"Pick" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Early in April there is one hillside near us which glows like a tender flame with the white of the bloodroot. About the same time we find the shy mayflower, the trailing arbutus; and although we rarely pick wild flowers, one member of the household always plucks a little bunch of mayflowers to send to a friend working in Panama, whose soul hungers for the Northern spring. Then there are shadblow and delicate anemones, about the time ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... come to pick it up? Who will become the sharer of this dangerous secret? To whom will this mute paper proclaim the shocking news that the queen has fallen into disgrace, and is this very day to be dragged to the Tower ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... Nobbles. 'Oh, I wish me and you could walk straight in and be there! I would love to pick those golden apples, and to blow those trumpets, and to play about with the children ...
— 'Me and Nobbles' • Amy Le Feuvre
... engage in the hand-to-hand encounters with tigers and wolves, such as Marjorie and Kingdon undertook, for fear she'd be thrown down on the ground. And, indeed, her fears were well founded, for the valiant fighters were often thrown by their fierce adversaries, and rolled over and over, only to pick themselves up and ...
— Marjorie's Busy Days • Carolyn Wells
... long before they were under weigh, but they did not reach the house quite so quickly as Biddy had left it. Mrs Kelly had to pick her way in the half light, and observed that "she'd never been up to the house since old Simeon Lynch built it, and when the stones were laying for it, she didn't think she ever would; but one never knowed what changes ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... PICK UP A WIND, TO. Traverses made by oceanic voyagers; to run from one trade or prevalent wind to another, with as little intervening ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... be a witness of the transaction, for, in my opinion, it will be a swindle on the part of Checkynshaw; and if I can pick him up on it I mean to ...
— Make or Break - or, The Rich Man's Daughter • Oliver Optic
... the nut-trees towards the house. The Vicomte d'Audierne followed, and Signor Bruno came last. When they emerged upon the lawn in view of Mrs. Carew and Mr. Bodery, who were walking together, the Vicomte dropped his handkerchief. Signor Bruno attempted to pick it up, and there was a slight delay caused by the interchange of some ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... the little Pig; "I will throw you down one." And he threw it so far that, while the Wolf was gone to pick it up, the little Pig jumped down and ...
— The Golden Goose Book • L. Leslie Brooke
... using one of his little anecdotes that, ten to one, he had cribbed from some woman. I told him that I considered his whole class as fair game for literary pilfering. That women had been taxed to build colleges to educate men, and if we could pick up a literary crumb that had fallen from their feasts, we surely had a right to it. Moreover, I told him that man's duty in the world was to work, to dig and delve for jewels, real and ideal, and lay them at woman's feet, for her to use as she might ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... seconds there was perfect silence in my study. No one stooped to pick the diamond from the floor—the diamond which now had blood upon it. No one, so far as my sense informed me, stirred. But when, following those moments of stupefaction, we all looked up—Hi Wing Ho, like a phantom, ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... they are women who are not very robust and well developed, physically or nervously, and who are not well adapted for child-bearing, but who still possess many excellent qualities, and they are always womanly. One may, perhaps, say that they are the pick of the women whom the average man would pass by. No doubt, this is often the reason why they are open to homosexual advances, but I do not think it is the sole reason. So far as they may be said to constitute a class, they seem to ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... they are thinking more of the poor wounded fellows they will have to pick up on their way back. Hallo! Look! Steady ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... started for Dream Bay by the shortest road. The box had not been disturbed. Godfrey opened it with care. Amid a storm of admiring exclamations from Tartlet, he began to pick out ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... "He's worse than a kid. I'll have to pack his outfit, if he has anything. What he hasn't got, we'll buy. So, Mother, you trot out his clothes, boots, some bedding, a gun, chaps, spurs, everything there is, and let me pick ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... took a more northerly route than that by which they had approached the Amazon; and, if it was attended with fewer difficulties, they experienced yet greater distresses from their greater inability to overcome them. Their only nourishment was such scanty fare as they could pick up in the forest, or happily meet with in some forsaken Indian settlement, or wring by violence from the natives. Some sickened and sank down by the way, for there was none to help them. Intense misery had made them selfish; and many a poor ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... cannot be engaged to dinner, for everybody believes you are at Jericho. What say you to dining with me? Less than the Muses and more than the Graces, certainly, if you come. Lady Beatrice has invited herself, and she is to pick up a lady, and I was to look out for a couple of agreeable men. Huge is coming, and you will complete ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... some twenty slaves, of all ages and sizes, mingled, each side striving to catch the ball, and with many feints and antics to pass it on to a friend. When it fell out of bounds, the juniors ran to pick it up with frantic screams. It was interesting, as showing the difference between the highlander and the lowlander; one might pass years on the Congo plains without seeing so much voluntary exertion: yet a similar game of ball is described by the Rev. Mr. Waddell ("Twenty-nine years ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... "we can take an object and transport it any place we want. Not only that, we can pick up any object from an indefinite distance and bring it ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... suggestion of the very parties against whom they are afterwards enforced. Our great clusters of corporations, huge trusts and fabulously wealthy multi-millionaires, employ the very best lawyers they can obtain to pick flaws in these statutes after their passage; but they also employ a class of secret agents who seek, under the advice of experts, to render hostile legislation innocuous by making it unconstitutional, often through the insertion of what ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... back upstairs and join them," Ferris said, with a hard note to his voice, "or you can suicide, or just sit in a corner and go quietly mad. Take your pick." ...
— Forever • Robert Sheckley
... chaff market, which is an industry in itself. The wheatfarmer, properly speaking, only cuts what he will require for his own horses. A reaper and binder is drawn by three horses, and will cut from 10 to 12 acres per day. One man is required to drive the machine, and one or two men to pick up and stook the sheaves. Some farmers cut their own hay for chaff, working the machine either by hand or with horse-works for turning the cutting wheel, but the majority have the hay cut by contractors, who travel through the country with a special plant for the purpose, charging $2.16 per ton ...
— Wheat Growing in Australia • Australia Department of External Affairs
... Playing so wonderfully well the end-rush position, his alertness in falling on the ball often meant much distance for Yale. He had wonderful judgment in deciding whether to fall on the ball or pick it up. ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... good look at the grounds back of Number Five. If the murderer dropped anything, I want to be the man to pick it up." ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... to pick up the horrid thing, for fear the nice young man would feel obliged to do it for me; but, in my indecorous haste, I caught hold of the wrong end and emptied the entire contents on the stone flagging. Aunt Celia didn't notice; she had turned with ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... to introduce that fashion on the present occasion. He did not think very much of Mr. Daubeny's Bill. So he told his friends at the Duke's house. The Bill was full of faults,—went too far in one direction, and not far enough in another. It was not difficult to pick holes in the Bill. But the sin of sins consisted in this,—that it was to be passed, if passed at all, by the aid of men who would sin against their consciences by each vote they gave in its favour. What but treachery could be expected ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... worth talking about," said Hilary. "You might as well pick up that case of yours and go home again. I'm going down to the square in ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... as they had come to the town now they had enough to do to pick their way through the crowded streets. 'The mills can't be working, Naomi. Here are some of the chief hands,' ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... the Octopus seems not to use it against the Crab. He prefers to pull the poor Crab to pieces with his strong arms, and then to pick up the crab-meat with the hooked beak. When full-fed, he retires to his den; he sometimes pulls shells and stones over the entrance, and ...
— Within the Deep - Cassell's "Eyes And No Eyes" Series, Book VIII. • R. Cadwallader Smith
... and the Duke of York to the top of Silbury hill, his Royal Highnesse happened to cast his eye on some of these small snailes on the turfe of the hill. He was surprised with the novelty, and commanded me to pick some up, which I did, about a dozen or more, immediately; for they are in great abundance. The next morning as he was abed with his Dutches at Bath he told her of it, and sent Dr. Charleton to me for them, to shew ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... through a good part of it," said Ranald, quietly, "and I am convinced that here we have the pick of Canada, and I venture to say of the American Continent. Timber, hundreds of square miles of it, fish—I've seen that river so packed with salmon that I couldn't shove my ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... "Pick up some of those thin branches and throw them on the fire," said the doctor; and I hurried to obey his command, when there was another awful howling roar, and the creature, whatever it was, charged at me; but I threw on the branches ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... to think of it. Wherever the poor girl goes, trying to peel her potatoes in peace and quietness, we burst in upon her. What we ought to do now is to take a walk in the wood. It is a pretty wood. We might say we had come to pick wild flowers." ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... to go on shore and try and pick up some news? We may gain intelligence which may be of importance; at all events, we shall pass the time more pleasantly than ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... a few willows, and an occasional clump of bananas and of oranges. The city of Lima is now in a wretched state of decay: the streets are nearly unpaved; and heaps of filth are piled up in all directions, where the black gallinazos, tame as poultry, pick up bits of carrion. The houses have generally an upper story, built on account of the earthquakes, of plastered woodwork but some of the old ones, which are now used by several families, are immensely large, and would rival in suites of apartments the ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... then, Paul. Every one will want to go along; but that would be sure to queer the job. Pick out several likely ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... to pick, dig and remove the earth, and split stones; you don't intend doing this work yourself, ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... stores, trumpery, cheap things. She took magazines and penny papers from news stands. But oh, she descended to the dreadful depths of—oh, I can hardly tell it—she was detected in trying to pick a man's pocket. It is here that I wish to employ you as an agent of restitution, or rather retribution, I should say. Will you please take this ring off my left hand and take it to the man she tried to rob? I cannot use the fingers ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... Commandant walked off towards the Barracks, pausing on his way to pick up Miss Gabriel's antimacassar-waistcoat, which he had taken the precaution to leave ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... problem, but over such questions as the number of beads to wear round one's neck when visiting the medicine-man, whether the national custom of saluting the rising sun need be observed on cloudy mornings, and whether the medicine-man is entitled to the pick of the yams on any day but Sunday. People of different opinions on these points decline to eat together or to enter into social intercourse with one another; and their children are ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat; "I wouldn't wonder a bit now if you wass to pick up a sweet'arr amongst the gentry, because you are beginning to speak English as good as the Vicare, and you are not quite like the girls ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... Prof. Browne. He seems, for instance, to have lacked that tender sense of life characteristic of the Buddhists, and to have indulged a spiritual ambition which Jesus would not have approved. But it is unimportant to pick holes in such a genuine saint. I would rather lay stress on his unwillingness to think evil even of his worst foes. And how abominable was the return he met with! Weary of fighting, the Bābīs yielded themselves ...
— The Reconciliation of Races and Religions • Thomas Kelly Cheyne
... if you approve of this in any manner, you may perhaps add partly to the collection from your own cabinet and those of Mr. John Home, Dr. Robertson, and others of your mutual friends which you may pick up before you return hither. But if you wholly disapprove of this scheme say nothing of it, here let it drop, for without your concurrence I will not publish a single word of his. I should be glad, ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... there were women who had been dropped out of society, like Madame de Versanne, who, with her sunken eyes and faded face, was not likely again to pick up in the street a bracelet worth ten thousand francs. There was a literary woman who signed herself Fraisiline, and wrote papers on fashion—she was so painted and bedizened that some one remarked that the principal establishments she praised in print probably paid her in ...
— Jacqueline, v3 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... dress fer years; How she'd have appliqued revers; The kind o' trimmin' she would pick; How 't would be made to fit her slick; The kind o' black silk she would choose, The pattern she would like to use. An' I can mind the time when Pa Give twenty dollars right to Ma, An' said: "Now that's enough, I guess, Go buy yourself that party dress." An' Ma ...
— The Path to Home • Edgar A. Guest
... descendants of these who "began again to do ungodliness more than the former ones.'' Doubtless the problem of evil is most imperfectly treated, even from the writer's point of view. But it would be cruel to pick holes in a writer whose thinking, like that of St Paul, is coloured ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... and potatoes must be put in the hill. The youngest boy must ride the horse in furrowing, spread the new-mown grass, stow away the hay high up under the roof of the barn, gather stones in heaps after the wheat was reaped, or pick the apples in the orchard. Each member of the family must commit to memory the verses of ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various
... the deer go by unharmed by them; then, as the wolves followed, for each to pick out one and fire. Then, if attacked by the rest of the pack, they were to close in together and fight them with their axes and their knives. If, however, they were not attacked after they had fired, they were to again load their guns ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young
... Paris to one of the smaller hotels in Venice. The missis thought I'd do well to pick up a bit of Italian, and perhaps she fancied Venice for herself. That's one of the advantages of our profession. You can go about. It was a second-rate sort of place, and one evening, just before lighting-up time, I had the salle-a-manger all to myself, and had just taken ...
— The Observations of Henry • Jerome K. Jerome
... personally conducted affair, it ain't so poor. I'm missin' no dates, I notice. And tuck this away; if it was a case of Vee and a whole squad of aunts, or an uninterrupted two-some with one of these nobody-home dolls, I'd pick Vee and the gallery. Uh-huh! I'm just that good ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... gone I read the paper, which proved to be a letter, evidently written to Mr. Benton, and the signature was plainly, "your heart-broken Mary," I could only pick out half sentences, but read enough to show me the treachery and sorrow, aye, more, a life cursed with shame, and at ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... The enemy threatened it, and they meant to defend it. Their shops were closed; their furnace and foundry fires, which like those watched by the Vestals had been burning from time immemorial, were put out; and the people poured from the city and covered the neighboring hills, armed with pick and shovel. "Fourteen thousand at work to-day on the defences," says the Pittsburg Gazette of the 18th June. Such a people stood in no need of bayonets from a neighboring State to protect them; while the apathy of the ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood
... and some of them were audacious enough to pounce upon our caps, and wreak their vengeance by giving us one or two hearty pecks. The cockswain, working like a telegraph with his swinging oar, generally contrived to pick off ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... I have n't done one single thing since I can remember," Ruby said, impatiently, to Ruthy one day when her little friend came over to see her; "I have n't done one single thing but pick out bastings and have Miss Abigail telling me how good I ought to be 'cause I have so many new dresses. I do wish she was all done and ...
— Ruby at School • Minnie E. Paull
... lost child of St. Allen. St. Allen is a parish on the high ground about four miles from Truro, and there, in the little hamlet of Treonike, or, as it is now called, Trefronick, on a lovely spring evening years and years ago, a small village boy wandered out to pick flowers in a little copse not far from ...
— Legend Land, Vol. 1 • Various
... We did so with many compliments, trusting that our visit had produced a favourable impression. I was very anxious to know what was thought of the present,—the largest we have yet given, much larger than what was received by either Hateetah or Wataitee. I sent two of my servants about to pick up the news in town. I was not disappointed; I hoped to please his highness, and succeeded. He was greatly delighted; and, moreover, displayed immense generosity for an African. Immediately we had retired he called together all ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... alas, we need not weep). That is the appalling thing. But at present, at any rate, I am a rag at your feet, Joanna—no, at yours, Mabel. Are you going to pick me ...
— Dear Brutus • J. M. Barrie
... my cost. No, no, the idea of play is your own and you shall carry it out. I am always unlucky, and as for knowledge of the game, you can pick that up by watching a round or two; ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... things. She was walking through the court of the Palace on her way to wait upon Their Majesties, when she espied something glittering on the pavement, and bade the boy in buttons who was holding up her train, to go and pick up the article shining yonder. He was an ugly little wretch, in some of the late groom-porter's old clothes cut down, and much too tight for him; and yet, when he had taken up the ring (as it turned out to be), ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to my scheme for sending this note to the studio at a time when our dear Hortense is there by herself?" asked Valerie. "Last evening I heard from Stidmann that Wenceslas is to pick him up at eleven this morning to go on business to Chanor's; so that gawk Hortense will ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... them Iack; they leave us no fees at all, for our attendance. I thinke they use to set their bones in silver they pick them so cleane.—See, see, see, ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... striking twelve she had suddenly risen up and fled through the ballroom, disappearing no one knew how or where, and dropping one of her glass slippers behind her in her flight. How the king's son had remained inconsolable, until he chanced to pick up the little glass slipper, which he carried away in his pocket, and was seen to take it out continually, and look at it affectionately, with the air of a man very much in love; in fact, from his behavior during the remainder of the evening, all the court and royal family were convinced ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... nicely wash them, and pick off any dead or discoloured leaves from the outsides; put them into a saucepan of boiling water, with salt and soda in the above proportion; keep the pan uncovered, and let them boil quickly over a brisk fire until tender; drain, dish, and serve with a tureen ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... closely in her wake. At eight in the evening, Capt. Hull determined to meet the show of force with force. The drums beat, and the men were called to quarters. The battle-lanterns were lighted fore and aft. The tops were crowded with sailors, armed with short carbines, to pick off the men on the enemy's decks. Along the gun-deck stood the men at the guns; and an officer, describing the scene, says they took hold of the ropes as if they were about to jerk the guns through the ship's sides. All were enthusiastic over ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... sheep can pick out his own lamb among a hundred, doctor, and I am sure they are alike as so many peas. Surely that ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... Sanction, the court of Vienna resolved to sacrifice the Company and suspended its charter. It became bankrupt in 1784 and ceased to exist in 1793. But in the meantime in 1733 the English and Dutch stirred up the Mahommedan general at Hugli to pick a quarrel. He attacked Bankipur and the garrison of only fourteen persons set sail for Europe. Thus German ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... him an alliance between the two nations, to subsist after a peace. To this he hearkened very readily, and offered to take the matter ad referendum, having authority to do no more. His intention was, that he might appear to negotiate, in order to gain time to pick out, if possible, the whole secret of the transactions between Britain and France; to disclose nothing himself, nor bind his masters to any conditions; to seek delays till the Parliament met, and then observe what turn it took, and what would be the issue of ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... of it! Here you are actually in Arden all ready for me to pick up and put in Miriam's place without having to budge from my desk. The Sylvan Players open with "As You Like It." If the critics like it—and you—as well as I think they will, I'll book you straight through the summer. Felton's managing for ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... C—— on a false pretence. This, however, did not seem to disturb his good humour, or to make him unhappy, and his answer was to call 'Bill,' who was acting as porter, and to tell him to give the gentleman the key of the 'book room,' and to bring down any of the books he might pick out, and he 'would sell 'em.' I followed 'Bill,' and soon found myself in a charming nook of a library, full of books, mostly old divinity, but with a large number of the best miscellaneous literature ...
— Enemies of Books • William Blades
... "I pick up?" she murmured. Then with a blush, whether of anger or pride I could not tell, she coldly answered: "Oh, that was something of my own,—something I had just dropped. I had rather not tell you ...
— The House in the Mist • Anna Katharine Green
... time this tiny creature put down her heavy burden to rest; it was, of course, only relatively heavy; a man would have made nothing of it. From time to time she was forced to stop and pick up the bits of coke that tumbled from her heaping pail. She could not consent to lose one of them, and at last, when she found she could not make all of them stay on the heap, she thriftily tucked them into the pockets of her jacket, and trudged sturdily on till she met a ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... interrupted. "I have something to suggest—even to demand. It is that you, and every one else present, select a chair and sit down. I suggest, though I do not demand, that you pick comfortable chairs. For the vigil that you are about to begin will prove ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... is supposed, who consider themselves aggrieved and injured when a discarded lover consoles himself with someone else. Nor was she one of the numerous people who will not throw away what they no longer want for fear someone else will pick it up. She had such a strong sympathy for Dulcie Clay that she had said to herself several times she would like to see her perfectly happy. Edith was convinced that the nurse adored her patient, but she was not at all sure that he returned the admiration. Edith herself had only seen him ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... Again and again the steel fangs of the pick ate their way through the solid timber. The lock yielded quickly, but, heavily barred at top and bottom, the good door resisted staunchly. Polly had glided away from Harold's side. He fancied that she had sought a place of safety, and rejoiced thereat; but in a moment she reappeared. She ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... the corn well with a new stiff brush broom kept for the purpose, changing the water often. Put through half a dozen or more waters, and then take the corn out by handfuls, rubbing each well between the hands to loosen the remaining hulls, and drop again into clear water. Pick out all hulls. Cleanse the corn through several more waters if it is to be dried and kept before using. Well hulled corn is ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... Which pleased Gudrun. She was weary, oh so weary of Gerald's gripped intensity of physical motion. Loerke let the sledge go wildly, and gaily, like a flying leaf, and when, at a bend, he pitched both her and him out into the snow, he only waited for them both to pick themselves up unhurt off the keen white ground, to be laughing and pert as a pixie. She knew he would be making ironical, playful remarks as he wandered in hell—if he were in the humour. And that pleased her immensely. It seemed like a rising ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... amalgam man before he started in to get one. Also—and it struck me as a sentiment I had never heard from a mine superintendent before—that if we sent out for men half of those we got might be riffraff and make trouble for us, without so much as a sheriff within a hundred miles. "I'd sooner pick up new men one at a time," he concluded, "even if it takes a month. We've ladies here, and if we got in a gang of tramps——" he gave a shrug and a ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... was because of the serpents. I couldn't pick up even the least little bit of a diamond, ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin
... Grandson of Ham, Noah's second Son, the same who was cursed by his Father for exposing him in his Drunkenness: This Nimrod was the first who it seems Satan pick'd out for a Hero: Here he inspir'd him with ambitious Thoughts, dreams of Empire, and having the Government of all the Rest, that is to say, universal Monarchy; the very same Bait with which he has plaid upon the Frailty of Princes, and ensnar'd the greatest of them ever since, ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... away with the idea that I intend to pack you off aboard the first ship that happens to come along, suitable or otherwise; I reckon upon falling in with several ships within the next thirty-six hours, we shall therefore be able to pick and choose; and you may rest assured that I will not put you aboard a vessel until I have thoroughly satisfied myself that you will be quite comfortable and happy in her. And although we have been speaking only of homeward-bound ships, thus far, we must not forget ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... light consumer goods. The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and bilateral donors have provided funds to rehabilitate Tanzania's deteriorated economic infrastructure. Growth in 1991-2000 featured a pick up in industrial production and a substantial increase in output of minerals, led by gold. Natural gas exploration in the Rufiji Delta looks promising and production could start by 2002. Recent banking reforms have helped increase private sector growth and investment. Continued ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... which it is from your friend in prison—hide down in the hold until the guards leave her; then join them; and when she sinks fasten them to a spar and drift down the river with them till out of sight of the town, when Pierre could row off and pick them up." ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... trouble while I'm away. I've bought a ranch, for fruit only, on the East Coast, between Palm Beach and Miami, but not paying these expensive prices, no, not never. And I shall live there for better but not for worse, for richer, but most positively not for poorer. I pick my own alligator pears off my own tree unless I want to sell them for fifteen cents on the tree. Bathing, one-half mile ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... know a score or two of madcaps here hard by, whom I can pick up from taverns, and gaming-houses, and bordels; those I'll bring to aid him,—Now, Florimel, there's an argument for wenching: Where would you have had so many honest men together, upon the sudden, for a ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... who didn't feel she really owed the girl any further consideration. "And next time you try to get even with anybody, pick out some one who'll let ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... newspapers "revelations:" the defence was taken by surprise, and did not know what new piece of evidence was about to be produced: and even the examining counsel was, for such a man, subdued a little by the other complicating threads of the web among which he had to pick his way. ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... especially. You may think it a trivial matter, but to me there was something exasperating in seeing one's brother on a park seat in the dusk, with his girl's head leaning on one's own fancy vest! He would just shy whatever he had borrowed on the bed and leave me to pick the hair off it. What they call a Superman, I believe, nowadays. I ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... could not, sir. You two boys think it all easy enough, but you are not beasts of the field, to be able to pick up a living in this wild solitary land. Do you think you can join some tribe, and become young Indian chiefs? Rubbish. Find gold? What's the use of it hundreds of miles away from places where it can be sold. Play Robinson Crusoe in the woods? Bah! Where is your ship to go to for stores? ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... creatures. We have always had the reputation of being pious, so we will allow them to pick up the corn with us; they don't interrupt our talk, and they scrape so prettily ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... yourself, my dear fellow, that if the bey throws his handkerchief into that bevy of pretty girls, there must be at least one who knows enough to pick it up. Those innocent creatures wouldn't know what it meant! Oh! I have thought of everything, you'll see. It's all mounted and arranged as if it were on the stage. Farm ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... I pick up the little sentence she has given me. It is the first time that approval of that sort has brought her near to me. She has intelligence within her; she understands certain things. Women, in spite of thoughtless impulses, are quicker in understanding than ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... Swift wishes a pass from me to follow your army to pick up rags and cast-off clothing. I will give it to him if ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... dogs to read by signs, if they are interested in the persons. They read Browny's meaning: that Matey had only to come and snatch her; he was her master, and she was a brave girl, ready to go all over the world with him; had taken to him as he to her, shot for shot. Her taking to the pick of the school was a capital proof that she was of the right sort. To be sure, she could not ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... all began to bite at the same instant; seizing a piece of the skin with their powerful pincers, they twisted themselves round with it, as if determined to tear it out. Their bites are so terribly sharp that the bravest must run, and then strip to pick off those that still cling with their hooked jaws, as with steel forceps. This kind abounds in damp places, and is usually met with on the banks of streams. We have not heard of their actually killing ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... facts they would perhaps cease to complain that China continues to evade their demands by the only weapon of the weak—cunning. When you have knocked a man down, trampled on him, and picked his pocket, you can hardly expect him to enter into social relations with you merely because you pick him up and, retaining his property, propose that you should now be friends and begin to do business. The obliquity of vision of the European residents on all these points is extraordinary. They cannot see that wrong has been done, and that wrong engenders wrong. ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... disturbed. After, however, dozing for a few more hours, breakfast over, and his family seen to, off he sped with all his former cheerfulness and activity, till he found himself perched on a branch of the very tallest elm-tree he could pick out, and one, too, right above where the rose and the dewdrop were. Dear me! how he piped, and chirruped, and throstled! I thought the Nightingale had done wonders in that way; but it was nothing to the Thrush. He doubtless was under the impression that ...
— The Story of a Dewdrop • J. R. Macduff
... following passage from the record of an eye-witness of what he describes:[4]—"No tongue can tell, no pen describe, no ear may hear that which we have seen (at Rheims, Chalons, Rethel, &c). Famine and death on all sides, and bodies unburied. Those remaining alive pick up from the fields the rotten oat-straw, and make bread of it by mixing it with mud. Their faces are quite black; they have no longer the semblance of human beings, but that of phantoms.... War has placed every one on ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... of girl-life among savage and primitive peoples are to be found in the pages of Professor Mason (113. 207-211). In America, the education varied from what the little girl could pick up at her mother's side between her third and thirteenth years, to the more elaborate system of instruction in ancient Mexico, where, "annexed to the temples were large buildings used as seminaries for girls, a sort of aboriginal Wellesley ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... girl," said Georgie, consolingly; and we ran on contentedly, wading across the shallow pools of salt water, clambering over the rocks, and now and then stopping to pick up a bright pebble or shell. The whole scene comes vividly before me as I think of it now:—the gray and brown cliffs, with their sharp crags and narrow clefts half choked up by the fine, sifting sand, the wet "snappers" clinging to the rocks along the water's edge; the sea itself clear ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... "Daddy came down the Tasan once on a raft, and he had a hard time getting home. He may be coming that way now, so we may be able to pick him up." ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... not see Mrs. Sohlberg again for over a week—ten days exactly—when one afternoon Aileen came for him in a new kind of trap, having stopped first to pick up the Sohlbergs. Harold was up in front with her and she had left a place behind for Cowperwood with Rita. She did not in the vaguest way suspect how interested he was—his manner was so deceptive. Aileen imagined that she was the superior ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... balance. I have a warm admiration for Laodameia and for the great Ode; but if I am to tell the very truth, I find Laodameia not wholly free from something artificial, and the great Ode not wholly free from something declamatory. If I had to pick out poems of a kind most perfectly to show Wordsworth's unique power, I should rather choose poems such as Michael, The Fountain, The Highland Reaper.[388] And poems with the peculiar and unique beauty which distinguishes these, Wordsworth produced in considerable ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... things in a mat, and, being slung on poles, is carried to a solitary grave, where it is laid in a recumbent position. Nothing will induce an Aino to go near a grave. Even if a valuable bird or animal falls near one, he will not go to pick it up. A vague dread is for ever associated with the departed, and no dream of Paradise ever lights for the ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... two, who was standing up, was of gigantic size and was driving a pick with all his might into the wall, whilst the other, kneeling beside him, was collecting the pieces of stone. The face of the first was lost to Parry in the darkness; but as the second turned around ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... beautiful semi-tropical vegetation. But one thing was exceedingly vexatious. On the deck of the steamer were various tourists who enjoyed themselves by shooting the beautiful birds and interesting saurians of the region—mere wanton killing, with never any stop to pick up the bodies of these creatures. It reminded me of the old wastefulness in the North,—the exhaustive fishing of the rivers and streams, especially the trout-streams; the killing of deer by hundreds; and the wanton extermination of the buffalo. ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... always walk about—walk about in town—when he always rides in the bush?" I said, "Oh, to do their business." "Business," he asked, "what's that?" I said, "Why, to get money, to be sure." "Money," he said; "white fellow can't pick up money ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... But he knew it was no use. Obviously he could pick up Astro but they could neither see ...
— The Quantum Jump • Robert Wicks
... pick out me in particular?"—He cast a glance at a mirror which he was passing at the moment. "What is there peculiar about me? And what sort of a beauty am I?—My face is like everybody else's face.... However, she ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... a porter who, in spite of his humble calling, was an intelligent and sensible man. One morning he was sitting in his usual place with his basket before him, waiting to be hired, when a tall young lady, covered with a long muslin veil, came up to him and said, "Pick up your basket and follow me." The porter, who was greatly pleased by her appearance and voice, jumped up at once, poised his basket on his head, and accompanied the lady, saying to himself as he went, "Oh, happy day! ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... body knows that book to be a forgery out of the curates shop. But to give the world a true test both of the Presbyterian and the Episcopal eloquence, let us appeal to the printed sermons on both sides. Do thou take the printed sermons of the Presbyterians, and pick out of them all the ridiculous things thou ever canst. And if I don't make a larger collection of more impious and ridiculous things out of the printed sermons of the Episcopalians, citing book and page for them, ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... 'em out of their eye teeth if they happened to have any," said the young man coolly, beginning to pick his ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... boats. It will be no difficult thing for us to swim from one of these islands to another, and the troops must pass through the midst of them, 'n order to get into the lower lake. Any reasonable man would stop to pick ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... moved, and had his being on the field of an undecided struggle for existence—the New England Puritan most emphatically so. He was under arms in body much of the time—in mind all the time. Nothing can be truer than to say that. And yet people everlastingly pick and poke at him for being stern-featured and deficient in ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... and pretty air,' said Glastonbury, who was devoted to music. 'I never heard it before. You travellers pick up choice things. Where did ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... right, sir," said the sugar-planter, who was, in spite of his rough colonial aspect and his wild-looking home, thoroughly gentlemanly. "You will have the pick of the land, and can select as good a piece as you like. I shall look you ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn
... they not only have the strength to do this, but their bodies being covered with down they are protected from the sun or cold. Examples of such birds are the Quail, Grouse, Sandpipers, Plovers, and Ducks. The young of these and allied species are {44} able from the beginning to pick up their food, and they quickly learn from the example of their parents what is desirable. Soon they are able to shift for themselves, although one or both of the parents continue to attend ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... the round brown nuts down on a flat stone under the tree, cracking the shell so they could pick out the white meat. ...
— Mappo, the Merry Monkey • Richard Barnum
... scuttle, as the day wore on, admitted a larger number of pressed men to the comparative freedom of the deck than was consistent with prudence. The number eventually swelled to fourteen—sturdy, determined fellows, the pick of the hold. One of them, having a fiddle, struck up a merry tune, the rest fell to dancing, the tender's crew who were off duty caught the infection and joined in, while the officers stood looking on, tolerantly ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... won't matter. It's the big trunk that holds the things I don't often use, and if I can't unlock it no one else can, that's certain. So I shall rest easy until I need something out of it, and then I'll get a locksmith to pick the lock." ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... be a very rich man, Hubert, one of the richest in all London; yet set not your heart on wealth, and above all do not ape nobility or strive to climb from the honest class of which you come into the ranks of those idle and dissolute cut-throats and pick-brains who are called the great. Lighten their pockets if you will, but do not seek to wear their silken, scented garments. That ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard
... have a letter from the publishers of these same paper 'Horribles,' enclosing six of my poor, starved, mental offsprings. They are the pick of fifty which they say I ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... quickly round. Some distance behind them there was certainly a lady dressed altogether in black, who, the moment she perceived that these two were regarding her, turned aside, and pretended to pick ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... memory to remember the design, which has taken them several months to learn by heart, is great. The constant strain on the eyes, which have to be kept fixed on each successive vertical thread so as not to pick up the wrong one, is very injurious to their sight. Many of the children of the factories I visited were sore-eyed, and there was hardly a poor mite who did not rub his eyes with the back of his hand when I asked him to suspend work for a moment. ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... like father!" she was wont to say. "But wherever did he pick it up, when father was in his grave, three years before the ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... he had better not make the attempt," said Jack, "or maybe the lion will pick him up on his way to the river. We must give a good account of the brute to-morrow, or he will ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... cups do influence me! Come, friends, get to work. To the pit quickly, pick in hand, ...
— Peace • Aristophanes
... teeth against the stones, And now they pick the Bishop's bones; They gnawed the flesh from every limb, For they were sent ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... work your old shrunk shanks As you deserve, old Drybones!—AEschinus Loiters intolerably. Dinner's spoil'd. Ctesipho thinks of nothing but his girl. 'Tis time for me to look to myself too. Faith, then I'll in immediately; pick out All the tid-bits, and tossing off my cups, In lazy leisure ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... The poor misguided men knew now that all hope had died. They would be re-employed when the company needed them, but it was January—the dullest month in the year. Every railroad in the West was laying men off. Hundreds of the new men were standing in line waiting for business to pick up, and this line must be exhausted before any of the old employees could be taken back. The management considered that the first duty of the company was to the men who had helped to win the strike. There was no disposition on the ...
— Snow on the Headlight - A Story of the Great Burlington Strike • Cy Warman
... less fortunate. He did not see the Zambo so soon as I did, and received a stroke above the temple, which levelled him with the ground. We were alone, without arms, half a league from any habitation, on a vast plain bounded by the sea. The Zambo, instead of attacking me, moved off slowly to pick up M. Bonpland's hat, which, having somewhat deadened the violence of the blow, had fallen off and lay at some distance. Alarmed at seeing my companion on the ground, and for some moments senseless, I thought of ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... procure. Two men are chosen from the ranks of the villagers. The one is led to the tub, his hands are tied behind his back, and he is told to eat the floating apple; the other has to take the basket in his hand and pick up while running all the eggs and arrange them in the basket before the apple is eaten. He who finishes his task first is the winner, and carries off the basket of eggs as a prize. It provokes great fun to see the ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... room, sir, just precisely at the wery same moment as you leaves it,' responded Sam, speaking in a forcible manner, and seating himself with perfect gravity. 'If I find it necessary to carry you away, pick-a-back, o' course I shall leave it the least bit o' time possible afore you; but allow me to express a hope as you won't reduce me to extremities; in saying wich, I merely quote wot the nobleman said to the fractious pennywinkle, ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... all the boys; but with a magnificent gesture Peter invited his opponent to pick up his sword. Hook did so instantly, but with a tragic feeling that Peter was ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... moved to pick up the papers in connection with Stener's case, satisfied that he had given the financiers no chance to say he had not given due heed to their plea in Cowperwood's behalf and yet certain that the politicians would be pleased that he had so nearly given Cowperwood the maximum while appearing ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... pattern,' and one does not get so good a view of the country as from the 'garden seats' on the roof of the omnibus; still there is nothing we like better on a warm morning than a good outing on the Vinolia tram that we pick up in Shaftesbury Avenue. There is a street running from Shaftesbury Avenue into Oxford Street, which was once the village of St. Giles, one of the dozens of hamlets swallowed up by the great maw of London, and it still looks like a hamlet, although it has been absorbed for many years. ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... daily life are the worship and devotion. We agree with Margaret Fuller when she says: "Reverence the highest; have patience with the lowest; let this day's performance of the meanest duty be thy religion. Are the stars too distant? Pick up the pebble that lies at thy feet, ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... were white and stringy like flannel as if to protect it from cold, wouldn't it be nice to be able to say at once that it had lived only in the snow, and that some one must have gone all that way up there above the snow line to pick it?" The children, taken aback by this unfair introduction of a floral stranger, were silent. Cressy thoughtfully accepted botany on those possibilities. A week later she laid on the master's desk a limp-looking plant with a stalk like ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... them often when he was a baby—bare, I mean. The shoulder ended smoothly where the arms should be. He grew up a very bright little fellow. Running barefoot all the time, as he did, I suppose he learned to pick up things with his toes very naturally. At any rate, when he was eight years old he could even handle his knife and ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... frequent gunner and fisher—he sailed his boat himself—he had a fine one presented to him by a ship-joiner—he had fowling-pieces presented to him by men that loved him; When he went with his five sons and many grandsons to hunt or fish, you would pick him out as the most beautiful and vigorous of the gang, You would wish long and long to be with him—you would wish to sit by him in the boat, that you and he might touch ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... obliged to leave her seat, and Michael, by the light of one of the lanterns, discovered an excavation bearing the marks of a miner's pick, where the young girl could rest in safety until ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... following the hush, it seemed to exercise the devil of quietude. I heard Mary's breath between her lips, and saw Andrew wheel sharply to pick a scale from the tree-trunk with a thumb-nail. Joshua's eyes went down to the preposterous metal in his hand; he shivered slightly like a dreamer awakening and thrust it in his pocket. And then, seeing Duncan turning toward the fence and me, I took ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... generation is emphasised by the very fact that such blamelessness is the first requirement for Christian conduct. It was a feather in Daniel's cap that the president and princes were foiled in their attempt to pick holes in his conduct, and had to confess that they would not 'find any occasion against him, except we find it concerning the laws of his God.' God is working in us in order that our lives should be such that malice is dumb in their ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... to my own judgment. I had no fear of failing to do the job well, or of displeasing my old master or his employer. If I had any doubts, they were about the men who were to work under my lead, whom I did not rate at all equally; and, if I could have had my pick, I should have thrown out some of the more sulky and lazy of them, and should have chosen from the other hands. But youngsters must not be choosers when they are on ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... Mac, for the present. He made one or two more trips, but always by daylight, taking care to pick up a swagman or a tramp when he had no passenger; but his "conveections" had had too much of a shaking, so he sold his turnout (privately and at a distance, for it was beginning to be called "the haunted ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... finally, and mounting once more let Suvy pick the way between great boulders, where gray rattlesnakes abounded in exceptional numbers. These were the hardships of the ride, all there were that Van felt worth the counting. He had reckoned without that far-off storm, which had raged in ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... get week-end leave, and would come on Friday. He met her at the station, and they drove thence straight to the hospital, to pick up Noel. Leila came to them in the waiting-room, and Pierson, thinking they would talk more freely about Noel's health if he left them alone, went into the recreation room, and stood watching a game of bagatelle between two convalescents. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... they first came and that they are the descendants of runaways from the Spanish settlements to the South about St. Augustine, or horses turned loose by DeSoto upon his ill-fated march to the Mississippi. These horses pick up a precarious living in out-of-the-way sections along the coast, and are occasionally taken and broken in by the negroes. They are the "poor horse trash" of ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... the first of August; but I think that none of them are so good to eat as some to smell. One is worth more to scent your handkerchief with than any perfume which they sell in the shops. The fragrance of some fruits is not to be forgotten, along with that of flowers. Some gnarly apple which I pick up in the road reminds me by its fragrance of all the wealth of Pomona,[5]—carrying me forward to those days when they will be collected in golden and ruddy heaps in the orchards ...
— Wild Apples • Henry David Thoreau
... staring down at the water with which his friend had so lately prepared himself for the hour of prayer; he stooped to pick up the white handkerchief he had ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... away. We said nothing, knowing that Aunt Olivia's secrets always came our way in time. When the rose-leaves were picked, we carried them in and upstairs in single file, Aunt Olivia bringing up the rear to pick up any stray rose-leaf we might drop. In the south-west room, where there was no carpet to fade, we spread them on newspapers on the floor. Then we put our sweet-grass baskets back in the proper place in the proper closet in the proper room. What would have happened to us, or to the ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery |
