"Plod" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... man was "an infidel!" Ah, no! The tale's incredible—it was not so. The untutored savage through the world may plod, Reckless of Heaven and ignorant of his God; But that a mind that's culled improvement's flowers From all her brightest amaranthine bowers, A mind whose keen and comprehensive glance Comprised at once a world—should worship chance, Is strangely inconsistent—seems to me The very ...
— Heart Utterances at Various Periods of a Chequered Life. • Eliza Paul Kirkbride Gurney
... you could meet Crews and Jordan and Saxon. They're very dissimilar, but they've got something like the unifying motive of a monastery, and they're willing to serve and to plod and to be patient. I fight with Saxon because he's a pacifist, but like all pacifists he's a very pugnacious person, and he can get frightfully angry, but it's pitiful to see him when he's been angry, because he's so sorry afterwards. I'm not a pacifist, but I haven't a tenth of his pluck. He'd ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... Hubbard. Consequently, when Bell returned from Washington, he was compelled by his agreement to devote himself mainly to the musical telegraph, although his heart was now with the telephone. For exactly three months after his interview with Professor Henry, he continued to plod ahead, along both lines, until, on that memorable hot afternoon in June, 1875, the full TWANG of the clock-spring came over the wire, and the telephone ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... despatched ahead to fill his bottle with water at a well known to be some five miles farther ahead, and to meet us with it on the way. On through the sand and heat we plod wearily, myself almost sick with thirst, fatigue, and disgust. Mohammed Ahzim Khan, observing my wretched condition, insists upon me letting one of the sowars try his hand at trundling the wheel, while I rest myself by riding his horse. Both the sowars bravely try their best ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... transform the aristocracy, instead of the aristocracy transforming them. He knew that Veneering had carried off Twemlow in triumph. He very nearly knew what we all know to-day: that, so far from it being possible to plod along the progressive road with more votes and more Free Trade, England must either sharply become very much more democratic or as rapidly become ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... these states would be inconsiderable. They don't hear of it, to begin with, and if they did they wouldn't care for it. I am surprised to find how little most of these people appreciate their present prospects. Once in a while you find an intelligent man who does so, but the mass plod along in the beaten track with little thought about the future and no sort of feeling of responsibility. They feel a sense of relief that no one stands to force them to labor, and they fall back with a feeling of indifference ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... go back to the house, but another thought had suddenly occurred to her. "Miss Davis! She's not with them. Can it be she didn't come? Was Gloriana right after all? She surely would not let the children plod home in the heat while she rode in the 'bus. No, there are only eight people in that bunch and they are all children. Oh, dear, suppose Glory's dream has ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... humble feet did plod, My bosom beating with the glow of song; And high-born fancy walk'd with me along, Treading the earth ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 343, November 29, 1828 • Various
... her part, great or small, for that national economy which alone can hope to sustain the terrific pace that victory demands. Finally, out in the great open spaces, faithful and unassuming and backing his country to the limit, must plod the Man Behind The Plow, working silently and steadily from dawn till dark to enlist ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... of grass in the orchard and running with them to the donkey or the horse standing patiently in the neighbour's paddock, and when she hasn't animals to play with she will put a horseshoe on each hand and each foot, and then you will hear from above the plod-plod-plod of a horse going its daily round. But while she has a comprehensive affection for all four-legged things, her most fervent love is reserved for the halt and ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... I grind and plod here," he said, "while every one else is enjoying himself? If young Charlie were here, I'm pretty sure he'd be in for some of their sprees, and laugh at me for wearing my ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... many a morning; but Patrasche, who understood him aright, would no more have consented to stay at home than a veteran soldier to shirk when the charge was sounding; and every day he would rise and place himself in his shafts, and plod along over the snow through the fields that his four round feet had left their print ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... by this time that "want of cavalry" must be written on poor Methuen's. So you must figure to yourself a small army, an army almost all infantry, and an army tied to the railway on this march; and if we bring off no brilliant strategy, but simply plod on and take hard knocks, well, what else, I ask, under the ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... to lose sight entirely of a beautiful scene, and to plod along for a few hundred yards in almost objectless shadow. Our conceptions and feelings are bright and strong from the nearness of their objects, yet the dream is somewhat different from the reality. All at ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... greatly to your advantage. You may remember, that I have always earnestly recommended to you, to do what you are about, be that what it will; and to do nothing else at the same time. Do not imagine that I mean by this, that you should attend to and plod at your book all day long; far from it; I mean that you should have your pleasures too; and that you should attend to them for the time; as much as to your studies; and, if you do not attend equally to both, you will neither ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... escape from the gold and salt mines. These poor folk prefer to run the risk of capture and the brutal punishment it involves, rather than remain longer in endless misery. Feeding on mushrooms and berries they plod their weary way back, amid perils of every kind, to their native homes, hundreds—it may be thousands—of miles distant. They avoid towns and highways, of course, but they freely enter the villages. The Siberian peasants, in silent ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... was this pleasant ritual. She would plod all round the house, duster in hand, picking things up, giving them a little flick and putting them back again, patting treasures that she especially loved, sighing heavily with satisfaction at the pleasant sight of all her possessions tranquilly in their right places. As she looked ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... and it is none the easier to resist because it is unusual. When a young girl, with hot impatience, feels she is not advancing as rapidly as she should, the wealthy "patron of Art" declares it is folly for her to plod along so slowly, that he will free her from all trammels, he will provide play, wardrobe, company, and show the world that she is already an artist. To her trembling objection that she could only accept such tremendous aid from one of her own family, he would crushingly reply that ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... step throughout, but with a difference. It is more of a plod, with less of stamping and much less lifting of the feet. Morris Off, danced in the traditional manner, gives one the impression of a company agreeably tired, but pleased and comfortable, having ...
— The Morris Book • Cecil J. Sharp
... thought I saw my wife. And often, often throughout those terrible days her voice came to me, kindly and low and encouraging. When I felt I really could plod no farther through the snow, her voice would tell me not to lose heart, but to do my best, and all would be right in the end. And when, wearied beyond measure at night, I would fall into a heavy sleep, and my fire would burn low, a hand on my shoulder would ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... very differently spent in composing verses more execrable than the bellman's. [484] His time however was not always so absurdly wasted. He had that sort of industry and that sort of exactness which would have made him a respectable antiquary or King at Arms. His taste led him to plod among old records; and in that age it was only by plodding among old records that any man could obtain an accurate and extensive knowledge of the law of Parliament. Having few rivals in this laborious and unattractive pursuit, he soon began to be regarded as an oracle on questions ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the piano is only a barrier—a wall between them and music. Their thoughts never seem to penetrate farther than the keys. They plod along for years apparently striving to make piano-playing machines of themselves, and in the end result in becoming something ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... a wretched present from Chitunkue; bad flour and a fowl, evidently meant to be rejected. He sent also an exorbitant demand for gunpowder, and payment of guides. I refused his present, and must plod on without guides, and this is very difficult ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... cord that was tied to an iron ring in its nostrils, Covered with crimson cloth, and a cushion placed for a saddle. She should not walk, he said, through the dust and heat of the noonday; Nay, she should ride like a queen, not plod along like a peasant. Somewhat alarmed at first, but reassured by the others, Placing her hand on the cushion, her foot in the hand of her husband, Gayly, with joyous laugh, Priscilla mounted her palfrey. Onward ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... watch Derek bringing up Dorothea made her as fidgety as if she had seen him trimming hats, though she recognized the futility of trying to snatch the task from his hands in order to do it properly. The utmost she had been able to accomplish was to be allowed to plod daily from Gramercy Park to Fifth Avenue, in the hope of keeping bad from becoming worse; and even this insufficient oversight must be discontinued now, since Aunt Regina would monopolize her care. If she took the matter to heart, it was no more, she thought, than she had a ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... comes out, When every man gathers his fee; I'le take my blew blade all in my hand, And plod to the green wood ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... we speak this tongueless language more than we imagine. Some day we may learn the secrets that are now so heavily veiled and thereby put to naught the glory of our present modes of communication. Until then we will plod along with the telegraph, telephone, wireless telegraphy and our ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris
... attempt to win success in any vocation requiring quick thought and quick decision. You like to reason things out; you want to know why before you go ahead. Your success lies in lines which require slow, thoughtful, careful reasoning, mature deliberation, and an ability to plod diligently through ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... and the late Mr. George Wyndham were the only pupils of Chittenden's who made names for themselves. The rest of us were content to plod along in the rut, though we had been taught to concentrate, ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... of battle seems to be concentrated along the highways, which are punctuated by dead men and dead horses thrown into the gutters to be out of the way. Long trains of horse-drawn wagons plod wearily along toward the front; the towns through which they pass are battered and nearly deserted; the poplars which line the roads are broken and gashed by shells, and the fields on either ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... numerous. We sometimes have at Talladega applications from fifty such in a single year. It is often pitiful to hear their appeals to be admitted to school, when denial is forced upon them, since there is neither room nor money. Still, there are many who secure books, seek help, and blindly plod on. ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 52, No. 1, March, 1898 • Various
... thou rest; and what if thou withdraw In silence from the living, and no friend Take note of thy departure? All that breathe Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care Plod on, and each one as before will chase His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave Their mirth and their employments, and shall come And make their bed with thee. As the long train Of ages glide away, the sons of men— The youth ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... dozen of them," he said thickly. And, holding the Winchester ready, he commenced once more to plod on through the stinging sheets of wind-driven ice particles. More than once he had great difficulty in not losing that crimson trail, for here and there the restless, white crystals completely blotted out ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... Claus burst into tears, Then calmed again: "my reindeer fleet, I gave them up: on foot, my dears, I now must plod through ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... Tyndall in the 'Nineteenth Century,' for last November, "and by no means the minority, who, however wealthy in regard to facts, can never rise into the region of principles; and they are sometimes intolerant of those that can. They are formed to plod meritoriously on in the lower levels of thought; unpossessed of the pinions necessary to reach the heights, they cannot realize the mental act—the act of inspiration it might well be called—by which a man of genius, after long pondering ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... is good for: he can plod through the service well enough; but he has not a single ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... the gairden sod, Weet the lang roads whaur gangrels plod— A maist unceevil thing o' God In mid July— If ye'll just curse the sneckdraw, dod! An' sae ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... clever. But hard. Man wanted to tear down, not build up. Cynical. Oh, I do hope I'm not a sentimentalist. But I can't see any use in this high-art stuff that doesn't encourage us day-laborers to plod on." ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... you would be stronger for patience, if you used more of your strength for service. You do well if you do not sink under your burden, but you would do better if, with it on your shoulders, you would plod steadily along the road; and if you did, you would feel the weight less. It seems heaviest when you stand still doing nothing. Do not cease to toil because you suffer. You will feel your pain more if you do. Take the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... and abject, learned and simple, illustrious and obscure, plod side by side, all brothers now, all merged in one routed ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... that country. Travellers have to plod through the wilderness as they best can. It may not have occurred to my reader that it would be a difficult thing to walk for a day through snow so deep, that, at every step, the traveller would sink the whole length of his leg. The truth ...
— Away in the Wilderness • R.M. Ballantyne
... of my talents, and had probably formed expectations which I shall never realize. I have thought much upon the subject, and have finally come to the conclusion that I shall never make a distinguished figure in the world, and all I hope or wish is to plod along with the multitude. I do not say this for the purpose of drawing any flattery from you, but merely to set mother and the rest of you right upon a point where your partiality has led you astray. ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... a large house, and for this refuge the British dashed madly. The first man to reach the door tried the knob. The door was locked. From behind came the plod of the heavy German feet and the sharp crack ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... breath has it left for song? The man bowed beneath the load, the soul bowed beneath the man! Alas, I seem to behold but moving burdens in my country. And yet, my swarthy and shrunken, but firm-fibred people plod along, content, patient, meek; and when they reach the summit of the hill with their crushing burdens, they still have breath enough to troll a favourite ditty or ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... philosophy, its reasonableness, its result, then I will obey. But the Spirit answers, "It is enough for thee, O child of man, to know Me. Canst thou not trust? Wilt thou not obey? And as thou obeyest thou shalt know. Take this path, plod along its difficult way, climb where it climbs, so shalt thou ascend the steep of obedience, and at each step a further horizon of the truth will ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... who has the ability and might easily learn the profession and adapt himself to it, could as easily establish himself in a well-paying business in that way as to plod along in the same old rut year in and year out, without any future prospect for obtaining either money ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... the staff of Cosy Moments to arrive at the office on the following morning was Master Maloney. This sounds like the beginning of a "Plod and Punctuality," or "How Great Fortunes have been Made" story; but, as a matter of fact, Master Maloney was no early bird. Larks who rose in his neighbourhood, rose alone. He did not get up with them. He was supposed ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... strange how we humans are always so overdetermined. One ought to know by the time he is grown that he is a puppet in the hands of circumstance. Now I go on hoping that you can carry me out to life and my husband, and you plod determinedly on as if you were really able to do it. Of course, you may, but it is entirely dependent ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... citizens of the world. It is very different from the inland New England manner; as different as the gentle, slow speech of the shore from the clipped nasals of the hill-country. The lounging native walk is not the heavy plod taught by the furrow, but has the lurch and the sway of the deck ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the fish's element: Leave her but there, and she is well content. So's he, who in the path of life doth plod, Take all, says he, let me but ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... reading I fortune to meet with any difficult points, I fret not my selfe about them, but after I have given them a charge or two, I leave them as I found them. Should I earnestly plod upon them, I should loose both time and my selfe, for I have a skipping wit. What I see not at the first view, I shall lesse see it if I opinionate my selfe upon it. I doe nothing without blithnesse; and an over obstinate continuation ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... As your horses plod up and up the almost perpendicular trail that leads out of the Nicola Valley to the summit, a paradise of beauty outspreads at your feet; the color is indescribable in words, the atmosphere thrills you. Youth and the pulse of rioting blood are ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson
... invited us to stoop and drink. We were starved so that we had looked at each other with maniac thoughts, and now we placed in our mouth the very fat of the land. We had seen our cattle almost perishing; seen them grow gaunt and tottering; seen them slowly plod along with hanging heads and only the supremacy of human will over animal instinct had kept them from lying down never to rise again. Now they were in pastures of sweet grass, chewing the cud of content and satisfaction. Life which had been a burden grew sweet to us, and though it may ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... to start again early in the morning. They had by this time grown quite accustomed to the plod, plodding of the train; it seemed almost one of the normal and necessary conditions of life. They went down by Genoa, Spezia, Pisa, Sienna, and Rome, making the ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... me, an' lang's the road! He fain at my side wud hae timed his plod, But, eh, he was sent for, an' hurried awa! Noo, I'm thinkin he's harkin ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... with thy broad shoulders, John Alden, thou wilt do well to make them of use. There is Mistress Allerton struggling with a hamper beyond her strength, and there are bales of clothes that must not be wet. Load thyself, good mule, and plod shoreward." ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... as will appear. First of all, there must be good sleighing; and second, a fine night for Christmas eve. Ours are not the carollings of your poor shivering little East Angles or South Mercians, where they have to plod round afoot in countries which do not know ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... on, and through the silence of the desert the voices of these two reach the wondering attendants, as they plod along. The Ethiopian was reading the Septuagint translation of Isaiah, which, though it missed part of the force of the original, brought clearly before him the great figure of a Sufferer, meek and dumb, swept from the earth by unjust judgment. He understood so much, but what he did not understand ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... tea and talk, them home by King. The horses have an antiquated plod; The team is old, but not too old to balk ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... which they eat and wear and use. Mill, in his treatise on Political Economy, gives us an account of this condition of things, as prevailing among the peasants in certain districts of Germany. "They labour early and late," he says, quoting from a German eulogist. "They plod on from day to day and from year to year, the most untirable of human animals." The German writer admires them as men who are their own masters. Mill holds them up as a shining and instructive example ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... ever—you will win your way only the better in the world for this little experience. And as for me—I have been in Elysium for three months; and that is more than a host of your excellent prudent men can boast of, who plod on day after day only that they may continue plodding to the end of their lives. Adieu! my adorable—my angel that will now vanish from my sight!' And here, in spite of my struggles, he embraced me with the greatest ardour, and then, tearing himself away as if he only were ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... amply repay one to plod, step by step, over these thousands of pages, if only to trace the hand of God touching the springs of human action all over the world in ways of His own, and at times of great need, and adjusting the amount and the exact day and hour of ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... for nothing, the good people reject your money as if you had been trying to corrupt a voter. When people take the trouble to do dignified acts, it is worth while to take a little more, and allow the dignity to be common to all concerned. But in our brave Saxon countries, where we plod threescore years and ten in the mud, and the wind keeps singing in our ears from birth to burial, we do our good and bad with a high hand and almost offensively; and make even our alms a witness-bearing and an act of war ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to hear the man; nor, in the case of the off mare, to feel the bite of his lash. They continued to plod along the beaten trail, heads drooping, ears flopping, hoofs scuffling disconsolately. Felipe, accompanying each outburst with a mighty swing of his whip, swore and pleaded and objurgated and threatened in turn. But all ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... I plod and peer amid mean sounds and shapes, I hunt for dusty gain and dreary praise, And slowly pass the dismal grinning days, Monkeying each other ...
— The Wild Knight and Other Poems • Gilbert Chesterton
... about it, and he liked the idea immense. Andy was a man of an involved nature. He was never content to plod along, as I was, selling to the peasantry some little tool like a combination steak beater, shoe horn, marcel waver, monkey wrench, nail file, potato masher and Multum in Parvo tuning fork. Andy had the artistic temper, which is not to be judged as a preacher's ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... When we secure teachers who have education and not mere knowledge, we may begin to hope. We must look to the colleges and normal schools to furnish such teachers. If they cannot do so, our schools must plod along on the path of tradition without hope of finding the better way. There are faint indications, however, here and there, that the colleges and normal schools are beginning to stir in their sleep and ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... your father's exequies. But is that wicked Gaveston return'd? K. Edw. Ay, priest, and lives to be reveng'd on thee, That wert the only cause of his exile. Gav. 'Tis true; and, but for reverence of these robes, Thou shouldst not plod one foot beyond this place. Bish. of Cov. I did no more than I was bound to do: And, Gaveston, unless thou be reclaim'd, As then I did incense the parliament, So will I now, and thou shalt back to France. Gav. Saving your reverence, you must pardon me. K. Edw. Throw ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe
... believe in the world and its bigness and splendor: That most of the hearts beating round us are tender; That days are but footsteps and years are but miles That lead us to beauty and singing and smiles: That roses that blossom and toilers that plod Are filled with ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... I continued with a weary monotony to plod, down to the very last line, and then da capo, and so on, in my uncomfortable half-sleep, for how long, I can't conjecture. I found myself at last, however, muttering, 'dead as a door-nail, so ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 1 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... smoke-wreath being visible all round, beside; the other, as he loiters by, watching some sheep on some distant bank, so shy and wild-looking, and, to appearance, so melancholy, so forlorn. Meanwhile, as we "plod our weary way," some dip in the wavy round of olive-hued lumpish mountains, or an abrupt huge chasm of awful rocks, each side being almost perpendicular, startles the traveller with a far-down prospect of some sunshiny, rich, leafy, valley region, at once showing at what a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... at the first trench. You understand he had been above ground all the time, while the fighters were in the trenches, where they had more protection. It was the over-fire that he was obliged to plod through, and you who have never seen a battle do not realize what a fierce thing this over-fire is. His orders having been safely delivered, Rene proceeded on his troubled way to the trench where he was to ...
— The Children of France • Ruth Royce
... at the college—a consumptive young fellow, whose ambitions had leaned towards the bar—gave the boy what assistance he needed, and when the work of the class-room and the farm was over, the two would meet in the dim old library of the college and plod through heavy, discoloured pages, while the portraits of painted aristocrats glowered down upon the ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... appearances; whilst underfoot a wild variety of new plants arrest your attention. The bush-shrubs are exquisitely beautiful. Anon a charred and blackened trunk stops your path: if you are in spirits, you jump over all; if you are coming home serious, weary, and warm, you plod your way round. Well,—in twenty minutes' time you reach a solitary hut,—the first stage of the walk: you pass the fence, the path becomes narrow,—the bush thickens round you,—it winds, it rises, it descends: all on a sudden it opens with a bit of ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... and went back across the lawn, only to stop at the well in the garden, fill two buckets, and plod back to the firing-line again. He found plenty to do there; he helped Alixe, following her with his buckets where she passed among the wounded, the stained cross on her breast. Once a bullet struck a pail full ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... hired bravos to transact their crimes, while their own person and reputation sat under shelter. I was the first that ever did so for his pleasures. I was the first that could thus plod in the public eye with a load of genial respectability, and in a moment, like a schoolboy, strip off these lendings and spring headlong into the sea of liberty. But for me, in my impenetrable mantle, the safety was complete. Think of it—I did not even ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
... grovel for the shoddy goods And plod and plot and plan, And if you win the paltry prize Go prize it—if you can, But I would hurl it in your face To ...
— Bars and Shadows • Ralph Chaplin
... can never forget the many agreeable hours we have passed in reading Horace and Virgil; and I think they are topics will never grow stale. Let us extend the Roman empire, and cultivate two barbarous towns o'er -run with rusticity and Mathematics. The creatures are so used to a circle, that they Plod on in the same eternal round, with their whole view confined to a punctum, cujus nulla est pars: "Their time a moment, and ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... did as he was bidden. He wanted to bundle the whole troop of her imaginings out of doors, and plod off, like a sane man, to his fencing; but somehow her earnestness itself forbade. When they were established, she on the sofa, with her bright eyes piercing him, and he seated at an angle where a nurse might easiest wait upon a patient's needs, ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... a sort of half contempt in his tone; 'but these boys of ours are a different sort of stuff, and we have seen that it will never answer to pin them down to plod.' ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... nor read by chills, Earth admonishes: Hast thou ploughed, Sown, reaped, harvested grain for the mills, Thou hast the light over shadow of cloud. Steadily eyeing, before that wail Animal-infant, thy mind began, Momently nearer me: should sight fail, Plod in the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... frightful an accusation did not stun me at once, I might perhaps hint at the possibility that this was to be attributed almost as much to the narrowness of his reading on this subject as to the extent of mine. There are men here who are mere mathematical blocks; who plod on their eight hours a day to the honours of the Senate House; who leave the groves which witnessed the musings of Milton, of Bacon, and of Gray, without one liberal idea or elegant image, and carry with them into the world minds contracted by unmingled ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... for them, whether they plod along in the servitude from which they have never been lifted since the Cyrenian was laid hold upon by the Roman soldiers, and made to bear the cross of the fainting Christ—whether they find homes again in Africa, and thus hasten the prophecy of the psalmist, ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... dragging their heavy load up the slope to Castle Rock: "It took us all the morning to reach Saddle Camp with the loads in two journeys. I found a steady plod up a steep hill without spells is better and less exhausting than a rush and a number of rests. This theory I put into practice with great success. I don't know whether everybody saw eye to eye with me over the idea of getting to the top without a spell. After the ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... world where we shall not have to plod through so much doubt and misgiving, and where our real feelings will ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams
... Then plod along with tearless eye, Poor son of toil! and ne'er repine, The road through barren wastes may lie, And thorns, as oft hath mine; But there was ONE who came to earth, Star-heralded at hour of birth, Humble, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... is right and what is wrong. And yet, simple as the matter is, it is astonishing how difficult it is of understanding. An honest course in business seems too slow to the average young man. "I can't afford to plod along. I must strike and strike quickly," is the sentiment. Ah, yes, my friend, but not dishonestly. No young man can afford even to think of dishonesty. Success on honorable lines may sometimes seem slower in coming, but when it does come it outrivals in permanency all the ...
— The Young Man in Business • Edward W. Bok
... reason for alarm. They were forced to plod through a narrow pass in the Biggarsberg range of mountains, so narrow indeed that a hundred Boers might have effectually barred their way. Here, through this perilous black cylinder of the hills, they marched at dead of night. It took them between the hours of half-past eleven till ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... encouraging a more entire devotion of his talents to the study of the law, distinguished him by the title of her Counsel extraordinary,—an office of little emolument, though valuable as an introduction to practice. But the genius of Bacon disdained to plod in the trammels of a laborious profession; he felt that it was given him for higher and larger purposes: yet perceiving, at the same time, that the narrowness of his circumstances would prove an insuperable bar to his ambition of becoming, as he once beautifully expressed it, "the servant of posterity," ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... to town, after a pleasant good-by, he turned more than once to note the slow, swinging plod of the bulls. Finally he walked more briskly, and, finding the doctor and Latimer, they sought the levees, where the bustle and hustle of the frontier town were most apparent. Early as it was, the river-front was thronged with river-men, ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... a great fortune, Lotta, don't you think you would be very much disposed to leave me to plod on at my desk in Great Russell-street? Possessed of wealth, you would begin to languish for position; and you would allow Mr. Sheldon to bring you some suitor who could give you a name and a rank in society ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... forty-two, won a moderate competence, he could turn from business to science, and from science to the public service, using money as a means to the noblest ends. Strong-minded but unlettered men, like Girard, who cannot be idle, must needs plod on to the end, adding superfluous millions to their estates. In Girard's case, too, there was another cause of this entire devotion to business. His domestic sorrows had estranged him from mankind, and driven him into himself. Mr. Henry W. Arey, ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... not grow naturally out of a dull, uninspired life. It goes with the energetic, the forceful. The dull soul who is content to plod along year after year in the same rut may be honest, and this one redeeming feature may be of such inestimable value to him that it sweetens and softens his entire days. It will bring him friends ... true-blue friends, who will excuse all other shortcomings because of his honesty. It gives ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks
... what he needed to use. He often read three volumes a day. But I don't advise you to copy him. I want you to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest. He could absorb, but, we'll take it for granted that you must plod on steadily, step by step. He read through Johnson's Dictionary to ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... resistless will—the same will which once went before without force. They are all trimmed as much as possible to one pattern, and all make the same sad plaint. It is a day on which to thank God for the unknown tongue. The drover and his lad in dusty blue coats plod along stolidly, deaf and blind to all but the way before them; no longer wielding the crook, instrument of deliverance, or at most of gentle compulsion, but armed with a heavy stick and mechanically dealing blows on the short thick fleeces; without evil intent because without ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless
... Deliberately he withdrew his attention from the unessentials. Not a glance did he vouchsafe to the prospect far or near; not a thought did he permit himself of speculation or of wandering interest. His sole job now was to plod on at an even gait, to keep track of time, to follow the spoor of the Leopard Woman's safari, to save himself for later. If he had spared any thought at all, it would have been self-congratulation that ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... timeless grave to throw, No cypress, sombre on the snow; Snap not from the bitter yew His leaves that live December through; Break no rosemary, bright with rime And sparkling to the cruel clime; Nor plod the winter land to look For willows in the icy brook To cast them leafless round him: bring No spray that ...
— A Shropshire Lad • A. E. Housman
... with wildness and its stealthy forms— Yea, rather with wild men, wild beasts and birds, Than in the sordid town that here may rise. For here I am a part of Nature's self, And not divorced from her like men who plod The weary streets of care in search of gain. And here I feel the friendship of the earth: Not the soft cloying tenderness of hand Which fain would satiate the hungry soul With household honey-combs and parloured sweets, But the strong friendship of primeval things— ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair
... energies of Nature. We fancy we have fallen into bad company and squalid condition, low debts, shoe-bills, broken glass to pay for, pots to buy, butcher's meat, sugar, milk, and coal. "Set me some great task, ye gods! and I will show my spirit." "Not so," says the good Heaven; "plod and plough, vamp your old coats and hats, weave a shoestring; great affairs and the best wine by and by." Well, 'tis all phantasm; and if we weave a yard of tape in all humility and as well as we can, long hereafter we ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... disdained, young man, because you were not born a gentleman; and your duty is to receive scorn with your hat off. You like it, probably, because your father did. But come in, Daniel; I will not deny you of the only right an English peasant has—the right of the foot to plod in his father's footsteps. The right of the hand, and the tongue, and the stomach—even the right of the eye is denied him; but by some freak of law he has some little right of foot, doubtless to enable him to ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... want to cut the Gordian knot with a sword. If that is the way of it, dear boy, you must be an Alexander, or to the hulks you go. For my own part, I am quite contented with the little lot I mean to make for myself somewhere in the country, when I mean to step into my father's shoes and plod along. A man's affections are just as fully satisfied by the smallest circle as they can be by a vast circumference. Napoleon himself could only dine once, and he could not have more mistresses than a house student at the Capuchins. Happiness, old ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... placxi. Pleasure, with plezure. Plebeian malnobelo. Pledge garantiajxo. Plenitude pleneco. Plenteous suficxega. Plenty suficxa, suficxega. [Error in book: suficxelga] Pleonasm pleonasmo. Pliable fleksebla. Pliant fleksebla. Pliantness fleksebleco. Pliers prenilo—eto. Plod on diligentigxi. Plot konspiri, intrigi. Plot (league) intrigo, konspiro. Plot (of land) terpeco. Plough plugi. Plough plugilo. Ploughshare plugfero. Pluck (fowl) plumtiregi, senplumigi. Pluck (courage) kuragxo. Plug sxtopilego. Plum pruno. Plumage plumaro, plumajxo. Plumbago ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... the passing of the cane between wooden rollers turned by ox power, the rollers standing upright and connected with a projecting shaft or beam to the outer end of which the animal was attached, to plod around and around while the cane was fed between the rollers. The present system is merely an expansion of that old principle. At the mill, the stalks are dumped, by carload or by cartload, into a channel through which they are mechanically conveyed to huge rollers, placed horizontally, arranged ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson
... would he find it? The nearest town, where the only railway station then was, was eight miles off, and he was not likely to plod back thither again, and the village inn, five miles away, was little more than ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... have met musicians, some who labored very hard at their art, but none who felt it a duty to labor with their own souls, to make them beautiful and strong; and I have met literary men and scholars, but they were all interested in books, and were willing to be learned, and to classify and plod; I have never found one who was swift and eager, and full of high impatience for what is real and the best. There should come times to a man, I think, when he feels that books are an impertinence, when ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... utterance to no sound, except to reply cheerfully whenever I addressed her. The exceeding roughness of the passage made our progress slow, and quite frequently we were all obliged to dismount, generally glad enough of the change, and plod forward for some distance on foot. I possessed no knowledge then as to where we were, the map having deceived me so often I had long since lost all confidence in it as a guide, but now, in this later day, I can trace our progress with some degree of accuracy, and know that we passed ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... are associated, the stately birds stand in the foreground of the scenery of the valley.... Such ponderous bodies moving with slowly-beating wings give a great idea of momentum from mere weight, a force of motion without swiftness; for they plod along heavily, seeming to need every inch of their ample wings to sustain themselves." [Footnote: Birds of ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... slender stem of a wild sunflower, warbles a sweet assurance of this as I pass near by. Breaking off the clear crystal song, he turns his wee head from side to side eyeing me wisely as slowly I plod with moccasined feet. Then again he yields himself to his song of joy. Flit, flit hither and yon, he fills the summer sky with his swift, sweet melody. And truly does it seem his vigorous freedom lies more in his little spirit ...
— American Indian stories • Zitkala-Sa |
