"Ply" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... did e'er man haste so, for his horns? A courtier would not ply it so, for a place. —Well, now there's no helping it, stay here; I'll ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... rejected, he swore that if Kesa remained obdurate, he would kill her mother. From this dilemma the brave woman determined that self-sacrifice offered the only effective exit. She promised to marry Morito after he had killed her husband, Wataru; to which end she engaged to ply Wataru with wine until he fell asleep. She would then wet his head, so that Morito, entering by an unfastened door and feeling for the damp hair, might consummate his purpose surely. Morito readily agreed, but Kesa, having dressed her own hair in male fashion and wet her head, lay down ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... the Devil and his Affairs in a quite differing Situation: When the World first appeared peopled by the creating Power of God, he had only Adam and Eve to take care of, and I think he ply'd his Time with them to purpose enough: After the Deluge he had Noah only to pitch upon, and he quickly conquer'd him by the Instigation of ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... Take the spokesman's office and say what is fitting on our behalf. Call to memory and roll in one all that ever you said against Gorgias, Polus, Hippias, Prodicus; you have now to do with a worse than them. Let him taste your irony; ply him with your keen incessant questions; and if you will, perorate with the mighty Zeus charioting his winged car through Heaven, and grudging if this fellow get ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... I was," he muttered sullenly as he fiddled with his pen and paper, "maybe I've had cause to regret it. For a week after that Carre episode I dared not show my face in the streets of Paris; for nigh on a fortnight I dared not ply my trade...I have only just ventured again to set up in business. I am not going to risk my old ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... mighty rock, and hurled it where he had heard the voice. Right in front of the ship's bow it fell, and a great wave rose as it sank, and washed the ship back to the shore. But Ulysses seized a long pole with both hands and pushed the ship from the land and bade his comrades ply their oars, nodding with his head, for he was too wise to speak, lest the Cyclops should know where they were. Then they rowed with all ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... store: For I have woven it of stuff To hold the strongest strong enough." 'Twas thus, in terms of insolence, Complain'd the fretful spider, once Of palace-tapestry a weaver, But then a spinster and deceiver, That hoped within her toils to bring Of insects all that ply the wing. The sister swift of Philomel, Intent on business, prosper'd well; In spite of the complaining pest, The insects carried to her nest— Nest pitiless to suffering flies— Mouths gaping aye, to gormandize, Of young ones clamouring, And stammering, With unintelligible cries. The spider, ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... mother bird When first her offspring from the nest essays The air, he hovered anxious, cheering on The boy to follow, and with fatal art Enjoining thus or thus his wings to ply As he ...
— Van Dyck - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... makes thieves and peace has them hanged" The Spaniards in Mexico, which has been in rebellion for forty years, are more or less thieves. They want to continue to ply the trade. Civil authority exists no longer with them, and they would look on obedience to such an authority as shameful. It is easy to understand the difficulty of organizing a peaceful government in such a country. Half the population would have to hang the other half. The ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... let my bow-wow worry you, Lady Gwendolen. He presumes till he's checked, on principle. Send him to lie down over here. Here, Ply, Ply, Ply!... Oh, won't he come?" Probably Achilles knows that his master, who speaks, ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... satisfaction. Is that Josiah Whitman's hearse goin' past?" she asked, rising from her chair, and craning forward to bring her eyes on a level with the window, while she suspended the agitation of the palm-leaf fan which she had not ceased to ply during her talk; she remained a moment with the quiescent fan pressed against her bosom, and then she stepped out of the door, and down the walk to the gate. "Josiah!" she called, while the old man looked and listened at the window. ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... roof of Monkbarns. But, what will surprise you yet more, the parchment sheet which bears Aldobrand's motto in German contains printed matter in good Scots! This excellent and enterprising man must have set himself to ply his noble art in his new home, and in ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang
... at 5 A.M., and crossed the river there in a steamer. This river was quite full of blockade-runners. I counted eight large steamers, all handsome leaden-coloured vessels, which ply their trade with the greatest regularity. Half these ships were engaged in carrying goods on Government account; and I was told that the quantity of boots, clothing, saltpetre, lead, and tin, which they bring ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... tale is true, and not a fable made by the weavers of words, he who doubts may know from the fisher-folk, who to-day ply their calling amongst the reefs and sandbanks of that lonely coast. For there are those among them who, peering from the bows of their small craft, have seen far down beneath their keels a city of strange streets and many quays. But as to this, I, who repeat ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... are of a very different type. First and foremost, they are men of peace. Their sole interest in life is the trade or occupation which they ply, and they have none of that pride of race and country, which is so marked in the Pahang Malay. All they ask is to be allowed to make money, to study, or to earn a livelihood unmolested; and they have none of that 'loyal passion' for their intemperate Kings, which is such a curious feature ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... Old Hurricane reached the spot and began to ply screw-drivers and chisels until at length the strong lock yielded, ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... and confidence in their cause, the attraction of their religious warmth and unselfishness and nobleness, the dim consciousness that much that they said was undeniable; and on the other hand, the apparent wildness and recklessness of their words: and then public opinion began steadily to take its "ply," and to be agreed in condemning them. It soon went farther, and became vehement in reprobating them as scandalous and dangerous publications. They incensed the Evangelicals by their alleged Romanism, and their unsound views about justification, good works, and the sacraments; they ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... The piercing Caustics ply their spiteful Powr; Emetics ranch, and been Cathartics sour. The deadly Drugs in double Doses fly; And Pestles peal a ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... laid than Banquo's ghost? Here are some of the reasons. First, and foremost, multitudes of young men, whose parents followed the plough, the loom, or the anvil, have taken it into their heads, that they will neither dig, hammer, nor ply the shuttle. To soil their hands with manual labor they cannot abide. The sphere of commerce looks to their longing eyes a better thing than lying down in green pastures, or than a peaceful life beside still waters, procured ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... though the mystic Three Around me ply their merry trade? — And Charon soon may carry me Across the gloomy Stygian glade? — Be up, my soul! nor be afraid Of what some unborn year may show; But mind your human debts are paid, As one by one the ...
— The Children of the Night • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... retreat, built high among the dense trees, Piang watched the lake people ply their way to and fro across the water. Somewhere on that lake was the secret of the floating rice, and the boy was determined to discover the truth. He hid before dawn at the water's edge near a spot that he had noticed was much frequented. As usual, a swarm ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... to ply their trade in order to make a living, and could not serve the state gratuitously; and so a salary was instituted: every citizen who sat in the assembly or in the courts received for every day of session three obols (about eight ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... altered our course when the stars disappeared, a tremendous noise struck upon our ears from seaward, and the storm was upon us. In the impenetrable obscurity of the night, not a trace of land could be discovered; but we continued to ply our oars, while each succeeding billow ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... in terrestrial geography that we need look for the site of the Tula of Quetzalcoatl, nor at any time in human history did the Tolteca ply their skillful hands, nor Tezcatlipoca spread his snares to destroy them. All this is but a mythical conception of the daily struggle of light and darkness, and those writers who seek in the Toltecs the ancestors or instructors of any nation whatsoever, make ...
— The Maya Chronicles - Brinton's Library Of Aboriginal American Literature, Number 1 • Various
... sages. Tell me true, Whose words you think the wiser of the two, Or hear (to listen is a junior's place) Why Aristippus has the better case; For he, the story goes, with this remark Once stopped the Cynic's aggravating bark: "Buffoon I may be, but I ply my trade For solid value; you ply yours unpaid. I pay my daily duty to the great, That I may ride a horse and dine in state; You, though you talk of independence, yet, Each time you beg for scraps, contract a debt." All lives sat well on Aristippus; ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... the river's brink, and leave a space of cultivable land, there the industrious Mormons have built log or adobe cabins, and converted the circumscribed domain into farms, gardens, and orchards. In one of these isolated settlements I seek shelter from a passing shower at the house of a "three-ply Mormon " (a Mormon with three wives), and am introduced to his three separate and distinct better-halves; or, rather, one should say, " better-quarters," for how can anything have three halves. A noticeable feature at all these ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... filmy petals, tints them with color sweet unto the eyes. May the sight gladden thine! I know not the beauty of the gifts I bring! But all the days of my life, a suppliant I shall come, and weary not to ply thee with my prayers, until in the end thou absolve me, until thou grant me the boon that all save I enjoy, to behold the rays of the shining God, of Ammon-Ra, the Sun divine. O Isis, remember the cruel blow that did befall me! I ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux
... by, Ruby tramping the forest daily between us or sitting beside me as I painted, noting every stroke of my brush and asking me innumerable questions as to the choice of colors and the mixing of the tints. At other times she would ply me with questions, making me tell her of the things I had seen abroad and of the cities and peoples she had read of; or she would talk of the books she had studied, and of others she wanted to read. Jim would listen eagerly, with ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... gift of gifts," said he to Brok. "Ply the bellows as before, and do not, for your life, stop or falter until the ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... view, is criticism which draws down a reply; it is far more effectual than bald praise, forgotten as soon as read, and it costs more in consequence. Celebrity, my dear fellow, is based upon controversy. I am a hired bravo; I ply my trade among ideas and reputations, commercial, literary, and dramatic; I make some fifty crowns a month; I can sell a novel for five hundred francs; and I am beginning to be looked upon as a man to be feared. Some day, instead of living ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... to play, To-morrow's working-day; According to each calling Each man must now be falling, And ply his business all the year Next Christmas for ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various
... boatswain of a seventy-four pipes all hands to the main tack, and flourishes his rope's end over the shoulders of the poor fellows who are tugging at the ropes, do you perceive so dignified, so gratifying a picture, as Ulysses exhorting his dear friends, his ERIAERES 'ETAIROI, to ply their oars with energy? You will say, Ulysses was a fabulous character. But the economy of his vessel is drawn from nature. Every man on board has a character and a will of his own. He talks to them, argues ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock
... cannot well be unpicturesque, especially if they have statues to help them out. The Spree abounds in bridges, and it has a charming habit of slow hay-laden barges; at the landings of the little passenger-steamers which ply upon it there are cafes and summer-gardens, and these even in the inclement air of September ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... broken beetle— Sprawls without grace, Her face gray as asphalt, Her jaws sagging as on loosened hinges... Shadows ply about her mouth— Nimble shadows out of the jigging tree, That dances above her ...
— The Ghetto and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... which we stepped aside from the agreeable and peaceful avocations of life, and entered upon the task so distasteful, so repulsive, and for a time so thankless. We had reason to know that the shafts of fiendish calumny would assail, that friendship would be broken, that envy and jealousy would ply their innuendoes, that the Copperhead elements of a fraternity, claiming one of the offenders in its ranks, would assail with bitterness and awaken poignant grief, but no regret, that we should have the hatred ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... is very rapid, usually at the rate of four or five miles an hour, when at its height; and it requires a strong wind to propel a boat with a sail against it. Steam overcomes its force, for boats ply regularly from St. Louis to the towns and landings on its banks within the borders of the state, and return with the produce of the country. Small steamboats have gone to ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... midnight, the schooner at length opened communication with the land by means of signal lanterns, and immediately after boats commenced to ply between the clipper and the shore, and continued to do so for several hours. It was plain enough to any one who knew the usages and trade of these waters, that the schooner was preparing to run a cargo of Circassian girls, ...
— The Circassian Slave; or, The Sultan's Favorite - A Story of Constantinople and the Caucasus • Lieutenant Maturin Murray
... listen to. No, thank you, my lady. When I wants nightingales, I'll go and hear 'em. I don't want to know what nobody had said about 'em. Besides, I've too much to think about with these 'ere ewes. There's one lyin' dead behind them stones as I've got to bury. She died last night;" and he began to ply us with disgusting details about the premature confinement of ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... honest men will have a chance To play an even game, And thrift and virtue swift advance To happiness and fame; No more will robbers ply their trade, Nor shout the tin-horn's spiel; The world will call a spade a spade When Teddy ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... here, these letters to my sonne, And this same mony with my blessing to him, And bid him ply ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... blood is worth as much as theirs, and it is time at last that I make it al pari with theirs. I will no longer serve as a target for all murderers, and then afterward only find the dagger, instead of seizing the hands that ply it. Let me once have hold of the hands, and all the daggers will ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... formulating certain laws Which economic matters would control. The midnight lamp, companion of my toil, Has burned in vain. Alas, I see it now. When the great "Commoner," of wisdom full, A plank within our platform did insert That our good ships which coastwise trade would ply Should float as free as sea-gull on the wing Through that deep channel, by our cunning wrought, Which links Pacific's waters to the Gulf, I, fool-like, did him earnestly applaud! Again my soul in bitterness doth surge Because from distant Isles the lightning brings Dire words of ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... wade, Oxford the foe invade, And cruel slaughter made, Still as they ran up; Suffolk his axe did ply, Beaumont and Willoughby Bare them ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... Bartholomew. He ran in great danger on that eventful night, and states that he would have been slaughtered but for the kindness of Hubert Languet, who lodged in his house. Andrew Wechel fled to Frankfort, where he continued to ply his trade in safety; and when more favourable times came re-established his presses at Paris. He had the reputation of being one of the most able printers and booksellers ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... affirms?[1] Arrest the transgressor in the very act of disobedience, and ring in his ears the "Thou shalt not" of the decalogue, and does he find that the law has the power to alter his inclination, to overcome his carnal mind, and make him perfect in holiness? On the contrary, the more you ply him with the stern command, and the more you emphasize the awful threatening, the more do you make him conscious of inward sin, and awaken his depravity. "The law,"—as St. Paul affirms in a very remarkable text,—"is the strength of sin,[2]" instead of being its destruction. ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... sloth her strength despoil: Her peaceful farmers till, With patient thrift, th' outlying soil, Her trained mechanics deftly toil, Her merchants ply their skill; ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... 'Ye shall ply these spindles at midnight hour, And for every spindle shall rise a tower, Where the right shall be feeble, the wrong shall have power, And there shall ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... which was very considerably heightened upon one occasion by a plan of some of our wise-headed young gentlemen. Being in want of amusement, they bethought them of priming the fire engine, which happened to be standing on the poop, and after clapping a relay of hands ready to ply it to advantage, we uncovered, and waited the approach of the boats. No sooner were they within reach, than off went the water-spout, which fell "alike on the just and the unjust," for both the dockyard men and the spectators who came within its ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... Pleiades (Ply-a-des) can be seen in winter as a cluster of small stars between Aldebaran and Angol, or, a line drawn from the back bottom, through the front rim of the Big Dipper, about two Dipper lengths, touches this little group. They are not far ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... them read, and perhaps write a little, but they prefer to make their mark and get you to attest it with the formula, "the mark of J——N." Their schooling was soon over. When they were nine years of age they were ploughboys, and had a rough time with a cantankerous ploughman who often used to ply his whip on his lad or on his horses quite indiscriminately. They have seen many changes, and do not always "hold with" modern notions; and one of the greatest changes they have seen is in the fairs. They are not what they were. Some, indeed, maintain some of their ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... like others unconfined abroad, But know set stations, and a fixed abode: 190 Each provident of cold in summer flies Through fields and woods, to seek for new supplies, And in the common stock unlades his thighs. Some watch the food, some in the meadows ply, Taste every bud, and suck each blossom dry; Whilst others, labouring in their cells at home, Temper Narcissus' clammy tears with gum, For the first groundwork of the golden comb; On this they found their waxen works, and raise The yellow fabric on its gluey base. 200 Some educate the ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... She spoke not; but the knight, under cover of his errand, continued the discourse without awakening her alarm. He excelled in that specious, though apparently heedless raillery, which is so apt to slip without suspicion into a lady's ear; and he could ply his suit, under this disguise, with such seeming artlessness and unconcern, that a lodgement in the citadel was sometimes effected ere the garrison was aware ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... her instance, Pollyooly seemed to feel herself responsible for the prince. She seemed also to feel it more important that he should learn to dig properly than that she should dig herself. For, giving him her spade, she stood over him and urged him to ply it with the exacting persistence of a biblical Egyptian superintending the making of bricks. The baron walked moodily up and down outside the castle wall, considering bitterly the while the ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... emphatically indorsed his judgment. The other persons, and the action itself, he treated more freely, with evident regard to their value as secondary elements in the portrayal of Stafford; and it is easy to trace in the whole manner of his innovations the well-marked ply of his mind. The harsh and rugged fanaticisms, the splendid frivolities, of the seventeenth century, fade and lose substance in an atmosphere charged with idealism and self-consciousness. Generous self-devotion is not the universal note, but it ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... it seemed plausible that somewhere up on the Plateau of Cuyaba—where no rails run, no boats ply, and no telegraph line penetrates; which juts out ultimately into that unknown region where the Rio Zingu and the Tapajoz have their origins—certainly it seemed plausible that there must lie the headquarters of ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... the plain which leaps. But though we slaughter, nor the work resign When stiff and wearied are each hand and spine, On field and mountain still the beasts are spied Plenteous as grasses in the summer tide; As at three points the fierce attack I ply, Seeing what numbers still remain to die, Captains, pick'd captains I with speed despatch, Who by the tail the spotted leopard catch, Crash to the brain the furious tiger's head, Grapple the bear so powerful and dread, The ancient sow, the desert's haunter, slay— Whilst with applause ...
— Targum • George Borrow
... currents of life, in action's storm, I float and I wave With billowy motion! Birth and the grave, O limitless ocean, A constant weaving With change still rife, A restless heaving, A glowing life—- Thus time's whirring loom unceasing I ply, And ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... even, and vigorous stroke the young heroes from Hellas ply their oars, and the blue waters of the Euxine are flecked with foam. Here is an ideal picture. A band of enterprising young men, alert, active, ambitions—a scene typical of the highest conception of life. It has ever been scenes like this that have challenged the ...
— A Fleece of Gold - Five Lessons from the Fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece • Charles Stewart Given
... mammy belonga 'nother fella altogether. You no savee, come close up—that fella ply way. You no savee, come close up, that fella no good; that ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... an enormous and hyena-like German police-dog. He was one of the many of his breed that were employed (for work or food) in the German camps, and which used to sneak away from their hard-kicking soldier-owners to ply a more congenial trade as scavengers, and as seekers for the dead. For, in traits as well as in looks, the police-dog often emulates ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... to rise! Hannah! whom truth, with a parental smile, Ranks with her favorites of our letter'd isle; Thou in wide fields, by tribes of learning fill'd, By folly vainly view'd, by wisdom till'd; Where grain and weed arise in mingled birth, To nourish, or oppress, the race of earth; Well hast thou ply'd thy task of virtuous toil, And reap'd distinction's tributary spoil: Long has thy country, with a fond acclaim, Joy'd in thy genius, gloried in thy fame; Progressive talents in thy works beheld, Thine earlier volumes by thy last excell'd! The ...
— Poems on Serious and Sacred Subjects - Printed only as Private Tokens of Regard, for the Particular - Friends of the Author • William Hayley
... tell her story, but she made awkward work of it, and they had to ply her with questions to get at the smallest fact. But finally she managed to repeat what we already knew, how she went with the policeman into the house, and how they stumbled upon the dead woman in ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... a haughty young nobleman; while, on the other side, the stultifying effects of Bertram's pride are seen in that it renders him the easy dupe of a most base and bungling counterfeit of manhood. It was natural and right, that such a shallow, paltry word-gun should ply him with impudent flatteries, and thereby gain an ascendency over him, and finally draw him into the crimes and the shames that were to whip down his pride; and it was equally natural that his scorn of Helena should begin to relax, ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... a few of the seed do remain, They’re vile as the thistles and briars of the plain; They ply for their neighbours the pick and the hoe: Thy murder, Brown William, fills ...
— Brown William - The Power of the Harp and Other Ballads • Thomas J. Wise
... I The ferries ply like shuttles in a loom, And many barques come in across the bay To lights and bells that signal through ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... of an absurd feeling of disappointment. He could not understand why he felt any anxiety to see Mrs. Errington refuse a beggar alms. Yet he would gladly have followed, like a spy, to behold a commonplace and dingy event. Despite the apparent reluctance of the beggar to ply his trade, Hindford felt convinced that presently the man would approach Mrs. Errington and be promptly sent about his business. Her negative would, no doubt, be eager enough even upon this exquisite and charitable morning. Wishing devoutly that, being a gentleman, he had not ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... what if, after all this, I find no intimation of pardon to my soul? Ans. As this should serve to keep thee humble, so it should excite to more diligence, in this duty of going with thy sins to Christ, and to ply him and his cross more, in and through the promises, and keep thy soul constant in this duty of the running to Christ, as an all-sufficient Mediator, and as an intercessor with the Father; and thus wait on him waiteth to be gracious, even in ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... tongues or reeds, was afterwards introduced on the lines of the Western Union Telegraph Company in America. As more than one set of vibrations—that is to say, more than one note—can be sent over the same wire simultaneously, it is utilised as a 'multiplex' or many-ply telegraph, conveying several messages through the same wire at once; and these can either be interpreted by the sound, or the marks drawn on a ribbon of travelling paper by a ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... initiation you'll never forget, a regular three-ply, dyed in the wool, warranted storm-proof initiation," added Ben, ...
— Dave Porter and His Rivals - or, The Chums and Foes of Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... endeavour to ply that servile engine of which Pendennis conceived so exalted an opinion. Certainly a false pride did not stand in his way when, on May 5, 1889, he announced that he was about to leave St. Andrews, and attempt to get work at proof-correcting ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray
... twelve years old, bright, fair, full of animal spirits, who was indulged to the last degree by the roughly generous colonel, sometimes accompanied him about the half-developed country, searching for strange birds and blossoms in the woods or watching demurely the laborers ply their picks and shovels ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... I a fare had lately past, And thought that side to ply, I heard one, as it were, in haste, A boat! a boat! to cry; Which as I was about to bring, And came to view my fraught, Thought I, what more than heavenly thing Hath fortune hither brought? She, seeing mine eyes still on her were, Soon, smilingly, quoth she, Sirrah, look ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... eye, Wreathed trunk and horny tegum- Ent, whom I have joyed to ply With the fugitive mince-pie And the seasonable legume, Youth has left me; fortune too Flounts my efforts to annex it; Still, I occupy the view, Bored but loath to leave, while you Make the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 10th, 1920 • Various
... sooner had he set foot on the opposite side than the magpies flew away, filling all the heavens with their chatter. The weeping wife and lover-husband stood for a long time wistfully gazing at each other from afar. Then they separated, the one to lead his ox, the other to ply her shuttle during the long hours of the day with diligent toil. Thus they filled the hours, and the sun-king again ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... Skipper said; "He vanished with the coal we burn; Our dial marks full steam ahead, Our speed is timed to half a turn. Sure as the tidal trains we ply 'Twixt ...
— The Seven Seas • Rudyard Kipling
... seemed abandoned. I thought that, under these circumstances, escape would be possible. Indeed, the inhabited shores offered anywhere an easy refuge. The sea was incessantly ploughed by the steamers that ply between New York or Boston and the Gulf of Mexico, and overrun day and night by the little schooners coasting about the several parts of the American coast. We could hope to be picked up. It was a favourable ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... Henry Crabb of Chatham, a boatman who rejoiced in incurable lameness; rejoiced because, although there were many cripples on board the Queen's ships in his day, his infirmity was such as to leave him at liberty to ply for hire "when other men durst not for feare of being Imprest." He was an impudent, over-reaching knave, and Capt. Balchen, of the Adventure man-o'-war, whose wife had suffered much from the fellow's ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... which is in turn secured to the end of a five-foot pole. Seated in a boat with sail set, they slip along until a school of barracouta is happened upon. Then the peak of the sail is dropped, so as to deaden the boat's way, while the fishermen ply their poles with a sidelong sweep that threshes the bit of shining red through the water, making it irresistibly attractive to a struggling horde of ravenous fish. One by one, as swiftly as the rod can be wielded, the lithe forms drop off the barbless hook into the boat, ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... rarely even single warships or freighters in the Mediterranean. The only American passenger line that serves Mediterranean ports is the old Turkish Hadji Daoud Line of five small and dirty Levantine ships, which ply along the coast of Asia Minor and in and out of the Greek islands, camouflaged under ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... three out of every five journalists attached to our chief London newspapers are Inns-of-Court men; when many of our able and successful advocates are known to ply their pens in organs of periodical literature as regularly as they raise their voices in courts of justice; and when the young Templar, who has borne away the first honors of his university, deems himself the object of a compliment on receiving ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... chief should happy Dido wed, How would her walls ascend, her empire spread? Join'd by the arms of Troy, with such allies, Think to what height will Punic glory rise. Win but the gods, their sacred off'rings pay; 65 Detain your guest; invent some fond delay. See low'ring tempests o'er the ocean ply, The shatter'd vessels, ...
— The Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaire's Henriad • Virgil and Voltaire
... that the natural tenderness of his disposition (more humane than her own) would come between, and defeat the purpose. So with her own hands armed with a dagger, she approached the king's bed; having taken care to ply the grooms of his chamber so with wine, that they slept intoxicated, and careless of their charge. There lay Duncan in a sound sleep after the fatigues of his journey, and as she viewed him earnestly, there was something in his face, as he slept, which resembled ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... God knows I'm afraid some American boat will run on a mine somewhere in the Channel or the North Sea. There's war there as there is on land in Germany. Nobody tries to get goods through on land on the continent, and they make no complaints that commerce is stopped. Everybody tries to ply the Channel and the North Sea as usual, both of which have German and English mines and torpedo craft and submarines almost as thick as batteries along the hostile camps on land. The British Government (which now issues marine insurance) ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... considered to be just a mile across from Point Levi to the landing-stairs below the custom-house in Quebec; and it was a source of amusement to me to watch the horse ferry-boats that ply between the two shores. The captain told me there were not less than twelve of these comical-looking machines. They each have their regular hours, so that you see a constant succession going or returning. They carry a ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... from the wooden reel or spool on which thread is wound; "bottom" simply meaning the base or foundation of the reel. The names of his comrades have no specific connection with the trades they ply; but "Starveling" is appropriate by tradition for a tailor—it takes seven tailors to make ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... artifice essay'd: "Since 'tis impossible to nod, While harping like the Delphian god, You charm our ears, stead of a nap, A batch of nectar will I tap, Which lately from Minerva came; Now if you do not scorn the same, Together let us bumpers ply." The Grasshopper, extremely dry, And, finding she had hit the key That gain'd applause, approach'd with glee; At which the Owl upon her flew, And quick the trembling vixen slew. Thus by her death she was adjudged To give what ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... and a handsome carriage, and deport himself generally as a gentleman of leisure. His duties would be to get up a flirtation with Mrs. Maroney, prevail on her to drive out with him, and, if possible, entice her to quiet, little fish-suppers, where he could ply her with champagne, and, under its exhilarating influence, draw from her portions of her secret. A woman of Mrs. Maroney's stamp, while separated from her husband, would most likely desire gentlemen's company, ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... to ply my clumsy paddle, first on this side and then on the other, and with alarming rapidity my sufferings seemed to grow in acuteness until I found myself moaning and uttering short, sharp cries of distress with every movement of my body, ay, and with every breath ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... There sailors ply for passengers for a trip in their pleasure boats, setting forth all the tempting delights of a fine breeze—and woe-betide the unfortunate cockney who gets in the clutches of a pair of plyers of ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... disgusting scenes which the mass of spectators exhibit on these occasions, as if this were quite decisive of the question. That ragged children, who have never thought of death at all, play their usual pranks at the foot of the gallows—that pickpockets ply their trade in this as in every other gaping crowd—what has all this to do with the impression produced on the mind of every man and woman throughout the kingdom, by the knowledge that if he, through sudden passion, or the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... calls, Less heard, and less the faint Remonstrance falls; Tir'd with Contempt, she quits the slipp'ry Reign, And Pride and Prudence take her Seat in vain. In croud at once, where none the Pass defend, The harmless Freedom, and the private Friend. The Guardians yield, by Force superior ply'd; By Int'rest, Prudence; and by Flatt'ry, Pride. Here Beauty falls betray'd, despis'd, distress'd, And hissing Infamy proclaims the rest. [Footnote m: ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson
... will be needed by the doctor; about five dozen should be prepared. The gauze is cut in eighteen-inch squares. Opposite edges are folded toward one another, about two inches being lapped each time; this finally yields a seven or eight-ply strip, which is wrapped into appropriate shape about two fingers. The ravelled ends are then tucked into the roll. It is most satisfactory to divide the sponges and sterilize them in ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... boats ply between Bellport and the Great South Beach, whither the summer visitors are in the habit of repairing for the purpose of tumbling in the surf on the outside. In one of these, with a fair wind and a skipper acquainted with the numerous shoals, it is very pleasant to sail across the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... search along the Guamoco trail. But the fever came upon him, and he refused to continue the hunt. The Alcalde counted the cost, then loudly cursed himself and Rosendo for the many good pesos so ruthlessly squandered. Then he began to ply Jose and Rosendo with skillfully framed questions. He worried the citizens of the village with his suggestions. Finally he bethought himself to apprise the Bishop of his suspicions. But second consideration disclosed that plan as likely to yield him nothing ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... for such as I on earth, nor yet in Heaven; Unloved I live, unloved I die, unpitied, unforgiven; A loathed jade, I ply my trade, ...
— The Spell of the Yukon • Robert Service
... islands, and to every ship lying quietly at anchor in that neighborhood—of a woodcutter's axe. Sturdy were the blows, and steady the succession in which they followed: some even fancied they could hear that sort of groaning respiration which is made by men who use an axe, or by those who in towns ply the "three-man beetle" of Falstaff, as paviers; echoes they certainly heard of every blow, from the profound woods and the sylvan precipices on the margin of the shores; which, however, should rather indicate that the sounds were not supernatural, since, if a visual ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... and turn mine eager prow, Back to the quiet waveless source again, Where no harsh sound breaks on the dreaming brain, And winds steal softly round the careless brow,— Swift as a dream my tiny bark hath gone, And stoutly though I ply the oar, yet now My weary shallop still goes sadly on, Swift floating down ...
— Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... find out that Anissme has been thrown into prison as a counterfeiter. Tzibukine despairs; he feels his strength diminishing. Varvara continues to pray and to watch, while Stepan and Axinia continue to ply their trade as before. When, later on, Anissme is sentenced to ten years at hard labor in Siberia, Varvara suggests to her husband that he should leave one of his houses to the child which has just been born to Lipa, so that no one will speak badly of him after his death. ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... spends the afternoon in staring wonderingly at me and the bicycle. Having picked up a little Persian during the winter, I am able to talk with them, and understand them, rather better than last season, and, Persian-like, they ply me mercilessly with questions. Often, when some one asks a question of me, Mirza Hassan, as becomes a telegraphies, and a person of profound erudition, thoughtfully saves me the trouble of replying by undertaking to furnish the desired information himself. One old mollah wants to ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... ladies met, And at the frame are seated; In order plac'd, they work in haste, To get the quilt completed. While fingers fly, their tongues they ply, And animate their labors, By counting beaux, discussing clothes, Or ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... carriage. Why this economy? In order to have a storehouse full of garments, shoes and blankets, which he distributed gratuitously, with paternal kindness and prudence. This was a business which he never ceased to ply, in which he trusted only to himself, and with which he concerned ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... quite an everyday trip. Modern steamers, with every modern convenience and luxury, probably as comfortable as any river steamers in the world, ply regularly in their two services between Shanghai and this port, at the foot of ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... wind; then ask Brooks, and he will be sure to force him to come. Say nothing of the boy; let him stay or come, as they think proper. To ask all might make them suspicious. They'll both come. They never yet resisted a spiritual temptation. When here, ply them well, and then we shall go on according to circumstances. Brooks carries the keys along with him: get him once in for it, and I'll take them from him. If he resists, ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... into a fit of coughing and, as he shivered, the canoe trembled. As for Granger his hands were heavy, his arms ached, and his fingers were numb; he dimly wondered at his own perseverance that he still continued to ply his paddle. As the cold spread through him, his senses took to sleeping. He was aroused by a sudden jerk and a shout from Spurling, "Curse you. Back water. Turn her head out into ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... manner, that, before night, we were reduced to our two courses; and, at last, obliged to lie-to under the fore-sails, having a prodigious high sea from W.N.W., notwithstanding the height of the gale was from N. by W. At three o'clock the next morning, the gale abating, we made sail, and continued to ply to the west till ten o'clock in ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... and looking into her face with bleared and rheumy eyes, "where is the banner thy handmaids were weaving for Harold the Earl? Why didst thou lay aside that labour of love for Harold the King? Hie thee home, and bid thy maidens ply all night at the work; make it potent with rune and with spell, and with gums of the seid. Take the banner to Harold the King as a marriage-gift; for the day of his birth shall be still the day of his nuptials ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... death you had nothing to gain, merely for the sake of murdering? If so, can you describe the charm to me? Does it come upon you periodically; or is it chronic? Has curiosity anything to do with it?" I would ply him with all manner of questions to find out what murder is really like; and I should not be satisfied until I had realized that I, too, might commit a murder, or else that there is some specific quality present in a murderer and lacking in me. And, ...
— Overruled • George Bernard Shaw
... of France, who repaired this castle in 1528. Abroken staircase leads up to the top. "No warrior's tread is echoed by their halls, no warder's challenge on the silence falls. Around, the thrifty peasants ply their toil, and pluck in orange groves the scented spoil from trees that have for purple mountains made a vestment bright, of green and gold inlaid." —Guido and Lita, by ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... in the evening and rambled about the streets of that part of London which had surely least interest for him, the streets which are thronged with idlers, with carriages going homeward from the theatres, with those who can only come forth to ply their business when darkness has fallen? Did he seek food for his antagonism in observing the characteristics of the world in which he was a stranger, the world which has its garners full and takes ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... his eyes, and you will prosper. I will pledge my expected earldom that he yields! Sir, these distant situations are like so many half-authorized mints, in which money is to be coined; and the only counterfeit is your mimic representative of Majesty. Ply him with golden hopes; if ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... psychical inhibitions, sexual practices may occur that would not otherwise have occurred.") To take the woman's point of view first, it is, I believe, a common experience with prostitutes that, in the earlier days at any rate, they find it difficult to ply their trade unless under the influence of alcohol. Turning to the man's point of view, there is quite a considerable proportion of young men who, however strong their sexual impulse, object to meretricious intercourse at once on ethical and aesthetic grounds. The ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... give notice of their coming by a great sea that tumbles in on the shore for some time before they come, and by a black sky in the north-west. Upon these signs ships either get up their anchors, or slip their cables and put to sea, and ply off and on till the weather is over. Sometimes they are forced to do so 2 or 3 times before they can take in their lading; which it is hard to do here in the fairest weather: and for fresh water they send, as I have said, to Santa Cruz. Verdona is green, strong-bodied wine, harsher and ...
— A Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier
... safe conscience: I don't think it lawful to harbour any rogues but my own. Look'ee, child, as the saying is, we must go cunningly to work, proofs we must have; the gentleman's servant loves drink, I'll ply him that way, and ten to one loves a wench: you must work ...
— The Beaux-Stratagem • George Farquhar
... inverted order of society that woman is obliged to ply the needle by day and by night, to procure even a scanty pittance for her dependent family. Let men become producers, as nature has designed them, and women be educated to fill all those stations which require less physical strength, and we should soon modify many of our social ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... stockade around Texas. If the Telephonians wished to use these poles at home, they might drive them in as piles along their water-front, and have a twenty-five thousand-acre dock; or if their city were a hundred square miles in extent, they might set up a seven-ply wall around ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... part of philosophy Will I apply] Sir Thomas Hammer, and after him Dr. Warburton, read to virtues but formerly ply and apply were indifferently used, as to ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... mother a year or two before she died, but we could never make it as she did. When we were children she used sometimes to send her respects to my mother, and ask leave for us to come and take tea with her. Right well she used to ply us. As for her temper, we never met such a delightful old lady in our lives; whatever Mr Pontifex may have had to put up with, we had no cause for complaint, and then Mr Pontifex would play to us upon the organ, and we would stand round him open-mouthed ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... means let us have cheaper Cabs in Greater London! The County Council should subsidise a lot of Cabs, to ply exclusively between London and the outskirts. Or why not a Government Cab Purchase Bill, like the Irish Land Purchase one? We want a special Minister for Public Locomotion—perhaps Lord RANDOLPH ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 16, 1892 • Various
... sign of complying with the admiral's demands, he burned the place on 8th May and sailed away.[141] Goodson called again at Santa Marta on the 11th to get water, and on the 14th stood before Cartagena to view the harbour. Leaving three vessels to ply there, he returned to Jamaica, bringing back with him only two small prizes, one laden with wine, the ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... along the Garden Reach and far below is often almost as crowded as the Pool of London, with ocean-going steamers waiting to load or unload their cargoes as well as with lumbering native sailing ships and the ferries that ply ceaselessly between the different quarters of the city on both banks of the Hugli. The continuous roar of traffic in the busy streets, the crowded tram-cars, the motors and taxis jostling the ancient bullock-carts, the surging crowds in the semi-Europeanised native quarters, even the pall of smoke ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... been forgotten by old customers (Mrs. Rowe called them clients), and aunt's walking-boots. One corner was Lucy's, which she occupied in conjunction with a little table, at which, from seven in the morning until bedtime, she worked with pen or needle (it was provoking she could not learn to ply both at one time), when she was not running about the house, or nursing a boarder's baby. On the rare evenings when her aunt could not find work of any description for her, Lucy was requested to take the Bible from the shelf, and read a chapter aloud. When her aunt ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... young girl should attend the professor on any of his trips into "the wilds," as she expressed it. Aunt Euphemia ignored the fact that nowadays the railroad and telegraph are in Thibet and that turbines ply the headwaters of ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... the scavengers came down from Montmartre to ply their matutinal avocations, they found the body of a woman lying on her face on the pavement. They raised her up and carried her to an hospital. She was not dead, as had been at first supposed; and when the unhappy creature ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... sell any book, either their own property, or belonging to others, exceeding half a mark in value. If disobedient they were liable to suffer pain of imprisonment for the first offence, a fine of half a mark for the second—a curious example of graduated punishment—and a prohibition to ply their trade within the precincts of the University for ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... Murgatroyd's paw. The blaster jerked, and Murgatroyd's paw tightened to hold it. He pulled the trigger. A blaster-bolt crashed out of the barrel. It was a miniature bolt of ball-lightning. It went into the floor, vaporizing the surface and carbonizing the multi-ply wood layer beneath it. The Med Ship suddenly reeked of wood smoke and surfacer. Murgatroyd fled in panic to his cubbyhole and cowered ...
— The Hate Disease • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... our own, but I will not begin with thwarting the managers of my affairs, or even exerting strong influence; it is not fair. These last four or five days I have wrought little; to-day I set on the steam and ply my paddles. ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... gleamed a strange, dancing light, which appeared and disappeared and reappeared again, flickering faintly from floor to ceiling. There seemed no explainable origin for it, and Evelyn's mind at once turned to the supernatural. A silly maidservant at home had been accustomed to ply her with ghost stories, all of which now recurred to her memory. What was it, that unnatural, luminous halo on the opposite wall? It was moving nearer to her, and had almost reached the curtain of her cubicle, when, with a choking little gasp, she sprang out of bed, and darting into the corridor ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil |
