"Prying" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... all the trouble that's come to this house I've had other things to do than to go prying into ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... evacuated by all inhabitants. The houses all in ruins. By now all the remaining windows have been boarded up and the blown-out doors barred against prying eyes. Here we are at an old estaminet called "Aux Coeurs joyeux." There's hardly anything but the sign left. At the cross-roads in the centre of the town is the church, so dismal. No roof, pillars broken ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... eruption of yon sleeping volcano. My thoughts wander in spite of myself toward Italy; I think, too, of my brother—the young and inexperienced Francisco! Moreover, there is in our mansion at Florence, a terrible mystery which prying eyes may seek to penetrate,—a closet containing a fearful secret, which, if published to the world, would heap loathing execrations and disgrace on the haughty name of Riverola! And now Francisco is the sole guardian ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... paid no heed. Just now she cared not what the future might hold, she must get beyond all prying eyes immediately, and see what that letter contained. She ran along the sodden pathway, splashing unheedingly through the mud and snow, and repeating to herself, over and over again, that he must be living, he must be, after all. ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... Bailies of Inverkeithing who had given him more of it than he desired. It was impossible but he should conceive some suspicion of two men lying all day concealed in a thicket and having no business to allege. As long as he stayed there he kept us in hot water with prying questions; and after he was gone, as he was a man not very likely to hold his tongue, we were in the greater impatience to ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... frosty noon George Morley and his fair cousin walked boldly en evidence, before the prying ghostly windows, across the broad gravel walks; gained the secluded shrubbery, the solitary deeps of park-land; skirted the wide sheet of water, and, passing through a private wicket in the paling, suddenly came upon the patch of osier-ground and humble garden, which ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... should any one come to pay Mammy a visit, it will not be suspected that you are here. You see, I took precautions for your safety, and they were not unnecessary. Some of the gentry who inhabit this island would not scruple to stick a knife into you, if they thought that you were prying ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... much attention to the duties of transcribing. The Dominicans were fond of the physical sciences, and have been accused of too much partiality for occult philosophy. Leland tells us that Robert Perserutatur, a Dominican, was over solicitous in prying into the secrets of philosophy,[462] and lays the same ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... 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 ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... with a half-smothered exclamation of intense, joyful surprise, ran swiftly away with it to the beach, never stopping till she had gained a spot beyond and away from the crowd, where no prying eye would watch her movements or note if the perusal of her ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... be right. And it was hidden from her; dark; it might be near or far, she could not touch it, for she could not find it. There was even no place for suspicion to take hold, unless the curiosity of the post office, or of some prying neighbour; she did not suspect Evan; and yet there was a great throb at her heart with the thought that in Evan's place she would never have let things rest. Nothing should have kept the silence so long unbroken; if the first letter got no answer, she would have written ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... thought anything of the fact that ten of the party took no part in the dance, but strolled around the fort prying into everything. Those who noticed them at all, thought their conduct showed nothing ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney
... been found, it has been assumed that Captain Allen died intestate. Mr. Wallingford suggests that a will may have been executed; and that a thorough search be made in order to discover if one exists. In consequence of this suggestion, Blanche and I have been hard at work for two days, prying into drawers, examining old papers, and looking into all conceivable, and I had almost said ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... these words Saint Paul would command the wise to cease their impertinent strivings after the things of the secret majesty, and to confine themselves to the revelation he has given us; for all such searching and prying will be in vain and harmful. Though you were to search forever you would nowhere attain the secrets of God's purposes, but would ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... rode, prying into and probing all sorts of odd nooks and crannies before we found any sign of blacks, and then, Roper giving the alarm, every one sat to attention. Roper had many ways of amusing himself when travelling through bush, but one of his greatest delights was nosing ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... father, John Chalmers, back to the days when he wore his own name, and it may have been that then he would have strived to go back to Monty's father and grandfather, and so on, as far as he could go. I knew about it because one day I was looking through his desk drawers—prying has always been a failing with me!—and I found a letter from Mr. Roddy, the newspaper reporter, who I had almost forgotten. Mr. Roddy said that he never had been able to find anything of the murderer's history before the time he was employed in Bermuda, ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... left Nan's lips unthinkingly, almost before she was aware, and she regretted them the moment they were spoken. She felt he must inevitably suspect her of a prying curiosity. ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... I cut some of the roses from the arch for Miss Emily, and wrapping them against the sun, carried them to the village. At the last I hesitated. It was so much like prying. I turned aside at the church intending to leave them there for the altar. But I could find no one in the parish house, and no vessel ...
— The Confession • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... 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 made up my mind, Duncan, that ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... position. She had done no wrong—not the shadow of wrong—and yet here was she, Christian Grey, discovered meeting and walking with a man whom her husband had distinctly forbidden the house—discovered both by her servant, who, having an old servant's love of prying into family affairs, no doubt knew of this prohibition, and by Miss Bennett, to whom she herself had said that Sir Edwin was a man unfit for ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... mysterious in 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 as to fall into their hands. ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... housefly wiped his feet before he came into the house or not. The gentleman with the drooping, cream-separator mustache was at perfect liberty to use the common drinking cup on the railroad train. The appendix lurked in its snug retreat, undisturbed by the prying fingers of curiosity. The fever-bearing skeeter buzzed and flitted, stinging where he pleased. The germ theory was unfathomed. Suitable food for an invalid was anything the invalid could afford to buy. Fresh air, and more especially fresh ...
— "Speaking of Operations—" • Irvin S. Cobb
... company was assembled, Lady Mabel led a party of the first comers through the apartments, to admire the results of the labor and taste bestowed upon them. Some of the more prying peeped into the kitchen to see ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... wanted to be with the girl instead of on the drive and he was more and more ashamed of the new weakness in his character. And he was also ashamed of the feeling that he wanted to find out more about her. In the past his manliness had despised prying and peering. He had been able to bluster loyally to old Dick; he was more truthful to himself. What was she, anyway? He would not admit that he had been so completely tipped upside down in all his hale resolves, aims, and objects by a mere nonentity ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... for fence-building is usually between seed-time and harvest, May and June; or in the fall after the crops are gathered. The work has its picturesque features,—the prying of rocks; supple forms climbing or swinging from the end of the great levers; or the blasting of the rocks with powder, the hauling of them into position with oxen or horses, or with both; the picking of the stone from ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... days agone had fetched the guard to subdue Danton's would-be assassins, and who likewise had resented Robespierre's prying as to the identity of Henriette's visitor, studied the girl at first a bit quizzically. Released from Salpetriere, eh? Was she the same sweet, pure Henriette she knew? Yes, the little Girard—la petite Girard—looked to be the same ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... 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 we shall ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... teeth the naked one cursed fiercely, and then, as though to avoid further questions, burst into a fit of coughing. Trembling and shaking, he drew the canvas cloak closer to him. But at no time did his anxious, prying eyes ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... an attic-window I found a Minie-ball. Prying it out with my knife, and holding it up ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... effected a brief whispered moment to tell him that Mr. Marrapit had thought her looking pale, had told her to take a long walk that afternoon. Immediately George gave her directions for the hut; there he would meet her at five o'clock; there not the most prying ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... took her by the hand, and raised her up, gazing at her with a great wonder and curiosity; and he led her behind a curtain into a deep recess of the window, where prying eyes could not see them, nor inquisitive ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... he turned away to the closet where hung the brass keys, and opened the door a-crack. He saw the hide of the crocodile leaning against it, and the overturned cups. "Just as that boy Hubert packed them," he thought to himself in satisfaction; "no one has been prying here. I flatter myself upon a skilful morning's work. I have knocked the legend out of the Baron's head. He'll see to it the girl keeps away. And as for yon impudent witling in the cage, we shall transport him beyond the seas, if convenient; if not, a knife in his gullet will make ...
— The Dragon of Wantley - His Tale • Owen Wister
... examine; it is our interest, too: but it must be with discretion, with an attention to all the circumstances and to all the motives; like sound judges, and not like cavilling pettifoggers and quibbling pleaders, prying into flaws and hunting for exceptions. Look, Gentlemen, to the whole tenor of your member's conduct. Try whether his ambition or his avarice have justled him out of the straight line of duty,—or whether ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... unacquainted with the manners and traditions of the country where the scene is cast, notes are added to give some account of the principal charms and spells of that night, so big with prophecy to the peasantry in the west of Scotland. The passion of prying into futurity makes a striking part of the history of human nature in its rude state, in all ages and nations; and it may be some entertainment to a philosophic mind, if any such honour the author with a perusal, to see the remains of it among the ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... fear his prying propensities!" cried Joseph. "Let him watch our proceedings—and much good may it do him. He will see a new order of things in Austria. Will you stand by me, prince, and lend me a helping hand until ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... winked at him as though it were aware of the absurdity of anything so trivial being held in such high esteem. More of the "calico," which really was an inexpensive but tasteful chintz, hung against the wall and served to hide from prying eyes the child's meagre wardrobe, and a bow of it was perkily tied to the ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... was like a curtain let down between the prying, clattering world without and the strange peace within: the old man in his perfect sleep; the young, misused wife in that passing oblivion borrowed from death and as tender and compassionate while ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... 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 shrubbery ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... scarce might speak; His trembling tones were faint and weak: "O Giant King, in vain we try The purpose of the foe to spy. Their strength and number none may tell, And Rama guards his legions well. He leaves no hope to prying eyes, And parley with the chiefs denies: Each road and path a Vanar guard, Of mountain size, has closed and barred. Soon as my feet an entrance found By giants was I seized and bound, And wounded sore I fell beneath Their fists and knees ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... as a crow and as prying as a magpie and I venture to say thee is a roving scamp. But I may as well talk ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... in, and direct, human affairs, and invoke all spirits, both good and evil, in hazardous undertakings. Each tribe have their conjurers and magicians, on whose prophetic declarations they place much confidence, in all matters relating to health, hunting, and war. They are fond of prying into future events, and therefore pay particular regard to signs, omens, and dreams. They look upon fire as sacred, and pay the author of it a kind of worship. At the time of harvest and at full moon they observe several feasts and ceremonies, ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... host. So he and the other duffer pottered away, leaving the coast clear and the door wide open. It was just my luck (which is always bad and always has been) that a pair of flirting idiots, for whom the conservatory, or our "den," or the stairs, wasn't secluded enough, must needs be prying about and spy that open door before I had conquered my cramps and got ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... her art she raised that edifice which is now inhabited by her son, she had been desirous to conceal it from the prying eyes of the wanderer. In order to this, though it stood upon an eminence, she chose an eminence that was surrounded by higher hills, and hills which, according to the neighbouring shepherds, were impassable. No adventurous step had ever since the day they were created ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... toward me. "So you are the one who has been prying into my affairs. It is you I must thank for this interference. Out of this room directly! Get ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... history, antiquities and chronology, a story book, a code of laws and conduct, a manual of ethics, a treatise on astronomy, and a medical handbook; sometimes indelicate, sometimes irreverent, but always completely and persistently in earnest. Its trifling frivolity, its curious prying into topics which were better left alone, the occasional beauty of its spiritual and imaginative fancies, make it one of the most remarkable books that human wit and human industry ...
— Hebrew Literature
... much obliged," I said, "by the interest she had taken in my affairs, to misuse the opportunity her goodness had afforded me of prying into hers—I only trusted and entreated, that if my services could at any time be useful, she would command them without doubt ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... the 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
... I warrant," said Lambourne; "or, if otherwise, the more knave thou. But sister or no sister, thou diest on point of fox, if thou comest a-prying to this tower once more. And now I think of it—uds daggers and death!—I will see thee out of the Castle, for this is a more main ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... in the afternoon, Flossy Eastman came over with a new game, and while the little girls, Flossy, Susy and Prudy were playing it, and trying their best to keep Dotty Dimple's prying fingers and long curls out of the way, in ...
— Little Prudy's Sister Susy • Sophie May
... Mrs. Bladen. Then, turnin' on Uncle Jeff, "Only I think you are a mean, hard-hearted old man, even if you are my uncle! Oh, you don't know how often I've wanted to tell you so too,—always prying into this, asking questions about that, finding fault, forever cross and snappish and suspicious. A waspish, crabbed old wretch, that's what you are! I just hate ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... down the alley, then up a narrow court. Prying open the window of an empty building, he crept in and silently slid the sash back in its place. Tiptoeing across the hall with the lightness of a cat, he crept up the dusty stairs. One, two, three flights he ascended, then feeling for the rounds of a short ladder, he climbed still higher, ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell
... southern aspect, let in a flood of cheerful sunlight; all the view it afforded was a bit of hillside and a wheat field, edged by a little wood. And this mysterious chamber was so well hidden from prying eyes that never a one in all the world ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... ceaseless drip was eerie enough to his strained senses, waiting as he was for an event which might determine the happiness or the misery of his life. He tried to forget it and wrote diligently, putting down words whose meaning he did not stop to consider, so that he had something to show to prying eyes if such should ever glance through his papers. But the sound had got on his brain, and presently became so insistent that he rose again and flung his window up to see if he were deceived in thinking he heard ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... have to go very circumspectly," Marat went on, in his cracked and feeble voice. "And see to it that no one spies upon your movements. I have many enemies, citizen...one especially...a woman.... She is always prying and spying on me....So beware of any woman you see lurking about ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... do you mean by coming here and saying this sort of thing? You're becoming a perfect old woman. You spend your whole time prying into other people's affairs. I'm sorry ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... whether the idea has ever occurred to the Anarchist, but, were I myself organising secret committee meetings for unholy purposes, I should invite my comrades to meet in that section of the local museum devoted to statuary. I can conceive of no place where we should be freer from prying eyes and listening ears. A select few, however, do appreciate statuary; and such, I am inclined to think, will not be weaned from their passion by the contemplation of the opera singer in his or ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... true Bohemian does not carry his true address on his card. In fact, he is delicate to the point of sensitiveness about allowing any publicity to attach to his address. He communicates it confidentially to those with whom he has business dealings, but he carefully conceals it from the prying world. As soon as the world knows it he moves. I once asked a chief of the Bohemian tribe whose residence was the world, but whose temporary address was sometimes Paris, why he had moved from the Quartier Latin to ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... getting sort of warm," she said, leaning across the table to him. "I'm not prying into your affairs. But I could be your friend. God knows I ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... passed in. Then he re-entered his house, and if I mistake not is still on the watch at that casement. If we stand here for a minute or two, perchance he may come out to see what delays you in this dark corner, in which case I may well give him a clout with my ax which will settle his prying." ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... 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
... made up his mind to go to sea. He is crazy about pirates, and whale-hunts, and desolate islands, and all that sort of stuff. And yet, sometimes, if you talk to him about them he shuts you up so very sharply that you feel as if you were prying into his ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various
... Loki, and Hoener started on a journey. They had often travelled together before on all sorts of errands, for they had a great many things to look after, and more than once they had fallen into trouble through the prying, meddlesome, malicious spirit of Loke, who was never so happy as when he was doing wrong. When the gods went on a journey they travelled fast and hard, for they were strong, active spirits who loved nothing so much as hard work, hard blows, storm, peril, and struggle. There were no roads ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... the depths of the silken bag, Inga fastened it securely around his neck and buttoned his waist above it to hide the treasure from all prying eyes. Then he slowly climbed down from the tree and returned to the room where ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum
... foresight, his wonderful instinct for the objectiveness of life. I believe that in his earliest childhood his feeling for the prose of geography was like Wordsworth's cataract—it "haunted him like a passion." And all the while the subjective side of life called for the intrusion of his prying eyes. So that you may say it was more or less pure chance that led him to give what has proved to be the bulk of his active years to the objective side of things, the purely actual. Take, in this very book, that which amounts practically to a prophecy of the difficulty of capturing ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens
... whispered Penelope. "It will look as though we are listening and prying. Let's go back to our rooms—and yet— oh dear, Cousin Charlotte may be down there now, at this very moment, getting angry with us and thinking how long we take getting ready, and we ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... our adventurer did not stay long; but something in the air of Baltimore pleased him, and he lingered about there for several weeks, prying into every thing and getting acquainted with everybody that was accessible. Among others for whom the Yankee seemed to take a liking, was a Dutchman, who was engaged in manufacturing an article for which there was a very good demand, and on which there was a tempting ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur
... clambered in and they started for the shore. Mooney was as purple as a grape and his arms were so stiff that two men, one on each side, could barely move them. Nearly a quart of water was got out of him, and they had an awful job prying open his jaws. ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... After all they had suffered from hunger, cold, fatigue, and watchfulness; after all their perils from treacherous and savage men, they exulted in the snugness and security of their isolated cabin, hidden, as they thought, even from the prying eyes of Indian scouts, and stored with creature comforts. They looked forward to a winter of peace and quietness; of roasting, broiling, and boiling, feasting upon venison, mountain mutton, bear's ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... in a dry tone. He was giddy, flurried, exasperated, by the prying and irritating mode of the examination, which scarcely gave him time to breathe. The magistrate's questions fell upon him more thickly than the blows of the blacksmith's hammer upon the red-hot iron which he is anxious to beat into ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... This was an allusion to the well-known circumstance that with credit men a customer's automobile-riding inspires as much confidence as his betting on the horse races, and when Morris climbed into the tonneau he paid little attention to Abe's instructions, so busy was he glancing around him for prying credit men. At length, with a final jar and jerk the machine sprang forward, and for the rest of the journey Morris' mind was emptied of every other apprehension save that engendered of passing trucks or street cars. Finally, the machine ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... within the poor little room. Not a speck of dust or a litter of any kind on the quaint little old-time high bureau, unless you might except a sheet of paper lying loose with something written on it. Titiche had evidently inherited his prying propensities for the landlady turned it over ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... recognize my description, will remember. She was caressed and feted by literary and social celebrities in Washington and New York; Boston made much of her; Longfellow and Holmes made verses in her honor; prying reporters gave accounts of her singular charm and beauty to the public in the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... of custom, indeed, could ever have shut good women's eyes to the shameful indecorousness of wedding ceremonial. We drag a young girl before the prying gaze of all the world at the very crisis in her life, when natural modesty would most lead her to conceal herself from her dearest acquaintance. And our women themselves have grown so blunted by use to the hatefulness of the ordeal that many of them ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... knowledge], seeker after truth. V. be curious &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[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 ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... thought there was no better investment than 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 ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... brother-in-law. She went home again, and waited patiently till midnight. Then her fear redoubled, and her grief was the more sensible because she was forced to keep it to herself. She repented of her foolish curiosity, and cursed her desire of prying into the affairs of her brother and sister-in-law. She spent all the night in weeping; and, as soon as it was day, went to them, telling them, by her tears, the ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... living in the castle of Fiquainville, near Fecamp. In that little Norman fishing-town he found much to gratify his curiosity; and he might often be seen scouring the country after birds, butterflies, and other insects; or prying into nooks and corners on the shore, after shell-fish and other marine productions; while the treasures of the boundless sea inspired wonder, with a longing to explore its depths and to become acquainted with the forms of life hidden ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... now swarmed about the place. Some brought a few land-otter and sea-otter skins to barter, but in very scanty parcels; the greater number came prying about to gratify their curiosity, for they are said to be impertinently inquisitive; while not a few came with no other design than to pilfer; the laws of meum and tuum being but slightly respected among them. Some of them ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... them immediately. "I'd as soon be in Joppa as to stay here with her for a rival," she said. "Mr. Hastings don't care for me, I know, and I hate that old codger of a Hamilton, with his sarcastic remarks and prying eyes. I've been here long enough, and I mean to ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... &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 ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... curiosity, and content myself with knowing what chance and good luck teach," returned Myndert. "There are men in Manhattan ever prying into their neighbors' credit, like frogs lying with their noses out of water; but it is enough for me to know the state of my books, with some insight into that of ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... has been 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 ran down to the ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... woman was no more than friendship—and indeed would have been no more for him, in those ecstatic hours, had she been the goddess Venus herself—caused him to look at the matter very indifferently, regarding it as no more than a convenient cloak to screen from the prying curiosity of the world his high passion for Madonna Beatrice. But I, that was more in the way of girl-gossips than Dante, got in time to know the truth of the reason why the lady Beatrice had refused her salutation to my friend, and I began to see that Madonna Vittoria's ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... for awhile like a man utterly at a loss. Then he began to move, not quietly or with any display of stealth. He was no longer the self-contained trapper, but a man suddenly bereft of that which he holds most dear. He ran noisily from point to point, prying here, there, and everywhere for some sign which could tell him whither she had gone. But there was nothing to help him, nothing that could tell him that which he would know. She had gone, vanished, been spirited ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... for prying. Captain Rabeira was quite open about his desire for haste. "I got baccalhao and passenger boys for a cargo, an' dose ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... didn't want to eat it I could retire to my couch and he would set up with the hen. I was so hungry, and the smell of the boiling hen was so Savory, that I remained awake, and at about midnight Jim announced that he had succeeded in prying off a piece of the breast, so we speared the hen out of the water, laid it on the frame of a grindstone in the gin-house, and sat down to the festive board. "Will you have the light or the dark meat," asked Jim, with a politeness that would have done credit to a dancing-master. ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... will which provides for the sealing up of the flat in case I die within two months of my wedding. You see, I feared that I might be cut off before the plan was carried out or before all traces of it were cleared away, and I wanted to keep the place safe from prying eyes. As it happened, there was no need for such a precaution, as you will see, and I shall ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... question what is established, not reflecting that all orthodoxies were once heterodox, that without innovation there could never have been any progress, and that if inquisitive fellows had not gone prying about in forbidden quarters ages ago, the world would still be peopled by savages dressed in nakedness, war-paint, and feathers. The mental stultification which begins in youth reaches ossification as men grow older. Lack of thought ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... sight may well choose between air and beechen logs," returned the other, stopping at the palisadoes, and in a place that was concealed from any prying eyes within the works, by triple and quadruple barriers of wood. Feeling in his girdle, he then drew forth something which Dudley was not long in discovering to be a key. While the latter, aided by the ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... publisher, or slept at night with a hungry stomach on a bulkhead in the company of the poor poet Savage. All the racier and stronger part of the man's history is slurred over. No doubt he would not encourage any prying into it, and neither cared to remember it himself nor wished others to do so. He had a sensitive horror of having his life written by an ignorant or unfriendly biographer, and even spoke of the justice of taking ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... 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 ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... King's wish that a private quarrel should end in the killing of an English gentleman. Such being the fact, those gardens which adjoined the houses of certain nobles, and by reason of their privacy precluded the presence of prying eyes, were oft turned into duelling grounds, and the square of sward flanking the dwelling of Thomas Percy was well adapted for a contest in which the evenness of the ground, as well as others matters, was of ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... safe, and sagely declared it to be burglar-proof, had not the thieves possessed the key. The Foreign Office knew that, for they supply all the safes to the Consulates abroad, in order that the precious ciphers shall be kept from the prying eyes of foreign spies. The Questore, or chief of police, was of opinion that it was the ciphers of which the thieves had been in search, and was much relieved to hear that they were in safekeeping far ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... the proposal they had appeared for a day or two resignedly to entertain; as soon as she had betrayed her curiosity as to the line the other pair, so left to themselves, might take, a desire to avoid the appearance of at all too directly prying had become marked in her. Betrayed by the solicitude of which she had, already, three weeks before, given him a view, she had been obliged, on a second thought, to name, intelligibly, a reason for her appeal; while the Prince, on his side, had had, not without mercy, ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... what you did!" Mr. Crow exclaimed. "Of all the prying busybodies I know, you are certainly the worst. This is not your field; and I shall have to ask you to ...
— The Tale of Sandy Chipmunk • Arthur Scott Bailey
... he appeared in what he hoped would be the irresistible form—a recently discovered fragment of Polybius, an advance copy of the forthcoming issue of "The Historical Review," the note-book of Professor Carl Voertschlaffen... One day, all-prying Hermes told him of Clio's secret addiction to novel-reading. Thenceforth, year in, year out, it was in the form of fiction that Zeus wooed her. The sole result was that she grew sick of the sight of novels, and found a ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... was raw and uncomfortable, and Gregory resolved to make his easy-chair by the parlor fire the point from which he would watch the development of this domestic drama. He had no vulgar, prying curiosity, but an absorbing interest in the chief actor; and was compelled to admit that the being whom he had come to regard as faultless was growing human ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... at the two windows, with broken panes of glass and 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
... for me. I will have to leave Earth to complete the installation of my generator. The prying fools and mockers will not leave me alone, and nowhere on Earth can I have the needed solitude. I shall go to Venus—uninhabited, uninhabitable. Perhaps they will leave me alone for the month or two more I need to make my vessel suitable for interstellar drive. Then I can return to Earth, show them ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg
... direction, and by a singular chance Toby's aged friend started for the woods in such a direction as to bring him directly before the boy's insensible form. The monkey, on coming up to Toby, stopped, urged by the well known curiosity of its race, and began to examine the boy's person carefully, prying into pockets and trying to open the boy's half closed eyelids. Fortunately for Toby, he had fallen upon a mud bank and was only stunned for the moment, having received no serious bruises. The attentions bestowed upon him by the monkey ...
— Toby Tyler • James Otis
... SPRATT had fashions that were peculiarly his own. Vain it were to inquire how, from the long-perished SPRATTS that went before him, he drew that form of human mind which was his. Laws that are hidden from our prying eyes ordain that a man shall be the visible exemplar of vanished ages, offering here and there a hook of remembrance, on which a philosopher may hang a theory for the world's admiring gaze. Far back in the misty past, of which the fabulists ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 18, 1890 • Various
... his own carpet-bag, brought it down without a word, and Clive found him environed in smoke when he came down to take his place in the little britzska. I wonder whether the window at the Hotel de Hollande saw him go? There are some curtains behind which no historian, however prying, ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... this, and told her that I would do all in my power to please her, and that the most prying eyes should have nothing to fix on. I felt that the pleasure I looked forward to would be rendered all the sweeter by ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Sumner then, which was as full of stir, And prate, and prying, as a woodpecker, And ever inquiring upon everything, Said, "Brother, where is thine inhabiting, In case I come to find thee out ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... nearly a whole fowl, and had drunk a bottle of beer with it, I felt like another man; and then, pursuing my investigations more leisurely, I found in one of the lockers—which I took the liberty of prying open with a big carving-knife—four or five boxes of capital cigars. In the same locker was a package of safety-matches, and in a moment I was puffing away with such satisfaction that I fairly grew light-hearted—so great is the comfort that comes to ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... guide through a little door in a wall, and then promenaded a scullery and a kitchen, along which he passed with eyes rigidly fixed in advance, an inbred horror of prying forbidding him to gaze around apartments that formed the back side of the household tapestry. Entering the hall, he was about to be shown to his room, when from the inner lobby of the front entrance, whither she had gone to learn the cause of the delay, sailed forth the form of Elfride. Her start ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... one better, both in the "atmosphere" of his mountain pictures and in his studies of birds at home upon their nests. To judge, indeed, by the unruffled domesticity of these latter, one would suppose Mr. GORDON to have been regarded less as the prying ornithologist than as the trusted family photographer. I except the golden eagle, last of European autocrats, whose greeting appears always as a super-imperial scowl. Chiefly these happy results seem to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 10, 1920 • Various
... I had an opportunity to judge how a passenger would conduct himself if he should be thrown from the trail. At the point where the slope of the mountains is most abrupt, certain repairs had lately been made upon the trail, and a man was now prying large stones over the edge. They rolled and tumbled down, taking wild leaps into the air and plunging from rock to rock. After they disappeared in the woods we could hear them crashing and clattering down the canon. A small ...
— A Truthful Woman in Southern California • Kate Sanborn
... sudden and enchantingly upon sunshine and beds of onions, parsley, cabbages, with pale yellow butterflies hovering. Old Battershall, too, though taciturn, was obviously not displeased by her visits. He saw that while prying here and there—especially among the parsley beds, for what reason he could not guess—the child stole no fruit, did no harm. She trampled nothing. She lifted no leaf to harm it. When she stopped to speak with him her talk was "just nonsense, you know." Unconsciously, by the ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... secret of his identity. Archie knew several men in town who were veritable encyclopedias of the scandal of three generations, and if the scion of some old New York house had gone astray these gentlemen could furnish all the essential data. But he had given his word and he had no intention of prying into his friend's affairs. However, the sister might let fall some clue, and as he dressed he tried to imagine just what sort of woman the Governor's sister ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... That's how I knew. The telegram came, and I—Oh," she interrupted herself, "I wasn't prying!" She was like a dog, shrinking ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland |
