"Prying" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... suspicion he remarked her costume, which was altogether worked out in soft shades of grey. Grey was the misty veil, drawn in and daintily knotted beneath her chin, which lent her head and face such thorough protection against prying glances; of grey suede were the light gauntlets that hid all save the slenderness of her small hands; and the wrap that, cut upon full and flowing lines, cloaked her figure beyond suggestion, was grey. Yet even its ample drapery could not dissemble ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... with that prying wench of a Deliverance Dobbins!" ejaculated M. Picot, stamping about. "Oh, I'll cure her fanciful fits! Pish! Pish! That frump and her fits! Bad blood, Ramsay; low-bred, low-bred! 'Tis ever the ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... excellence; [Footnote: In Chinese mythology the telluric element has remained untarnished. The dragon is an earth-god, who controls the rain and thunder clouds.] or even to our own Heralds' College, where these and other beasts have sought a refuge from prying professors under such queer disguises that their own mothers would ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... 1320 I breathe the sorrows I bewail, And thank thee for the generous tear This glazing eye could never shed. Then lay me with the humblest dead,[ew] And, save the cross above my head, Be neither name nor emblem spread, By prying stranger to be read, Or stay ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... disappeared in the water. Another splash and the second followed. But prying them loose was no easy job and they did not follow one after the other in the rapid succession the boys would have liked. In less than half an hour they decided that an enormous lot of work had been done in the effort to ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... England, they were all full of devils, guarding the treasures which the Romans had hidden. The Caesars became to them magical man-gods. The poet Virgil became the prince of necromancers. If the secrets of Nature were to be known, they were to be known by unlawful means, by prying into the mysteries of the old heathen magicians, or of the Mohammedan doctors of Cordova and Seville; and those who dared to do so were respected and feared, and often came to evil ends. It needed moral courage, then, to face and interpret fact. Such brave men as Pope Gerbert, ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... to be rid of his wife's presence. He didn't know what trouble might be impending and he wanted to face the music without the irritation of a prying audience. ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... about the birds and flowers and shrubs and insects in poetry, and it makes us very happy to know they are all round us, innocent little things like mice and centipedes and goldenrods (until hay fever time), but as for prying into their affairs we ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... thought there was nothing else to be done. We carried the body through the passage and placed it in the chair. I arranged the cards on the lap, knowing the servant had seen Emilia in that position, and that it would still further throw prying people"—here Hale glanced at Jennings—"off the scent. Hardly had we arranged this and closed the floor, over us when we heard that someone was in the room. It was a woman, and we heard her speaking ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume
... "You stupid, prying goose!" answered the dwarf; "I was going to split the tree to get a little wood for cooking. The little bit of food that one of us wants gets burnt up directly with thick logs; we do not swallow so much as you coarse, greedy folk. ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... of my hands. The fingernail itself was like a chip of chilled steel. I could flex the nail neither with my other hand nor by biting it; between my teeth it had the uncomfortable solidity of a sheet of metal that conveyed to my brain that the old teeth should not try to bite too hard. I tried prying on a bit of metal with the fingernail; inserting the nail in the crack where a metal cylinder had been formed to make a table leg. I might have been able to pry the crack wider, but the rest of my body did not have the power nor the rigidity necessary ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... Sinnet, as though interested in the surroundings, while all the time he was eying the mountaineer furtively—as it were, prying to the inner man, or measuring the strength of the outer man. He lighted a fresh pipe and seated himself on a rough bench beside the table in the middle of the room, and leaned ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... ceiling. After floors and ceilings are out, it is a simple matter to loosen all paneling and remove it in large units. Wherever possible whole room-ends go intact. The stairway is also taken out as a unit, especially the more elaborate one in the front hall. Prying loose the old wide flooring is a difficult operation. The original hand-wrought nails have rusted fast and if too much leverage is used, the boards split. Men used to such work salvage the old flooring with ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... for the farmer. These men have a cap with a visor-like mask, which can be pulled over the face at will. This shields the face from the cold blasts so prevalent on these moors; also, it prevents the prying eyes of ...
— Denmark • M. Pearson Thomson
... tool for prying up varnish paint, syrup and similar can covers car be made from an old ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... glimpses, rather than clear sight, as the throng within the gateway reeled and shifted, crushing me sorely. Presently the English from without trooped in, laughing and cursing, welcomed by their fellows, and every man of them prying into my face, and gibing. It had been a settled plan: we were betrayed, it was over clear, and now a harsh voice behind making me turn, I saw the wolf's face of Father Thomas under his hood, ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... inventions. But none, I am sure, surprised them more than the discovery of the lever; by its use one man could exert the strength of a hundred men. They soon observed that levers could be used in three different ways. The instance already given, the prying open of a lid by using a chisel as a lever, is an example of one way (Fig. 1); it is then used as a lever of the first order. Now in the first order, one end of the lever is applied to the point of resistance, which in the case just mentioned was ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent
... Edwards: is it a crime to drive a prying miscreant from his door? Crime! Oh, no, sir; if there be a criminal involved in this ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... Savinien rushed forward and seized both her hands. Madame Desvarennes's arrival was an element of interest in his unoccupied life. The dandy guessed at some mysterious business and thought it possible that he might get to know it. With open ears and prying eyes, he sought the meaning of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... alone and could do what we'd planned without being interrupted," observed Hugh, "but seems as though we've dropped on the queerest sort of a mystery the very first thing. And as scouts always stand to investigate what they don't understand, I reckon we'll have our hands full prying ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Flying Squadron • Robert Shaler
... to bed. To-night, as usual, they repaired to the sanctum, and drank their barley water. Having done so, Mr. Greyne drew forth his cigar-case, while Mrs. Greyne went to her writing-table, and prepared to unlock the drawer in which her diary reposed, safe from all prying eyes. ...
— The Mission Of Mr. Eustace Greyne - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... to the birken bower, on yon burn side, Sae sweetly wove wi' woodbine flower, on yon burn side; There the busy prying eye, Ne'er disturbs the lovers' joy, While in ither's arms they lie, down by yon burn side, Awa', ye rude, unfeeling crew, frae yon burn side, Those fairy scenes are no for you, by yon burn side; There fancy smoothes her theme, By the sweetly ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... ask personal questions of an adult is 'prying' and is therefore considered improper and antisocial. To ask the same questions of a child is proper and social. It indicates a polite interest in the world of the child. You and I, Mrs. Bagley, have a complete picture of the Hermit all prepared, and with our education we can improvise plausible ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... trust I'm a Christian man, and not in the habit of abusing the absent. Indeed, I don't see what right any one has to make impertinent inquiries into the life or way of living of any respectable person—I do not see it, Cannie; and, I assure you, I always set my face against such prying inquiries." ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... matter, these people were guilty of an insolence to which she would not submit. She thought she discovered a certain antagonism amongst those with whom she presently came into contact, and the opposition developed character. Pride came to her aid. No doubt some peeping Tom or prying woman had been witness to the theft of kisses. In that case the incident would now be a theme of conversation in the cabins. She could not trust Mrs. Macdougal to withhold from the gossips a single word ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... I am laughing still, though the curtain has fallen between the acts, and the orchestra are fiddling gayly away, and the turned-up gas making everybody look pale. My opera-glasses are in my hand, and I am turning them slowly round the house, making out acquaintances in the stalls, prying into the secrets of the boxes, examining the well-known features of ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... his manner; his looks are too prying for an indifferent observer," continued young Wharton thoughtfully, "and his face seems familiar to me. The recent fate of Andre has created much irritation on both sides. The rebels would think me a fit subject for their plans should I be so unlucky ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... of these strange names all glanced toward the door, and all flaming, curious, prying eyes were fixed with astonishment and admiration upon the ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... certain things which she wanted to do on this her first night in her new home; and among them she wanted to put that green velvet pocket-book, gold embroidered, in some absolutely safe place, where it would not be seen by prying eyes or fall into dangerous hands. She did not intend to destroy its contents. She knew enough of the uncertainty of life to hold by all sorts of anchorages; and though things looked safe and sweet enough now, they might drift into ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... the Huguenots. He assures us that, a few months later, during the summer, his father, Gaspard de Tavannes, intercepted at Chalons a messenger whom Catharine had despatched to her daughter the Duchess of Savoy ("qui agreoit ces nouvelles opinions") ostensibly as a lute-player. Among his effects the prying governor of Burgundy found letters signed by the queen mother, containing some rather surprising suggestions. "La Royne luy escrivoit qu'elle estoit resolue de favoriser les Huguenots, d'ou elle esperoit son salut contre le gouvernement du triumvirat ... qu'elle soupconnoit vouloir ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... much blood, millions of money, and a record of disgrace; but it gave a Regiment of Massachusetts Yankees opportunity to whittle up for their home cabinets of curiosities a large pile of walnut timber which had formed John Brown's scaffold, and to make extensive inroads in prying with their bayonets from the walls of the jail in which he had been confined pieces of stone and mortar. Guards were put upon the Court House in which old John heard his doom with the dignity of a Cato, at an early date, or it would have been hewn to pieces. A fine ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... means of its peavies, to rolling the lower logs into the current, where they were rapidly borne away. As the waters were now at flood, this was a quick and easy labour. Occasionally some tiers would be stuck together by ice, in which case considerable prying and heaving was necessary in order to crack them apart. But forty men, all busily at work, soon had the river full. Orde detailed some six or eight to drop below in order that the river might run clear to the next section, where the next crew would ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... of you to tease her, Justin,' said Archie indignantly. 'You don't like people prying into your secrets, I know that,' and Justin looked a little ashamed of himself, while Miss Mouse gave Archie's hand ...
— Miss Mouse and Her Boys • Mrs. Molesworth
... he ordered Gibson. "This beam is so tight and scrambled that no prying jackass could even tell that it is communication. Have ...
— Irresistible Weapon • Horace Brown Fyfe
... adj.; take an interest in, stare, gape; prick up the ears, see sights, lionize; pry; nose; rubberneck*[U . S.]. Adj. curious, inquisitive, burning with curiosity, overcurious; inquiring &c. 461; prying, snoopy, nosy, peering; prurient; inquisitorial, inquisitory[obs3]; curious as a cat; agape &c. (expectant) 507. Phr. what's the matter? what next? consumed with curiosity; curiosity killed the cat, satisfaction brought it back. "curiouser and ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... o'er his, and the small mouth Seemed almost prying into his for breath; And, chafing him, the soft, warm hand of youth Recalled his answering spirits back from death; And, bathing his chill temples, tried to soothe Each pulse to animation, till beneath Its ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... ask you a few questions, and if they seem to be prying or personal, you must believe that I have no other wish than to secure information which is vital to myself. What position do you occupy with the ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... to beller at the top of your voice, do yuh?" snapped Cash, prying the cork out of the ink bottle with his jackknife. "Here's another pen point. Tie it onto a stick or something and git to work before you git ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... massive brass door contributed to a personality of dignified and pessimistic aloofness. The building occupied a place to itself, as if its reserve were not to be tampered with, as if its dark and sullen mystery were not meant for the prying eyes of ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... 'the firmament above' instead of 'the firmament beneath.' In fact, the astronomer, in sweeping with his telescopic eye the 'blue depths of ether,' is, as it were, some Lilliputian inhabitant of an atom prying into the autumnal structure of some Brobdignagian world of saw-dust; organised into spiral and other elementary forms, of life, it may be, something like our own. The infinite height appears, in short, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various
... "I've been thinking of that, an' it's just a real difficult matter; for I'd never get time to write all the long explanation, with that she always prying after me. She'd find it out, an' stop the letter, even if I could find the paper; an' I dunno' as I can spell all the long words it 'ud take to explain it. An' more too, I couldn't wait an' wait for the answer. We ought to go an' see Uncle—R. Grosvenor. I've almost ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... here:—Liked it?—Oh no!—I don't wonder; I never liked St. James'-,. She was so inquisitive and so curious in prying into the very offices and servants' rooms, that her Captain Bateman was sensible of it, and begged Catherine not to mention it. he addressed himself well, if he hoped to meet with taciturnity! Catherine immediately ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... expressed; it is the common wave of human passion, the common love of man and woman, that here leaps from the depths to the height, and over which the iris of beauty ever and anon appears with—it is true—an unusual intensity. And so in reading the letters we have no sense of prying into secrets; there are no secrets to be discovered; what is most intimate is most common; only here what is most common rises up to its highest point of attainment. "I never thought of being happy through you or by you or in you even, your good was all my idea of good, and is" ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... really very rich?" asked Patricia, and then was sorry she had spoken. It seemed as though she were prying into Rosamond's private affairs. ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther
... doing here, just now, Mary wondered? Just for the moment it flashed across her mind that they were prying upon her movements. But another idea occurred to her, as the two were accosted by the old clergyman that Mary had seen before, and who had been a visitor to Beatrice Richford such a ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... cried Rosamond, laughing. "Do you think papa has any secrets hidden there; or that he keeps some mysterious packet of old love-letters tied up with a blue ribbon, which he would not like your prying eyes to discover? You may open the desk, George. I give you my permission; and if papa should be angry, the blame shall fall ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... we took the gun with us, and leaning it against a tree near the wagon, set about our usual work. The first stone we loaded that morning was an extra-large one, and Joe on one side of the wagon and I on the other were prying it into position with our pinch-bars, when my companion, who was facing the bluff, gently laid down his ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp
... seemed to you intolerably prying and officious," I said, "well, at any rate, Jones, there's my excuse. It rests with you to give me Freddy or take her from me. Turn back, and you'll make me the happiest man ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... thousand. And you don't have to strain any point, either, to give me a job. When I want to work for you I'll sure tell you so. In the meantime, I don't know as it's very businesslike for you to go prying into my plans. You've accepted my note, and you've got your security, and what the hell more ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... had to be treated with a respect not meted out to the chairs and tables at home, boots must be scrupulously wiped on the door-mat, bedrooms left tidy, and books and ornaments were to be held altogether sacred from the ravages of prying young fingers. ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... guard the left flank of the infantry.' Such was the order; and is not offence the surest defence? Accordingly all the irregular cavalry moved in a considerable column westward across the front of the Boer position, endeavouring to find where its flank rested, and prying with inquisitive patrols at every object of interest. The order of march was as follows: First, the composite regiment (one squadron of Imperial Light Horse, the 60th Rifles, Mounted Infantry, and one squadron ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... are others who fear for you, and that has happened which you must hear. Not here! Come away from this, where we will be secure from prying eyes." ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... and Jewish faces, with strange head-dresses, impossible costumes, a howling of colours,—no one could deliberately have invented worse. The women of the harem could not be seen. They were in the first three boxes on the right, in the second gallery. Thick white muslin hid their faces from prying glances." ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... and Mark tell us, he went out into the outer porch or gateway, perhaps to avoid the glare of the light and the scrutiny of those prying eyes. He remembered afterward that, at the same moment, a cock was heralding the dawn—the dawn of the blackest, saddest day that ever broke upon Jerusalem, or the world. But its warning notes were just then lost ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... his friends into a hole in the rocks, where the giant would never think of prying. Huggermugger did not see them. They were safe. As soon as he had filled his basket, he went off, and left nothing but his footprints and the smoke of his ...
— The Last of the Huggermuggers • Christopher Pierce Cranch
... a quick, inquiring glance, and her face told me all that I desired to know. "Neither yea nor nay," she replied. "We are both very foolish, but, of the two, I am the more foolish. We are trying to look too far ahead; we are prying into the future, and the future is away beyond us. Everything you say and everything I have in my mind is absurd, no matter how agreeable it may be. Do you care enough for me to desert your comrades and fling your principles to the four winds? ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris
... as I can remember. You have taught me to see; why should I not help you to see more when I can do it so easily? My thought was that you would lend me the glass occasionally, so that I might try to keep pace with you. I've been using the microscope too much—prying into nature, as Burt would say, with the spirit of ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... much pleasure as the other did pain. This was the writing of a story which she intended to send away to a magazine. She wrote it in the back of an old notebook, and when she was not working at it she kept it carefully in the bottom of her shirtwaist box, where the prying eyes of her younger sister would not find it. She had all the golden dreams and aspirations of a young authoress writing her first story, and her days were filled with a secret delight when she thought of the riches that would soon be hers ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... concealing it for a season, it might be veiled for ever? Was it not, on the contrary, pardonable, that, in such an emergency, a young woman, in such a situation, should be found far from disposed to make a confidant of every prying gossip, who, with sharp eyes, and eager ears, pressed upon her for an explanation of suspicious circumstances, which females in the lower—he might say which females of all ranks, are so alert in noticing, ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... too, how much more snug and comfortable is the house, shut in from the prying winds and shivering cold of the outside air, which the opposite outer doors of an open hall cannot, in their continual opening and shutting, altogether exclude! Our own experience, and, we believe, the experience of most housekeepers will readily concede its defects; and after full ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... infections of the world, but thou my pretty Iuuinall, an English Dorrell-lorrell, must lick it vp for restoratiue, & putrifie thy gentle brother ouer against thee, with the vilde impostumes of thy lewd corruptions: God blesse good mindes from the blacke enemy say I: I know you haue bene prying like the Deuill from East to West, to heare what newes: I will acquaint thee with some, & that a secret distillation before thou goest. He that drinketh oyle of prickes, shall haue much a doe to auoyd sirrope of roses: and he that eateth nettles for prouender, hath a priuiledge to pisse vpon ...
— The Art of Iugling or Legerdemaine • Samuel Rid
... what immediately followed this abrupt declaration; there are some things that never leak out, no matter how prying the chronicler may be. When one stops to consider that this was the first time a question had been put directly to the Prince—and one that he could understand, at that—we may be inclined to overlook his reply, but we cannot answer for certain members of the cabinet. Unconsciously, ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... said, "My fair beauty, my Venus, here is a settle under this holly bush, well hidden from prying eyes. It invites us. Will you sit here with me for one happy moment, and give me a taste ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... I had installed myself in quiet quarters on the Mittelstrasse, and Kim, who had been transformed from a Basuto boy into an efficient man servant, looked after my comforts. To secure myself from the questions of prying neighbors, I had caused it to be known that I was a retired South African planter inclined to poor health. This was the most likely explanation for my curious mode of living and my sudden periodical disappearances, ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... curtainless. He was not afraid—that was nonsense; he had never been a cowardly man, but he felt the need of curtains or something before his windows to shut out the broad vast face of nature, or perhaps prying human eyes. Somebody might espy the light in the house and wonder. He had a candle stuck in an old bottle by way of illumination. Still, although he would have preferred to have curtains before those windows full of the blank stare of night, he ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... and of Thomas Clarkson and his excellent wife, and was much esteemed by Lord and Lady Lonsdale, and every member of that family. Among his verses (he wrote many), are some worthy of preservation; one little poem in particular, upon disturbing, by prying curiosity, a bird while hatching her young in his garden. The latter part of this innocent and good man's life was melancholy. He became blind, and also poor, by becoming surety for some of his relations. He was a bachelor. He bore, as I have ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... unreliable as an index to his character. One could not examine very far into them. They seemed to be shallow, baffling. Simmons did not permit his eyes to betray his thoughts. He used them as masks to hide from prying eyes the things that he did not wish others ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... island. This delay was the first thing that shook Kurtz's confidence. One morning he gave me a packet of papers and a photograph,—the lot tied together with a shoe-string. 'Keep this for me,' he said. 'This noxious fool' (meaning the manager) 'is capable of prying into my boxes when I am not looking.' In the afternoon I saw him. He was lying on his back with closed eyes, and I withdrew quietly, but I heard him mutter, 'Live rightly, die, die . . .' I listened. There was nothing more. Was he rehearsing some speech in his sleep, ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... the traitor's own blood—his renounced brother and sister—on whom the weight of his guilt rested almost more heavily, at this time, than on the man whom he had so deeply injured. Prying and tormenting as the world was, it did Mr Dombey the service of nerving him to pursuit and revenge. It roused his passion, stung his pride, twisted the one idea of his life into a new shape, and made some gratification of his ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... is doubly due, For all the hedges[2] in my view, Afford a verdant cover; I now can build my nest once more, From childhood's prying glance secure, And from the hawk's keen eye, tho' o'er The sacred ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 388 - Vol. 14, No. 388, Saturday, September 5, 1829. • Various
... continue for physical ascendancy, so that the power and the will to be reasonable may not be undermined. Reason is an operation in nature, and has its root there. Saints cannot arise where there have been no warriors, nor philosophers where a prying beast does not remain hidden ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... There is something in your thought you hold from me. Have the lewd, prying eyes, the slanderous mind Of public envy, spied herein some mischief? What hast thou heard? By heaven, if one foul word Have darkened the fair fame of my white dove, Naples shall rue it. Let them not forget The chapel of ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... on her defence—a defence that she felt, however, especially as of Kate. "We're very intimate," she said in a moment; "so that, without prying into each other's affairs, she naturally ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... greatest risk, my son," admitted Basil. "But if the Luath is to escape other prying eyes, we must take the chance against ourselves. One thing, we know when and where to expect her, and the captain will steer inshore after passing Newnham, because of the deeper channel being this side. I don't think ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... telling you," the lady continued, leaning over towards him confidentially, "that I'm dead off that old man who came prying round and took me out to dinner, to pump me about poor Barney! He didn't get much out of me. For one thing, I don't know much. But the little I do know I'd sooner tell you ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... letters were written to you. I thank Heaven that I was seldom guilty of direct falsehoods in these letters. I told you little more than what a jealous eye and a prying disposition easily discovered; and I never saw any thing in their intercourse that argued more than a temper thoughtless and indiscreet. To distinguish minutely between truths and exaggerations, in the letters which I sent you, would be a painful and, I trust, ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... &c adj.; take an interest in, stare, gape; prick up the ears, see sights, lionize; pry; nose; rubberneck [U.S.]. Adj. curious, inquisitive, burning with curiosity, overcurious; inquiring &c 461; prying, snoopy, nosy, peering; prurient; inquisitorial, inquisitory^; curious as a cat; agape &c (expectant) 507. Phr. what's the matter? what next? consumed with curiosity; curiosity killed the cat, satisfaction brought it back. curiouser and ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... that beats a tattoo before the death of one of the members of the clan. There is no question as to the genuineness of this haunting, its actuality is beyond dispute. All sorts of theories as to the origin of this ghostly drummer have been advanced by a prying, inquisitive public, but it is extremely doubtful if any of them approach the truth. Other families have pipers that pipe a dismal dirge, and skaters that are seen skating even when there is no ice, and always before a death or ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... it," she said simply. "He says that servants are always prying into one's concerns. Good night, Capitaine Rotherby! Thank you so much for taking me out this evening. After all, I cannot help feeling that it has been rather like the beginning ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Grace Stepney's prying eyes had been removed, Lily asked for a word with her aunt. The two ladies went upstairs to the sitting-room, where Mrs. Peniston seated herself in her black satin arm-chair tufted with yellow buttons, ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... note eight numbers. On Monday they will be prying about. On Tuesday they separate, angry with their adversaries. On Wednesday they drink, enjoying themselves ostentatiously. On Thursday they are in the choir; their poverty is disagreeable. Friday is a day of abundance, the men ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold
... in whose conduct so many prying eyes were seeking for sources of accusation to gratify herself even by the overthrow of an absurdity, when that overthrow might incur the stigma of innovation. The Court of Versailles was jealous of its Spanish inquisitorial etiquette. It had been strictly wedded to its pageantries since the time ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... been made. These two lived very much alone, as people may after a bereavement, sat down to table together, shared the long evenings, and grew daily better friends; until it seemed to him of a sudden that she was prying about dangerous matters, that she had conceived a notion of his guilt, that she watched him and tried him with questions. He drew back from her company as men draw back from a precipice suddenly discovered; and yet so strong was the attraction ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... said to be like that of Caesar's wife—above reproach. Get a full history of her life and of the Prince whom she is to marry. If you can get any photographs do so. I know how you dislike this sort of work, prying into private affairs, as you call it, but with all these sensational sheets springing up around us, we must keep in line now and then. Do you know anything about Hillars; is he dead or alive? Take all the time you want for the story and ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... The strokes that fate has shaped them with, and so, Fitting to these their present speech and favour, Discern the thought within. From him I gleaned Nothing. At the least word, however guarded, That sought to try the fastenings of his life With prying hands, how mute and dark he grew, And like the cautious tortoise at a touch ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman
... eyes too high, lest haply, through their too much gazing with their eyes after other things, they in the mean time stumble and catch a fall. The very same case is this: if thou gaze and stare after every opinion and way that comes into the world, also if thou be prying overmuch into God's secret decrees, or let thy heart too much entertain questions about some nice foolish curiosities, thou mayst stumble and fall, as many hundreds in England have done, both in ranting ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... formed. When the burrow had been opened into the thicket, the crafty creatures securely "stopped" the original entrance, so that, when the grass sprouted and the briar sprays lengthened in the woodlands, the "earth" would escape all notice, unless a prying visitor penetrated the thicket and discovered the second opening—then, of course, the only one—leading to ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... me more about their affairs than I had hoped; there was no need to be prying, for it evidently drew her out simply to feel that I listened, that I cared. She ceased wondering why I cared, and at last, as she spoke of the brilliant life they had led years before, she almost chattered. It was Miss Tita ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... who did not know he was her father. I suppose Esther must have asked mother to take care of these things for her. It is queer that she never thought of speaking of them to me. I must write her I have seen them, for I should not wish her to feel I had been prying," Betty finished, going back to the trunk and putting the ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World • Margaret Vandercook
... ends, dear Reader. Mr. Hoopdriver, sprawling down there among the bracken, must sprawl without our prying, I think, or listening to what chances to his breathing. And of what came of it all, of the six years and afterwards, this is no place to tell. In truth, there is no telling it, for the years have still to run. But if you see how a mere counter-jumper, a cad on castors, and a fool ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... where he was going, and to use what little woodcraft he possessed. So long as he was obliged to keep one hand extended in front in order to save his face and neck, he could adopt no precautions to hide his footprints from the prying eyes of his enemies. He knew he was leaving a trail which was as easy for his enemies to follow, as though he walked in the yielding sand. Much as he regretted the fact, it could not be helped so long as the darkness ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... Don't you remember one night when something was said about Mrs Gridley—no, don't be impatient. You were annoyed with Rose, then, and it was not about anything that was said at the time, at least I thought not. I don't wish to seem prying or inquisitive, but what concerns Rose is a great matter to me. She is more to me ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... to approach Ruth. Ruth had been courteous, but distant. She wanted no prying into her affairs; no seekers after confidences; no discoverers of her identity. For gossip spreads, and one does not know ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... Thule the wondrous ice-land of the North yielded her first secrets, and longer ere the Terra Australis of Finne was laid bare to the prying eyes ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... laid till the babies were grown and had left the tree, that bird never ceased to intrude and annoy. He visited the nest when empty; he managed to have frequent peeps at the young; and notwithstanding he was driven off every time, he still hung around, with prying ways so exasperating that he well deserved a thrashing, and I wonder he did not get it. He was driven away repeatedly, and he was "picked off" from below, and pounced upon from above, but ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... instrument better designed for that object than sex. Individuals that need not unite for the birth and rearing of each generation, might retain a savage independence. For them it would not be necessary that any vision should fascinate, or that any languor should soften, the prying cruelty of the eye. But sex endows the individual with a dumb and powerful instinct, which carries his body and soul continually towards another; makes it one of the dearest employments of his life to select and pursue a companion, and joins to possession the keenest ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana
... window near the head of the workbench. "Here's the fellow's private entrance!" And he pointed to where a heavy nail locking the lower sash had been forced aside, also to a series of indentations in the outer sill, where some prying tool had ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... must by no means believe all the evil he hears. There may be much corruption in society, but there is infinitely more wrong in the habits of idle gossip and guilty scandal, which eat all sense of shame and pity out of the heart of Venice. There is no parallel to the prying, tattling, backbiting littleness of the place elsewhere in the world. A small country village in America or England has its meddlesomeness, but not its worldly, wicked sharpness. Figure the meanness of a chimney-corner ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... this last confidence—the rarest from one of the Blood— did George X— disclose in course of certain seances the "Square of Sevens," that most particular and potent method of prying into the past and present and future. In it figures the wonderful "Parallelogram," with its "Master Cards," "Influences," and so on— which our book records. Moreover, George X— declared that whereas most of his race can or will use ...
— The Square of Sevens - An Authoritative Method of Cartomancy with a Prefatory Note • E. Irenaeus Stevenson
... back, without interchanging another word, to the gate of the manor-house. Tyrrel opened it with a swing. Then, once within his own grounds, and free from prying eyes, he sat down forthwith upon a little craggy cliff that overhung the carriage-drive, buried his face in his hands, and, to Le Neve's intense astonishment, cried long and silently. He let himself go with a rush; that's the Cornish nature. Eustace Le Neve sat by his side, not daring to speak, but ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen
... away his vast stealings! My work was all in vain, save the vengeance!" And the oily Ram Lal, in the zenana, drew a willing beauty of Cashmere to his bosom, and hid his face from the chatterers of street and shop. He was safe from all prying ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... or fifteen years he had resided in this place, he had been occasionally invisible for months together, and no one could tell why he disappeared, or whither he had gone. At these times his cell was closed; and although none ventured to force their way into it, those who were the most prying could hear no sound indicating that he was within. Various were the conjectures formed on the subject. Some supposed that he withdrew from the sight of men for the purpose of more fervent prayer and more holy meditation; others, that he visited his home, or some other distant country. The more ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... man worked rapidly, but not in the prying loose of the timber which lay across the other's arm. From the side pocket of his coat, where it evidently had been hurriedly thrust, dangled a watch chain which the young man recognized as ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... out to do some thinking. He believed, in spite of a good deal of evidence to the contrary, that his best ideas came to him while walking. At any rate, it was a way of getting away from four walls and from the prying eyes and anxious looks of superiors. He sighed gently, crammed his hat onto his head ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... the Quaker rule Which doth the human feeling cool; But she was train'd in Nature's school; Nature had blest her. A waking eye, a prying mind; A heart that stirs, is hard to bind; A hawk's keen sight ye cannot blind; Ye ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... to buy a bit of land, when the waste was inclosed, and run 'em up cheap. Houses always lets here, you see, and the fire did no damage to that side. But of course you didn't know, Lady Rosamond; a real lady like you wouldn't go prying into what she's no call to, like that fine decked-out body Duncombe's wife, which had best mind her own children, which it is a shame to see stravaging about the place! I know it's her doing, which I told young Mrs. Charnock Poynsett just now, which I'm right sorry ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... creeping through chambers cleft by yawning courts and open corridors and topped by that skeleton dome. And as St. George turned from the window he saw that the door leading into the hall, urged by some nimble gust, imaginative or prying, had ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... which is concealed, dispirited at the delay of information, refusing effort except under the spur of absolute assurance. Far better and more healthful is that state of mind which performs present duty, and leaves the rest to the unfolding hand of time; which disdains that prying, inquisitive disposition which is all eye and ear, which lives on excitement, which has no self-respect, nor regard for any thing but to know something yet unknown. If God suffered the dead to speak to us, we should always be on the ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... or four days after Calhoun's return from the Oaks, the thought suggested itself to mischievous, prying Dick and his coadjutor Walter, that the key of some other lock in the house might fit that of the door they so ardently desired to open. They only waited for a favorable opportunity to test the question in the temporary absence of their ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... the Cornish family. Garrison City had become a city. There were two solid blocks of brick buildings next to the station, a network of paved streets, and no less than three hotels. It was so new to the eye and so obviously full of the "booster" spirit that he was appalled at the idea of prying through this modern shell and getting back to the heart and the memory of the old ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... exhausted by this time, and funds to work the mining claims must come out of Orion's rather modest salary. The brothers owned all claims in partnership, and it was now the part of "Brother Sam" to do the active work. He hated the hard picking and prying and blasting into the flinty ledges, but the fever drove him on. He camped with a young man named Phillips at first, and, later on, with an experienced miner, Calvin H. Higbie, to whom "Roughing It" would one day ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... only kept his drawer locked, and hidden the abominable Garuda Stone away from Dick's prying eyes; if he had let the moralising alone; if Boaler had not been so long fetching that cab, or if he had not happened to faint at the critical moment—what an immense difference any one of these apparent trifles would ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... sufficiently restored. I resisted all my protector's importunities to postpone my departure till the perfect confirmation of my health. I designed to enter the city at midnight, that prying eyes might be eluded; to bear with me a candle and the means of lighting it, to explore my way to my ancient study, and to ascertain my future ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... appearance; the dining-room furniture has been replaced; the tables are as nicely polished as formerly; the horsehair chairs are ranged against the wall, as regularly as ever; Venetian blinds have been fitted to every window in the house to intercept the prying gaze of Mrs. Joseph Porter. The subject of theatricals is never mentioned in the Gattleton family, unless, indeed, by Uncle Tom, who cannot refrain from sometimes expressing his surprise and regret at finding that ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... have a war? Two weeks ago the Emperor spoke of the perfect tranquillity of Europe." He smiled and added, "France seeks no quarrels. Because a brute of a German comes sneaking into these woods to satisfy his national thirst for prying, I don't see why ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... startlingly recalled from that tender exercise; happy family parties, struck into silence round the table, the mother still with raised finger: every degree and age and humour, but all, by their own hearths, prying and hearkening and weaving the rope that was to hang him. Sometimes it seemed to him he could not move too softly; the clink of the tall Bohemian goblets rang out loudly like a bell; and alarmed by the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... now been removed, happily as unexpectedly. In my heart, now filled and thrilling with joy, there was no motive for further concealment; and I resolved at once to declare myself. Not openly, however; not by speech, nor yet by gesture. Either might provoke an exclamation; and draw upon us prying eyes that were observing at no great distance. As stated, I had already shaped out my course; and, for a minute or more, had been waiting for the ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... great walls of the outer Seraglio Gardens: huge masses of ancient masonry, over which peep the roofs of numerous kiosks and outhouses, amongst thick evergreens, planted so as to hide the beautiful frequenters of the place from the prying eyes and telescopes. We could not catch a glance of a single figure moving in these great pleasure-grounds. The road winds round the walls; and the outer park, which is likewise planted with trees, and diversified ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Instead of answering, she hastily collected all the walking things, and carried them off to her room. Much astonished, as well as conscious that she had asked an unwise question, which must have sounded like prying, Estelle, in distress, ran ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... Mr. Derwentwater, "if there is any mystery, all right; I don't want to be prying;" but, as was natural, this only increased his curiosity. After an interval, he broke forth again. "A little mystery," he said, "suits them; a woman ought to be mysterious, with her long robes falling round ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... "aren't you? I find her alarming. When she looks at me, I feel such a worm. I want to slide into a hole and hide. But there is never a hole to be found. I have to remain erect, handing tea and bread-and-butter, while I mentally grovel. I almost pray that a hungry blackbird or a prying thrush may chance to come my way, and consider me juicy and appetising. You remember—the Vicar and Mrs. Vicar came to tea that day. She wore brown spots. But even the priestly blackbird, and the Levitical thrush, passed me by on ...
— The Upas Tree - A Christmas Story for all the Year • Florence L. Barclay
... savages, and many of them committed suicide rather than pass into slavery. Who has not heard of St. Ursula and her thousand British virgins, whose bones were said to be enshrined at Cologne Cathedral, until a prying medico reported that many of them were only dogs' bones—for which heresy he was expelled the city as ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... that door!" yelled the enraged man. "What right have you to be prying into my affairs? I hired you to do copying work for me, not ...
— The Young Firemen of Lakeville - or, Herbert Dare's Pluck • Frank V. Webster
... attributes, omniscient, ubiquitous, I mean to squelch free impulse, which is commonly iniquitous. But what's the good of being Chief Inspector of the Universe, And prying into everything from pompous Law to puny verse, If everything or nearly so, shows a confounded tendency To go right of its own accord? My Masterful Resplendency Would radiate aurorally, a world would ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 30, 1892 • Various
... the minutes by arraigning, convicting, and condemning Joe for the murder of old Isom. He did it so impressively that he had Constable Frost on edge over the tremendous responsibility that rested on his back. Bill was in a sweat, although the night was cool. He tiptoed around, listening, spying, prying; he stood looking up at Joe's window until his neck ached; he explored the yard for hidden weapons and treasure, and he peered and poked with a rake-handle into ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... this responsibility, the chaperon must avoid anything like espionage. She must not open letters; she must not be prying and inquisitive; she must not give reasons for the girl she chaperons to regard ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... elusive worm that feverish youth known as Tacks the Human Catastrophe, had finally succeeded in prying the rock loose and immediately thereafter Uncle Peter dropped his rod with a yell of terror and proceeded to ...
— Back to the Woods • Hugh McHugh
... curtain drawn tight, so that no prying outsider might see and tell, and ready to run at the first sign of an approaching visitor, Johnny sat down on the hearth-rug, tailor fashion, to begin the quilt. A slateful of calculations had shown ...
— The Quilt that Jack Built; How He Won the Bicycle • Annie Fellows Johnston
... sleepy town. The morning shout of one good rooster was the only evidence of life and health in all the place. Everything seemed kindly and familiar—the glassy water; evergreen islands; the Indians with their canoes and baskets and blankets and berries; the jet ravens, prying and flying about the streets and spruce trees; and the bland, hushed ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... gentle, almost reverent touch was in strange contrast with his flushed, angry face and gleaming eyes. "This is the worst that's happened yet," he muttered. "Oh, Lemuel Weeks! It's well you are not here now, or we might both have cause to be sorry. It was you who put these prying, and for all I know, thieving creatures into my house, and it was as mean a trick as ever one man played another. You and this precious cousin of yours thought you could bring about a marriage; you put her ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... "You dirty, prying civilian!" he panted at me, as he swayed this way and that with the pull of my body. "You shall have your wish, by G—! You want to see inside, do ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes |
