impressions. The virtue of curiosity is, therefore, to direct attention to the novel until it is made familiar. There is a type of curiosity, however, which craves for mere astonishment and not for understanding. It is such curiosity that causes children to pry into other people's belongings, and men ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education
... places. If the tariff drives us to this, we say, let the name be sacred in all future generations."[12] Next year William Ellison of the South Carolina uplands welcomed even the low price of cotton as a lever[13] which might pry the planters out of the cotton rut and shift them into industries ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... sailor's chest. Hidden treasures are always found in sailors' chests, ye know. And taking a three-foot bar of iron, which every gentleman in tales carries concealed upon his person, we, you and I,—none of the others, of course,—will pry this chest open—to find ducats and doubloons, and piastres, and sous-marquees—and a map of the Spanish Main and the Dry Tortugas—with crosses in blood. I'll tell you, ye can have my share of it now," he cried, laughing ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... would perch beside me here, extend his wand over this contiguity of roofs, uncover every chamber and make me familiar with their inhabitants! The most desirable mode of existence might be that of a spiritualized Paul Pry hovering invisible round man and woman, witnessing their deeds, searching into their hearts, borrowing brightness from their felicity and shade from their sorrow, and retaining no emotion peculiar to himself. But ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... at Andujar, the lights of our great acetylene lamps (lit before the sky turned from opal to amethyst) prying into dark doorways and windows as Roentgen rays pry through flesh to bone. ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... conventionality may be suddenly revealed; and when a wicked system goes mad, such depths of perfidy are disclosed as few imagined to exist. During the last two years, while our Southern sky has been aglow with the red light of the slave-masters' insurrection, few of us could probe and pry about among details of lesser villanies than those pertinent to the day. And so it is fortunate that M. Cochin now comes to address a people instinctively grasping at the principle which may give them peace, and to offer them his calm and thorough investigation ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... stood for a little watching the sunlight play upon the golden head and pry into the soft shadows of the curls, and her face saddened and her ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... them, and prised away the upper end of the midmost timber without any trouble. Then he drew it toward him, and the lower end wrenched free at once, for the nails that held this building which was to be burnt were not long. And while he did this, he stood on one side, that he might not pry into the chamber idly, as it were, while Dalfin and I could see nothing from where we stood. Only a little peat smoke seemed to come out gently when the ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler
... church of San Polo, to visit the beautiful Barozza; and he resolved, if possible, to catch him on one of these journeys. 'It so chanced on the 28th of February, which was the second Sunday of Lent, that having gone, as was my wont, to pry out whether Lorenzo would give orders for going abroad that day, I entered the shoemaker's shop, and stayed awhile, until Lorenzo came to the window with a napkin round his neck for he was combing his hair—and ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... reached Mrs. Meeker's gate. He swung it open and she followed him across the garden to where a worn, grassy path, once a carriage drive, led past the house to the back yard. Here stood Mrs. Meeker, a hatchet in her hand, trying to pry open ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... hearing, does he say? My hand's wet. But it's victory. Shall it be go? or stay? [I should show them all I can, or they may pry closer than they ought.] Shall I have it out and be done with it? To see Mary at once [to carry bastion after bastion at the charge] - there were the true safety after all! Hurry - hurry's the road to silence now. Let ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... candle, and took a good look at me, and all said, "Why, HE ain't a Shepherdson—no, there ain't any Shepherdson about him." Then the old man said he hoped I wouldn't mind being searched for arms, because he didn't mean no harm by it—it was only to make sure. So he didn't pry into my pockets, but only felt outside with his hands, and said it was all right. He told me to make myself easy and at home, and tell all about myself; but ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... in the inland districts the villagers go and roll naked in the dew of the meadows, which is supposed to be a sovereign preservative against diseases of the skin. On this evening, too, girls who would pry into the future put a vessel of water on the sill outside their window; and when the clocks strike twelve, they break an egg in the water and see, or fancy they see, in the shapes assumed by the pulp, as it blends with the liquid, the likeness of future bridegrooms, castles, coffins, ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... the least what she meant; but afterwards she explained that if your neck is always pivoting round, to pry into other people's affairs, it is a Rubber Neck, and I shall remember the expression to tell Stan when I go home. He will like to add it to his ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... to tell me, Ned, anything that happens at home—God forbid that I should pry into matters so sacred as relations between a boy and a parent!—but I can see, my boy, that something is wrong. You are not yourself. At first when you came back I thought all was well with you; you were, as was natural, sad and depressed, but I should not wish it otherwise. But of late a change ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... foul weather, master," observed the younger of the two, in a half querulous, half positive tone, as standing on a huge bank of sea-weed, he regarded first the heavens, and then the earth, with the scrutinising gaze of one accustomed to pry into their mysteries. His companion made no answer, but commenced unrolling a rich silk scarf, that had enveloped his throat, and twisting it into loose folds, passed it several times around his waist—having previously withdrawn ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... chance at the girl, lettin' her know first what he'd done, but jest trustin' to his power of talk. Which, of course, didn't give him no show. While he was makin' love to the girl she outs with a knife and tries to stick him—nice, pleasant sort she must have been—and Drew, he had to pry the ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... warriors towards the grounds in the rear of the dwelling, as it was characteristic of their habits, is worthy of being mentioned. Neither spoke, neither manifested any womanish impatience to pry into the musings of the other's mind, and neither failed in those slight but still sensible courtesies by which the path was rendered commodious and the footing sure. They had reached the summit of the elevation ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... Wellington and his colleagues, following out the maxims of a Whig policy, should be viewed by their own party somewhat in the light of traitors. Accordingly we see them figuring in this character in some of the caricatures of the day, one of which (one of the "Paul Pry" series), published by Geans in 1829, may be cited as an example of the rest, and shows them to us in the act of Burking Old Mrs. ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... dread foundations; I beheld safe roads, a garden blooming in the desert, pious people crowding to worship; I was aware of my parents' tenderness and all the harmless luxuries of my existence; and why should I pry beneath this honest seeming surface for the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... days of Margot's illness, and who had been the girl's companion on the misty moor. What had happened during those hours of suspense and danger? What barriers had been swept aside; what new vistas opened? Edith's own love was too sweet and sacred a thing to allow her to pry and question into the heart-secrets of another, as is the objectionable fashion of many so-called friends, but with her keen woman-senses she took in George Elgood's every word, look, and movement ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Huber had discovered more than had ever been known before about bees and ants, and when he was sure he could learn more still, and was more and more anxious to peep and pry into their tiny homes, and their curious ways, ...
— The Crofton Boys • Harriet Martineau
... a very puzzling aspect to her mind. She admitted that scientists, viewed as a genus, were objectionable; but insisted that Fern, to whose personal charms she was keenly alive, was an exception to the rule. She felt confident that so good a man as he could never have tried to pry into the secrets of God Almighty. Tharald yielded grumblingly, inch by inch, and thus saved his dignity, although his daughter, in the end, prevailed. She obtained his permission to request the guest to remain, and not interpret too literally the rather hasty words he had used. Thus a compromise ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... brief lines, my reverend friend, By a safe, private hand I send (Fearing lest some low Catholic wag Should pry into the Letter-bag), To tell you, far as pen can dare How we, poor errant martyrs, fare;— Martyrs, not quite to fire and rack, As Saints were, some few ages back. But—scarce less trying in its way— To laughter, wheresoe'er we stray; To ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... she felt something squirming under her, thought that one of the boa constrictors had got loose, and that she had sat down on it. So naturally she fainted away. I came running in with one of my men as soon as I heard the outcries, and after a while we managed to pry up the Fat Woman with a couple of cart-rungs and get the Dwarf out from under her, after which she came to in due time and got over her fright. But the Dwarf was a good deal flattened out by the pressure, and I was afraid at first that his ribs had been stove in. It turned out in the end ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... Inasmuch as he had made no visible impression upon the bulkhead by his direct attack, he changed his tactics now and undertook to loosen one of the jambs where it was wedged into the rock at top and bottom. After a desperate struggle he succeeded in loosening the entire structure so that he could pry it out far enough to ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... Guesclin, "it does not befit so great and wondrous a power to pry and search and play the varlet even to the beautiful chatelaine of Villefranche. Ask a worthy question, and, with the blessing of God, you shall have ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... pry into her confidence as a thief would break into a house. But I was loath to fight my battle in the dark if she, or any one, ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... those of us who haven't automobiles, life is pleasant and without responsibilities. We ride in every new automobile, and, what is more, we go over it as carefully as a farmer does a new horse. We open its hood and pry into its internal economy. We crank it to test its compression—half the Homeburg men who have achieved broken wrists by the crank route haven't autos at all. We denounce the owner's judgment on oils and take his machine violently away from him in order to prove that it will pull better uphill ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... To PRY. To examine minutely into a matter or business. A prying fellow; a man of impertinent curiosity, apt to peep and ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... and chant their dirge of old. Oft, too, the ant from out her inmost cells, Fretting the narrow path, her eggs conveys; Or the huge bow sucks moisture; or a host Of rooks from food returning in long line Clamour with jostling wings. Now mayst thou see The various ocean-fowl and those that pry Round Asian meads within thy fresher-pools, Cayster, as in eager rivalry, About their shoulders dash the plenteous spray, Now duck their head beneath the wave, now run Into the billows, for sheer idle joy ...
— The Georgics • Virgil
... Lanfranc than my need of him, and he was little interested to pry deeper into the matter. He was himself a lively youngster of no more than twenty, but he had been trained to arms, had fought in Spain, and had an honourable record on the grass. Merely his black eyes flashed when he learned what was toward, and such was his eagerness that it was he who gathered ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... orb's last verge shall go, And see the ocean leaning on the sky; From thence our rolling neighbours we shall know, And on the lunar world securely pry. ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... reflect upon the distinct social advantages of a good living; or he may have nothing else in particular to do; or he may simply desire to rouse the impertinent curiosity of all the indolent quidnuncs of his acquaintance, without the remotest intention of ever gratifying their underbred Paul Pry proclivities.' ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... out every night to gaze upon the stars. It happened one night that, with his whole thoughts rapt up in the skies, he fell into a well. One who heard his cries ran up to him, and said: "While you are trying to pry into the mysteries of heaven, you overlook the common objects under ...
— Aesop's Fables - A New Revised Version From Original Sources • Aesop
... would not have been otherwise handled by him who drew the not more immortal picture of Antigone. Unlike modern novelists, Sir Walter deals neither in analysis nor in rapturous effusions. We can, unfortunately, imagine but too easily how some writers would peep and pry into the concealed emotions of that maiden heart; how others would revel in tears, kisses, and caresses. In place of ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... indigestible, ready for any business that requires sagacity and acute senses, ready for every adventure, owing to an excess of "free will", with anterior and posterior souls, into the ultimate intentions of which it is difficult to pry, with foregrounds and backgrounds to the end of which no foot may run, hidden ones under the mantles of light, appropriators, although we resemble heirs and spendthrifts, arrangers and collectors from morning till night, misers of our wealth and our full-crammed drawers, ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... with levers. We apply them every day. A box arrives with its lid nailed down; we take a chisel, use it as a lever, pry the lid open, and see no marvel in what we have done (Fig. 1). And yet we thereby did with ease what would have been impossible for us even if we had put out the whole of our unaided strength. The use of levers is an old discovery; more than 1500 years before Christ, Englishmen, ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent
... squadrons halted in turn for a few minutes to fire on them. In this way perhaps half-a-dozen were killed or wounded. The others, however, paid little attention to the bullets, and continued to pry curiously, until at last it was thought necessary to send a troop to drive them away. The score of Lancers galloped back towards the inquisitive patrols in the most earnest fashion. The Dervishes, although more numerous, were scattered ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... quoth the Corporal, snatching up his basket and closing the cover, lest the young Squire should pry into it. No man is more tenacious of his secrets than your true angler. "Sent the best home two hours ago; one weighed three pounds, on the faith of a man; indeed, I'm satisfied now; time to give up;" and the Corporal began to disjoint ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... more of the anchor chain. But they couldn't go very far, for the wind was so strong and the waves were so high and the heavy anchor chain held them back near the ship. When they had got as far as they could, they managed to pry the anchor overboard. It went into the water with a tremendous splash, wetting all the men; but they didn't mind, for they were all wet through already with the rain and the splashing of the waves. And the boat turned around and went back to ...
— The Sandman: His Sea Stories • William J. Hopkins
... living in a boarding house, which suited her tolerably well. The two women who kept the boarding house were educated and considerate and had long ago ceased to be inquisitive. Such a variety of people met there that it would have been too much of an undertaking to pry into the secrets of each individual. Such things only interfered with business. Effi, who still remembered the cross-questionings to which the eyes of Mrs. Zwicker had subjected her, was very agreeably impressed with the reserve of the boarding house ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... awful gloom of the cavernous hall of Arimanes, Byron's "Prince of Earth and Air." The gray figure from most ancient myth is not less real to us than Mefistofeles in "Faust." At least we clearly feel the human daring that feared not to pry into forbidden mysteries and refused the solace of unthinking faith. And it becomes again a question whether the composer had in mind this subjective attitude of the hero or the actual figures and abode of the spirits and their king. It is hard ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... In peace there 's nothing so becomes a man As modest stillness and humility: But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger; Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, Disguise fair nature with hard-favored rage; Then lend the eye a terrible aspect; Let it pry through the portage of the head Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it As fearfully as doth a galled rock O'er hang and jutty his confounded base, Swilled with ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... a texture that makes it very attractive. When they are first gathered it is very difficult to crack them with the fingers but if they are put in the oven and roasted they open up and leave a little suture into which you put your thumb nails and pry the ends open. ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Eleventh Annual Meeting - Washington, D. C. October 7 AND 8, 1920 • Various
... bushy grey head. "That's not the real reason, son. The world has a wife for every man; if he hasn't found her by the time he's thirty-five, there's some real reason for it. Well, I don't want to pry into yours, but I hope it's a sound one and not a mean, sneaking, selfish sort of reason. Perhaps you'll choose a Madam Selwyn some day yet. In case you should I'm going to give you a small bit of good advice. Your mother—now, she's a splendid woman, Selwyn, a splendid woman. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... inferior to those v of the Mediterranean. And how cheap everything is—eggs you can get for the asking almost, whilst a whole fowl (prepared and cooked in a manner which, out of charity to the Chinese culinary art, we wont pry into too closely, but which our sailor gourmands relish nevertheless) is obtainable for five cents! I refer, of course, to that bird which our shipmates denominate "dungaree chicken." Our first impression of Chefoo is that it is the place of all others on the station ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... into the Unknown," she wrote—"that Unknown in which she seemed to be forever trying to pry. We knew she was going, and we told her. She was quite brave, but she begged us to try some way to keep her till after Christmas. 'My presents are not finished yet,' she made moan. 'And I did so want to see what ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie
... was right. When the starved and exhausted malamutes dragged their silent burden into the Northwest Mounted Police outpost barracks at Crooked Bow twenty-four hours later, an ax and a sapling bar were required to pry Francois Breault from his bier. Previous to this process, however, Sergeant Fitzgerald, in charge at the outpost, took possession of the soiled envelope pinned to Breault's red scarf. The information it bore was simple, and yet exceedingly definite. Few men in dying as Breault ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... threatened, carry out the cow-chains. Never mind the horse,—he'll be alive and kicking; and if his legs don't do their duty, let them pay for the roast. Ditto as to the hogs,—let them save their own bacon, or smoke for it. When the roof begins to burn, get a crow-bar and pry away the stone steps; or, if the steps be of wood, procure an axe and chop them up. Next, cut away the wash-boards in the basement story; and if that don't stop the flames, let the chair-boards on the first floor share a similar fate. Should the "devouring element" still pursue the "even tenor ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... favorite cap and bells, their favorite swords, their favorite doublet and hose—all of them sit around in the special Valhalla of the Great Actors reading their press notices to one another and listening to the hosannas of such critics as have managed to pry into the anterior heaven. ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... in fear to know him. I know God is wise in all, wonderful in what we conceive, but far more in what we comprehend not; for we behold Him but asquint upon reflex or shadow; our understanding is dimmer than Moses' eye; we are ignorant of the back parts or lower side of His divinity; therefore to pry into the maze of His counsels, is not only folly in man, but presumption even in angels; like us, they are His servants, not His senators; He holds no counsel, but that mystical one of the Trinity, wherein though there ...
— Sir Thomas Browne and his 'Religio Medici' - an Appreciation • Alexander Whyte
... spear, gore, spit, stab, pink, puncture, lance, stick, prick, riddle, punch; stave in. cut a passage through; make way for, make room for. uncover, unclose, unrip^; lay open, cut open, rip open, throw open, pop open, blow open, pry open, tear open, pull open. Adj. open; perforated &c v.; perforate; wide open, ajar, unclosed, unstopped; oscitant^, gaping, yawning; patent. tubular, cannular^, fistulous; pervious, permeable; foraminous^; vesicular, vasicular^; porous, follicular, cribriform^, honeycombed, infundibular^, riddled; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... addressed giggled confusedly, and looked for assistance to a sardonic Boer whom she was going to marry, who shook his head sadly, indicating thereby that these were mysteries into which it was not well to pry. Thrown on her own resources, she plunged into the recesses of an intricate calculation, in which her fingers played a considerable part, and finally, with an air of triumph, announced that it ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... free, aff han', your story tell, When wi' a bosom crony; But still keep something to yoursel Ye scarcely tell to ony. Conceal yoursel as weel's ye can Frae critical dissection; But keek thro' ev'ry other man [pry] Wi' ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... must not pry then. But can you answer one question more? Was it connected with any person who has ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... point, and the whole marriage law had to be adjusted accordingly. That is no longer possible. When a woman assumes her own moral responsibility, in sexual as in other matters, it becomes not only intolerable but meaningless for the community to pry into her most intimate physiological or spiritual acts. She is herself directly responsible to society as soon as she performs a social ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... are you making mysteries? I do not wish to pry into your affairs. I would have trusted you anywhere; but when it comes round to me that you have been sending a private messenger to one of the young gentlemen there, I don't know what to be at! I would not believe Mrs. Mansell at first; but I saw the boy, ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... tangled up in long coils of Red Tape, She's the butt for each Jeremy Diddler's coarse jape, Every filthy Paul Pry's ghoulish giggle. JOHN BULL, my fine fellow, wake up, and determine To stamp out the lives of the venomous vermin Who round your ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 January 11, 1890 • Various
... cannot serve as a norm by which we are able to regulate our faith and life. Particularly when considering the question how God is disposed toward us individually, we must not take refuge in the secret counsels of God, which reason cannot spy and pry into. According to Luther, all human speculations concerning the hidden God are mere diabolical inspirations, bound to lead away from the saving truth of the Gospel into despair ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... past the church of San Polo, to visit the beautiful Barozza; and he resolved, if possible, to catch him on one of these journeys. 'It so chanced on February 28, which was the second Sunday of Lent, that having gone, as was my wont, to pry out whether Lorenzino would give orders for going abroad that day, I entered the shoemaker's shop, and stayed awhile, until Lorenzino came to the window with a napkin round his neck—for he was combing ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... that (Hartless) wants her Deer, Scuds through the woods and Fern with hearkening ear, Perplext, in every bush and nook doth pry, Her dearest Deer might answer ear or eye; So doth my anxious soul, which now doth miss, A dearer Deer (far dearer Heart) than this. Still wait with doubts and hopes and failing eye; His voice to hear or person to descry. Or ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... to prowl round among Ernest's things and pry into the state of his wardrobe? If I had not had my time so broken up with giving lessons, I should have found out that he needed new shirts and set to work on them. Though I must own I hate shirt-making. ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... more took refuge behind the trees while Tom touched them off. This time there were three sharp explosions, a shower of fragments rattled through the branches above our heads, and on going to inspect the result we found that the rock had been so shattered that it was an easy matter to pry out the pieces with pick and crowbar—a task of which Joe ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp
... pry the logs up a little," said Dave. "Here is a log to work with," and he pointed to one which had fallen out ...
— Dave Porter in the Far North - or, The Pluck of an American Schoolboy • Edward Stratemeyer
... like. Perhaps every one knows her own soul best.... It is not for me to pry into yours. You have confessed, and your grief ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... company is by no means disposed to let him reap any benefit from his deficiencies. Regarded in the light of a mechanical power, whenever there is any plain, hard work to be done, he is put to it like a lever; everyone giving him a pry. ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... and pry with his cold-chisel forced this flimsy outer door away from its lock. Beneath it, thus lightly masked, stood the more formidable safe door itself. Durkin drew in a sharp breath of relief as he looked at it with critical eyes. It was not quite the sort of thing he had ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... furnish his brother with whatever sums should be necessary for executing so bold and so generous a design. His brother went accordingly over to Italy; and after a long stay and a great expense in that country, he found means to see this engine so often, and to pry into the nature of it so narrowly, that he made himself master of the whole invention and of all the different parts and ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... "we don't want to pry into your affairs, nor trouble you in any way, but if we can help you we will be glad to—Miss Lavillotte and I. We believe you are man enough to wish to know the worst, without mincing, whatever it may be, and have come ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... else wouldn't be," declared the man. "Leastways nobody with jest one pair of hands. While I pry it off one end it slips back on the other. Are you strong?" he asked, stopping to look ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... of the Cicadae (The Cicada Cigale, an insect akin to the Grasshopper and found more particularly in the south of France.—Translator's Note.); you subject cell and protoplasm to chemical tests, I study instinct in its loftiest manifestations; you pry into death, I pry into life. And why should I not complete my thought: the boars have muddied the clear stream; natural history, youth's glorious study, has, by dint of cellular improvements, become a ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... Tutties are Deceitful Shifts, The Stoppers, Jealousy, Which hath Sir Argus hundred Eyes, Wherewith to watch and pry. ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett
... Mr. Crow had a long talk. They got on famously together, because the old gentleman liked to pry into other people's affairs and the Major ...
— The Tale of Major Monkey • Arthur Scott Bailey
... lights on a place in which Captain Swan had inveighed bitterly against most of his Men, especially against another John Reed a Jamaica man. This was such stuff as he did not seek after: But hitting so pat on this subject, his curiosity led him to pry farther; and therefore while the Gunner was busie, he convey'd the Book away, to look over it at his leisure. The Gunner having dispatch'd his business, lock'd up the Cabbin-door, not missing the Book, and went ashore. Then ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... the monarch! how happy are they Who breathe and exist in the sun's rosy light, But he who is doom'd in the ocean to stray, Views nothing around him but horror and night; Let no one henceforward be tempted like me To pry in the secrets contain'd ...
— The Song of Deirdra, King Byrge and his Brothers - and Other Ballads • Anonymous
... ambition to enact the spy On fellow-souls, a spiritual Pry— 'Tis said that people ought to guard their noses Who thrust them into matters none of theirs And, though no delicacy discomposes Your saint, yet I consider faith and prayers Among the ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... Kennedy exultingly, "I think we have stolen a march on them. I don't believe they were prepared for this, not at least at this stage in the game. Don't ask me any questions, Walter. Then you will have no secrets to keep if anyone should try to pry them loose. Only remember that this man Lawrence is a ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... the sun. With his mouth in a continual O of admiration and wonder, the little fellow squatted repeatedly to gaze at the exquisite geometrical designs in their crystal depths; but after one or two half-hearted attempts to pry them apart to see how they were made he contented himself with adding one to his already overburdened nightgown. Even in the thrill of discovery he had an instinctive antipathy against ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... pleased to take it,—that she was quite able to dress herself, to brush her own hair, to take off her own clothes; and that she was not, either by nature or education, an incapable young woman. But that honour and glory demanded it, she would almost as lief have had no Patience Crabstick to pry into her most private matters. All which Crabstick knew, and would often declare her missus to be "of all missuses the most slyest and least come-at-able." On this present night she was very soon despatched to her own chamber. Lizzie, ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... Phil. I won't turn coward unless you do." Madge picked up a sharp stick to pry under ...
— Madge Morton's Secret • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... time before, when he thought I was away from home, he tried to get into my house. I heard him, and, running up stairs, I put my claws in the two little holes in the lining of the lid, and braced myself so that he could not pry open the lid. He said he only wanted to pay me a visit; but I knew he was hungry, and wanted ...
— The Nursery, February 1878, Vol. XXIII, No. 2 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... hung. The Monarch drank, that happy hour, 775 The sweetest, holiest draught of Power— When it can say, with godlike voice, Arise, sad Virtue, and rejoice! Yet would not James the general eye On Nature's raptures long should pry; 780 He stepped between—"Nay, Douglas, nay, Steal not my proselyte away! The riddle 'tis my right to read, That brought this happy chance to speed. —Yes, Ellen, when disguised I stray 785 In life's more low but happier way, 'Tis under name which veils my power, ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... back in his corner like a shy, retiring mouse. For a moment the cowman regarded him intently, as if seeking for some exculpating infirmity; then, leaving the long line of drinkers to chafe at the delay, he paused to pry into the matter. ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... warmest welcome at an inn," found George's to be economical. "What do you think," he writes, "must be my expense, who love to pry into everything of the kind? Why, truly one shilling. My company goes to George's Coffee-house, where, for that small subscription I read all pamphlets under a three shillings' dimension; and indeed, any larger would not be fit for coffee-house perusal." Shenstone relates that Lord Oxford ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... be the child of ignorance, ignorance is also the child of fear; the two react on, and produce each other. The more men dread Nature, the less they wish to know about her. Why pry into her awful secrets? It is dangerous; perhaps impious. She says to them, as in the Egyptian temple of old—"I am Isis, and my veil no mortal yet hath lifted." And why should they try or wish to ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... were not yet unhorsed. The Jewish police-officers, though they allowed coach-gentry to enter and take up their quarters where they pleased, did not fail to pry into their affairs the next day, as well for the protection of the Jewish community against equivocal intruders as in accordance with its ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... the lady and the cargo at the lighthouse itself, gives me as fair a chance of getting out of it as any plan I can think of. The cargo's not all my own and it's a valuable one, I daresay you have guessed as much; and it's not the kind we want revenue men to pry into. I could not unload elsewhere that I know of, without creating suspicion. As to storing it elsewhere, it's out of the question. Scarthey's the place, though it's a damned risky one just now! But we've run many a risk together in our day, ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... to the water's edge, had been wiped out of existence by the rush of maddened bison along the beach, and the keenings of their relatives rose above the shouts and cries of embarkation. Fully half the rafts were afloat, with their loads, by now, and men grunted heavily in the effort to pry the others free, while women and children crowded into the water around them, waiting to struggle aboard as soon as the ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... and spy, Sad eyes that heed not skies nor trees, In dismal nooks he loves to pry, Whose motto evermore is Spes! But ah! the fabled treasure flees; Grown rarer with the fleeting years, In rich men's shelves they take their ...
— Ballads in Blue China and Verses and Translations • Andrew Lang
... hated it most awfully. I wanted to be let alone and to work out my own theory of things. If you'd said a word—if you'd tried to influence me—the spell would have been broken. But just because the actual you kept apart and didn't meddle or pry, the other, the you in my heart, seemed to get a tighter hold on me. I don't know how to tell you,—it's all mixed up in my head—but old things you'd said and done kept coming back to me, crowding between me and what I was trying for, looking ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton
... rotten, I have to walk on tiptoe to save my boots? If I write to you overmuch concerning myself, is it concerning ANOTHER man, rather, that I ought to write—concerning HIS wants, concerning HIS lack of tea to drink (and all the world needs tea)? Has it ever been my custom to pry into other men's mouths, to see what is being put into them? Have I ever been known to offend any one in that respect? No, no, beloved! Why should I desire to insult other folks when they are not molesting ME? Let me give you an example of what I mean. A man may ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... you won't go until you have told us a little something about yourself," said Betty, with an inviting smile. "We don't want to pry into your private affairs," she went on, "but we would like to help you. And please don't disappear so mysteriously again. You are the girl who fell out of the branches of ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... butterfly reminded me of the Camarones Mountain; the wild bee and the ladybird-like Ba'zah stuck to us as though they loved us; and we were pestered by the attentions of the common fly. The Egyptian symbol for "Paul Pry" is supposed to denote an abundance of organic matter: it musters strong throughout Midian, even in the dreariest wastes; and it accompanies us everywhere, whole swarms riding upon ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... there amid the wet leaves. Nevertheless, with experienced eyes, I explore amid the bare alders and the huckleberry-bushes and the withered sedge, and in the crevices of the rocks, which are full of leaves, and pry under the fallen and decaying ferns, which, with apple and alder leaves, thickly strew the ground. For I know that they lie concealed, fallen into hollows long since and covered up by the leaves of the tree itself,—a proper kind of packing. ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... The particular Paul Pry in question (to come down to my life) never 'intrudes.' It is his peculiarity. And I put the stop exactly where I was bid; and was going to put Gabriel's speech,[93] only—with the pen in my hand to do it—I found that the angel was a little too exclamatory altogether, and that ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... to pry into futurity. We are impatient to penetrate the clouds that envelope us, and to discern the distant course which Providence has prescribed for our feet. Curiosity combines with self-interest to urge this inquiry; but the reproof which Peter received ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... standing on the doorstep," she said to herself, "lighting a cigarette"; and then, "but he is a long while about it. This is strange." Still as her ear caught no sound of him, Santa sprang up and slipped, guitar in hand, to the outer door—the fence being too tall for her to over-pry, and moreover prickly. She opened the door and peeped out. There was no one down the pathway. There was no one up the pathway, which here, for some fifty or sixty yards, climbed straight, full in view. "And what on earth has become ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... do, that will do!" Chia Lien rejoined laughing, "none of these sham attentions for me! So long as you don't pry into my doings it will be enough; and will I go so far as to bear you ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin |
