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More "Pry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... In his mental confusion Old Man Anderson kept revolving in his mind, with satisfaction, a new plan he had evolved. The next time Jim should fall asleep he would crawl back through the aperture in the conduit wall, pry up the boards over the opening into the prison yard, wriggle out, and take his chances in getting over the wall somehow! Better even be shot by a guard than die like a rat in this unspeakable place, as he was doing, where he couldn't stand up and dared not lie ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... again in autumn, exploring the bare twigs, it is this Kinglet. When light snow is first powdering the spruces and bending the delicate hemlock branches, dusky shapes flit out of the green cover. Are they dry leaves blown about by the gust? No, leaves do not climb about in the face of the wind, or pry and peep into every cone crevice, crying 'twe-zee, twe-zee, twe-zee!' They are not leaves, but a flock of Kinglets forcing the bark crevices to yield them a breakfast of the insects which had put themselves ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... emperor in private. Having gained the opportunity he did obeisance before him and after repeatedly calling him "master," and "god" (terms that were already being applied to him by others), he said: "I have done nothing of the sort. And if I obtain a respite, I will pry into everything and both inform against and convict many persons for you." He was released on these conditions, but did not report any one; instead, by advancing different excuses at different times, he lived until Domitian ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... as injurious to a child to attempt to force a feeling before its normal time, as to a bud, to pry open its petals to hasten God's processes. Even the Divine Child "grew." "That is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, then that which is spiritual," is God's law of ...
— The Unfolding Life • Antoinette Abernethy Lamoreaux
... to pry thim off. Near ivry man iv th' Saint Aloysiuses was tied in a knot around wan iv th' Christyan Brothers. On'y wan iv thim remained on th' field. He was lyin' face down, with his nose in th' mud. 'He's kilt,' says I. 'I think he is,' ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... young plants, in which case there is much room for good sense in taking them up. Many lay hold upon the canes and pull so hastily that little save sticks comes out. A gardener wants fibrous roots rather than top; therefore, send the spade down under the roots and pry them out. Suckers and root-cutting plants can be dug in October, after the wood has fairly ripened, but be careful to leave no foliage on the canes that are taken up before the leaves fall, for they rapidly drain the vitality of the plants. It is best to cut the canes ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... long to insert the iron bar under one end of the slat and thus pry it up. This done the man with the axe gave the side of the seat a couple of blows, and then the ...
— Richard Dare's Venture • Edward Stratemeyer
... Yes; you had it in your hands when Manuel brought you out. They could hardly pry ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... strangers generally. I do not believe any food—that is, solids—ever passed the woman's lips since her attack of paralysis, consequent upon her mishap. As for an occasional teaspoonful of water or milk, I sometimes force her to take it by using an instrument to pry open her mouth, but that is painful to her. As early as 1865 I endeavored to sustain life in this way, for I feared that, in obedience to the universal law of nature, she would die of gradual inanition or exhaustion, ...
— Fasting Girls - Their Physiology and Pathology • William Alexander Hammond
... the door at the foot of the stairs wide enough to detect a half-clothed man trying to pry open with one arm a heavy door above. She hesitated for a moment, but when the man had shoved the door back a little farther, enough for her to see Mrs. Preston struggling with all her force, she ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... calamities which Antiochus, the wicked emperor of Greece, threatened to bring upon his subjects and city of Tyre, in revenge for a discovery which the prince had made of a shocking deed which the emperor had done in secret; as commonly it proves dangerous to pry into the hidden crimes of great ones. Leaving the government of his people in the hands of his able and honest minister, Helicanus, Pericles set sail from Tyre, thinking to absent himself till the wrath of Antiochus, who was mighty, ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... disliked her, and hated to see her come where they were. She never got invited anywhere, because nothing was safe from her little Paul Pry fingers; and when company came she generally got sent out of the room. It was a great pity, because she was really a pretty little girl, and a very ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... The sewing and the scissors slipped to the floor. His mother was down on her knees beside him, one arm about his shoulders, trying to pry his face from his hands, trying to look into his eyes. "You're my man, Davy! You're the only man, the only help I've got. You're my life, Davy. Poor ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... makes it very attractive. When they are first gathered it is very difficult to crack them with the fingers but if they are put in the oven and roasted they open up and leave a little suture into which you put your thumb nails and pry ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Eleventh Annual Meeting - Washington, D. C. October 7 AND 8, 1920 • Various
... you are leaving us, I don't want to pry inter any man's business, and you know these islands as well as I do; but I guess I wouldn't stay here if I war you. Why, it won't pay a man to stay and trade on a bit of a place like this," and he cast ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... her vestments: round about in the form of an amphitheatre were most curiously planted pine trees, interseamed with limons and citrons, which with the thickness of their boughs so shadowed the place, that Phoebus could not pry into the secret of that arbor; so united were the tops with so thick a closure, that Venus might there in her jollity have dallied unseen with her dearest paramour. Fast by, to make the place more gorgeous, was there a ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... where, and don't furnish me with proxies! I stay here and try to protect your interests when you desert 'em, and you send some white-headed old reprobate of a Pinkerton man to shadow me for a week and try to pry into my work! And when you get home you never show up at the counting-room, though you know what a pickle things are in; and when I meet you on the street, I get cut dead: that's what I do! And I stand it, do ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... with a soft, complacent, cooing note, as expressive of perfect content as the purring of a well-fed tabby, stretched cosily upon the earth-rug before a cheerful winter evening fire. This transfer was effected so quickly, that Johnny was baffled in an ill-bred attempt which he made to pry into the domestic concerns of the affectionate pair, and he could not get even a transient glimpse of the ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... the only defenders of the settlement. The heavy sleepers in the store and the house were not yet enough awake to know what had occurred. On their rapid ponies the Indians flashed past between the saloon and Rath's, darted here and there around the corners, flung to earth and ran to pry at windows ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... telling us that the news was abroad! Captain Carter eyed us closely; his flashing eyes under the white bushy brows would pry a secret ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... of the side poles of the tent she ran one end of it under the cot; then bracing her shoulder against it, used it as a lever in the endeavor to pry the weight off her friend. The ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge
... said, moving away from the bedside. 'I don't want to pry into your mysteries.' Then she turned to me, and said, with a faint smile on her lips, 'Vilcaroya, come into the dining-room, I have something ...
— The Romance of Golden Star ... • George Chetwynd Griffith
... Proxy anstatauxulo. Prudence singardemo. Prudent singardema, prudenta. Prune cxirkauxhaki. Prune seka pruno. Pruning shears brancxotondilo. Prussian, a Pruso. Prussic acid ciana acido. Pry sercxi, rigardeti. Psalm psalmo. Psalmody psalmokantado. Psalter psalmaro. Pseudonym pseuxdonomo. Psychology psikologio. Puberty virigxo. Public publika. Publican drinkejmastro. Public-house drinkejo. Publicity ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... might at the wrong end of a lever. That is, he had a great crowbar, almost as large as he could lift, and was bearing down on one end of it, while the block of wood which he had put under it for a purchase, was at the same end. He was trying to pry up a large stone in that way. But the stone would not be pryed up. It was a very obstinate stone, the good old farmer thought. He had no notion of giving up the project, however. So he pulled off his coat, rolled up his sleeves, and went to work in right good earnest. Still the ...
— The Diving Bell - Or, Pearls to be Sought for • Francis C. Woodworth
... this is knavish and absurd, And well deserves a damnatory word. You glance at your own faults; your eyes are blear: You eye your neighbour's; straightway you see clear, Like hawk or basilisk: your neighbours pry Into your frailties with as keen an eye. A man is passionate, perhaps misplaced In social circles of fastidious taste; His ill-trimmed beard, his dress of uncouth style, His shoes ill-fitting, may provoke a smile: But ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... all well acquainted with levers. We apply them every day. A box arrives with its lid nailed down; we take a chisel, use it as a lever, pry the lid open, and see no marvel in what we have done (Fig. 1). And yet we thereby did with ease what would have been impossible for us even if we had put out the whole of our unaided strength. The use of levers is an old discovery; more than ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent
... he and his sister felt very sorrowful. But not for long, for in a little while along hopped Uncle Wiggily Longears, with his crutch. It didn't take him any time, with the aid of the June bug, and Buddy and Brighteyes, to pry that turnip up ...
— Buddy And Brighteyes Pigg - Bed Time Stories • Howard R. Garis
... the replies, one member even suggested that Johnson might achieve more by getting the services to prosecute their current policies vigorously. Although Chairman Reid promised that these suggestions would all be taken into consideration, he still hoped to use the Air Force response to pry further concessions out ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... stateroom, which, finding locked, I had not disturbed on my former visit. But first I explored the steward's pantry, in search of knife or hatchet. I found the latter, and, with it tucked into my belt, felt my way aft. It may have required five minutes to pry open the chest, and the reward was scarcely worth the effort. The upper tray contained nothing but clothing, and beneath this were books, and nautical instruments, with a bag of specie tucked into one corner, together with a small packet of letters. I opened the sack, finding ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... The first impulse of my love is to dissuade you from seeking to know more. Your mind will be full of ideas; your hands will be perpetually busy to a purpose into which no human creature, beyond the verge of your brotherhood, must pry. Believe me, who have made the experiment, that compared with this task, the task of inviolable secrecy, all others are easy. To be dumb will not suffice; never to know any remission in your zeal or your watchfulness will not suffice. If the sagacity of others detect your occupations, ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown
... there then? I suppose you mean that she is dying of an incurable disease or has lost her mind. But do not imagine that I care to pry further into that. I never had the least idea that you had—— Oh, I don't know what to believe! . . . Won't you ever ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... Monarch drank, that happy hour, The sweetest, holiest draught of Power,— When it can say with godlike voice, Arise, sad Virtue, and rejoice! Yet would not James the general eye On nature's raptures long should pry; He stepped between—' Nay, Douglas, nay, Steal not my proselyte away! The riddle 'tis my right to read, That brought this happy chance to speed. Yes, Ellen, when disguised I stray In life's more low but happier way, 'Tis under name which veils my power Nor falsely ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... a bibliophile and a bibliomaniac has been described as between one who adorns his mind, and the other his book-cases. Of the bibliomaniac as here characterized, we can suggest no better type than Thomas Hill, the original of Poole's 'Paul Pry,' and of Hull in Hook's novel, 'Gilbert Gurney.' Devoid as Hill was of intellectual endowments, he managed to obtain and secure the friendship of many eminent men—of Thomas Campbell, the poet, Matthews and Liston, the comedians, Hook, Dubois, John and Leigh Hunt, James and Horace Smith, ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... centered my attention upon her; and I began to pry into her record. Burgess, one of my men, went as far as New Orleans, looking her up. A number of things were found against her, a few rather startling. She seemed a woman given to criminal impulses, and just the sort who would perpetrate a thing ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... want to make some amends, to somewhat mitigate the blow - when it's so easy to do it. See I shall leave you absolutely free. I shall not question you, not pry, not even make an allusion. But do you then spare our family too. That is all I ask. Spare our children ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... politicians themselves. Under the great dome of the capitol at Springfield, in the halls and conference chambers of the senate and house, in the hotels, and in the rural districts wherever any least information was to be gathered, were their representatives—to see, to listen, to pry. Out of this contest they were gaining prestige and cash. By them were the reform aldermen persuaded to call mass-meetings in their respective districts. Property-owners were urged to organize; a committee of one hundred prominent citizens ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... the floor in a fiery defence. He brought forth the statement that Prescott had not made any attempt to pry into the goings or comings of the unlucky Durville. The Virginian declared that Prescott had happened to be abroad in time to "catch" Mr. Durville, simply because Prescott had started for the office of the officer in charge with an official ...
— Dick Prescotts's Fourth Year at West Point - Ready to Drop the Gray for Shoulder Straps • H. Irving Hancock
... predictions of judicial astrology, and Leicester, though exempt from the general control of superstition, was not in this respect superior to his time, but, on the contrary, was remarkable for the encouragement which he gave to the professors of this pretended science. Indeed, the wish to pry into futurity, so general among the human race, is peculiarly to be found amongst those who trade in state mysteries and the dangerous intrigues and cabals of courts. With heedful precaution to see that it had not been opened, or its locks tampered with, Leicester applied ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... brief lines, my reverend friend, By a safe, private hand I send (Fearing lest some low Catholic wag Should pry into the Letter-bag), To tell you, far as pen can dare How we, poor errant martyrs, fare;— Martyrs, not quite to fire and rack, As Saints were, some few ages back. But—scarce less trying in its way— To laughter, wheresoe'er we stray; To jokes, which ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... can make my way blindfold over the bogs and mosses hereabout; and I would pilot thee to the place yonder, if my fealty to the prior—that is—if—I mean—though I was never a groat the richer for his bounty; yet he may not like strangers to pry into his garners and store-houses, especially in these evil times, when every cur begins to yelp at the heels of our bountiful mother; and every beast to bray out its reproaches at her ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... a child of six years of age, assisted his father with a mien which betokened that he considered his services indispensable. With his bare head and feet he ran up and down the timbers as nimbly as a squirrel. When a beam was being lifted, he cried, "Pry under!" as lustily as any one, put his shoulder to the crowbar, and puffed as if nine-tenths of the weight fell upon him. Valentine liked to see his little boy employed. He would tell him to wind the twine on the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... you say I pry and spy! You know it is not true, Anna. I only came to ask you to play with us, and—and how was I to know that you were doing something that you didn't want any one to see? Why don't you want any one to see you? What are you burning?" Betty stepped nearer and looked ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... camera and obtained a microscope—a short, complacent-looking implement it is, of brass—and he goes about everywhere now with little glass bottles in his pocket, ready to jump upon any stray polly-woggle he may find, and hale it home and pry into its affairs. Within his study window are perhaps half a dozen jars and basins full of green scum and choice specimens of black mud in which his victims live. He persists in making me look through ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... retired without waiting for an answer; and still another time he pretended to be talking in his sleep, and got off a portion of every original conundrum in hearing of his father. He begs the curious not to pry into the result—as it was of no consequence ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... "Don't pry, don't pry, dear old Ham," he said testily. "Great Heavens and Moses! Can't a fellow take a desirable flat, with all modern conveniences, in the most fashionable part of the West End, and all that sort of thing, without exciting the voice of scandal, dear old thing? I'm surprised at you, really I ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... during the bright September afternoon. But before the glow of a lovely sunset had faded from the sky the artillery once more opened on the ridge above, and reports came in that the Federals were crossing the Antietam near Pry's Mill. Lee at once ordered Longstreet to meet this threat with Hood's division, and Jackson was ordered into line on the left of Hood. No serious collision, however, took place during the evening. The Confederates made no attempt to oppose ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... entered within the said chamber, perceiving the said whilom John to be wakened out of his sleep by their din, and to pry over his bed-stock, the said Robert came then running to him, and most cruelly, with clenched fists, gave him a deadly and cruel stroke on the jugular vein, wherewith he cast the said whilom John to the ground, from out his bed; and ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... and the whole marriage law had to be adjusted accordingly. That is no longer possible. When a woman assumes her own moral responsibility, in sexual as in other matters, it becomes not only intolerable but meaningless for the community to pry into her most intimate physiological or spiritual acts. She is herself directly responsible to society as soon as she performs a ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... catch up. Then, near the boat bow, Kazimoto suddenly recognized Fred and nearly throttled him in a fierce embrace, releasing all his pent-up rage, agony, resentment, misery, fear in one paroxysm of affection for the man who cared enough to run risks for the sake of rescuing him. Fred had to pry him off ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... not cease the publication of the Weekly Herald. On the contrary, he prospered in both his enterprises until persuaded by the "printer's devil" in the office of the Port Huron Commercial to change the character of his journal, enlarge it, and issue it under the name of Paul Pry, a happy designation for this or kindred ventures in the domain of society journalism. No copies of Paul Pry can now be found, but it is known that its style was distinctly personal, that gossip was its specialty, and that no small offence was given to the people ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... single man. It was Colonel Lasalle's accidental presence at the moment when I received the summons which led to my choosing one of his hussars for the mission. I selected you, Monsieur Gerard, because I wanted a man who could handle a sword, and who would not pry more deeply into the affair than I desired. I trust that, in this respect, you will justify my choice as well as you have done in ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... place was divine; and advised him to remove a great way off from the flame, and to be contented with what he had seen; and though he were himself a good man, and the offspring of great men, yet that he should not pry any further; and he foretold to him, that he should have glory and honor among men, by the blessing of God upon him. He also commanded him to go away thence with confidence to Egypt, in order to his being the ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... inhaling deeply; "the guy in charge isn't exactly a free information bureau. When it comes to peddling the bull con he's there, but when you try to pry off a few slabs of cold hard fact it's his ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... all right. Go on, tell me the whole yarn, if you feel like it. I don't want to pry too much into your affairs, but, after all, I AM interested in those affairs, Al. Tell me ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... resolution is therefore out of the question. By what authority, then, have the committee undertaken to investigate the course of the President in regard to the convention which framed the Lecompton constitution? By what authority have they undertaken to pry into our foreign relations for the purpose of assailing him on account of the instructions given by the Secretary of State to our minister in Mexico relative to the Tehuantepec route? By what authority have they inquired into the causes of removal from office, and this ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... we should feel an interest in you, Mr. Jones," replied Mr. Merrick; "yet I assure you we have no desire to pry into your personal affairs. You have already volunteered a general statement of your antecedents and the object of your visit to America, and that, I assure you, will suffice us. Pardon me for asking an ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... invention they display, though of these there are very few in Spain. Sometimes I dine with my neighbours and friends, and often invite them; my entertainments are neat and well served without stint of anything. I have no taste for tattle, nor do I allow tattling in my presence; I pry not into my neighbours' lives, nor have I lynx-eyes for what others do. I hear mass every day; I share my substance with the poor, making no display of good works, lest I let hypocrisy and vainglory, those enemies that subtly take possession of the most ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... retreat; he swayed on his spine and regarded me jeeringly. I grabbed the chain and pulled. Instantly, he nailed me by the leg. He had nothing but milk teeth, or I should have been much the worse for the encounter. As it was, he pinched like a vise with his strong little jaws, and I had all I wanted to pry him loose. I tried to hold him at arm's length, but he turned inside of his baggy overcoat and bit and clawed until I gave that up. I then whirled him at the end of the chain. He flew through the air with spread legs until the chain snapped, when he landed many yards away. ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... child, and also the one who gave me the most anxiety. Impulsive, warm-hearted, restless, she always made me think of an overfull fountain. Her alert black eyes were as eager to see as was her inquisitive mind to pry into everything. She was sturdily built for a girl, and one of the severest punishments we could inflict was to place her in a chair and tell her not to move for an hour. We were beginning to learn that ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... humility: But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger; Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, Disguise fair nature with hard-favored rage: Then lend the eye a terrible aspect; Let it pry through the portage of the head, Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it, As fearfully as doth a galled rock O'erhang and jutty his confounded base, Swilled with the wild and wasteful ocean. Now set the teeth, and stretch the nostril wide; Hold ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... you like. Perhaps every one knows her own soul best.... It is not for me to pry into yours. You have confessed, and your grief ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... with all the coming and going; the whispering and smothered giggles in corners, etc., but she wasn't the kind to pry into other people's affairs, and so, no matter what she may have thought, she kept her ...
— Paula the Waldensian • Eva Lecomte
... be alive and kicking; and if his legs don't do their duty, let them pay for the roast. Ditto as to the hogs,—let them save their own bacon, or smoke for it. When the roof begins to burn, get a crow-bar and pry away the stone steps; or, if the steps be of wood, procure an axe and chop them up. Next, cut away the wash-boards in the basement story; and if that don't stop the flames, let the chair-boards on the first floor ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... rasped Lander, "or I'll knock your block off! If you utter another peep during this game, I'll button up both your blinkers so tight it'll take a doctor to pry 'em ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... daybreak and eight o'clock on that morning, is the most serious responsibility of the National commander. [Footnote: A distinguished officer (understood to be Gen. R. R. Dawes) who visited the field in 1866 has published the statement that at the Pry house, where McClellan had his headquarters, he was informed that on the morning of the 17th the general rose at about seven o'clock and breakfasted leisurely after ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... provoke the passion of another. Her father banished her into very close keeping, and gave her a viper and a snake to rear, wishing to defend her chastity by the protection of these reptiles when they came to grow up. For it would have been hard to pry into her chamber when it was barred by so dangerous a bolt. He also enacted that if any man tried to enter it, and failed, he must straightway yield his head to be taken off and impaled on a stake. The terror which was thus attached to wantonness chastened ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... secret weakness should be sacred. Not even a clergyman nor a wife should invade its precincts uninvited. Enoch's inner sanctuary had been laid open to the idle view of all the world. The newspaper reporter had pried where no real man would pry. The Brown papers had published that from which a decent editor would turn away for very compassion. Only a very dirty man will with no excuse whatever wantonly and deliberately ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... treated with more contemptuous austerity the objects of the King's passion, and the pandars to his vices. However high his own ideal of domestic virtue, Clarendon was a man of the world, not blind to its vices, and not eager to pry into scandals or pursue the secrets of private life. It was not only the vice of Charles's courtiers, it was the sickening parade of debauchery in all its nakedness, which seemed to him to make the Court ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... was dashed on the instant by the sudden snorting and shying of two or three of the horses in passing, and we laid hold of our weapons, keying ourselves to the fighting pitch. But, curiously enough, the riders made no move to pry into the cause. So far from it, they flogged the shying ponies into line and rode on stolidly; and thus in a little time that danger was overpast and the evening silence of the mighty forest was ours to keep or break ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... pry into your secret, Herr Count; I am no spy—you must have seen that ere this. All I know is that there is under your protection a woman to whom you are everything, and who will have no ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... but not so handsome. It has a long, sharp bill and long feet. It is about the size of a hen. It cannot fly, but sticks its little bob-tail up and down whenever it walks, and has a curious Paul-Pry-like gait, which is rather amusing. It is exceedingly bold, and will come sometimes right into a house. It is an arrant thief, moreover, and will steal anything. I know of a case in which one was seen to take up a gold watch, and run off with it, and of another in which a number of men, who ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... think not to pry into the king's business as thou dost into the affairs at the castle. From thine own showing thou must have been a great ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... a night, dreadful as this, they say, My teeming Mother gave me to the world. Whence by those sages who, in knowledge rich, Can pry into futurity, and tell What distant ages will produce of wonder, My days were deem'd to be a hurricane; My early life prov'd their prediction false; Beneath a sky serene my voyage began, But, to this long uninterrupted calm, Storms ...
— The Prince of Parthia - A Tragedy • Thomas Godfrey
... about his shoulders, and allowing ten or twelve feet of slack, knotted it securely to a ring in the end of the boat. "There, now I can get onto the rock an' by using the pole for a crow-bar, I can pry us off, then if I get left I'll just trail along on this rope until I can pull ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... your business," said her companion, roughly. "You shouldn't pry into the affairs ...
— Timothy Crump's Ward - A Story of American Life • Horatio Alger
... I guess," mumbled Boltwood, pouching the gold piece. "I don't pry into things that ain't my business. I'll row across ...
— Owen Clancy's Happy Trail - or, The Motor Wizard in California • Burt L. Standish
... And the tall Pinta, till the noon, had held her close in chase. Forthwith a guard at every gun was placed along the wall; The beacon blazed upon the roof of Edgcumbe's lofty hall; Many a light fishing bark put out to pry along the coast; And with loose rein and bloody spur rode inland many a post. With his white hair unbonneted the stout old sheriff comes; Behind him march the halberdiers, before him sound the drums; His yeomen, round the market-cross, make clear an ample space, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 580, Supplemental Number • Various
... he, and twisted his mouth cynically. "Huh! Then it's good-bye tools, I suppose. I'm no churchmember, thank God, but I've heard that once the Church gets her clamps on anything worth while all hell can't pry ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... save, and not destroy— I would not pry into thy secret soul; But if these things be sooth, there still is time For penitence and pity: reconcile thee With the true church, and ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... and so he told her his dream, and he told her something else; told her of all his manly love that neither absence nor the vicissitudes of war could ever banish from his heart. And much more, too, he told her that we need not pry into. Flora went on and on. Just once she glanced behind. Gerty was very close ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables
... him as children do their father. Frigga is his wife. She foresees the destinies of men, but never reveals what is to come. For thus it is said that Odin himself told Loki, 'Senseless Loki, why wilt thou pry into futurity, Frigga alone knoweth the destinies of all, though she ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... being heard. Silence. There could be no delay in action. With his nerves still a-tingle, the boy seized a stout bit of wood, evidently cut for the fireplace, inserted it between the window bars, bore down and with a low squeak of protest the nails came out. Another pry, with the sill for a fulcrum, and there was a hole big enough for a body to get through. The bit of wood now acted as a step and in a moment Gus was inside ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple
... not care to make it an object for well-meaning detectives to pry into the affairs of indiscreet members ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... handling grain. He was away out in the country somewhere—busy plowing, busy seeding, busy harvesting, busy something-or-other. He was a Farm Hand who so "tuckered himself out" during daylight that he was glad to pry off his wrinkled boots and lie down when it got dark in order to yank them on again, when the rooster crowed at dawn, for the purpose of "tuckering himself out" all over again. It was true that without him there would have been no grain to handle; equally true that without the ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... volumes of records, and others. He put them carefully aside and stepped to the chest. It was old, strong, and rusty. He looked at the vast and old-fashioned lock and flashed his light on the hinges. They were deeply incrusted with rust. Looking about, he found a bit of iron and began to pry. The rust had eaten a hundred years, and it had gone deep. Slowly, wearily, the old lid lifted, and with a last, low groan lay bare its treasure—and he saw the ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... whereby they thought to protect themselves from evil, and to pry into the secrets of futurity. Because of these things, ancient Babylon was suddenly overwhelmed,—"for the multitude of thy sorceries, and for the great abundance of thine enchantments." These could not save, as they supposed. Therefore God ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... morning thou must be off early and go to the farm nearest Hrutstede. There thou must offer thy goods for sale, praising up all that is worst, and tinkering up the faults. The master of the house will pry about and find out the faults. Thou must snatch the wares away from him, and speak ill to him. He will say—'Twas not to be hoped that thou wouldst behave well to him, when thou behavest ill to every one else. Then thou shalt fly at him, though it is not thy wont, but mind and spare thy strength, ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... fully, is forgetting three fundamental facts: first, that it is quite inconceivable that anyone, having before him the splendid fields for investigation which true clairvoyance opens up, could ever have the slightest wish to pry into the trumpery little secrets of any individual man; secondly, that even if by some impossible chance our clairvoyant had such indecent curiosity about matters of petty gossip, there is, after all, ...
— Clairvoyance • Charles Webster Leadbeater
... What he had seen in the streets suggested that it was not going to be easy to pry most of the company out of Calhoun in a hurry, but that was Campbell's problem. "I'll need couriers," he said aloud. It was an advance scout's privilege to have riders to send back ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... doctor thoughtfully, "while she was unconscious it took me ten minutes to pry open her fingers and disengage a rather heavy dog-whip from her clutch.... And there was some evidences of blood on the lash and on the ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... his heel. "I wish I could take to that fellow," he thought, "but I can't; he's such a sneak! What the deuce was there to tremble about? Does he think I want to pry into his secrets?" ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... mustard-pot in one hand and a vinegar-cruet in the other, having just broken away from the occupation of attending to the castors, and scolding her little black boy meantime. Wood-house! cried I, which way to it? Run for God's sake, and fetch something to pry open the door —the axe! —the axe! he's had a stroke; depend upon it! —and so saying I was unmethodically rushing up stairs again empty-handed, when Mrs. Hussey interposed the mustard-pot and vinegar-cruet, and the entire castor of her ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... and empty verbal disputes; by questions, and strifes of words; by most profound theological discussions, ending in nothing but weariness; but were satisfied, that, if men would go to Christ, they would find truth. O, happy time! in which men had not learned to dissect their own hearts, and pry curiously into their feelings, and torture themselves by anxious efforts to feel right, and tormenting doubts as to whether their inward experiences were as they ought to be, but believed that all good feelings would come in their own time out of Christian faith. O, happy, golden ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... broad tail for a brace, began to make the chips fly. You know Paddy has the most wonderful teeth for cutting. They are long and broad and sharp. He would begin by making a deep bite, and then another just a little way below. Then he would pry out the little piece of wood between. When he had cut very deep on one side so that the tree would fall that way, he would work around to the other side. Just as soon as the tree began to lean and he was sure that ...
— The Adventures of Paddy the Beaver • Thornton W. Burgess
... (though great, grave brethren of the gown Preach all Faith up, and preach all Reason down, Making those jar whom Reason meant to join, And vesting in themselves a right divine), Let me, through Reason's glass, with searching eye, Into the depth of that religion pry 580 Which law hath sanction'd; let me find out there What's form, what's essence; what, like vagrant air, We well may change; and what, without a crime, Cannot be changed to the last hour of time. Nor let me suffer that outrageous zeal Which, without ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... aff han', your story tell, When wi' a bosom crony; But still keep something to yoursel Ye scarcely tell to ony. Conceal yoursel as weel's ye can Frae critical dissection; But keek thro' ev'ry other man [pry] Wi' ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... prominent and important feature in the history of the human mind. It is certainly one link of the degrading chain of superstitions which have long enslaved mankind, but which are now quivering to their fall. The desire for power to pry into hidden things, and more especially events to come, is inherent in the human race, and has always been considered as of no ordinary importance, and rendered the supposed possessors objects of reverence and fear. The belief in astrology, or the power to read in the stars the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII. F, No. 325, August 2, 1828. • Various
... milk, a tribute of many thousands of babies every year. We try to reduce this tribute by inspection. But why should the State pay money for inspection, upon keeping highly-trained and competent persons merely to pry and persecute in order that private incompetent people should reap profits with something short of a maximum of child murder? It would be much simpler to set to work directly, employ and train these private persons, and run the dairies and ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... Siward house by old Siward servants, drunk as his forefathers? It was none of Fleetwood's business. It was none of the servants' business. It was nobody's business except his own. Who the devil were all these people, to pry into his affairs and doctor him and dose him and form secret leagues to disobey him, and hide decanters from him? Why should anybody have the impertinence to meddle with him? Of what concern to them were his vices ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... was for her isolation Loveday had raged, but when she had seen these two draw their aprons over their girl's treasures, she had not guessed those possessions aright. What she had imagined in her girl's heart, knowing Primrose's condition, it is not for us to pry at; whatever it was, it was so swift, so born of instinct, as to be holy. But when she saw the crumpled finery, she was suddenly too much of a child again to rate it worth envy. The things that Primrose, all unthinking, stood for, the things of warm hearth and ...
— The White Riband - A Young Female's Folly • Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse
... writing saith, he hath the destruction of the state in mind, and his own aggrandizement. He but beginneth on the faith because he seeth in that a rift wherein to put the lever that shall pry the whole state asunder. So with two and a half millions of Hebrews and a horde of renegade Egyptians to combat, I fear the Rameside army might spill more good blood than is worth wasting on a mongrel multitude. ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... some of the best men of the best families in England who are paying through the nose in that way. But their private affairs are no business of mine, Mr. Strong; and it is not to be supposed that because I go and dine with a man, I pry into his secrets, or am answerable for all his past life. And so with our friend Clavering, I am most interested for his wife's sake, and her daughter's, who is a most charming creature: and when her ladyship asked me, I looked ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Watt found science in his toys. The quadrants lying about his father's carpenter's shop led him to the study of optics and astronomy; his ill health induced him to pry into the secrets of physiology; and his solitary walks through the country attracted him to the study of botany and history. While carrying on the business of a mathematical-instrument maker, he received an order ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... for this contingency some Bhoyars give their children ten or twelve names at birth. If all the names fail, the Joshi invents new ones of his own, and in some way brings about the auspicious union to the satisfaction of both parties, who consider it no business of theirs to pry into the Joshi's calculations or to question his methods. After the marriage-shed is erected the family god must be invoked to be present at the ceremony. He is asked to come and take his seat in an earthen pot containing a lighted wick, the pot being supported on a toy chariot made ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... spike, spear, gore, spit, stab, pink, puncture, lance, stick, prick, riddle, punch; stave in. cut a passage through; make way for, make room for. uncover, unclose, unrip[obs3]; lay open, cut open, rip open, throw open, pop open, blow open, pry open, tear open, pull open. Adj. open; perforated &c. v.; perforate; wide open, ajar, unclosed, unstopped; oscitant[obs3], gaping, yawning; patent. tubular, cannular[obs3], fistulous; pervious, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... to the time of the announcement of Prudence's engagement to Grey, had been a frequent visitor to the farm, and who was also well known to be wealthy and more than approved of by Mrs. Malling, no doubt, gave a certain amount of colour to the belief of those who chose to pry into their ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... provisions, fruit, and milk to the ship daily, accompanied by the most solicitous inquiries through Lualamba as to whether all things were going well with his visitors. There was no attempt whatever, so far as they could discover, to pry into their doings, not a single warrior, save Lualamba, having been seen by them since the day of the king's visit, and everything seemed to be favourable to a thorough and leisurely execution of ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... don't want to tell me, they needn't," she said to herself, "but they surely know me well enough now to know that I'm honestly interested in their life, and not merely trying to pry into their secrets." ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells
... has she to prowl round among Ernest's things and pry into the state of his wardrobe? If I had not had my time so broken up with giving lessons, I should have found out that he needed new shirts and set to work on them. Though I must own I hate shirt-making. I could not help showing that I felt aggrieved. Martha defended herself by saying that she ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... some of the baseboards and joined me. We had our meal cooking in a few minutes—our dinner, really, for D'ri said it was near noon. Having eaten, we crawled out of the window, and then D'ri began to pry the logs apart. ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... now, good Master Euseby, are all God's creatures in this meadow, because they never pry into such high matters, but breathe sweetly among the pig-nuts. The only things we hear or see stirring are the glow-worms and dormice, as though they were sent for our edification, teaching us to rest contented with our own little light, and to come ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... quite able to dress herself, to brush her own hair, to take off her own clothes; and that she was not, either by nature or education, an incapable young woman. But that honour and glory demanded it, she would almost as lief have had no Patience Crabstick to pry into her most private matters. All which Crabstick knew, and would often declare her missus to be "of all missuses the most slyest and least come-at-able." On this present night she was very soon despatched to her own chamber. Lizzie, however, took one ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... uneasy upon the return out of Spain of Gellianus, whom he had sent to pry into Galba's actions, understanding that Cornelius Laco was appointed commander of the court guards, and that Vinius was the great favorite, and that Gellianus had not been able so much as to come nigh, much less have any opportunity to offer any words in private, so narrowly had ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... 'em,' replied the backwoodsman bluntly. 'We ain't got no manners in the bush, nor don't want 'em, as I tell Mary here, when she talks any palaver. Now, wife, them pritters must be done;' and he left his seat on the table to pry over her pan. ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... tete-a-tete. "Mrs. Marshall-Smith, you're going to stay here, of course, to look at Austin's lovely view! Think of his having hidden that view away from us all till now! I want to go through the house later on, and without Austin, so I can linger and pry if I like! I want to look at every single thing. It's lovely—the completest Yankee setting! It looks as though we all ought to have on clean gingham aprons and wear steel-rimmed spectacles. No, Austin, don't frown! I don't mean that for a knock. I love it, honestly I do! ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... old sentence of three months imprisonment in the House of Correction, with the uncomfortable addition, this time, of hard labour. Perhaps the best punishment for this juvenile addition of Paul Pry would have been that suggested by the Satirist, in the following paragraph: "As the urchin Jones, in a letter to his father, stated that his reason for entering the Queen's house was to 'seek for noose, in order to rite a book,' it is a matter of general regret that, instead of magnifying the ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... was not wholly satisfied with what he had heard concerning the new attempt of the mysterious tourist to pry into his affairs. He every little while would spring some new question, which Larry answered to the best of his ability. Evidently Frank was trying to discover the real motives actuating Mr. Marsh when he so suddenly decided to remain around Bloomsbury ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... which you speak, my lamb," said the Moolah, in answer to some argument of Fardet's, "I have myself studied at the University of El Azhar at Cairo, and I know that to which you allude. But the learning of the faithful is not as the learning of the unbeliever, and it is not fitting that we pry too deeply into the ways of Allah. Some stars have tails, oh my sweet lamb, and some have not; but what does it profit us to know which are which? For God made them all, and they are very safe in His hands. Therefore, ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... more extraordinary story of him. One day, Agrippa left his house, at Louvain; and, intending to be absent for some time, gave the key of his study to his wife, with strict orders that no one should enter it during his absence. The lady herself, strange as it may appear, had no curiosity to pry into her husband's secrets, and never once thought of entering the forbidden room: but a young student, who had been accommodated with an attic in the philosopher's house, burned with a fierce desire to examine the study; hoping, perchance, that ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... healthy, and personally clean in habits and dress, and she should be tactful, obliging, and she should attend to her own affairs strictly. She should not be a gossip; she should not shirk her work or pry into family affairs that do not concern her; and she should not drag into the conversation her own personal ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.
... having on it certain characters and a drawing of a serpent held firmly in the talons of a condor. These symbols excited my curiosity not a little, and I noticed that the stone, which was about three feet square, was loosely resting in its place. I managed to pry it up, and found a dark cavity beneath. It was nearly square, but of its depth I could not judge, owing to the darkness. To satisfy myself on this point, I got a very long stem of one of those gigantic grasses that grow in the tropics, and, letting it down, found the hole to be about forty feet ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... not to cause the intellectual fever, wearing out the mind and body, and often threatening both with dissolution. There is a happy medium of intellect, sufficient to convince us that all is good—sufficient to enable us to comprehend that which is revealed, without a vain endeavour to pry into the hidden; to understand the one, and lend our faith unto the other; but when the mind would soar unto the heaven not opened to it, or dive into sealed and dark futurity, how does it return from its several expeditions? confused, alarmed, unhappy; willing to rest, yet ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the Kapellmeister slowly, "Don't be offended if I ask, or think that I am trying to pry into your affairs. When you were rehearsing this morning it occurred to me.—There was something new in the quality of your tone. Before, you were a virtuoso; your technique was something to gaze at and harken to, and there was no technique like ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... about some of the women you knew in the West." An insatiable curiosity to hear the truth about his marriage seized her; but no sooner had she yielded to it than she felt an impulsive regret. What right had she to pry into the hidden sanctities of ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... winter in London the prince was a regular attendant at the theatres, and many were the dramatic criticisms that he sent to his 'friend' at Muskau. He saw Liston in the hundred and second representation of Paul Pry, and at Drury Lane found, to his amazement that Braham, whom he remembered as an elderly man in 1814, was still first favourite. 'He is the genuine representative of the English style of singing,' writes our critic, 'and in popular songs is the adored idol of the public. One cannot ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... author is speaking in his own proper person the reader cannot help wondering at times how one man could know so much about what was going on, even if he were a veritable Paul Pry; while we have become so used to granting the omniscience and omnipresence of the invisible third person author that we never question his knowledge. If, however, the hero-narrator attempt natural modesty and profess to but slight information concerning the story, he is usually a most ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... me alone, boy? Into what have you come here to pry? You are odious—yes, odious!" She stamped her foot. "And I thought last night, that you were in trouble. Was I not kind to you for that, and that only?" She broke off pitifully. "Oh, ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... is not so. You can pry into the coaling company's affairs and, if you are caught, it would be looked upon as an individual impertinence. If I did anything of the kind, it would reflect upon the Foreign Office and compromise our relations with a friendly state. The Adexe wharf is registered according ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... the taste of his time that no mediaeval cathedral passed on the way is mentioned. At Paris, under the auspices of Mazarin, many architects and artists were assembled. "I hope I shall give you a very good Account of all the best Artists in France," he wrote to a friend. "My business now is to pry into Trades and Arts. I put myself into all shapes to humour them; 'tis a comedy to me, and tho' sometimes expenceful, I am loth yet to leave it." He mentions not only leading men like Colbert, but more than twenty architects, painters, and designers he met, and above all Bernini, the architect ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of St. Paul - An Account of the Old and New Buildings with a Short Historical Sketch • Arthur Dimock
... please. I have only a minute. Helena, this friend of yours, this Dr. King, saw fit to pry into my affairs. He came to Philadelphia to ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... forbear, out of sympathy to our readers' bones. Western travellers, who have beguiled the midnight hour in the interesting process of pulling down rail fences, to pry their carriages out of mud holes, will have a respectful and mournful sympathy with our unfortunate hero. We beg them to drop a silent tear, ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... ungenerous; I don't want to pry into her secrets. But things can't be left like this. Wouldn't it be better for me to go to her? Surely she'll understand—she'll explain...It may be some mere trifle she's concealing: something that would horrify the Farlows, but ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... you at any time pry into his secrets; and keep close what is intrusted to you, though put to the torture, by wine or passion. Neither commend your own inclinations, nor find fault with those of others; nor, when he is disposed to hunt, do you make verses. For by such means ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... was brought to Harley; it was not in his nature to pry into the sacred mysteries of a young girl's heart, but the tale moved him all the more deeply when he saw young Lee, a man with a high, noble brow and clear, open eyes, through which his honest soul shone, that all might see. But upon his face was the same faint ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... The fleeting hours that the happy pair looked out from one of those magic windows are not to be recorded in detail. A lover's log-book is unknown. The fears and conspiracies that might have harassed them found no leverage of doubt to pry an entrance into Gabrielle's heart. Every wave of the higher air wafted from Trinity's steeple, brought them the joy of marriage bells. Even without a lame leg, Jim would never have thought of ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... here's a crowbar lyin' by the gatepost. That Indian fetched it from the forge. It was used to pry out the bolts an' steeples. Tom, I reckon there wasn't much ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... and I never did pry into other people's affairs. Tell me it was nothing about my husband, and I shall be ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... cabin, introduced him, and stood by while they bargained. The sick skipper glowered at Mr. Gibney when Scraggs, with a wealth of detail, explained their presence, but, for all his predicament, he was a shrewd man and instantly decided to use Gibney and McGuffey as a fulcrum wherewith to pry a very low price out of Captain Scraggs. Mr. Gibney could not forebear a grin as he saw the captain's plan, and instantly he resolved to further it, if for no other reason than to ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... himself satisfied. He might have wished to know more, but, like Pedro, he had no desire to pry into other men's affairs, and, being of an open confiding nature, was quite ready to take his companion on trust, even though he had been less candid and engaging in manner than he was. After explaining that he had been ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... prejudice is a-dying. We need not pry into the secret of its birth. Rather is this a time of jolliness and glad indulgence. For the era of rouge is upon us, and as only in an elaborate era can man, by the tangled accrescency of his own pleasures and emotions, reach that refinement which is his ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... "You see, most of our hills comes from that there Hillstoke. If there's a poacher, or a thief, he is Hillstoke; they harbors the gypsies as ravage the whole country, mostly; and now they have let loose this here young 'oman on to us. She is a POLL PRY: goes about the town a-sarching: pries into their housen and their vittels, and their very beds. Old Marks have got a muck-heap at his door for his garden, ye know. Well, miss, she sticks her parasole into this here, and turns ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... impostors were thrown into dungeons. But the chief criminal continued to be master of the King and of the kingdom. Meanwhile, in the distempered mind of Charles one mania succeeded another. A longing to pry into those mysteries of the grave from which human beings avert their thoughts had long been hereditary in his house. Juana, from whom the mental constitution of her posterity seems to have derived a morbid taint, had sate, year after year, by the bed ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... they are. We handle over ten thousand separate cases in all parts of the United States every year. We work on a case only so long as we are wanted. We try to find out only such things as our customers want. We do not pry unnecessarily into anybody's affairs. If we decide that we cannot find out what you want to know, we are the first to say so. Many cases are rejected right here in this office before we ever begin. Yours might be such a one. We don't want cases merely ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... be sensitive about using other people's services. He has already become a stranger to his equals, despising them as so many outlived stages, but also fearing and fleeing them because they know his secrets, pry into his plans, watch his rise with envy, and look forward to his fall with pleasure. From this relationship springs his dual, indeterminate character, oscillating between love of distinction and ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... Tottie lost no further time. To pry the letter open and unfold it was the swift work of a thumb and finger made dexterous by long use of the cigarette. "'Great news, my darling!'" she ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... I don't want to pry. But lots of things come quietly to the old man's ear. You've got ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... easily, for now you may use a rafter for the fulcrum of your iron lever and pry where the long nails grip the oak too tenaciously, and it is not long before you have the roof unboarded. And here you may have a surprise and be taught a lesson in wariness which you will need if you would survive your unbuilding. The bare rafters, ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... complaint of her to others, never suffering others to censure her within his hearing. This loyalty may have had its roots in pride—indeed, no other soil can be assigned to them—a pride that would allow no strangers to pry into the sore places of his being. He frowned now to hear Hortensia's angry mention of her ladyship's name; and if his blue eyes moved uneasily under his beetling brows, it was because the situation irked him. How should he stand as judge between Mistress Winthrop—towards whom, ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... is in this creature, that, while so shy in its own personal habits, it yet watches every visitor with a Paul-Pry curiosity, follows him in the woods, peers out among the underbrush, scratches upon the leaves with a pretty pretence of important business there, and presently, when disregarded, ascends some small tree and begins to carol its monotonous song, as if there were no ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... and bare, With a thousand spears in air, Stands the beech that you would bind Unlawfully to human mind. Gone is every woodland elf To the mighty god himself. Mortal! You yourself are fast! Doubt not Pan shall come at last To put a leer within your eyes That pry into his mysteries. He shall touch the busy brain Lest it ever teem again; Point the ears and twist the feet, Till by day you dare not meet Men, or in the failing light ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... Fortunato, uplifting his dull torch, endeavored to pry into the depths of the recess. Its termination the feeble light did not ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... interesting by not a few who respected it as a sort of superstition. Besides, the Marquise scarcely went into society at all; and the few families who knew her thought of her as a kindly, gentle, indulgent woman, wholly devoted to her family. What but a curiosity, keen indeed, would seek to pry beneath the surface with which the world is quite satisfied? And what would we not pardon to old people, if only they will efface themselves like shadows, and consent to be regarded as memories ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... "but, then, I know you to be one of Josephine's admirers. She is really a good wife, and I never had room for complaint. But for one consideration, I should never think of separating from her. Fate is against her, and I am afraid it will compel me—ah, let us not dare to pry into the future. Let us rather attend to the present. You have told me the suppositions of Lannes and Talleyrand, but not your own. What did you say?" He looked at Duroc with his eagle eyes, and repeated, "What ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... three or four days ago. Again I was a Paul Pry,—we have to be, you know, if we're to do anything worth doing,—and I took him while he sat. But I dare say you'd better ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... spear, gore, spit, stab, pink, puncture, lance, stick, prick, riddle, punch; stave in. cut a passage through; make way for, make room for. uncover, unclose, unrip^; lay open, cut open, rip open, throw open, pop open, blow open, pry open, tear open, pull open. Adj. open; perforated &c v.; perforate; wide open, ajar, unclosed, unstopped; oscitant^, gaping, yawning; patent. tubular, cannular^, fistulous; pervious, permeable; foraminous^; vesicular, vasicular^; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... you for it, de Beaujardin," said Montcalm, grasping his hand. "I grieve to find you in such a position, but I am happily not called upon to act on your information, of which, indeed," he added with a smile, "I will choose to doubt the accuracy. It is not for me to pry into your family affairs, but if you desire to confide in me, I will assuredly counsel and help you to ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... field agents all over the United States, and, quietly but efficiently, the FBI went to work. Agents began to probe and pry and poke their noses into the files and data sheets of every mental institution in the fifty states—as far, at any rate, as they ...
— Brain Twister • Gordon Randall Garrett
... from the Canon, and had talked quite agreeably during their little walk between the two houses. The sound of that dreadful cry still seemed to shudder through his flesh, but it was not for him to pry into the private lives of others, even of those whom he knew intimately, and had a great regard for. He hoped all was well with his dear young friends, There might be some quite simple explanation of that cry. He fervently hoped there was. In any case it ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... dig and pry at the foundations. He must do all that could be done for her eyes. That was her right,—to see, to be free of her prison of darkness, to be restored to the sight of beauty, to unclouded vision of the world and ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... grew, and no one treated with more contemptuous austerity the objects of the King's passion, and the pandars to his vices. However high his own ideal of domestic virtue, Clarendon was a man of the world, not blind to its vices, and not eager to pry into scandals or pursue the secrets of private life. It was not only the vice of Charles's courtiers, it was the sickening parade of debauchery in all its nakedness, which seemed to him to make the Court unmanly and contemptible. ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... disposed of his camera and obtained a microscope—a short, complacent-looking implement it is, of brass—and he goes about everywhere now with little glass bottles in his pocket, ready to jump upon any stray polly-woggle he may find, and hale it home and pry into its affairs. Within his study window are perhaps half a dozen jars and basins full of green scum and choice specimens of black mud in which his victims live. He persists in making me look through this instrument, though I would rather I did not. It ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... dream. Furniture of white enameled wicker, with pink satin cushions. Everywhere the most exquisite appointments of silver, crystal and embroidered fabrics, and a bed fit for a princess. It seemed profanation for the little detective to poke and pry around in wardrobes and cupboards, though I knew it must be done. He was not only looking for Vicky, but noting anything that might ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... ridicule on the unfortunate Minister. In addition to this, there was published, on the clever initiation of Henry Mayhew, the sheet of "Anti-Graham Wafers"—an instrument of diabolical torture for the unhappy Secretary, who already figured as "Paul Pry" in half a hundred of the more important papers. In this sheet, 10 inches by 7-3/4 inches in size, drawn by H. G. Hine, there were printed sixteen wafers, in green ink, in the midst of a witty design, in brown, that bore the devices of a snake in the grass, a cat-o'-nine-tails, ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... loveliness as hers—and the publicity pleased her. In due course rival managers began to make offers, which Mrs. Knight, rising nobly to the first test of her business ability, used as levers to raise her daughter's salary and to pry out of Bergman a five-year contract. The role of the Fairy ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... side of the doorway, exactly like those that defend the door of a frontier cabin, and into these they dropped three stout bars. It was true that the bars were on the outside, but no wild animal would have the intelligence enough to pry up those three bars and scratch the door out of place. Moreover, it could not happen by accident. It took them three laborious days to make and fit this door, but when the task was done they contemplated it ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... mumbled Boltwood, pouching the gold piece. "I don't pry into things that ain't my business. I'll row across and get ...
— Owen Clancy's Happy Trail - or, The Motor Wizard in California • Burt L. Standish
... basement of his father's house (where he took the precaution to label all his bottles 'poison'), he began the publication of a new and better journal, entitled the PAUL PRY. It boasted of several contributors and a list of regular subscribers. One of these (Mr. J.H.B.), while smarting under what he considered a malicious libel, met the editor one day on the brink of the St. Clair, and taking the law into his own hands, soused him in the river. ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... instruction, and consequently possess it fully, is forgetting three fundamental facts: first, that it is quite inconceivable that anyone, having before him the splendid fields for investigation which true clairvoyance opens up, could ever have the slightest wish to pry into the trumpery little secrets of any individual man; secondly, that even if by some impossible chance our clairvoyant had such indecent curiosity about matters of petty gossip, there is, after all, such a thing as the honour ...
— Clairvoyance • Charles Webster Leadbeater
... I thus discourse, to show you the greatness of the soul. And, in mine opinion, there is something, if not very much, in what I say. For all men admire the body, both for its manner of building, and the curious way of its being compacted together. Yes, the further men, wise men, do pry into the wonderful work of God that is put forth in framing the body, the more still they are made to admire; and yet, as I said, this body is but a house, a mantle, a vessel, a tabernacle for the soul. What, then, is the soul itself?9 But thus much ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... between the people of so many different creeds and sects who now inhabited the country; that they must be aware that they never had before been so impartially governed, and that they must continue to obey these their governors, without attempting to pry further into futurity or the will of the gods. Mahadeo performs a part in the great drama of the Ramayana, or the Rape of Sita, and he is the only figure there that is represented with ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... Aufklaerung [Enlightenment] has brought will not end till these instincts are rightly interpreted by in intelligence. The richest streams of thought must flow about them, the best methods must peep and pry till their secrets are found and put into the idea-pictures ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... context of the foregoing quotation occurs an anecdote of Rabbi Elisha ben Abuyah which is too racy to let pass, and too characteristic to need note or comment. One day Elisha ben Abuyah was privileged to pry into Paradise, where he saw the recording angel Metatron on a seat registering the merits of the holy of Israel. Struck with astonishment at the sight, he exclaimed, "Is it not laid down that there is no sitting in heaven, no shortsightedness ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... he said. "I like to put chaps like that on a false scent. He's a Poll Pry, that's what that chap is. P'raps he'll be wanting to sell you a plantation. But now then, sir, business. Directly I tell my mates and crew where we're going—if so be as we agree—the first question will be: What are we ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... title, The Demon of Perversity, he had been the first in literature to pry into the irresistible, unconscious impulses of the will which mental pathology now explains more scientifically. He had also been the first to divulge, if not to signal the impressive influence of fear which acts ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... position. As for their curiosity, I could make no complaint, for, at best, my visitors could not be so inquisitive as I, inasmuch as I had crossed one ocean and two continents with no greater object than to pry into their personal and civic affairs as well as those of their neighbors. To say nothing of their environment and ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... torture us by interrogatories, or put himself in possession of our secrets and our lives. But though we have thus controlled his usurpations, his just and original power remains unimpaired. He may still see, though he may not pry: he may yet hear, though he may not question. And that knowledge which his eyes and ears force upon him it is still his duty to use, for the benefit of his flock. A father who lives near a wicked neighbour, may forbid a son to frequent his company. A minister who ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... was a great point with Roy to find favour in the sight of Mr. Massingbird, his possible future master. Lionel partially saw through the man; he believed that he had some covert motive in seeking the interview with him, and that Roy was trying to pry into his affairs. But Roy found himself baffled also by Mr. Verner, as he had been by Matiss, in so far as that he could learn nothing certain of the existence or ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... friendly recognition of the familiar voice, of blank surprise upon perceiving that this voice came from the lips of a total stranger. She looked searchingly upon the smoked glasses, obviously trying to pry into the secret of the hidden eyes. Jaune's blood rushed up into his face, and he realized that detection was imminent. Mercifully, at that moment the crowd opened, and with a bow that hid his face behind his hat he made good his retreat. ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... the willows as Sam had said. Awkwardly he pushed off, hoping that Lucy would pry the whole story out of her son and put Rupert on their track as ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... it best to stop and knock. No response followed the repeated blows from her hard knuckles. She then tapped smartly on Mrs. Butterfield's bedroom window with her thimble finger. This proving of no avail, she was obliged to pry open the kitchen shutter, split open the screen of mosquito netting with her shears, and crawl into the house over the sink. This was a considerable feat for a somewhat rheumatic elderly lady, but this one never grudged trouble when she wanted to find ...
— A Village Stradivarius • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... you or perches upon a limb, and turns his spotted waistcoat toward you in the most open and trusting manner. In fact, few birds have such good manners as the wood thrush, and few have so much the manner of a Paul Pry and eavesdropper as the catbird. The flight of the wood thrush across the lawn is such a picture of grace and harmony, it is music to the eye. The catbird seems saying, "There, there! I told you so, pretty figure, pretty figure you make!" But the courteous thrush ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... as a guide, and can make my way blindfold over the bogs and mosses hereabout; and I would pilot thee to the place yonder, if my fealty to the prior—that is—if—I mean—though I was never a groat the richer for his bounty; yet he may not like strangers to pry into his garners and store-houses, especially in these evil times, when every cur begins to yelp at the heels of our bountiful mother; and every beast to bray out its reproaches at her great wealth ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... found, find out a cure. Let me, (though great, grave brethren of the gown Preach all Faith up, and preach all Reason down, Making those jar whom Reason meant to join, And vesting in themselves a right divine), Let me, through Reason's glass, with searching eye, Into the depth of that religion pry 580 Which law hath sanction'd; let me find out there What's form, what's essence; what, like vagrant air, We well may change; and what, without a crime, Cannot be changed to the last hour of time. Nor let me ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... take Richard long to insert the iron bar under one end of the slat and thus pry it up. This done the man with the axe gave the side of the seat a couple of blows, and ...
— Richard Dare's Venture • Edward Stratemeyer
... impressions. The virtue of curiosity is, therefore, to direct attention to the novel until it is made familiar. There is a type of curiosity, however, which craves for mere astonishment and not for understanding. It is such curiosity that causes children to pry into other people's belongings, and men into ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education
... already enshrined in so many hearts; but, boy though he was, he knew that a grown up man would not care for his poor presents. He even lifted his little blue bank and rattled it softly; but he did not take the trouble to pry it open, for he knew that for all its jingling, the pennies inside would not amount up to more than a dollar. Disappointed, yet determined not to let Mr. Kohn outdo him in the matter, Morris crept ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... stirring up the fire from under its blanket of grey ashes. "And Peter Crow has gone to look for them, good old fellow. When you do get a conscientious Indian there is no better guide in the world, but they are rare. Now, Philippa-girl, just pry out the sergeant's ham and shave a few slices off it for our breakfast. Some savoury fried ham always ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... head to a small board and remove the scalp. Saw through the skull bones in several directions. Pry off the small pieces of bones, exposing the upper surface of the brain. Study its ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.
... She went pale, then said hesitantly, "Well ... the sealed cases Mr. Maulbow brought out from the Hub with him had some very expensive instruments in them. That's all I know. He's always trusted me not to pry into his business any more than my secretarial duties required, and of ...
— The Winds of Time • James H. Schmitz
... least it ought to concern only you. And I can't assure you too positively that I'm the last person in the world to want to pry; but—" ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... I have only a minute. Helena, this friend of yours, this Dr. King, saw fit to pry into my affairs. He came to Philadelphia to look ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... your letter would both afflict and surprize me in the extremest degree. The unfortunate event to which it principally relates, is such as cannot but affect me nearly. And separate from this, there is a veil of mystery that hangs over the horrid tale, behind which I dare not pry, but with the most trembling anxiety, but which will probably in a very short ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... boys; and it may do mischief if it hangs together until dark. If we can pry 'em apart, they'll go home ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... shall find itself alone 'Mid dark thoughts of the grey tomb-stone— Not one, of all the crowd, to pry Into thine ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... grace; And the tall Pinta, till the noon, had held her close in chase. Forthwith a guard, at every gun, was placed along the wall; The beacon blazed upon the roof of Edgecombe's lofty hall; Many a light fishing-bark put out, to pry along the coast; And with loose rein, and bloody spur, ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... Dirk took time to pry off a fresh chew of tobacco before he replied. "You mean Thunder Pass? That there crosses over into the Black Rim country. Yeah—There's a big wide range country over there, but we don't run any stock on it. Burroback Valley's big ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... eye her dubiously. "Well, I have no wish to pry into your affairs. 'Mind your own business,' that's my rule." She spoke with defiance, as if the contrary were being asserted by some invisible person who might appear and gain hearing and belief. She went on: "If Mr. Ellison wants ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... me off with such flimsy stories. Of course I shall find out all about it, sooner or later, I always do. Yes, I shall, even if I must needs hide in corners sirs, and hearken at keyholes, and peep and pry—so I warn you." And with this, she nodded and turned and left us to stare blankly ...
— The Honourable Mr. Tawnish • Jeffery Farnol
... Quincy Adams, Richard M. Johnson, Polk, and other leading statesmen of the time. I was also greatly gratified in calling upon Anne Royall, author of the Black Book, publisher of a little paper called 'Paul Pry,' and quite a celebrated personage in her day. I had exchanged The Herald of Freedom with her journal, and she strongly sympathized with me in my persecutions. She was delighted to see me, and although ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... not captious or gluttonous, there should be no lack of good eating in Athens, despite the reputation of the city for abstemiousness. Let us pry therefore into the symposium of some good citizen who ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... be the cause, 'tis sure that they who pry & pore Seem to meet with little gain, seem less happy than before: 30 One after One they take their turns, nor have I one espied That doth not slackly ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... enterprise, our vulgar reputed polititians are but flyes swimming on the streame of subtiltie superficially in comparison of your singularitie, theyr blind narrowe eyes cannot pearce into the profunditie of hypocrisie, you alone with Palamed, can pry into Vlysses madde counterfeting, you can discerne Achilles from a chamber maide, though he be deckt with his spindle and distaffe: as Ioue dining with Licaon could not be beguiled with humane flesh drest like meate, so no humane braine may goe beyond you, none beguile ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash
... the sweetness Of thy honied voice; the neatness Of thine ankle lightly turn'd: With those beauties, scarce discern'd, Kept with such sweet privacy, That they seldom meet the eye Of the little loves that fly Round about with eager pry. Saving when, with freshening lave, Thou dipp'st them in the taintless wave; Like twin water lilies, born In the coolness of the morn O, if thou hadst breathed then, Now the Muses had been ten. Couldst thou wish for lineage higher Than twin sister ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... influences of coal-gas in furnace-heated houses, the vitiated air of crowded rooms, and other detrimental effects of a city life. In such a camp the voyager need fear no intrusion upon his privacy, for the superstitions rife among men will prevent even Paul Pry from penetrating such recesses during the wee sma' hours. Of course such a camp would be safe only during the winter months, as at other seasons the invidious foe, malaria, would inevitably mark for its victim the man who ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... had not come to Edinburgh on a fool's errand—which appeared to be his secret and private notion—we had at any rate got the information which Mr. Lindsey wanted, and had far better go home now and attend to our proper business, which, he added, was not to pry and peep into other folks' affairs. He was convinced that Sir Gilbert Carstairs was Sir Gilbert Carstairs, and that Mrs. Ralston's and Mr. Lindsey's suspicions were all wrong. He failed to see any connection ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... the music of the spheres, Captivate their mortal ears; While Jove descends into this tower, In a golden streaming shower. To disguise him from the eye Of Juno, who is apt to pry Into my pleasures: I to day Have bid Ganymede go to play, And thus stole from Heaven to be Welcome on earth to Danae. And see where the princely maid, On her easy couch is laid, Fairer than the Queen of Loves, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... laid up a peck of fresh trouble for himself. This was brought to a head by the action of his spinster aunt, Miss Susannah Heald, who, until he came of age, had been his guardian. Suspecting Lola of a "past," she set herself to pry into it. Gathering that her nephew's inamorata had already been married, she employed enquiry agents to look into this previous union and discover just how and when it had been dissolved. They did their work well, and reported that the divorce decree of seven years earlier had not been made absolute, ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... it is! My father is the last man to pry into other people's affairs, but you see it has been forced upon his notice. And from ...
— Dolly Reforming Herself - A Comedy in Four Acts • Henry Arthur Jones
... squirming under her, thought that one of the boa constrictors had got loose, and that she had sat down on it. So naturally she fainted away. I came running in with one of my men as soon as I heard the outcries, and after a while we managed to pry up the Fat Woman with a couple of cart-rungs and get the Dwarf out from under her, after which she came to in due time and got over her fright. But the Dwarf was a good deal flattened out by the ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... Fred and nearly throttled him in a fierce embrace, releasing all his pent-up rage, agony, resentment, misery, fear in one paroxysm of affection for the man who cared enough to run risks for the sake of rescuing him. Fred had to pry him off ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... and old Mr. Crow had a long talk. They got on famously together, because the old gentleman liked to pry into other people's affairs and the Major loved to ...
— The Tale of Major Monkey • Arthur Scott Bailey
... time forward Felix alone was privileged to enter the butler's pantry. Felix became the favourite of Corkscrew; and, though Franklin by no means sought to pry into the mysteries of their private conferences, nor ever entered without knocking at the door, yet it was his fate once to be sent of a message at an unlucky time; and, as the door was half open, he could ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... of the rule," he said. "Because the old priests did pry and peer, it was ruled henceforth that only the blind could enter the Holy of Holies." I'd swear he was smiling, if thirty teeth peeking out of what looked like a crack in an old suitcase ...
— The Repairman • Harry Harrison
... favour of Sir William Jones. But the chief advantage which the students of Oriental letters derived from his patronage remains to be mentioned. The Pundits of Bengal had always looked with great jealousy on the attempts of foreigners to pry into those mysteries which were locked up in the sacred dialect. The Brahminical religion had been persecuted by the Mahommedans. What the Hindoos knew of the spirit of the Portuguese Government might ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... control of superstition, was not in this respect superior to his time, but, on the contrary, was remarkable for the encouragement which he gave to the professors of this pretended science. Indeed, the wish to pry into futurity, so general among the human race, is peculiarly to be found amongst those who trade in state mysteries and the dangerous intrigues and cabals of courts. With heedful precaution to see that ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... the grand coup. The answer is simple, after all. But," he added, his voice growing stern and menacing for the first time, "I do not intend to be robbed, my girl. Fleece Hathaway if you can; it is none of my business; but you must not pry into my personal affairs or rifle my poor ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)
... Greece, threatened to bring upon his subjects and city of Tyre, in revenge for a discovery which the prince had made of a shocking deed which the emperor had done in secret; as commonly it proves dangerous to pry into the hidden crimes of great ones. Leaving the government of his people in the hands of his able and honest minister, Helicanus, Pericles set sail from Tyre, thinking to absent himself till the wrath of Antiochus, who ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... your affairs," and there was a tone of whining complaint in Mrs. Worthington's voice; "I never pry and you never tell, so I don't know how much you are worth, but I can judge somewhat, and I don't think ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... she mocking even at themselves, mocking at this 'change'—'Why, and yet without it, would you ever even have dreamed once a poor fool of a Frenchman went to his restless grave for me—for me? Need we understand? Were we told to pry? Who made us human must be human too. Why must we take such care, and make such a fret—this soul? I know it, I know it; it is all we have—"to save," they say, poor creatures. No, never to SPEND, and so they daren't for a solitary instant lift it on the finger from its cage. ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... had no one else to trust. And Marie Louise, for all her anxiety, was sadly glad of his confidence, regarded it as sacred, and would not violate it so much as to make the least effort to learn what messages she was carrying. Nothing, of course, would have been easier than to pry open one of these envelopes. Sometimes the lapel was hardly sealed. But she would as soon have peeked ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... our globe's last verge shall go, And view the ocean leaning on the sky; From thence our rolling neighbors we shall know, And on the lunar world securely pry." ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... fashion of the former age. Six elders, besides the minister, knew the tragedy of Flora Campbell, and never opened their lips. Mrs. Macfadyen, who was our newspaper, and understood her duty, refused to pry into this secret. The pity of the glen went out to Lachlan, but no one even looked a question as he sat alone in his pew or came down on a Saturday afternoon to the village shop for his week's provisions. London friends thought me foolish ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... throat. "And I was so broke up over it all, that I forgot and give Delia the whole dollar, instead of just a quarter, like I should've done. I s'pose I'd ought to write to his folks, but I don't know where they are. He comes from up-State somewheres, and I never was one to pry in a boarder's letters or bureau-drawers. I'm just ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... only an entering-wedge, intended by insidious degrees to pry open the heart of the girl and learn the mystery of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... down the barriers to growth, we must redouble our efforts for freer and fairer trade. We have already taken actions to counter unfair trading practices and to pry open closed foreign markets. We will continue to do so. We will also oppose legislation touted as providing protection that in reality pits one American worker against another, one industry against another, one community against another, and that raises prices for us all. If the United States ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... it for her defense. But when a man signs himself 'John Hagar' in the handwriting of my father, it shows that somebody is not telling the truth. I used to pore over the old farm records in my father's hand at Stone Ridge in the old account books stowed away in places where a boy loves to poke and pry. I know it as well as I know yours. Do you suppose she would not know it? When a man writes as few letters as he does, the handwriting does not change." Paul laid the letter upon the coals. "It is the only witness against her, but it loses ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... thee not yet known. Wert thou a fabulous Griffin, devouring the works of men; daily dragging virgins to thy cave;—clad also in scales that no spear would pierce: no spear but Death's? A Griffin not fabulous but real! Frightful, O Louis, seem these moments for thee.—We will pry no further into the horrors of a ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... it hung bruised and dead, gibbeted to its own cradle. This nest was the theatre of another little tragedy later in the season. Some time in August a bluebird, indulging its propensity to peep and pry into holes and crevices, alighted upon it and probably inspected the interior; but by some unlucky move it got its wings entangled in this same fatal horse-hair. Its efforts to free itself appeared only to result in its being more securely and hopelessly bound; and there ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... that cold season which once each year, in our temperate zone, is bound to come. Many are the solutions to this problem. Each form of life has, as it were, solved it best to suit its own peculiar case, and to the earnest student of Nature there is nothing more interesting than to pry into these solutions and note how varied, strange, and wonderful ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... except that our teacher of handicrafts, the sapper Sabum, sometimes gave us a hint. The first thing was to mark out the plan, then with the aid of levers pry the rocks out of the fields, and by means of a two-wheeled cart convey them to the site chosen, fit them neatly together, stuff the interstices with moss, and finally put on a roof made of pine logs which we felled ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... dark. The two had practically ceased speaking to each other. In his mental confusion Old Man Anderson kept revolving in his mind, with satisfaction, a new plan he had evolved. The next time Jim should fall asleep he would crawl back through the aperture in the conduit wall, pry up the boards over the opening into the prison yard, wriggle out, and take his chances in getting over the wall somehow! Better even be shot by a guard than die like a rat in this unspeakable place, as he was doing, where he couldn't ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... exultingly, "I think we have stolen a march on them. I don't believe they were prepared for this, not at least at this stage in the game. Don't ask me any questions, Walter. Then you will have no secrets to keep if anyone should try to pry them loose. Only remember that this man Lawrence is a ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... merely: For a husband, how so nearly He may pry, should never see More than half ...
— The Purgatory of St. Patrick • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... foot of the hill as we came up, the Cardinal caught a stone between the calks of one of his hind shoes, and Jud got off to pry it out. Ump and I rode on to the shop and dismounted at the door. Old Christian was working at the forge welding a cart-iron, pulling the pole of his bellows, and pausing now and then to turn the iron in ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... we had discarded after the first few hours of the trip till now; things made of pongee silk, with windows of talc over our eyes and little lace doors for our breath to pass through. It was fun when we would slacken speed in some town or village, to see how the young Italians tried to pry into the motor-masks' secrets and find out if we were pretty. How much more they would have stared at Maida than at her two grey-clad companions, if they had known! But behind the pongee and the talc, for once ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... diapered with Flora's riches, as if she meant to wrap Tellus in the glory of her vestments: round about in the form of an amphitheatre were most curiously planted pine trees, interseamed with limons and citrons, which with the thickness of their boughs so shadowed the place, that Phoebus could not pry into the secret of that arbor; so united were the tops with so thick a closure, that Venus might there in her jollity have dallied unseen with her dearest paramour. Fast by, to make the place more gorgeous, was there a fount so crystalline and clear, that it seemed Diana with ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... out of the ravine—to her. But Blake's work was not the kind to slip or pull out. The watcher looked at the powerful figure backing rapidly down that roof-like pitch. One of the toes of the level tripod under the taut loop would easily pry the rope off the spike-head. He turned his pack around to get at the tripod—and paused to look upwards at the three tiny faces peering down over the brink of ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... away some of the baseboards and joined me. We had our meal cooking in a few minutes—our dinner, really, for D'ri said it was near noon. Having eaten, we crawled out of the window, and then D'ri began to pry the ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... on the shoulder, and they crept away from the stable without the Arab knowing that they had been there, for it seemed shameful to pry upon his grief. When they reached their ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... think twice before you go," he retorted. "She was a mighty badly broken-up woman the last time I saw her, but even so I judge she's still got spunk enough left in her to resent having an unauthorized and uninvited stranger coming about, seeking to pry into her own private sorrow. But it's your affair, not mine. Besides, judging by everything, you probably don't think my advice is ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... she ventured, "you're doing your best to prolong the strike. You're actually giving those women money, I know. Yesterday, when I called to see you, I saw the stub in your chequebook, which was lying open on the desk in your boudoir. I didn't mean to pry, but I ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... had had supper and washed myself, I said to th' missus, 'There's a peep-show i' Tithebarn Street, and if you'll wash Bobby's face I'll tek him there; its nobbut a penny.' You know it was one o' them shows where they hev pictures behind a piece o' calico, Paul Pry with his umbrella, Daniel i' th' lions' den, ducks swimming across a river, a giantess who was a man shaved and dressed in women's clothes, a dog wi' five legs, and a stuffed mermaid—just what little lads would like. There was a man, ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... arts, whereby they thought to protect themselves from evil, and to pry into the secrets of futurity. Because of these things, ancient Babylon was suddenly overwhelmed,—"for the multitude of thy sorceries, and for the great abundance of thine enchantments." These could not save, as they supposed. Therefore God said to ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... like you," said Charlotte, with what seemed a pride in his knowing ways. "Eatin' up the celery an' all, the minute 'fore dinner, too. I wonder you don't pry into the ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... coming through the woods we happened to stop a minute. Then we see this Frenchy sneaking through the woods. We wondered what was up. Then he vanished. We looked about, some quiet-like, and on tiptoe, and then we saw this shipmate o' your'n pry apart some bushes and head in this way. It ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Spies - Dodging the Sharks of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... doubt. He would wait, he would school himself to patience. Perhaps she would come back for it,—and explain. Perhaps he could find her by advertising it,—and get an explanation. Pending which, he could wait a little while. It was not his wish to pry into her secrets, even ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... came to pry into our private affairs, you might as well jump on your mule and go home, for you'll not get a word from me. I ought to put the dogs on you, for if all I hear is true you're the worst kind of a traitor." ["And so you are," thought Marcy, closely ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... taking them up. Many lay hold upon the canes and pull so hastily that little save sticks comes out. A gardener wants fibrous roots rather than top; therefore, send the spade down under the roots and pry them out. Suckers and root-cutting plants can be dug in October, after the wood has fairly ripened, but be careful to leave no foliage on the canes that are taken up before the leaves fall, for they rapidly drain the vitality of the plants. It is best ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... for a few moments. "One question only," he then said; "I don't wish to pry into your past. It is enough that we have met—for that would never have taken place if you had not needed me. So much I know. Your marriage—was it ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... out men's inclinations, and by the latter heaps wealth to his seminary. He sprang from Ignatius Loyola, a Spanish soldier; and though he were found out long since the invention of the cannon, 'tis thought he hath not done less mischief. He is a half-key to open princes' cabinets and pry in their councils; and where the pope's excommunication thunders, he holds it no more sin the decrowning of kings than our Puritans do the suppression of bishops. His order is full of irregularity and disobedience, ambitious above all measure; for of late days, in Portugal and the Indies, ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... little moment—not a bird so sober in its plumage but became, if only it flew near enough to Heaven, a spark against the blue. And the long, unhesitating rays were not so busy with the world without, but that one of them could pry in at the five-light window at the west end of the Jacobean drawing-room at the Towers, and reach the marble Ceres the Earl's grandfather brought from Athens. And on the way it paused and dwelt a moment on a man's hand caressing ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... Eve. "Business is a very convenient word when you don't want to tell a person what your real errand is. Not that I want to pry into Adam's secrets—far from it. He's quite welcome to keep what he likes from me, only I'd rather he wouldn't tell me half things. I like to know ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... to this! He looked at it, wide-eyed. He was very hungry. The ration, in its blue tin, like a box of shaving talcum, had been handed to each of the party in a chorus of shouting and laughter. And now it was to save his life. He managed to pry open the box, and ate some of its contents, slowly. ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... two above the floor, but after that comes the brick wall. On one of these bricks you will detect a cross scratched. That's the one. It will look as well cemented as the rest, but if you throw water against it, you will find that in a little while you will be able to pry it out. Take something to do this with, a knife or a pair of scissors. When the brick falls out, feel behind with your hand and you ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... point, and the whole marriage law had to be adjusted accordingly. That is no longer possible. When a woman assumes her own moral responsibility, in sexual as in other matters, it becomes not only intolerable but meaningless for the community to pry into her most intimate physiological or spiritual acts. She is herself directly responsible to society as soon as she performs a social act, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Leah, I beg you, that I would seek to pry into the secret of your heart," responded Lizzie; "but I thought if you were in trouble, maybe I might in some ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... all along her two decks; and often I used to try to peep in at the portholes, to see what else was inside; but the holes were so small, and it looked so very dark indoors, that I could discover little or nothing; though, when I was very little, I made no doubt, that if I could but once pry open the hull, and break the glass all to pieces, I would infallibly light upon something wonderful, perhaps some gold guineas, of which I have always been in want, ever since I could remember. And often I used ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... straightening of fences, the going round (with the self-importance and impatience of a cockney) to see what flowers had opened, what fruit had ripened over-night; to walk through the oliveyards, among the vines; to pry into stable, pig-stye, and roosting-place, taking up handfuls of drying grain, breaking twigs of olives, to see how things were doing; and to have long conversations with the peasants, shrewd enough to affect earnest attention when the master was pleased to vent his town-acquired knowledge ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... merry vagabonds! We may not always wish to follow in their footsteps, but we like to keep near them and pry into their careless, happy lives. When the Bohemians enter a pot-house we are too virtuous, presumably, to go in likewise, but we stand without, to get a tempting whiff of hot negus and a snatch of some genial jest or tuneful song. Then, if our players stray, perchance, into the gloomy ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... long and earnestly over the map of Maryland during the bright September afternoon. But before the glow of a lovely sunset had faded from the sky the artillery once more opened on the ridge above, and reports came in that the Federals were crossing the Antietam near Pry's Mill. Lee at once ordered Longstreet to meet this threat with Hood's division, and Jackson was ordered into line on the left of Hood. No serious collision, however, took place during the evening. The Confederates made no attempt to oppose the passage ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... no need to yell so loud. You know I've got back my hearing. What want ye with me? I'm sure I have no wish to pry into the secrets of this young man or yourself. What ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... to me. Mr. Martin boards with me, and as long as he pays for his board I don't want to pry into his affairs. If he has taken a tin box from you, I presume he had a better right to it than you had. Are you going to bring your son down ...
— Rufus and Rose - The Fortunes of Rough and Ready • Horatio Alger, Jr
... life lay in the fact that all women of forty were exactly alike, and it was impossible to recall their individual label, to which archdeacon, or canon, or form of spinster good works, they belonged. It would be dangerous, irreverent, to pry further into the recesses of the episcopal, or even of the suffragan, mind. There are snowy peaks where we lay helpers should fear to tread. But it may be stated, without laying ourselves open to a suspicion of wishing to undermine the Church, ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... his will alive. He presently began searching with his eyes among the branches of the poplar sapling for one stout enough to serve him as a lever. With the right kind of a stick in his hand, he told himself, he might manage to pry apart the jaws of the trap and get his foot free. At last his choice settled upon a branch that he thought would serve his turn. He was just about to reach up and break it off, when a slight crackling in the underbrush across the ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... themselves in counting my tears; the man that makes me shed them does not lower himself to such petty calculations; he has confidence in me, he knows that at the end of the year the account will be there; but you! you watch me, you pry into me, you study me. I see very well that, while you are looking at me, you are indulging in little dialogues with yourself, and these little dialogues are insupportable to me. Mark me now, I forbid you to understand me. It is ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... looked at her with a ruminating eye. That eye, with unfathomable perspicacity, seemed to pry into her empty pockets and pierce her penniless state. He did not ask her if she wanted to be driven there, but intimated with a shake of his grey head that Paddington was a goodish walk. Then he gave her directions ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... prowl round among Ernest's things and pry into the state of his wardrobe? If I had not had my time so broken up with giving lessons, I should have found out that he needed new shirts and set to work on them. Though I must own I hate shirt-making. I could not help showing that I felt aggrieved. Martha defended herself by saying ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... you," he said, "it's not to pry into what doesn't concern me; but Julia's my sister, and I can't after all help taking some interest in her life. She tells me herself so little. She doesn't think ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... circuit of her. They could see several places where the pressure of the water, and the strain of the storm in which she had foundered, had 'opened the plates of the ship, but in no case were the openings large enough to admit a person. Captain Weston put his steel bar in one crack, and tried to pry it farther open, but his strength was not equal to the task. He made some peculiar motions, but ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... now y'are entered, see the coddled cook Runs from his Torrid Zone to pry and look And bless his dainty mistress; see How th' aged point out: 'This is she Who now must sway Us (and God shield her) with her yea and nay,' And the smirk Butler thinks it Sin in his nap'ry not t' express ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... book was not written for America; it was written for England. So many Englishmen have done their sincerest best to teach us something for our betterment that it seems to me high time that some of us should substantially recognize the good intent by trying to pry up the English nation to a little higher level of manhood in turn. Very truly ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... very long stay in Europe to detect a strange drooping of spirit. The rank corn and cotton optimism of the West quickly feels the deep sadness that lurks behind French balls, Prussian parades, and Italian festivals. Europe, when once you pry beneath its surface and find what its people are thinking and feeling, seems cankered and honeycombed with pessimism. You need go but a little way beyond the table d'hote and the guide book to feel the chill of despondency. Without taking ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... son slept side by side on their leaf-strewn floor, and even La Salle, excited and surprised as he had been, at last fell into a broken slumber. But when all were asleep, and no human eye could pry into his secret sorrows, Regnar seated himself by the flaring lamp, and drawing from his breast a locket, took from it a small folded paper, and a closely-curled ringlet of yellow hair, such as St. Olave, the warrior saint of Norway, laid in the lap of the ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... to be near here," said the man. "I'll tell you, I've got just the place for you. The platform's boarded in all round, but I noticed one plank that's loose at one end, right at this nigh corner, and if you just pry it open enough to get in, and then pull the board in place, they'll ...
— The Great K. & A. Robbery • Paul Liechester Ford
... her, and hated to see her come where they were. She never got invited anywhere, because nothing was safe from her little Paul Pry fingers; and when company came she generally got sent out of the room. It was a great pity, because she was really a pretty little girl, and a very bright ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... easy to treat these questions as too transcendental, or as lying too far beyond the domain of positive science to require serious discussion. But it is no longer possible to restrain curiosity from attempting to pry into the relations which connect the present state of the animal and vegetable worlds, as well as of the various races of mankind, with the state of the fauna ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... had seen in the streets suggested that it was not going to be easy to pry most of the company out of Calhoun in a hurry, but that was Campbell's problem. "I'll need couriers," he said aloud. It was an advance scout's privilege to have riders to ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... steam-pipes. The floor moulding running along the window wall will move if you remove the screws—four of them. Then count off the sixteenth floor board—you work it this way," Walker showed Ted how, "and it will pry loose. It is all very simple and should take no more than twenty minutes. It ...
— Ted Marsh on an Important Mission • Elmer Sherwood
... For it is children, more than any, who are conscious how "haunted" all manner of places and things are. And people themselves! The searching psychologists are led singularly astray. They peer and pry and repine, and all the while the real essence of the figure lies in its momentary expression—in ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... me an encouraging look, as if to say, "I'll take care of the old geezer." On the strength of her look I put down Mother and started to pry open the Pilot's left hand, which was clenched in a fist that looked a mite too big to have nothing ...
— The Night of the Long Knives • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... His word there. We have to seek to make manifest the 'savour of His knowledge in every place,' but we have also to remember that in our hearts there is a secret place, and that 'not easily forgiven are they who draw back the curtains,' and let a careless world look in. It is not for others to pry into the hidden mysteries of the fellowship of a soul with the indwelling Christ, however it may be the Christian duty to show to all and sundry the blessed and transforming ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... him. A man that sees a great deal more in every thing than is to be seen, and yet he thinks he sees nothing: his own eye stands in his light. He is a fellow commonly guilty of some weaknesses, which he might conceal if he were careless:—now his over-diligence to hide them makes men pry the more. Howsoever he imagines you have found him, and it shall go hard but you must abuse him whether you will or no. Not a word can be spoke but nips him somewhere; not a jest thrown out but he will make it hit him. You shall have him go fretting out of company, with some ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... Halsey was telling us that the news was abroad! Captain Carter eyed us closely; his flashing eyes under the white bushy brows would pry a ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... The Demon of Perversity, he had been the first in literature to pry into the irresistible, unconscious impulses of the will which mental pathology now explains more scientifically. He had also been the first to divulge, if not to signal the impressive influence of fear which acts on the will like an anaesthetic, paralyzing sensibility and like ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... and uninspiring that I don't wonder he drowns his troubles in books. Just as soon as I can find a nice comfortable house mother to put in charge, I am going to plot for the dismissal of Maggie McGurk, though I foresee that she will be even harder than Sterry to pry from her moorings. ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... opened the door at the foot of the stairs wide enough to detect a half-clothed man trying to pry open with one arm a heavy door above. She hesitated for a moment, but when the man had shoved the door back a little farther, enough for her to see Mrs. Preston struggling with all her ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... be," declared the man. "Leastways nobody with jest one pair of hands. While I pry it off one end it slips back on the other. Are you strong?" he asked, ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... probable to me, that the simple ideas we receive from sensation and reflection are the boundaries of our thoughts; beyond which the mind, whatever efforts it would make, is not able to advance one jot; nor can it make any discoveries, when it would pry into the nature and hidden causes ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... land fever, too?" the agent asked, as he consulted his tariffs. "Riles went up the other day. You'll be making a clean-up on the cheap land, I suppose. But I tell you, Harris, if I'd a farm like yours you couldn't pry me off it with a pinch-bar. No more worries for little Willie, and I'd leave the free land to those that haven't got ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... retreat to the loft and draw up the ladder. The lower portion of the cabin was in full possession of the besiegers, who demolished everything they could lay their hands on, with much gusto. They did their utmost to pry up the trap door, but were beaten back. Suddenly to the "Wild Geese's" surprise, the lower part of the cabin was abandoned by the Hens. They thought it a ruse to draw them out, so I they lay quiet for some time. There were no windows ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... continued Bart earnestly, "and I certainly shall not pry into them without your permission, but I want to repay your kindness in some way. I can't rest till I do. All I can do is to guess out that you are in some trouble, maybe hiding. Well, let me share your troubles, let me hide you in a more comfortable way than lounging around cold freight cars with ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... bring her back again. But the voice added, "When Proserpine has given you the box, filled with her beauty, of all things this is chiefly to be observed by you, that you never once open or look into the box nor allow your curiosity to pry into the treasure of the ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... gray squirrels of the dovecote, perch upon her shoulders and pry into the pockets of her overalls for nuts or kernels of corn, all the while keeping a bright eye upon Reddy, the setter pup, who, though he lies ever so sedately, nose between paws, they well know ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... his tactics now and undertook to loosen one of the jambs where it was wedged into the rock at top and bottom. After a desperate struggle he succeeded in loosening the entire structure so that he could pry it out far enough to squeeze his ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... direction—yes, the wine cellar—here it was—the boarded partition. Marishka took the candle from his hand again while he examined the fastenings—nails somewhat rusted, which would not resist leverage. He found a piece of plank which he inserted in the edge of the door and managed to pry it open a little, and then bracing a foot against the stone wall, made an opening wide ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... indifferent, went to see "Paul Pry," a trotting-horse of Mr. M'Leod's, now in training to do a match of eighteen miles in the hour.[5] With the exception of a few scratches on one of his legs, he looked in slapping order; a powerful grey horse, just sixteen hands, with a fine countenance, ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... confess the truth, he was himself troubled with a curiosity similar to that which he has just deprecated on the part of his readers, and once took occasion to cross-examine his friends, Hilda and the sculptor, and to pry into several dark recesses of the story, with which they had heretofore ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... but they are infinitely malignant, and the hand of our power should close over them at once. They have formed plots to destroy property, they have entered into conspiracies against the neutrality of the Government, they have sought to pry into every confidential transaction of the Government in order to serve interests alien to our own. It is possible to deal with these things very effectually. I need not suggest the terms in which they may ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Woodrow Wilson • Woodrow Wilson
... that is utterly detestable. What! to stimulate the precocious curiosity of children to pry into dangerous mysteries; to obtrude violently upon their imaginations, ideas and notions which beyond all things you should wish to keep from them! It were far better if such actions as that commandment speaks of were dealt with arbitrarily by ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... it to you?" he cried shrilly—"or to any one? Why do you pry? Suppose I have my secrets. They are no concern of yours. I give away my money—my life. Isn't it enough? What would you be—what would any of them be now—but for me? I work day and night for others. Can't I keep my ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... innumerable painters, because he shed on art a light of grace so pleasing, that his works will always be held in great price, and himself honoured by all students of design. Would to God that he had always pursued the studies of painting, and had not sought to pry into the secrets of congealing mercury in order to become richer than Nature and Heaven had made him; for then he would have been without an equal, and truly unique in the art of painting, whereas, by searching for that which he could never find, he wasted his time, wronged ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 05 ( of 10) Andrea da Fiesole to Lorenzo Lotto • Giorgio Vasari
... understood. She had no desire to pry into the methods of men in their dealings with each other. She rose from the table and passed into her ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... into elementary schools frighten school-masters by the very name of Natural Science. But surely every school-master who is worth his salt should be able to teach children a love of Nature, a wondering at Nature, a curiosity to pry into the secrets of Nature, an acquisitiveness for some of the treasures of Nature, and all this acquired in the fresh air of the field and the forest, where, better than in frowzy lecture-rooms, the edge of the senses can be sharpened, the chest widened, and ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller
... the house as any one. I believe it's the best house in the school, out and out." (Cheers.) "But it's a long way from what I want to see it. First, there's a deal of bullying going on. I know it well. I don't pry about and interfere; that only makes it more underhand, and encourages the small boys to come to us with their fingers in their eyes telling tales, and so we should be worse off than ever. It's very little kindness for the sixth to meddle generally—you youngsters ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... to so violent a choking seemed for the moment to have paralyzed his power to call, and swiftly, as a darting hawk, I made another grab for the throat that must at all costs be silenced. He had covered it with his own hands and I could not pry away his fingers. Again and again I tried, and now, with growing strength, he caught my wrists and held them. Maddened by the specter of failure, I heard him drawing in a labored breath that I knew would come out in a ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... usual respect which is paid to candid and impartial readers, to acquaint them, by way of introduction, with what they are to expect, and what they may depend upon, and yet with this caution too, that it is an indication of ill nature or ill manners, if not both, to pry into a secret that is ...
— Dickory Cronke - The Dumb Philosopher, or, Great Britain's Wonder • Daniel Defoe
... have found it convenient to make a trip of pleasure into the country. And though the affair creates some little comment in fashionable society, it would be exceedingly unpopular to pry too deeply into the private affairs of men high in office. We are not encumbered with scrutinizing morality. Being an "unfortunate woman," the law cannot condescend to deal with her case. Indeed, were it ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... sir, I know not. I do not pry into these matters. I am, for my own part, very well satisfied with the young gentleman. Let those who are not so look to themselves. It is quite enough for me that he came down last night from London, and that he had the good sense to bring ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock
... living creature. Wait till I get well again—and leave me to deal with it. I am the proper person to take it in hand. Don't you see that for yourself? And, look here! there may be questions asked at the inquest. Some impudent scoundrel on the jury may want to pry into what doesn't concern him. The moment you're back in London, get a lawyer to represent us—the sharpest fellow that can be had for money. Tell him to stop all prying questions. Who the girl is, and what made that cursed young ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... the pulp of the cane, he was the most interested one of the party. But the fun came the next morning, when George brought out, for his benefit, some of the taffy which had been set out to harden. The chuckle which he emitted, when he tried to pry off a piece of the sweet morsel, was too amusing ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Mysteries of the Caverns • Roger Thompson Finlay
... behold, wherewith the infant was infinitely delighted, as was I, without inquiring at that time into the exquisite mechanism whereby the extraordinary demonstrations were produced. But in the course of little more than a month he was led, by his inquiring turn of mind, to pry into the mystery; and in the pursuit of knowledge—laudable surely in a person of his years, and demonstrative of astonishing sagacity and research—he did take the animal entirely to pieces, and saw the ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... thou fly And search and pry Through all my parts, and, like a quick And knowing lamp, Hunt out each damp, Whose shadow makes ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... man had ever come before, because the place was divine; and advised him to remove a great way off from the flame, and to be contented with what he had seen; and though he were himself a good man, and the offspring of great men, yet that he should not pry any further; and he foretold to him, that he should have glory and honor among men, by the blessing of God upon him. He also commanded him to go away thence with confidence to Egypt, in order to his being the commander and conductor ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... character may be in many respects, a ship's company is by no means disposed to let him reap any benefit from his deficiencies. Regarded in the light of a mechanical power, whenever there is any plain, hard work to be done, he is put to it like a lever; everyone giving him a pry. ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... countyng-bord. Ful riche was his tresor and his hord, For which ful faste his countour dore he shette; And eek he nolde that no man sholde hymn lette Of his accountes, for the meene tyme; And thus he sit til it was passed pry me.[72] ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... The Princess de Lieven, he said, was a dangerous woman; there was reason to think that she would make attempts to pry into what did not concern her, let Victoria beware. "A rule which I cannot sufficiently recommend is NEVER TO PERMIT people to speak on subjects concerning yourself or your affairs, without you having yourself desired them to do so." Should such a thing occur, "change the conversation, and make ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... of which the whole sordid story grew, and no one treated with more contemptuous austerity the objects of the King's passion, and the pandars to his vices. However high his own ideal of domestic virtue, Clarendon was a man of the world, not blind to its vices, and not eager to pry into scandals or pursue the secrets of private life. It was not only the vice of Charles's courtiers, it was the sickening parade of debauchery in all its nakedness, which seemed to him to make the Court unmanly and contemptible. Feeling as he did, he had spoken words of bold remonstrance to ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... dashed on the instant by the sudden snorting and shying of two or three of the horses in passing, and we laid hold of our weapons, keying ourselves to the fighting pitch. But, curiously enough, the riders made no move to pry into the cause. So far from it, they flogged the shying ponies into line and rode on stolidly; and thus in a little time that danger was overpast and the evening silence of the mighty forest was ours to keep or break ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... knew Mr. Trollop, "and was aware that he had a Blank-Blank;"—[**Her private figure of speech for Brother—or Son-in-law]—but Mr. Buckstone said that he was not able to conceive what so curious a phrase as Blank-Blank might mean, and had no wish to pry into the matter, since it was probably private, he "would nevertheless venture the blind assertion that nothing would answer in this particular case and during this particular session but to be exceedingly wary and keep clear ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... again. His beady eyes glowed at her ardently. "Gee, you know I wish I really was married to you, Maggie! If I was, you bet money couldn't ever pry ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... impale, spike, spear, gore, spit, stab, pink, puncture, lance, stick, prick, riddle, punch; stave in. cut a passage through; make way for, make room for. uncover, unclose, unrip^; lay open, cut open, rip open, throw open, pop open, blow open, pry open, tear open, pull open. Adj. open; perforated &c v.; perforate; wide open, ajar, unclosed, unstopped; oscitant^, gaping, yawning; patent. tubular, cannular^, fistulous; pervious, permeable; foraminous^; vesicular, vasicular^; porous, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... her eyes almost extinguished with weeping, looked like a picture of misery in a balldress. In the adjoining room, long tables were laid out, on which servants were placing refreshments for the fte about to be given on this joyous occasion. I felt somewhat shocked, and inclined to say with Paul Pry, "Hope I don't intrude." But my apologies were instantly cut short, and I was welcomed with true Mexican hospitality; repeatedly thanked for my kindness in coming to see the nun, and hospitably pressed to join the family feast. I only got off upon a promise of returning at half-past ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... those accustomed to find an American novel a good deal like the now extinct American stage-coach whose passengers not only walked over bad pieces of road, but carried fence-rails on their shoulders to pry the vehicle out of the sloughs and miry places. It was partly the fault of the imperfect roads, no doubt, and it may be that our social ways have only just now settled into such a state as makes smooth going for the novelist; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... not aware that there was such a man as Walter Savage Landor upon earth, or she would have taken care that I should not be stopt by her porter at the lodge-gate, when I took a fancy to pry into ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... which Christ said, 'I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.' Had the now in his life passed? Had the then come when a fuller revelation was about to be vouchsafed? Nay! even the Apostle—the man inspired—only knew in part. Why should he, then, try to pry into the clouds and darkness that were round about the awful throne? And yet in Him who sat on that throne was no darkness at all. Supposing the feelings struggling in his heart now were rays of light from Him—rays seeking ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... grains of truth among their tricks and lies. Do you remember what I used to say in my lectures?—or were you asleep just then, or cutting your initials on the rail? (You see I can ask questions, my young friend.) Leverage is everything,—was what I used to say;—don't begin to pry till you have got the long ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... this fortress ourselves, except that our teacher of handicrafts, the sapper Sabum, sometimes gave us a hint. The first thing was to mark out the plan, then with the aid of levers pry the rocks out of the fields, and by means of a two-wheeled cart convey them to the site chosen, fit them neatly together, stuff the interstices with moss, and finally put on a roof made of pine logs which we felled ourselves, earth, moss, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Mistress, hath thy son committed, that thou wouldst destroy the girl he loves? Knowest thou not that he is now of age? Because he wears his years so lightly must he seem to thee ever but a child? Wilt thou for ever thus pry into the [79] pastimes of thy son, always accusing his wantonness, and blaming in him those delicate wiles which are all thine own?" Thus, in secret fear of the boy's bow, did they seek to please him with their gracious patronage. But Venus, angry at their light taking of her ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... round Marguerite. Child as she was, she felt the poignancy of her friend's grief, and with the infinite tact of her girlish tenderness, she did not try to pry into it, but ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... Paul Pry, an idle, inquisitive, meddlesome fellow, who has no occupation of his own, and is forever poking his nose into other people's affairs. He always comes in with the apology, "I hope I don't intrude."—John Poole, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... his old camp and saw Morano, sitting upon the ground by a small fire. Morano sprang up at once with joy in his eyes, his face wreathed with questions, which he did not put into words for he did not pry openly into his ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... boy hold the light," said the captain. "Pry it open a bit more, Harris, and let me have a good, square look at it. I don't believe there's more than one box, at that—which wouldn't be no ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... the strain of prolonged warfare against unseen and desperate foes was terrible. Surrounded by sentries, shadowed by secret police, the lonely man yet persisted in governing with the assiduity and thoroughness of the great Napoleon. He tried to pry into all the affairs of his vast empire; and, as he held aloof even from his chief Ministers, he insisted that they should send to him detailed reports on all the affairs of State, foreign and domestic, military and naval, religious and agrarian. What ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... conceive, but far more in what we comprehend not; for we behold Him but asquint upon reflex or shadow; our understanding is dimmer than Moses' eye; we are ignorant of the back parts or lower side of His divinity; therefore to pry into the maze of His counsels, is not only folly in man, but presumption even in angels; like us, they are His servants, not His senators; He holds no counsel, but that mystical one of the Trinity, wherein though there be three persons, there is but one mind ...
— Sir Thomas Browne and his 'Religio Medici' - an Appreciation • Alexander Whyte
... Zey are ze evilest leetle beasts in all ze vorld! Venever you sink you are rid of zem, zere zey are at your elbow. (Brownies laugh again.) Vey steal, zey pinch, zey poke, zey pry, and at night, ven all ze house is still, zey come out, and if you do not keep your eyes ver' wide awake zey vill pinch you till you die—zat is, ven ...
— Christmas Entertainments • Alice Maude Kellogg
... surprising, however, that Wellington and his colleagues, following out the maxims of a Whig policy, should be viewed by their own party somewhat in the light of traitors. Accordingly we see them figuring in this character in some of the caricatures of the day, one of which (one of the "Paul Pry" series), published by Geans in 1829, may be cited as an example of the rest, and shows them to us in the act of Burking Old Mrs. ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... finding the road, before I dared let him up. I looked for trouble then. But it had been all over in a breath, just an open-and-shut piece of battiness, same as fellers have when they jump a bridge. He was meek enough the rest of the way, but sore. I couldn't pry a word out of him anyway. Not until we got settled down in the smoking-room of a Mediterranean steamer headed for Sandy Hook ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... tall Pinta, till the noon, had held her close in chase. Forthwith a guard, at every gun, was placed along the wall; The beacon blazed upon the roof of Edgecombe's lofty hall; Many a light fishing-bark put out, to pry along the coast; And with loose rein, and bloody spur, ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... am the mirror of imperfection.—Had I done what they have said, I should have been a pious and moral man.—Verily, I may conceal myself from the sight of my neighbor, but God knows what is secret and what is open.—There is a shut door between me and mankind, that they may not pry into my sins; but what, O Omniscience! can a closed door avail against thee, who art equally informed of what is manifest ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... all right," cried Mr Harris: "and for my part I am not going to pry into your reasons for coming. You are one of the Lord's servants on an errand of mercy and self-denying love—I can see that; and you are welcome to my services ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... Decalogue, perhaps; but you have sinned against the whole spirit of uprightness. Has it never occurred to you that you may keep the ten commandments strictly, and yet be a most objectionable person? You might smoke, drink, listen at doors, repeat private conversations, open other people's letters, pry amongst their papers, be vulgar and offensive in conversation, and indecent in dress—altogether detestable, if your code of morality were confined to the ten commandments. But why will you talk like this, Angelica? Why will you be so defiant, when your heart ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... overmuch concerning myself, is it concerning ANOTHER man, rather, that I ought to write—concerning HIS wants, concerning HIS lack of tea to drink (and all the world needs tea)? Has it ever been my custom to pry into other men's mouths, to see what is being put into them? Have I ever been known to offend any one in that respect? No, no, beloved! Why should I desire to insult other folks when they are not molesting ME? Let me give you an example of what I mean. A ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... him. And it is especially an excellent and noble virtue for one always to explain advantageously and put the best construction upon all he may hear of his neighbor (if it be not notoriously evil), or at any rate to condone it over and against the poisonous tongues that are busy wherever they can pry out and discover something to blame in a neighbor, and that explain and pervert it in the worst way; as is done now especially with the precious Word of ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther
... appreciate that. It's just that ... well, I have trained myself to notice small things. The little details that are sometimes so important in sociological investigations. Not, you understand, as an attempt to pry into the private life of the individual, but to ...
— Hanging by a Thread • Gordon Randall Garrett
... may seeme absurd and impossible not onely to the vulgar, but to those also who are otherwise wise men, and excellent schollers; and hence it will follow, that every new thing which seemes to oppose common Principles is not presently to be rejected, but rather to be pry'd into with a diligent enquiry, since there are many things which are yet hid from us, ...
— The Discovery of a World in the Moone • John Wilkins
... honahable to insist on finding out things that were not intended for her to know. I hadn't thought. If mothah took all the trouble of sending a special-delivery lettah to you to keep me from knowing till my birthday, I'm not going to pry around ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... to tell me, Ned, anything that happens at home—God forbid that I should pry into matters so sacred as relations between a boy and a parent!—but I can see, my boy, that something is wrong. You are not yourself. At first when you came back I thought all was well with you; you were, as was natural, sad and depressed, but I should ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... Literacy," the man on the screen continued. "I'm not going back to the old argument that any kind of socialization is only the thin edge of the wedge which will pry open the pit of horrors from which the world has climbed since the Fourth World War. If you don't realize that now, it's no use for me to repeat it again. But I will ask you, do you realize, for a moment, what a program of socialized ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... till the noon, had held her close in chase. Forthwith a guard at every gun was placed along the wall; The beacon blazed upon the roof of Edgecumbe's lofty hall; Many a light fishing-bark put out to pry along the coast, And with loose rein and bloody spur rode inland many a post. With his white hair unbonneted, the stout old sheriff comes; Behind him march the halberdiers; before him sound the drums; His yeomen round the market cross make clear an ample space; For there behoves him to set up the ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... house at 52 Henry Street. Mr. Denison said: "It was not an institution—it was not even a settlement; it was simply a house where people lived. The time is gone by for men and women to come down as outsiders and pry into the homes of poverty and sin, and then return to their own life far away. One must live in a community, ...
— The Kirk on Rutgers Farm • Frederick Bruckbauer
... obtained a microscope—a short, complacent-looking implement it is, of brass—and he goes about everywhere now with little glass bottles in his pocket, ready to jump upon any stray polly-woggle he may find, and hale it home and pry into its affairs. Within his study window are perhaps half a dozen jars and basins full of green scum and choice specimens of black mud in which his victims live. He persists in making me look through this instrument, though I would rather I did not. ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... grew, and long revolving stood On some deep, dark design; thence shot with haste, And o'er the mounds of Paradise he past: By his proud port, he seemed the Prince of Hell; And here he lurks in shades 'till night: Search well Each grove and thicket, pry in every shape, Lest, hid in ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... welcome guest at the house of Mere Malheur, who feasted her lavishly, and served her obsequiously, but did not press with undue curiosity to learn her business in the city. The two women understood one another well enough not to pry too closely ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... tempt us to pry into the demeanour with which, an hour earlier, this man had borne himself in the study with Mrs. Major. Of that unhappy woman's moans, of her explanations, of the tears that poured from her eyes—bloodshot in a head most devilishly racked by Old ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... stern, came full aboard without breaking, covered the whole boat, sweeping over her like a cuff from a gigantic hand. The Rector received the shock square on the back, but nothing, apparently, could loosen his iron grip from the tiller, nor pry his feet from the deck against which they were braced. He felt the water get deeper and deeper above his head, and a terrible groaning as if the boat were going to pieces under the strain. Then, as he came to the surface, an object, driven along by the wave like a cannonball, ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... always intellectual it must be in words, and hence as well as because it must imply impromptu talent, the comic situations of a farce or pantomime are not witty. When Poole represents Paul Pry as peeping through a gimlet hole, as attacked with a red hot poker, or blown out of a closet full of fireworks, and where Douglas Jerrold on the Bridge of Ludgate makes the innkeeper tells Charles II., in his disguise, all the bad stories he has heard about ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... you would," replied her aunt. "I'm a great believer in married women paying attention at home before they begin to pry into their neighbors' affairs. It's a good idea. Most ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... but pryncypally excedynge relygyous in searchynge for the relyques of all sayntes thorowowt all the world. He after that he had vysytyd many places, contrayes, and regyones, at the laste came to Costantynenople. For Wylhelmes brother was there byshope, whiche dyd make hym pry to a certayne mayde, whiche had professyd chastyte, that hadde parte of oure ladyes mylke, which were an excedynge precyous relyque, if that other with prayer, or monaye, or by any crafte it myghte be gotte. For all the reliques that he hadde gotte before were ...
— The Pilgrimage of Pure Devotion • Desiderius Erasmus
... another love in her heart, she has magnanimously thrown away her freedom and given up her maiden love for the promotion of our happiness. We owe it to her to preserve her honor untarnished, that the calumnious crowd may not pry into the motives of her generous act. For Julia's sake, the world must and shall believe that she is in fact your wife, and that it was love that united you. We must, therefore, preserve appearances, and you must conduct your wife to your estate ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... cause to pry into this pedant, Methinkes he lookes as though he were in loue: Yet if thy thoughts Bianca be so humble To cast thy wandring eyes on euery stale: Seize thee that List, if once I finde thee ranging, Hortensio will be quit ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... "you stand about on the threshold, and wait for M. Sechard in the passage, to pry into his private affairs; when he comes out into the yard to melt down the rollers, you are there looking at him, instead of getting on with the almanac. These things are not right, especially when you see ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... for all her anxiety, was sadly glad of his confidence, regarded it as sacred, and would not violate it so much as to make the least effort to learn what messages she was carrying. Nothing, of course, would have been easier than to pry open one of these envelopes. Sometimes the lapel was hardly sealed. But she would as soon ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... say? My hand's wet. But it's victory. Shall it be go? or stay? [I should show them all I can, or they may pry closer than they ought.] Shall I have it out and be done with it? To see Mary at once [to carry bastion after bastion at the charge] - there were the true safety after all! Hurry - hurry's the road to silence now. Let them once get tattling in their ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... out, he need only climb back out of the ravine—to her. But Blake's work was not the kind to slip or pull out. The watcher looked at the powerful figure backing rapidly down that roof-like pitch. One of the toes of the level tripod under the taut loop would easily pry the rope off the spike-head. He turned his pack around to get at the tripod—and paused to look upwards at the three tiny faces peering down over the brink ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... my reverend friend, By a safe, private hand I send (Fearing lest some low Catholic wag Should pry into the Letter-bag), To tell you, far as pen can dare How we, poor errant martyrs, fare;— Martyrs, not quite to fire and rack, As Saints were, some few ages back. But—scarce less trying in its way— To laughter, wheresoe'er we stray; To jokes, which Providence mysterious Permits on men ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... he was right. When the starved and exhausted malamutes dragged their silent burden into the Northwest Mounted Police outpost barracks at Crooked Bow twenty-four hours later, an ax and a sapling bar were required to pry Francois Breault from his bier. Previous to this process, however, Sergeant Fitzgerald, in charge at the outpost, took possession of the soiled envelope pinned to Breault's red scarf. The information it bore was simple, and yet exceedingly definite. Few men in dying as Breault had ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... Buddy, much disappointed, and he and his sister felt very sorrowful. But not for long, for in a little while along hopped Uncle Wiggily Longears, with his crutch. It didn't take him any time, with the aid of the June bug, and Buddy and Brighteyes, to pry that turnip up out of ...
— Buddy And Brighteyes Pigg - Bed Time Stories • Howard R. Garis
... expense of the poor Unitarians at York. So they went into the house, and presently arrived another chaise, but ere I could make any further observations, the porter of the out-of-the-way house came up to me, asking what I was stopping there for? bidding me go away, and not pry into other people's business. 'Pretty business,' said I to him, 'that is being transacted in a place like this,' and then I was going to say something uncivil, but he went to attend to the new-comers, and I took myself away on my ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... whensoever my will is apart from the Gods to determine, Cease from a prying unmeet, nor with rash curiosity question." Haughtily glancing on Zeus, thus answer'd majestical Hera:— "Oh, ever dark and austere! What a word hast thou utter'd, Kronion! When was it ever my custom to pry or torment with a question? Only it now is my fear that the white-footed daughter of Nereus, Thetis, has led thee astray with the craft of her secret persuasion: Early she sat by thy side, and was grasping thy knees in entreaty— Nor did she leave thee, I think, without ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... feeling warm. Anon a sensation begins to get mixed up with the hectic efforts of fingers. Yes, yes—now it's clear what it is—feet! Is one never to sit down again as long as one lives? Clumsy fingers—feet. Feet—clumsy fingers. Finally you don't give a cent if you never learn to pry those paper cups loose without wrenching your very soul in the effort. If once before you die—just once—you can sit down! Till 12 and then after, 1 ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... my curiosity, rather than pry into your affairs, dear. When you see fit, you will tell me. But if you wish ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... "This letter, which the disposition of Almighty Providence has so strangely delivered into my hands, was addressed to no less a person than the criminal himself, the infamous President of the Suicide Club. Seek to pry no further in these perilous affairs, but content yourself with your own miraculous escape, and leave this house at once. I have pressing affairs, and must arrange at once about this poor clay, which was so lately ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and feeling, he declined the honour in favour of Sir William Jones. But the chief advantage which the students of Oriental letters derived from his patronage remains to be mentioned. The Pundits of Bengal had always looked with great jealousy on the attempts of foreigners to pry into those mysteries which were locked up in the sacred dialect. The Brahminical religion had been persecuted by the Mahommedans. What the Hindoos knew of the spirit of the Portuguese Government might warrant them in apprehending persecution from Christians. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... wish to pry," he said, "but I hope to God's sake that the Holy Father hath given you a commission to His Royal Highness, to bid him hold himself more quiet. He will ruin all, if ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... part was not wholly satisfied with what he had heard concerning the new attempt of the mysterious tourist to pry into his affairs. He every little while would spring some new question, which Larry answered to the best of his ability. Evidently Frank was trying to discover the real motives actuating Mr. Marsh when he so suddenly decided to remain around Bloomsbury ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... a realization that there was a great deal in the world that was not found in the poetry of Tennyson and Longfellow; and so he began to pry into the souls ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... mail, of course, daily, but he was not sneak enough to pry into its secrets, even had the chance presented itself. Sometimes she tossed the letters away carelessly, but he observed that there were some which she ...
— The Purple Parasol • George Barr McCutcheon
... drunk last night an' slept in Jefferson Market. An' this mornin' I was froze tight, sir. They had to pry me loose." ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... cause the intellectual fever, wearing out the mind and body, and often threatening both with dissolution. There is a happy medium of intellect, sufficient to convince us that all is good—sufficient to enable us to comprehend that which is revealed, without a vain endeavour to pry into the hidden; to understand the one, and lend our faith unto the other; but when the mind would soar unto the heaven not opened to it, or dive into sealed and dark futurity, how does it return from its ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... shot across the painter's face. He paused for a moment, and a wild feeling of pity came over him. After all, what right had he to pry into the life of Dorian Gray? If he had done a tithe of what was rumoured about him, how much he must have suffered! Then he straightened himself up, and walked over to the fireplace, and stood there, looking at the burning logs with their frost-like ashes ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... smaller of the two Assassins pulled out a long knife from his pocket, and tried to pry Pinocchio's mouth ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... it was, it was no trifle to him, in spite of Griffith's exclamation, 'How absurd! Is a fellow to be bound to give an account of everything he looks at as if he were six years old? Catch me letting my mother pry into my pockets! But you are too meek, Bill; you perfectly invite them to ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... with a delicious sense of the wild adventure of being alone in a strange house, free to range and pry at will, she found the full piquancy a bit difficult to relish with sodden clothing clinging clammily to her body ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... from the wicked dwarfs. In the winter, when the earth is frozen hard, they are obliged to stay below and cannot work their way through; but now, when the sun has thawed and warmed the earth, they break through it, and come out to pry and steal; and what once gets into their hands, and in their caves, does not easily ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... of the office with a final wave to Boyd. He was thinking about Mike Fueyo, and he stopped his chain of reasoning just long enough to look in at the office of the Agent-in-Charge, and ask him to pry loose two tickets for The ...
— The Impossibles • Gordon Randall Garrett
... for a little watching the sunlight play upon the golden head and pry into the soft shadows of the curls, and her face saddened and her ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... appeared in England; but they plainly saw that to attract and hold the public the paper which they imagined must be a weekly and not a daily one. The Staff which was brought together consisted of Douglas Jerrold, Thackeray, Laman Blanchard, Percival Leigh, and Poole, author of "Paul Pry"—authors; and Kenny Meadows, Leech, and perhaps Crowquill—artists; with Orrin Smith as engraver. The whole scheme of this new "London Charivari" was in a forward state of preparation, even to pages of text being set up, when it suddenly collapsed through ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... must be something, somewhere, that will give us the meaning of a few words, and we'll use them to pry meaning out of more words, and so on. We may not live to learn this language, but we'll make a start, and some ...
— Omnilingual • H. Beam Piper
... peering round the trunk of an elm draped to the ground in flounces of its own green. The last response to her whistle had seemed to come from a spot so close in front of her that she feared to risk another step, and yet, peep and pry as she might, she could neither spy out nor nearer decoy the cunning challenger. In a sense of delinquency she noted the sky showing yellow and red through the hill-top pines, and seeing she must make short end of her play, prepared to rush out upon the rogue ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... House is the hub of the solar system. You couldn't pry that out of a Boston man if you had the tire of all creation straightened out ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... valance of the bed, touched her hand. It was a thing to which a riband was attached—an ivory miniature—and she picked it up wondering. She stood up gazing at it, in such bewilderment to find her eyes upon it that she scarce knew what she did. She did not mean to pry; she would not have had the daring so to do if she had possessed the inclination. But the instant her eyes told her what they saw, she started and blushed as she had never blushed before in her tame life. ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... attempt to pry through the guarded curtain; but often eyed it. Every hour or so an ecclesiastic peeped in, eyed him, chilled him, and exit. All this was gloomy, and mechanical. But the next day a gentleman, richly armed, bounced in, and glared at him. ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... this hour. We are all catalogued and tagged, just as they are in that Prussia we so recently and fervently despised; and we are hounded by income-tax investigators, surrounded by a horde of spies who search our luggage, pry into our kitchens to see if we are making home brew, raided in restaurants—and laughed at by king-ridden ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... who had been the girl's companion on the misty moor. What had happened during those hours of suspense and danger? What barriers had been swept aside; what new vistas opened? Edith's own love was too sweet and sacred a thing to allow her to pry and question into the heart-secrets of another, as is the objectionable fashion of many so-called friends, but with her keen woman-senses she took in George Elgood's every word, look, and movement ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... describe, or how to make sufficiently clear, the strange sort of fascination there was for me in those nightly rambles—in living perpetually on the edge of a mystery. While daylight lasted the feeling slumbered within me; I could even take myself to task for wanting to pry into a secret that evidently in nowise concerned me. But as soon as twilight set in, and night's shadows began to creep timidly out of their corners, so surely could I feel the spell working within me, the desire creeping ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... my father, it shows that somebody is not telling the truth. I used to pore over the old farm records in my father's hand at Stone Ridge in the old account books stowed away in places where a boy loves to poke and pry. I know it as well as I know yours. Do you suppose she would not know it? When a man writes as few letters as he does, the handwriting does not change." Paul laid the letter upon the coals. "It is the only witness against her, but it loses ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... Sire, it were the common lot of man To seek preferment; and unless he doth, No other will lift hand to boost him on, Unless great wealth doth like a magnet draw Support from those who with a greedy eye Expect to feel most happy contact with The shining coin, which doth a lever prove To pry success from out the voting mob. Francos: But Bonset, see'st thou not that native worth And mental parts may overtower the gold And thus perforce attract attention from The ones who guide their party to success? (Bonset doublingly) Perhaps, my Liege. But in the outer hall A deputation ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... young friend," he said, "have you forgotten that on a far more important occasion to YOU, I showed no desire to pry into your secret?" Hurlstone made a movement of deprecation. "Nor have I any such desire now. But for the sake of our coming to an understanding as friends, let me answer the question for you. You are here, my dear fellow, as a messenger from the Mission of Todos Santos to the ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... haphazard, to some market-place in Seville or Valladolid in wine-skins. But the contents of the above-mentioned Bibliotheca were purely English. It was a small but choice assemblage of old poetry formed by Mr. Thomas Hill, otherwise Tommy Hill, otherwise Paul Pry, which he offered to Longmans on the plea of failing health, and for which the purchasers elected, looking prophetically at his moribund aspect, to grant him an annuity in preference to a round sum. Mr. Hill's apprehensions, however, were premature, as the transaction had the effect of restoring ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... service of God. I thus discourse, to show you the greatness of the soul. And, in mine opinion, there is something, if not very much, in what I say. For all men admire the body, both for its manner of building, and the curious way of its being compacted together. Yes, the further men, wise men, do pry into the wonderful work of God that is put forth in framing the body, the more still they are made to admire; and yet, as I said, this body is but a house, a mantle, a vessel, a tabernacle for the soul. What, then, is the soul itself?9 But thus ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... worst of it, madam. At the asylum I was treated most brutally by a good-for-nothing physician, who did his best to pry into ...
— Young Captain Jack - The Son of a Soldier • Horatio Alger and Arthur M. Winfield
... did not lax. People sniffed his smoke, noting every change in its flavor, and pressed around Judge Thayer's garden fence trying to get a look at the operations. Judge Thayer was not a little indignant over the scoffings and denunciations, and this impertinent curiosity to pry upon what he gave them to understand ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... looking dashing and alert—Malone strolled out of the office with a final wave to Boyd. He was thinking about Mike Fueyo, and he stopped his chain of reasoning just long enough to look in at the office of the Agent-in-Charge and ask him to pry loose two tickets for "The Hot ...
— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett
... partial vacuum was formed by the refluence of the wave. Where a crevice is filled with water the entire force of the blow of the wave is transmitted by hydraulic pressure to the sides of the fissure. Thus storm waves little by little pry and suck the rock loose, and in this way, and by the blows which they strike with the stones of the beach, they quarry out about a joint, or wherever the rock may be weak, a recess known as a SEA CAVE, provided that the rock above ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... return to my subject. Duke would sleep days during the season and gather fragments of the rear breadths of Western pantaloons at night. One morning Duke had a piece of fancy cassimere in his teeth that I tried to pry out and preserve, so that I could identify the owner, perhaps, but he wouldn't give it up. I coaxed him and lammed him across the face and eyes with an old board, but he wouldn't give it to me. Then I watched him. I've ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... The particular Paul Pry in question (to come down to my life) never 'intrudes.' It is his peculiarity. And I put the stop exactly where I was bid; and was going to put Gabriel's speech,[93] only—with the pen in my hand to do it—I found that the angel was a little too exclamatory altogether, and that he had ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... guard at every gun Was placed along the wall; The beacon blazed upon the roof Of Edgecombe's lofty hall; And many a fishing bark put out, To pry along the coast; And with loose rein, and bloody spur Rode inland many ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... I honour you for it, de Beaujardin," said Montcalm, grasping his hand. "I grieve to find you in such a position, but I am happily not called upon to act on your information, of which, indeed," he added with a smile, "I will choose to doubt the accuracy. It is not for me to pry into your family affairs, but if you desire to confide in me, I will assuredly counsel and help you to the best ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... they would esteem it a sacrilege to distort history. They make straight for the substantial, the indubitable. For this reason the Peniculi and Ergasili of Plautus seem to me far more true to nature than the character of Paul Pry in Jerrold's comedy. In one instance, indeed, the evidence of Hester Dyett appears, on the surface of it, to be quite false. She declares that she sees a round white object moving upward in the room. But the night being gloomy, her taper having gone out, she must have been standing in a dense darkness. ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... no farther the student may pry: Love's temple is dark as Eleusis; So here, at the threshold, we part, you and I, From "dear ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... It moved along lightly, and disappeared between the woody banks. These boats have the two parallel sails attached to the same yard, and some have two sails, one surmounting the other. They trade to Waterville and thereabouts,—names, as "Paul Pry," on their sails. ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... at windows for a ball, can go the same way for money, and get it easy enough when they've only to pry ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... clubs also showed a desire to pry into foreign affairs; witness the following letter from Thomas Hardy to Dr. Adams, Secretary of the London Society for ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... Lancaster dethroned him. Ye would debase me to a Henry of Lancaster. Mort Dieu! I thank ye. The Commons and the Lords raised him, forsooth,—for what? To hold him as the creature they had made, to rate him, to chafe him, to pry into his very household, and quarrel with his wife's chamberlains and lavourers. [Laundresses. The parliamentary rolls, in the reign of Henry IV., abound in curious specimens of the interference of the Commons ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the means of earning your bread." So saying he mounted his horse, and went, like a sheep that is led to the slaughter, to follow a boar. In the meanwhile seven wicked women, with whom the Prince had been acquainted, began to grow jealous; and being curious to pry into the secret, they sent for a mason, and for a good sum of money got him to make an underground passage from their house into the Prince's chamber. Then these cunning jades went through the passage in order to explore. But finding nothing, they opened the window; and ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... The camp is roasted out. Strong hands and hand-spikes pry a couple of glowing logs from the front and replace them with two cold, green logs; the camp cools off and the party takes to blankets once more—to turn out again at 5 A.M. ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... description does not universally apply nowadays. The younger priests pass their existence like the lords of the soil of old; the young girls consider it an honor to be allowed to associate with them; and the padres in their turn find many convenient opportunities. They have no jealous wives to pry into their secrets, and their position as confessors and spiritual advisers affords them plenty of pretexts for being alone with the women. The confessional, in particular, must be a perilous rock-a-head for most of them. In an appendix to the "Tagal Grammar" (which, by-the-bye, is not added to ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... traitor—you mustn't think that of him. But it isn't in his nature to facilitate things. In the present crisis he will feel that he is personally responsible for the expenditure of five million dollars. He will examine and investigate, and probe and pry, and will want to worry through every pen-scratch which has been ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... ethereal found: Which, fann'd by many a ribbald joke, From brother tipplers puff'd in smoke, Such blaze diffused with crackling loud, As blinded all the staring croud? And last, with jealous glancing eye, That seem'd in all around to pry, A Painter's ghost in voice suppres'd, Thus ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... throttled him in a fierce embrace, releasing all his pent-up rage, agony, resentment, misery, fear in one paroxysm of affection for the man who cared enough to run risks for the sake of rescuing him. Fred had to pry him off ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... among an enemy, to discover the state of his affairs, to pry into his designs, and carry back information. This is a dishonorable office; spies, if ...
— The Government Class Book • Andrew W. Young
... impartial arbitrators between the people of so many different creeds and sects who now inhabited the country; that they must be aware that they never had before been so impartially governed, and that they must continue to obey these their governors, without attempting to pry further into futurity or the will of the gods. Mahadeo performs a part in the great drama of the Ramayana, or the Rape of Sita, and he is the only figure there that is ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... concerned. God is pleased to try some with ten talents, others with five, others with only one. That "so it seems good in his sight," is all we know about it; and all we need to know. Should we attempt to pry into it, the answer given by our Lord to an officious enquirer respecting another, might be applied—"What is that ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... the faith of Mr. Edwards's statements in the Gangraena. But really one should not judge of even a poor enthusiastic woman, dead two hundred years ago, on that sole authority. Never was there a more nauseous creature of the pious kind than this Presbyterian Paul Pry of 1644-46. He revelled in scandals, and kept a private office for the receipt of all sorts of secret information, by word of mouth or letter, that could be used against the Independents and the Sectaries. [Footnote: Richard Baxter, as he himself tells us, sent ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... gaily exclaimed Bertheroy, who, despite his careless and abrupt ways, was really very shrewd. "I haven't come to pry into your secrets.... Leave your papers there, I promise you that I won't ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... golden mark I seek to hit. Nor shall proud Lancaster usurp my right, Nor hold the sceptre in his childish fist, Nor wear the diadem upon his head, Whose church-like humours fits not for a crown. Then, York, be still awhile till time do serve; Watch thou and wake when others be asleep, To pry into the secrets of the state; Till Henry, surfeiting in joys of love, With his new bride and England's dear-bought queen, And Humphrey with the peers be fallen at jars. Then will I raise aloft the milk-white rose, With whose sweet smell the air shall be perfum'd, And in my standard bear ...
— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... again. You will not be vexed with me, my dear Ursula: you know how I have suffered; you of all others will sympathise with me. Think of the relief it is to wake up in the morning and feel that no jarring influences will be at work that day; that no eyes will pry into my secret sorrow, or seek to penetrate my very thoughts; that I may look and speak as I like; that my words will not be twisted to serve other people's purposes. Forgive me if I speak harshly, but indeed you do not know all yet. Your last letter made me a little sad, ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... cabin at the meeting of the rivers. The door was padlocked, but Luke knew how to pry off one of the staples. Squirrels had made a litter on the floor, but that was soon swept out, and a fire crackled in the stove. There was tea and ham and bread in the pack in the canoe. Supper never tasted better. "One more night in the old camp," said Luke as he rolled himself in the blanket ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... very uneasy upon the return out of Spain of Gellianus, whom he had sent to pry into Galba's actions, understanding that Cornelius Laco was appointed commander of the court guards, and that Vinius was the great favorite, and that Gellianus had not been able so much as to come nigh, much less have any opportunity to offer ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... the barriers to growth, we must redouble our efforts for freer and fairer trade. We have already taken actions to counter unfair trading practices and to pry open closed foreign markets. We will continue to do so. We will also oppose legislation touted as providing protection that in reality pits one American worker against another, one industry against another, one community against another, ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan
... they wore compelled to retreat to the loft and draw up the ladder. The lower portion of the cabin was in full possession of the besiegers, who demolished everything they could lay their hands on, with much gusto. They did their utmost to pry up the trap door, but were beaten back. Suddenly to the "Wild Geese's" surprise, the lower part of the cabin was abandoned by the Hens. They thought it a ruse to draw them out, so I they lay quiet for some time. ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... and he said to himself, "Belike the King hath commanded the nurse to carry his daughter forth upon some occasion of hers, whereof she would have none know; and if I oppose her, she will be wroth with me and will say, 'This eunuch fellow stopped me, that he might pry into my affairs.' So she will do her best to kill me, and I have no call to meddle in this matter." So saying, he turned back, and with him the thirty assistants who drove the people from the door of the palace; whereupon the nurse entered and saluted the eunuchs with her head, whilst ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... it without speaking to Mr. Verner. It was a great point with Roy to find favour in the sight of Mr. Massingbird, his possible future master. Lionel partially saw through the man; he believed that he had some covert motive in seeking the interview with him, and that Roy was trying to pry into his affairs. But Roy found himself baffled also by Mr. Verner, as he had been by Matiss, in so far as that he could learn nothing certain of the existence ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... blighter," was Van Horn's greeting to the old chief, as the dandy, with a pry of his steering-paddle against the side of the canoe and part under its bottom, brought the dug-out broadside-on to the Arangi so that the sides of both ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... sacrificed herself for us. With another love in her heart, she has magnanimously thrown away her freedom and given up her maiden love for the promotion of our happiness. We owe it to her to preserve her honor untarnished, that the calumnious crowd may not pry into the motives of her generous act. For Julia's sake, the world must and shall believe that she is in fact your wife, and that it was love that united you. We must, therefore, preserve appearances, and you must conduct your wife to your estate in triumph. Decency requires ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... to look elsewhere and anywhere," Harleston interjected. "I'll trust you not to pry into matters other than the letter. By the way, whose was ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... a church house at 52 Henry Street. Mr. Denison said: "It was not an institution—it was not even a settlement; it was simply a house where people lived. The time is gone by for men and women to come down as outsiders and pry into the homes of poverty and sin, and then return to their own life far away. One must live in a community, ...
— The Kirk on Rutgers Farm • Frederick Bruckbauer
... need to toil for his bread. People called him lazy. He owned nearly as many books as the parson and the lawyer. He often read all night it was said, and he roamed the woods in all seasons. Under low-hanging winter boughs and summer arches did Lot Gordon pry and slink and lie in wait, his fine, sharp face peering through snowy tunnels or white spring thickets like a white fox, hungrily intent upon the secrets ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... daughter hung. The Monarch drank, that happy hour, 775 The sweetest, holiest draught of Power— When it can say, with godlike voice, Arise, sad Virtue, and rejoice! Yet would not James the general eye On Nature's raptures long should pry; 780 He stepped between—"Nay, Douglas, nay, Steal not my proselyte away! The riddle 'tis my right to read, That brought this happy chance to speed. —Yes, Ellen, when disguised I stray 785 In life's more low but happier way, 'Tis under name which veils ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... maintaining local interest in the principles of the party, and in the "great cause" which it supports, wisely communicated with "headquarters." As to what passes there, religious silence should be observed. There is no evidence available, and to pry into such mysteries were profane, but shortly afterwards it is announced that Mr. X., with the highest recommendations, will address the association. The local managers are quietly informed that he is willing to pay all expenses of the local organisation, to subscribe to the party ...
— Rebuilding Britain - A Survey Of Problems Of Reconstruction After The World War • Alfred Hopkinson
... that will do!" Chia Lien rejoined laughing, "none of these sham attentions for me! So long as you don't pry into my doings it will be enough; and will I go so far as to ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... suppression of crime, sir, they must have the support of every reasonable member of the community, though I cannot doubt that the official machinery is amply sufficient for the purpose. Where your calling is more open to criticism is when you pry into the secrets of private individuals, when you rake up family matters which are better hidden, and when you incidentally waste the time of men who are more busy than yourself. At the present moment, for example, I should ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... hand and a vinegar-cruet in the other, having just broken away from the occupation of attending to the castors, and scolding her little black boy meantime. Wood-house! cried I, which way to it? Run for God's sake, and fetch something to pry open the door —the axe! —the axe! he's had a stroke; depend upon it! —and so saying I was unmethodically rushing up stairs again empty-handed, when Mrs. Hussey interposed the mustard-pot and vinegar-cruet, ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... duck and the cow that died 'fore Dr. Chubb came, her calf, and now that mean old dog have left her puppies to eat out of a plate?" he asked. He let the kittens slide to the ground, where they sprawled in their blind helplessness, while he began to tenderly pry open the small yellow ball's wide bill and insert crumbs of bread rolled into very realistic pills, but which the patient gobbled ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess
... turned up one of the streets which tend northward. It was, for some length, uninhabited and unpaved. Presently I reached a pavement, and a painted fence, along which a row of poplars was planted. It bounded a garden into which a knot-hole permitted me to pry. The enclosure was a charming green, which I saw appended to a house of the loftiest and most stately order. It seemed like a recent erection, had all the gloss of novelty, and exhibited, to my unpractised eyes, the magnificence of palaces. My father's dwelling did ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... globe's last verge shall go, And view the ocean leaning on the sky, From thence our rolling neighbours we shall know, And on the lunar world securely pry. ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... motor-veils we had discarded after the first few hours of the trip till now; things made of pongee silk, with windows of talc over our eyes and little lace doors for our breath to pass through. It was fun when we would slacken speed in some town or village, to see how the young Italians tried to pry into the motor-masks' secrets and find out if we were pretty. How much more they would have stared at Maida than at her two grey-clad companions, if they had known! But behind the pongee and the talc, for once our features could flaunt themselves on an equality ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the tall Pinta, till the noon, had held her close in chase. Forthwith a guard at every gun was placed along the wall; The beacon blazed upon the roof of Edgcumbe's lofty hall; Many a light fishing-bark put out to pry along the coast; And with loose rein and bloody spur rode inland many a post. With his white hair unbonneted the stout old sheriff comes; Behind him march the halberdiers, before him sound the drums; His yeomen, round the market-cross, make clear an ample space, For there behoves him ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... lying in difficult to you, and that you are not willing to be exposed. I need say no more, but to tell you, that if you think fit to communicate so much of your case to me, if it be so, as is necessary, for I do not desire to pry into those things, I perhaps may be in a position to help you and to make you perfectly easy, and remove all your ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe
... no desire to pry into your affairs, Heaven knows," Merefleet said, "but this I will say. If I can be of use to either of you in helping to dispose of what appears to be a somewhat awkward predicament you may rely upon me ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... note, as expressive of perfect content as the purring of a well-fed tabby, stretched cosily upon the earth-rug before a cheerful winter evening fire. This transfer was effected so quickly, that Johnny was baffled in an ill-bred attempt which he made to pry into the domestic concerns of the affectionate pair, and he could not get even a transient glimpse of the contents ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... need to yell so loud. You know I've got back my hearing. What want ye with me? I'm sure I have no wish to pry into the secrets of this young man ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... want to pry, my dear. But I was afraid there might be something between you and Fred, and I wanted to caution you. You see, Mary"—here Caleb's voice became more tender; he had been pushing his hat about on the table and looking at it, but finally he turned his eyes on his ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... marriage law had to be adjusted accordingly. That is no longer possible. When a woman assumes her own moral responsibility, in sexual as in other matters, it becomes not only intolerable but meaningless for the community to pry into her most intimate physiological or spiritual acts. She is herself directly responsible to society as soon as she performs a social act, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... the party is sent up the tree, and given a stick wherewith to frighten or poke or pry the cornered animal out of his castle. Compelled to leave the hole, it creeps out upon a limb, and squatting down, snarls at the stranger, who tries to shake loose its hold. But this is a vain attempt. A raccoon can cling like a burr. Try to drag your pet 'coon off the top of a fence, ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... away, and then Toinette whispered: "I don't know what you think of me for making you play 'Paul Pry,' but I had a reason for it, and now I'll ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... stillness, and humility: But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger; Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, Disguise fair nature with hard-favored rage: Then lend the eye a terrible aspect; Let it pry through the portage of the head, Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it, As fearfully as doth a galled rock O'erhang and jutty his confounded base, Swilled with the wild and wasteful ocean. Now ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... two table-spoonfuls of bacon or pork fat, two large slices of onion, minced very fine; one teaspoonful of salt, one-fourth of a teaspoonful of pepper, half a cupful of vinegar, one teaspoonful of sugar. Pry the onion in the fat until it becomes yellow; then add the other ingredients. Pour the hot mixture on the cabbage. Stir well, and serve at once. Lettuce can be ...
— Miss Parloa's New Cook Book • Maria Parloa
... termed her narrowness and prejudice, or burst into occasional angry petulance, if she tried to urge him to cut loose from the club and from the constantly-growing influence of Lloyd Avalons who was discerning enough to discover that Lorimers appetite was a possible lever by which he himself might pry himself up into a more stable position in society. In this matter, however, Lloyd Avalons was not quite so unprincipled as he seemed. To his mind, there was nothing so very bad about a little matter of social intoxication. The evil of drink was an affair bounded by purely geographical ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... Self-love like this is knavish and absurd, And well deserves a damnatory word. You glance at your own faults; your eyes are blear: You eye your neighbour's; straightway you see clear, Like hawk or basilisk: your neighbours pry Into your frailties with as keen an eye. A man is passionate, perhaps misplaced In social circles of fastidious taste; His ill-trimmed beard, his dress of uncouth style, His shoes ill-fitting, may provoke a smile: But he's the soul of virtue; but he's kind; But that coarse ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... peer and pry One's vacant house of life about, And drag for curious ear and eye His ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... me, who am deprived of every occupation. If I were a writer, I could still dictate. If I were a business man, I could conduct my business. But I am a soldier, and not a clever soldier. Jealousy, a continual and irritable curiosity—there is no Paul Pry like your blind man—a querulous claim upon your attention—these are my special dangers." And Ethne laughed gently in contradiction ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... kind is the divine impartiality affected; with none of them is it concerned. God is pleased to try some with ten talents, others with five, others with only one. That "so it seems good in his sight," is all we know about it; and all we need to know. Should we attempt to pry into it, the answer given by our Lord to an officious enquirer respecting another, might be applied—"What is ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... to leave his guest alone in the tent for a short time while he looked after the preparations for luncheon; and he had little doubt that during his absence the man would without scruple peer and pry into the other compartments of the tent. But to this contingency he was quite indifferent, for he had foreseen and forestalled it, before going off to the barque, by carefully gathering up and stowing ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... you let me alone, boy? Into what have you come here to pry? You are odious—yes, odious!" She stamped her foot. "And I thought last night, that you were in trouble. Was I not kind to you for that, and that only?" She broke off pitifully. "Oh, Harry, I am ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... last to the dream of earthly sovereignty. How difficult it is to get even the renewed and regenerated mind to understand and realise Heavenly things, and to wean it from what is of the earth earthy! He checks their presumption—He tells them these are questions which they may not pry into. There is to be no present fulfilment of these visions of millennial glory. That day and that hour are to be wrapt in unrevealed and impenetrable secrecy. The Church may not attempt rashly and inquisitively to lift the veil. She is not to know the ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... the basement of his father's house (where he took the precaution to label all his bottles 'poison'), he began the publication of a new and better journal, entitled the PAUL PRY. It boasted of several contributors and a list of regular subscribers. One of these (Mr. J.H.B.), while smarting under what he considered a malicious libel, met the editor one day on the brink of the ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... building itself has been desecrated and damaged by the public ever since its abandonment. Its visitors apparently did not scruple to deface it in every possible way, and what could not be stolen was ruthlessly destroyed. It apparently was a pleasure to them to pry the massive roof-beams loose, in order to enjoy the crash occasioned by the breaking of the ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James
... socialized Literacy," the man on the screen continued. "I'm not going back to the old argument that any kind of socialization is only the thin edge of the wedge which will pry open the pit of horrors from which the world has climbed since the Fourth World War. If you don't realize that now, it's no use for me to repeat it again. But I will ask you, do you realize, for a moment, what a program of socialized Literacy ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... and her biologists. Everybody's full of joy and gratitude and stuff—as well as information. And we managed to pry ourselves loose without waking you two trumpet-of-doom sleepers up. So we're ready to jump again. I wonder where in hell we'll ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... "the warmest welcome at an inn," found George's to be economical. "What do you think," he writes, "must be my expense, who love to pry into everything of the kind? Why, truly one shilling. My company goes to George's Coffee-house, where, for that small subscription I read all pamphlets under a three shillings' dimension; and indeed, any larger would not be fit for coffee-house ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... little sigh of pleasure and excitement. "That's what I'd like to do to-night," said he, "and that's what I'll do, you can bet your sh—boots, when all this silly mess is over and I'm a free man. I'll hike back to good old Broadway, and if ever you see any one trying to pry me loose from it again you can laugh yourself to death, because he'll ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... repute; because I would not have her at my home, said he, to make abode in solitude. Yet, notwithstanding this her residence beside her parents, do not fail, quoth he, with a most heedful care and circumspection to pry into her ways, and to espy what places she shall go to with her mother, and who those be that shall repair unto her. Not, quoth he, that I do mistrust her virtue, or that I seem to have any diffidence of her pudicity and chaste behaviour,—for ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... folks, curious national diversion of kicking. Colquitt, a remark of, acquainted with some principles of aerostation. Columbia, District of, its peculiar climatic effects, not certain that Martin is for abolishing it. Columbiads, the true fifteen-inch ones. Columbus, a Paul Pry of genius, will perhaps be remembered, thought by some to have discovered America. Columby. Complete Letter-Writer, fatal gift of. Compostella, Saint James of, seen. Compromise system, the, illustrated. Conciliation, its meaning. Congress, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... might be the more impartial arbitrators between the people of so many different creeds and sects who now inhabited the country; that they must be aware that they never had before been so impartially governed, and that they must continue to obey these their governors, without attempting to pry further into futurity or the will of the gods. Mahadeo performs a part in the great drama of the Ramayana, or the Rape of Sita, and he is the only figure there that is represented with a ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... to me. It occurred at a summer resort in northern Indiana, where I noticed a nuthatch hitching up and down and around the slender stem of a sapling, pausing at intervals to thrust something into the crevices of the bark. My curiosity led me to pry into the bird's affairs. Stepping smartly forward, I drove him away, not heeding his vigorous protest of "yank, yank," and examined the bark of the sapling. What did I discover? A colony of black ants were scuttling up and down the tree, apparently under stress of great excitement; and good ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... within an ames ace of a havin bin chouse flickur'd meself. Whereby I paradventerd before to tell your noble onnur my poor thofts on this here Mr. Clifton match marriage, which is all against the grain. And this I do hope your ever onnurable onnur will pry into, and ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... you go," he retorted. "She was a mighty badly broken-up woman the last time I saw her, but even so I judge she's still got spunk enough left in her to resent having an unauthorized and uninvited stranger coming about, seeking to pry into her own private sorrow. But it's your affair, not mine. Besides, judging by everything, you probably don't think my ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... the line, indeed, When we should pry, and when refrain, But science surely has its need Of knowledge gain'd, and ...
— Canada and Other Poems • T.F. Young
... firecracker to wake those Sound & Cape fellows up. I had to show 'em what damage the new deals and competition and our combination would do to 'em if they kept on sleeping on their stock certificates. Funny how hard it is to pry some folks loose from their par-value notions." Mr. Fogg delivered this little disquisition on the intractability of stockholders with reproachful vigor, staring blandly into the unwinking gaze of Mr. Marston. "I don't want to praise my own humble efforts too much," he went ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... come. Many are the solutions to this problem. Each form of life has, as it were, solved it best to suit its own peculiar case, and to the earnest student of Nature there is nothing more interesting than to pry into these solutions and note how varied, strange, and wonderful ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... are you making mysteries? I do not wish to pry into your affairs. I would have trusted you anywhere; but when it comes round to me that you have been sending a private messenger to one of the young gentlemen there, I don't know what to be at! I would not believe Mrs. Mansell at first; but I ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... would perch beside me here, extend his wand over this contiguity of roofs, uncover every chamber, and make me familiar with their inhabitants! The most desirable mode of existence might be that of a spiritualized Paul Pry hovering invisible round man and woman, witnessing their deeds, searching into their hearts, borrowing brightness from their felicity, and shade from their sorrow, and retaining no emotion peculiar to himself. But none of these things are possible; and if I would ...
— Sights From A Steeple (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and the scissors slipped to the floor. His mother was down on her knees beside him, one arm about his shoulders, trying to pry his face from his hands, trying to look into his eyes. "You're my man, Davy! You're the only man, the only help I've got. You're my life, Davy. Poor ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... other people materials for growing. For the particular purpose of making the best things grow, of pointing up truths, of giving definite edges to right and wrong, an inconsistent man—a man who is trying to pry himself out a little at a time from an impossible situation in an impossible world, is likely to do the world more good than a very large crowd of angels who have made up their minds that they are going to be consistent and going ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... superiors. He hates those who have valour merely, and are unobservant of propriety. He hates those who are forward and determined, and, at the same time, of contracted understanding.' 2. The Master then inquired, 'Ts'ze, have you also your hatreds?' Tsze-kung replied, 'I hate those who pry out matters, and ascribe the knowledge to their wisdom. I hate those who are only not modest, and think that they are valourous. I hate those who make known secrets, and think that they are straightforward.' ...
— The Chinese Classics—Volume 1: Confucian Analects • James Legge
... come, bright heaven's eye Cannot upon thy beauty pry; Glad Echo in distinguished voice Naming thee will here rejoice; Then come and hear her merry lays Crowning thy name with ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... unjustly I felt that I was only doing right in rebelling. So after waiting till Ephraim was in the pantry, washing up the dinner-things with the housemaid, I slipped down the garden to the boat-house. The door was padlocked, as I had feared; but with an old hammer-head I managed to pry off the staple. I felt like a burglar when the lock came off in my hand. I felt that I was acting deceitfully. Then the thought of Ephraim came over me, making me rebellious to my finger-tips. I would go on the river, I said to myself, I would go aboard all the ships in the Pool. I would ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... helmet, tried to pry the jaws open. They would not move; the airless void surrounding the tiny planetoid had frozen the body until now it was as solid as the quartz cave-walls. There was but one thing to do: the other ...
— The Beast of Space • F.E. Hardart
... disposed to pry into what the wisdom of God has not thought proper to reveal, has frequently inquired into the history of Lazarus after his resurrection. It has been asked, what were his feelings, what the nature of his recollections, and what the topics of his conversation? Did he communicate ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... well. The two women who kept the boarding house were educated and considerate and had long ago ceased to be inquisitive. Such a variety of people met there that it would have been too much of an undertaking to pry into the secrets of each individual. Such things only interfered with business. Effi, who still remembered the cross-questionings to which the eyes of Mrs. Zwicker had subjected her, was very agreeably impressed with the reserve of the boarding house keepers. But after two weeks had passed ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... American war. It is very near its end indeed now—its consequences are far from a conclusion. In some respects, they are commencing a new date, which will reach far beyond us. I desire not to pry into that book of futurity. Could I finish my course in peace—but one must take the chequered scenes of life as they come. What signifies whether the elements are serene or turbulent, when a private old man ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... he'd done, but jest trustin' to his power of talk. Which, of course, didn't give him no show. While he was makin' love to the girl she outs with a knife and tries to stick him—nice, pleasant sort she must have been—and Drew, he had to pry the two ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... what we can to help. It's because of that I dismiss the ceremonies, and don't say anything about the fear of boring you, and all that. I don't even make exceptions of you, Stairs, or you, Reynolds. I tell you quite frankly I want to poke and pry into your plans. I want to know all about 'em. I've sense enough to see that you wield a big influence. I am certain I have your sympathy in my aims. And I want to find out how far I can make your aims help my aims. All I know is that you have addressed three meetings, ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... night I wanted to ask old Mother Smith if she ever heard the name Fay Larkin. But I thought better of it. If there's a girl here or at Stonebridge of that name we'll learn it. If there's mystery we'd better go slow. Mormons are hell on secret and mystery, and to pry into their affairs is to queer yourself. My advice is—just be as nice as you can be, and ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... is getting its pry under many a mercantile house in our cities, and before long down will come the great establishment, crushing reputation, home, comfort, and immortal souls. How it diverts and sinks capital may be inferred from ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... men. The subaltern impostors were thrown into dungeons. But the chief criminal continued to be master of the King and of the kingdom. Meanwhile, in the distempered mind of Charles one mania succeeded another. A longing to pry into those mysteries of the grave from which human beings avert their thoughts had long been hereditary in his house. Juana, from whom the mental constitution of her posterity seems to have derived a morbid taint, had sate, year after year, by the bed on which lay the ghastly remains ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... and spy, Sad eyes that heed not skies nor trees, In dismal nooks he loves to pry, Whose motto evermore is Spes! But ah! the fabled treasure flees; Grown rarer with the fleeting years, In rich men's shelves they take their ...
— Ballads in Blue China and Verses and Translations • Andrew Lang
... did exist, and to him that was an important fact. As he trailed along behind Ashe he determined that he was going to continue to exist, in one piece and unharmed, Operation Retrograde or no Operation Retrograde. And he was going to pry a few enlightening answers out ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... grey head. "That's not the real reason, son. The world has a wife for every man; if he hasn't found her by the time he's thirty-five, there's some real reason for it. Well, I don't want to pry into yours, but I hope it's a sound one and not a mean, sneaking, selfish sort of reason. Perhaps you'll choose a Madam Selwyn some day yet. In case you should I'm going to give you a small bit of good ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... how many pairs of lovers it had discovered along the shores of Pelham Bay, how many mint-juleps it had seen drunk on the veranda of the country club, how many kisses it had interrupted; and whether it would rather pry into people's private affairs or look for torpedo-boats and night attacks in time of war. But most of all he wondered why it spent so much of its light on space, sweeping the heavens like a fiery broom with ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... the trick!" thought Floyd. "It'll put some of 'em out of business, and the rest will be so frightened that they'll retreat. Then whoever is out there trying to break through to help us, will have matters their own way. That's what I'll do. Ill pry that rock loose and let it dash 'em ...
— The Boy Ranchers Among the Indians - or, Trailing the Yaquis • Willard F. Baker
... morning, "you stand about on the threshold, and wait for M. Sechard in the passage, to pry into his private affairs; when he comes out into the yard to melt down the rollers, you are there looking at him, instead of getting on with the almanac. These things are not right, especially when you see that I, his wife, respect his secrets, and take so much trouble on myself to leave ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... "you're probably lying like a trooper when you make out that you did nothing, but I'll pry the truth out of you sooner or later. Now I've got to get to work. Send for ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... he admitted, as if to pry under the surface would be worse than "scratching a Russian to find a Tartar." "But they ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... a hand, Ramon, and help me pry open this chest. I know a man who says he'll give me a fancy price for this treasure. This ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... on the instant by the sudden snorting and shying of two or three of the horses in passing, and we laid hold of our weapons, keying ourselves to the fighting pitch. But, curiously enough, the riders made no move to pry into the cause. So far from it, they flogged the shying ponies into line and rode on stolidly; and thus in a little time that danger was overpast and the evening silence of the mighty forest was ours to keep or break ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... He wanted money, and he wanted it badly, but the tailor had no right to pry into his private affairs—certainly ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... little while, and we will have a peep, when papa and John are gone away." So said Frank, who always liked to pry into every thing. "We will creep softly down stairs, and into the yard, and then lift up the lid of the box. Papa will be in the house, and John will be in the stable; so ...
— Pretty Tales for the Nursery • Isabel Thompson
... of sympathy to our readers' bones. Western travellers, who have beguiled the midnight hour in the interesting process of pulling down rail fences, to pry their carriages out of mud holes, will have a respectful and mournful sympathy with our unfortunate hero. We beg them to drop a ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... staggered back like children as she bucked centre. Two large lady spectators who had seen the Duke of Roxburgh married and had often blocked traffic on Twenty-third Street fell back into the second row with ripped shirtwaists when Violet had finished with them. William Pry loved her at ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... "Tom, just tell me what you want. In straightforward, simple language. It just took me ten minutes to pry a few idiotic facts out of a highway patrolman. Don't make me go through it all ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett
... honest person it went sorely against the grain with Josie to pry into anybody's private mail, even though he be an arch-villain who was doing his best to keep two poor little children out ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson
... apologized; "I didn't mean to pry into your affairs, and it is none of my business, anyhow. I'm glad enough to get the money, no matter where it came from. I'd forgive you if you had stolen it." He began to dress hurriedly. "You are the fairy prince of this enterprise, Alton, and you can go to Kalvik ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... Drumtochty, and we, were cut off from the lowlands by miles of forest, so our manners retained the fashion of the former age. Six elders, besides the minister, knew the tragedy of Flora Campbell, and never opened their lips. Mrs. Macfadyen, who was our newspaper, and understood her duty, refused to pry into this secret. The pity of the glen went out to Lachlan, but no one even looked a question as he sat alone in his pew or came down on a Saturday afternoon to the village shop for his week's provisions. London friends thought me foolish about my adopted home, but I asked them whether they could ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... doctor. You're my friend. You made short work of Captain Clinton and his 'confession.' I mean people—outsiders—strangers—who don't know us, and don't care whether we're alive or dead; those are the people I mean. They buy a one-cent paper and they think it gives them the right to pry into every detail of our lives." She paused for a moment, and then went, on: "So you think Howard is worrying? I think so, too. At first I thought it was because of the letter Mr. Underwood wrote me, but I guess ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... for in the reference room of the Boston Public Library; and he crouched back in his corner like a shy, retiring mouse. For a moment the cowman regarded him intently, as if seeking for some exculpating infirmity; then, leaving the long line of drinkers to chafe at the delay, he paused to pry into the matter. ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... on finding out things that were not intended for her to know. I hadn't thought. If mothah took all the trouble of sending a special-delivery lettah to you to keep me from knowing till my birthday, I'm not going to pry around trying to ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... hearing, does he say? My hand's wet. But it's victory. Shall it be go? or stay? [I should show them all I can, or they may pry closer than they ought.] Shall I have it out and be done with it? To see Mary at once [to carry bastion after bastion at the charge] - there were the true safety after all! Hurry - hurry's the road to silence now. Let them ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... companion on the misty moor. What had happened during those hours of suspense and danger? What barriers had been swept aside; what new vistas opened? Edith's own love was too sweet and sacred a thing to allow her to pry and question into the heart-secrets of another, as is the objectionable fashion of many so-called friends, but with her keen woman-senses she took in George Elgood's every word, look, and movement during the brief ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Mrs. Wilson hastened to her sitting-room to fetch a screwdriver back to pry it out. Garrison gave it a kick, at the bottom, in her absence, thus jarring it loose, and the top ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele
... at last Cast off her dinner gown and to the bath Step like a ray of moonlight. Then she snaps The light on where the onyx tub and walls Dazzle the air. I enter then her room And stand against the closed door, do not pry Upon her in the bath. Give her the chance To fly me, fight me standing face to face. I hear her flounder in the water, hear Hands slap and slip with water breast and arms; Hear little sighs and shudders ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... thought that one of the boa constrictors had got loose, and that she had sat down on it. So naturally she fainted away. I came running in with one of my men as soon as I heard the outcries, and after a while we managed to pry up the Fat Woman with a couple of cart-rungs and get the Dwarf out from under her, after which she came to in due time and got over her fright. But the Dwarf was a good deal flattened out by the pressure, and I was afraid at first that his ribs had been stove in. It turned out in the ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... the table snorted. "That means the freedom for the capitalists to pry somebody else out of the greatest part ...
— Combat • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... broke the awkward silence. "Captain, it's lovely to sail, and our Blowell was like a sea queen, until we struck that sand bar, then she stuck like—like the Brooklyn Bridge, not a thing could move her. We did break a couple of oars trying to pry ourselves loose, but a sand bar is a mighty power when you hit it wrong side up," finished Louise, proud of her attempt to interest ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... and pry with his cold-chisel forced this flimsy outer door away from its lock. Beneath it, thus lightly masked, stood the more formidable safe door itself. Durkin drew in a sharp breath of relief as he looked at it with critical eyes. It was not quite the sort of thing he had expected. If it had been ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... pendant to the "Pratt," who is inseparable, however, from her invisible nephew, Mr. Anthony Whyte. Miss Pratt is a sort of female Paul Pry, always turning up at the most unexpected moment at Lord Rossville's, and finally puts the finishing stroke to the pompous old peer by driving up to his castle door in the hearse of Mr. M'Vitie, the Radical distiller, being unable to procure any other mode of conveyance ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... course, would take no money for it, not being so poor as that came to. Accordingly, on the day following, I managed to set the men at work on the other side of the farm, especially that inquisitive and busybody John Fry, who would pry out almost anything for the pleasure of telling his wife; and then, with Uncle Reuben mounted on my ancient Peggy, I made foot for the westward, directly after breakfast. Uncle Ben refused to go unless I would take a loaded gun, and indeed it was always wise ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... and I honour you for it, de Beaujardin," said Montcalm, grasping his hand. "I grieve to find you in such a position, but I am happily not called upon to act on your information, of which, indeed," he added with a smile, "I will choose to doubt the accuracy. It is not for me to pry into your family affairs, but if you desire to confide in me, I will assuredly counsel and help you to the best of ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... scene once, and stayed a short time; but Tony got drunk one day and beat her because she ate too much, and she disappeared soon after. Whence she came and where she departed, no one could tell, not even Mrs. Murphy, the Pauline Pry and Gazette ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar
... has in his hand, and a number of wrought nails; and he brought them home and showed Ole how to use the hammer and drive the nails into the chair; and when he had driven them all into the wood, papa would pry them out for him, and the work would commence all over again, and Ole was ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... him, when he had the chance of keeping her with him. But he was silent, and would not allow his wife to ask him a question; would not present himself in the room, lest it should appear like intrusion and a wish to pry; having the same chivalry toward dark-eyed Maggie as in the days when he had bought her ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... touch Dickens in indicating this sort of familiar sorcery and the secret of its terror. For it is children, more than any, who are conscious how "haunted" all manner of places and things are. And people themselves! The searching psychologists are led singularly astray. They peer and pry and repine, and all the while the real essence of the figure lies in its momentary ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... Christian officers in the imperial retinue crossed themselves; upon which the priests declared that the presence of profane men prevented them from discovering the auspices. Diocletian, who was very anxious to pry into futurity, became irritated, and ordered all his Christian officers to sacrifice to the gods under pain of flagellation and dismissal, which many of them underwent. Several oracles which he consulted gave answers unfavorable to the Christians. The church ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... was not written for America; it was written for England. So many Englishmen have done their sincerest best to teach us something for our betterment that it seems to me high time that some of us should substantially recognize the good intent by trying to pry up the English nation to a little higher level of manhood in turn. Very truly yours, S. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... American who, so many years ago, instead of hitting him, had embraced his knees. He was overwhelmed by this extraordinary coincidence. 'Approach. O heaven! O Providence! It is he, behold the object of my gratitude. ... My benefactor! My son!' But let us not pry further into so affecting a passage; it is sufficient to state that Don Alvarez, after promising his protection to Zamore, hurried off to relate this remarkable occurrence ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... knock. No response followed the repeated blows from her hard knuckles. She then tapped smartly on Mrs. Butterfield's bedroom window with her thimble finger. This proving of no avail, she was obliged to pry open the kitchen shutter, split open the screen of mosquito netting with her shears, and crawl into the house over the sink. This was a considerable feat for a somewhat rheumatic elderly ...
— A Village Stradivarius • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... dearie!" he protested in a soothing tone. "But these shyster lawyers who hang around those places—you 'member Jim O'Leary out home to Athens? Well, they don't know a lady when they see one, and they wouldn't care if they did; and they'll try and pry into ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... thoughts, and the desire of keeping them undiscovered, makes even the conversation of men of wit and learning tedious to you, what anxious hours must I spend, who am condemned by custom to the conversation of women, whose natural curiosity leads them to pry into all my thoughts, and whose envy can never suffer Horatio's heart to be possessed by any one, without forcing them into malicious designs against the person who is so happy as to possess it! But, indeed, if ever envy can possibly ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... glory of her vestments: round about in the form of an amphitheatre were most curiously planted pine trees, interseamed with limons and citrons, which with the thickness of their boughs so shadowed the place, that Phoebus could not pry into the secret of that arbor; so united were the tops with so thick a closure, that Venus might there in her jollity have dallied unseen with her dearest paramour. Fast by, to make the place more gorgeous, was there a fount so crystalline and clear, ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... rivulet lies from its source! My dear young sir, Mr. Darrell has known griefs on which it does not become you and me to talk. He never talks of them. The least I can do for my benefactor is not to pry into his secrets, nor babble them out. And he is so kind, so good, never gets into a passion; but it is so awful to wound him,—it gives him such pain; that's why he frightens me,—frightens me horribly; and so he will you when you ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Passengers, women passengers especially, often do that—pull up a 'roustie' and pry into him to see what sort of wheels he has. But I noticed that they talked for quite a little while; because, when I finished dressing and went below, ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... Do not try to pry into the private affairs of others by asking what their profits are, what things cost, whether Melissa ever had a beau, and why Amarette never got married? All such questions are extremely impertinent and are ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... colour deepened. "Pry's not the word for it. She ransacks everything I have. I never come home but what I find she has overhauled something, though I've forbidden her to ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... delight. Nature is instinct then with secrets dark and dread. There is a language which he who sleepeth not, but will wake, and watch, may haply learn. Strange organs of speech hath the invisible world; strange language doth it talk; strange communion hold with him who would pry into its mysteries. It talks by bat and owl—by the grave-worm, and by each crawling thing—by the dust of graves, as well as by those that rot therein—but ever doth it discourse by night, and specially when the moon is at the full. 'Tis the lore I have then learned that makes that ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... and others were availing themselves of the means which Saladin had supplied for revelling. The wounded man slept under the influence of Saladin's wonderful talisman, so that the dwarf had opportunity to pry about at pleasure until he was frightened into concealment by the sound of a heavy step. He skulked behind a curtain, yet could see the motions, and hear the words, of the Grand Master, who entered, and carefully secured the covering of the pavilion behind him. His victim ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... chopped down a hickory sapling, he began to pry at the boulder which held the mass. Presently a tree came crashing down, and a small rush of earth followed it, and the hearts of the men above and the woman and children below stood still for an instant. An hour passed ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... easy for a Frog to jog On with a kind King Log. But in the fulness of the time, there came A would-be monarch—Legion his fit name; A Plebs-appointed Autocrat, Stork-throated, Goggle-eyed, Paul-Pry-coated; A poking, peering, pompous, petty creature, A Bumble-King, with beak for its chief feature. This new King Stork, With a fierce, fussy appetite for work; Not satisfied with fixing like a vice Authority on Town ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 21, 1891 • Various
... last, she made him sit down, and gave him a glass of home made wine to drink, while she told him the story much as she had already told it to the marquis, adding a hope to the effect that, if ever the marquis should express a wish to pry into the secret of the chamber, Malcolm would not encourage him in a fancy, the indulgence of which was certainly ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... minister's wife—just as she always did. "It fires the imagination! He walks off some fine morning and completely shuts the door on our life here—as if he gave us notice not to pry into his movements. But this time"—she was leaning to stroke the tawny sides with a pitying touch—"this time you may be sure something very sad and disappointing happened to him—something in that other life went quite wrong! How I ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... Agrippa left his house, at Louvain; and, intending to be absent for some time, gave the key of his study to his wife, with strict orders that no one should enter it during his absence. The lady herself, strange as it may appear, had no curiosity to pry into her husband's secrets, and never once thought of entering the forbidden room: but a young student, who had been accommodated with an attic in the philosopher's house, burned with a fierce desire to examine the study; ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... have no desire to pry into Mrs. Gerome's affairs, but it is necessary that those who direct or control her estate should be appraised of her condition. It is supposed that her fortune is ample, and her heirs should be informed ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... opening of the Book, he lights on a place in which Captain Swan had inveighed bitterly against most of his Men, especially against another John Reed a Jamaica man. This was such stuff as he did not seek after: But hitting so pat on this subject, his curiosity led him to pry farther; and therefore while the Gunner was busie, he convey'd the Book away, to look over it at his leisure. The Gunner having dispatch'd his business, lock'd up the Cabbin-door, not missing the Book, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... them at least, had arisen a very different sense of injury. From the moment when James had the impertinence to pry into his affairs—as he put it—old Jolyon no longer chose to credit this story about Bosinney. His grand-daughter slighted through a member of 'that fellow's' family! He made up his mind that Bosinney was maligned. There must be some other reason ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... in these operations, was to see how patiently the oxen bore being driven about in the deep mire, and the prodigious strength which they exerted in pulling out the logs. One of the workmen would take a strong iron chain, and while two others would pry up the end of a log with crow-bars or levers, he would pass the chain under the end so raised, and then hook it together above. Another man would then back up a pair of oxen to the place, and sometimes two pairs, in order that they might be hooked to the chain which passed around the log. ...
— Mary Erskine • Jacob Abbott
... foot, the hip and shoulder of one side approach each other, and so lessen the space within the abdomen on that side. On the other side a support has been removed for the contents of the abdomen, and they sag down until they pry the uterus out of place and press it over towards the side where there is less pressure. The broad ligament on one side is stretched from use and on the other side shortened from disuse, and so the ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... kuragxegeco. Prowl vagi. Proximate proksima, apuda. Proximity proksimeco, apudeco. Proxy anstatauxulo. Prudence singardemo. Prudent singardema, prudenta. Prune cxirkauxhaki. Prune seka pruno. Pruning shears brancxotondilo. Prussian, a Pruso. Prussic acid ciana acido. Pry sercxi, rigardeti. Psalm psalmo. Psalmody psalmokantado. Psalter psalmaro. Pseudonym pseuxdonomo. Psychology psikologio. Puberty virigxo. Public publika. Publican drinkejmastro. Public-house drinkejo. Publicity ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... rope over his head and made it fast about his shoulders, and allowing ten or twelve feet of slack, knotted it securely to a ring in the end of the boat. "There, now I can get onto the rock an' by using the pole for a crow-bar, I can pry us off, then if I get left I'll just trail along on this rope until ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... decided she would raise a window if she had to break it open. A curtain roller lay on the floor. With this she tried to pry up the uncertain sash, and in doing so she fell over ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... loving Hind that (Hartless) wants her Deer, Scuds through the woods and Fern with hearkening ear, Perplext, in every bush and nook doth pry, Her dearest Deer might answer ear or eye; So doth my anxious soul, which now doth miss, A dearer Deer (far dearer Heart) than this. Still wait with doubts and hopes and failing eye; His voice to hear or person to descry. Or as the pensive Dove doth all alone (On withered bough) ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... glory for a little moment—not a bird so sober in its plumage but became, if only it flew near enough to Heaven, a spark against the blue. And the long, unhesitating rays were not so busy with the world without, but that one of them could pry in at the five-light window at the west end of the Jacobean drawing-room at the Towers, and reach the marble Ceres the Earl's grandfather brought from Athens. And on the way it paused and dwelt a moment on a man's ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... narrowly pry into and thoroughly sift this sort of people, wherewith the world is so pestered, will, as I have done, find, that for the most part, they neither understand others, nor themselves; and that their memories are full enough, but the judgment totally void and empty; ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... his old letters tied up in bundles and labelled, his contracts, his publisher's returns, his lease, his various certificates neatly docketed. It was the private desk of a careful business man, rather than that of our old unmethodical Adrian. There are few things more painful than to pry into the intimacies of those we have loved; and Jaffery and I had to pry alone, because Doria, who might have saved our obligatory search from impertinence, lay, herself, ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... wearing, irritating, nerve-racking work. You knew you were on the level. In spite of the General Staff you believed you had a right to be where you were. You knew you had no wish to pry into military secrets; you knew that toward the allied armies you felt only admiration—that you wanted only to help. But no one else knew that; or cared. Every hundred yards you were halted, cross-examined, searched, put through ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... cad, how dare he meddle and pry into the Misses Templeton's family affairs! There is something I mistrust in the man; he is smooth and plausible, but he is crafty too; he is deep—deep—and if I do not mistake, he ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... horse, and went, like a sheep that is led to the slaughter, to follow a boar. In the meanwhile seven wicked women, with whom the Prince had been acquainted, began to grow jealous; and being curious to pry into the secret, they sent for a mason, and for a good sum of money got him to make an underground passage from their house into the Prince's chamber. Then these cunning jades went through the passage in order to explore. But finding nothing, they ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... to say: "It's well to remember that in making the attempt you may do more harm than good. 'Where the apple reddens, never pry, lest we lose our Edens'—You know ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... slip or the spike pull out, he need only climb back out of the ravine—to her. But Blake's work was not the kind to slip or pull out. The watcher looked at the powerful figure backing rapidly down that roof-like pitch. One of the toes of the level tripod under the taut loop would easily pry the rope off the spike-head. He turned his pack around to get at the tripod—and paused to look upwards at the three tiny faces peering down over the brink ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... Slight as it was, it was no trifle to him, in spite of Griffith's exclamation, 'How absurd! Is a fellow to be bound to give an account of everything he looks at as if he were six years old? Catch me letting my mother pry into my pockets! But you are too meek, Bill; you perfectly invite them to ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... satin and quite irrelevantly between the acts; an advantage she shared with the younger and fairer and more dashing, the dancing, Miss Malvina, who footed it and tambourined it and shawled it, irruptively, in lonely state. When not admiring Mr. Burton in Shakespeare we admired him as Paul Pry, as Mr. Toodles and as Aminadab Sleek in The Serious Family, and we must have admired him very much—his huge fat person, his huge fat face and his vast slightly pendulous cheek, surmounted by a sort of elephantine wink, to which I impute a remarkable baseness, ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... Shakespeare and found him weak in chemistry. His helper came out of the mysterious East, and his name was Azuma-zi. But Holroyd called him Pooh-bah. Holroyd liked a nigger help because he would stand kicking—a habit with Holroyd—and did not pry into the machinery and try to learn the ways of it. Certain odd possibilities of the negro mind brought into abrupt contact with the crown of our civilisation Holroyd never fully realised, though just at the end he got ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... antechamber. There, to his great astonishment, d'Artagnan heard the policy which made all Europe tremble criticized aloud and openly, as well as the private life of the cardinal, which so many great nobles had been punished for trying to pry into. That great man who was so revered by d'Artagnan the elder served as an object of ridicule to the Musketeers of Treville, who cracked their jokes upon his bandy legs and his crooked back. Some sang ballads about ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to take hold of his sister's wrist and pry the paper from her clasp. Only started—for as Pigtail wriggled back sunlight fell on a shadowed part of the paper which drew Jimmy's ...
— The Mississippi Saucer • Frank Belknap Long
... and in genuine distress the courtier hurried on. "If you would listen, Madame! 'Tis true that Jeanne d'Aumerle has found the surest lever to pry His ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... repute as a guide, and can make my way blindfold over the bogs and mosses hereabout; and I would pilot thee to the place yonder, if my fealty to the prior—that is—if—I mean—though I was never a groat the richer for his bounty; yet he may not like strangers to pry into his garners and store-houses, especially in these evil times, when every cur begins to yelp at the heels of our bountiful mother; and every beast to bray out its reproaches at her ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... a guard at every gun Was placed along the wall; The beacon blazed upon the roof Of Edgecombe's lofty hall; And many a fishing bark put out, To pry along the coast; And with loose rein, and bloody spur Rode inland ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... your pardon, I said I did not approve of getting furniture on the hire-system for myself; but I never criticised Eva. I know nothing of her private affairs, nor do I wish to pry into them, and you and Doreen have nothing to do with them either; so if that is all you have against her you had better put it out of ...
— A City Schoolgirl - And Her Friends • May Baldwin
... bold, shall pry into her apparatus for the beautification of her person, examining her patch-box and the innocent little pots of rouge, vermilion, and white lead for the complexion, and of soot to rub under the eyes? Who shall ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... reminded himself that if listeners hear no good of themselves, they also occasionally hear much that is valuable. So Bates and Miss Ocky were in conspiracy to conceal from him some conversation they had had! Um. It would be funny if he couldn't pry the truth out of one of them; mentally, he girded up his ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... Verner. It was a great point with Roy to find favour in the sight of Mr. Massingbird, his possible future master. Lionel partially saw through the man; he believed that he had some covert motive in seeking the interview with him, and that Roy was trying to pry into his affairs. But Roy found himself baffled also by Mr. Verner, as he had been by Matiss, in so far as that he could learn nothing certain of the existence ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... that Fortunato, uplifting his dull torch, endeavored to pry into the depths of the recess. Its termination the feeble light did ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Owls together sat, Conferring thus in solemn chat: "How is the modern taste decay'd! Where's the respect to wisdom paid? Our worth the Grecian sages knew; They gave our sires the honour due: They weigh'd the dignity of fowls, And pry'd into the depth of Owls. Athens, the seat of earned fame, With gen'ral voice revered our name; On merit title was conferr'd, And all adored th' Athenian bird." "Brother, you reason well," replies The solemn mate, with half-shut eyes: "Right: Athens was the seat of ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... formidable safe door itself. Durkin drew in a sharp breath of relief as he looked at it with critical eyes. It was not quite the sort of thing he had expected. If it had been a combination lock he had intended to tear away the woodwork covering it, pad the floor with the bed mattress, and then pry it over on its face, to chisel away the cement that he knew would lie under its vulnerable sheet-iron bottom. But it was an ordinary, old-fashioned lock and key "Mennlicher," Durkin at the first glance ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... he would assemble his officers, and consult them on the subject. He exhibited his folly, however, by allowing his people to make an inroad into Unyoro and carry off eighty cows belonging to Kamrasi. To their horror, Kyengo, the chief magician, informed them that the king, being anxious to pry into the future, had resolved to adopt a strong measure with that end in view. This was the sacrifice of a child. The ceremony, which it fell to the lot of Kyengo to perform, is almost too cruel to describe. The magician, having placed a large earthen ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... the benefit of the doubt. He would wait, he would school himself to patience. Perhaps she would come back for it,—and explain. Perhaps he could find her by advertising it,—and get an explanation. Pending which, he could wait a little while. It was not his wish to pry into her secrets, even ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... having the clue to the other's secret, they were respectively puzzled at what each revealed, and awaited new knowledge of each other's character and mood without attempting to pry into ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... hitting him, had embraced his knees. He was overwhelmed by this extraordinary coincidence. 'Approach. O heaven! O Providence! It is he, behold the object of my gratitude. ... My benefactor! My son!' But let us not pry further into so affecting a passage; it is sufficient to state that Don Alvarez, after promising his protection to Zamore, hurried off to relate this remarkable occurrence ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... you?" she cried. "Mind your own business!" The inn-keeper passed on without taking any notice of her, and entered the house. Most likely he wanted to see Martha; she followed on his heels. "You can save yourself the trouble, there's nothing for you to pry into!" she screamed. Shortly afterwards he came out again, with the woman still scolding at his heels, ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... and lies. Do you remember what I used to say in my lectures?—or were you asleep just then, or cutting your initials on the rail? (You see I can ask questions, my young friend.) Leverage is everything,—was what I used to say;—don't begin to pry till you have got the long ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... stood together for some little time, looking at nothing in particular. And yet it was borne in upon me that friend Barbara rarely thought of me when I was not present with her. I doubt much that this should have given annoyance, for why should we pry into another's thoughts? And yet it rankled in my bosom, and I could but feel that I knew the truth. I should have liked her to think much of me, in sooth: I should have liked her to think of me while she knitted the stockings in the bright leafy ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... a point of honor never to pry into Tish's secrets, so we did not, of course, look into the drawer. However, a moment later I happened to upset my glass of water and naturally went to the sideboard drawer in question for a fresh napkin. And Tish's revolver was lying underneath ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... jacket, upon systematic searches for her people. Doubtless she could have helped us to find them, but she wouldn't. She was very sullen on these expeditions and frightened. When Graves tried to put her down she would cling to him, and it took real force to pry her loose. ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... they have no perception of the cogency of arguments, the force of pathetick sentiments, the various colours of diction, or the flowery embellishments of fancy; of all that engages the attention of others they are totally insensible, while they pry into worlds of conjecture, and amuse themselves with ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... became very uneasy. She ran to Ali Baba for comfort, and he told her that Cassim would certainly think it unwise to enter the town till night was well advanced. By midnight Cassim's wife was still more alarmed, and wept till morning, cursing her desire to pry into the affairs of her brother and sister-in-law. In the early day she went again, in tears, ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... other members of the family are wont to do, but there comes an awesome, shivering fear that it is true in some degree. How many times she has seen Gertrude check Marcia when Floyd was under discussion. She has never tried to pry into family secrets, but she knows there have been many about her; a certain kind of knowledge that all have shared, a something against her. She has fancied that she made some advances in living down the dislike; Mrs. Grandon has been kinder of late, and Marcia, since her marriage, ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... misery in a balldress. In the adjoining room, long tables were laid out, on which servants were placing refreshments for the fte about to be given on this joyous occasion. I felt somewhat shocked, and inclined to say with Paul Pry, "Hope I don't intrude." But my apologies were instantly cut short, and I was welcomed with true Mexican hospitality; repeatedly thanked for my kindness in coming to see the nun, and hospitably pressed to join the family feast. I only got off upon ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... behold! come to pry into things, and look about and find out, as the poet sez, that wuzn't a real ship a-sailin' round, as it looked like, but it wuz built up on what they call pilin'—jest as if Josiah should stick sticks up on the ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... the foregoing quotation occurs an anecdote of Rabbi Elisha ben Abuyah which is too racy to let pass, and too characteristic to need note or comment. One day Elisha ben Abuyah was privileged to pry into Paradise, where he saw the recording angel Metatron on a seat registering the merits of the holy of Israel. Struck with astonishment at the sight, he exclaimed, "Is it not laid down that there is no sitting in heaven, no shortsightedness or fatigue?" Then Metatron, thus discovered, was ordered ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... whether Mr. Poole, the author of Paul Pry, had Michael Angelo in his head when he wrote that well-known comedy; but certainly he might have sat for a character whose intrusive and inquisitive habits were so notorious, that people on seeing him approach always prepared for a string of almost ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... clan's shortcomings. But her selfishness had at least the virtue of a live-and-let-live attitude that contrasted with the futile aggressiveness of Mrs. Edward Ffinch-Brown. She asked Claire no questions concerning her life or her prospects; she did not even pry very deeply into the chances that her sister had for an ultimate recovery. Her philosophy seemed to be founded on the knowledge that uncovered cesspools were bound to be unpleasant, and, since she had no desire ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... not so. You can pry into the coaling company's affairs and, if you are caught, it would be looked upon as an individual impertinence. If I did anything of the kind, it would reflect upon the Foreign Office and compromise our relations with a friendly state. The Adexe wharf is registered ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... against these Mysteries, may endeavour to explode all Divination; yet when the Prophecy comes to be fulfilled, they will confess their own Ignorance, and give an implicit Belief to such Revelations, as are delivered to the Publick by those wise Men, who by their Art pry into the Cabinet of Futurity, and make to themselves Spectacles of the Planets, by which they are enabled to read the darkest Page in the ...
— The Theater (1720) • Sir John Falstaffe
... Sauney Pry came from Loudon Co., Va. He had been one of the "well-cared for," on the farm of Nathan Clapton, who owned some sixty or seventy slaves. Upon inquiry as to the treatment and character of his master, Sauney unhesitatingly described him as a "very mean, swearing, blustering ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... said at length, "to pry into a lady's private apartment! You will not dare enter ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... to Kan Pry in 1884. Two chillun was born. The girl is living and the boy might be, but I don't know. My daughter works out ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... now united their efforts at pulling, but her roots had evidently gone down to China without stopping; next they endeavored to pry her up, but she was manifestly stuck by some glue ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... mind as freely as I used to do. But whoever was in fault, self being judge? He complained of spies set upon his conduct, and to pry into his life and morals, and this by your brother ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... a learned body, are, as an order, the best friends of the people. They seem to mingle with them more immediately, as their counsellors and comforters; and to go among them more, when they are sick; and to pry less than some other orders, into the secrets of families, for the purpose of establishing a baleful ascendency over their weaker members; and to be influenced by a less fierce desire to make converts, and once made, to ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... breast, but these were always of the class he looked down upon, and he connected their bad luck in some way with their condition in life. Doubtless some one had to go where there was danger of being shot, as some one had to dig ditches and help to pry wagons out of the mud, but there was something rather preposterous in the thought that anything of this kind ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... rolled beneath the valance of the bed, touched her hand. It was a thing to which a riband was attached—an ivory miniature—and she picked it up wondering. She stood up gazing at it, in such bewilderment to find her eyes upon it that she scarce knew what she did. She did not mean to pry; she would not have had the daring so to do if she had possessed the inclination. But the instant her eyes told her what they saw, she started and blushed as she had never blushed before in her tame ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... men, five on a side, march like a chain-gang, backward and forward; placing one end of the pole in the bed of the stream, resting the other in the hollow of the shoulder near the arm-pit, and bracing themselves by their feet against these bars, they pry the boat along. ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... and alert—Malone strolled out of the office with a final wave to Boyd. He was thinking about Mike Fueyo, and he stopped his chain of reasoning just long enough to look in at the office of the Agent-in-Charge, and ask him to pry loose two tickets for The Hot ...
— The Impossibles • Gordon Randall Garrett
... out before the lieutenant got to us," Jimmie cut in. "I guess this bunch of Boy Scouts don't need any United States army to pry us out of our troubles. We almost got here first," he ...
— Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone - The Plot Against Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... is to get you to think and to examine and pry into the past history of Catholicism, and when you have examined the pages of Catholic history and then scrutinize her present, you must know that her future promises no more than her past and present would indicate her future ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg
... old lady of Forfarshire had one of those odd old Caleb Balderston sort of servants, who construed the Dean of St. Patrick more literally. On one occasion, when dispatch was of some importance, knowing his inquiring nature, she called her Scotch Paul Pry to her, opened the note, and read it to him herself, saying, "Now, Andrew, you ken a' aboot it, and needna' stop to open and read it, but just take it at once." Probably most of the notes you are expected to carry might, with equal harmlessness, be communicated to you; but it ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... eyes off that basket, Miss Pry!" John Fairmeadow commanded, again. "Huh!" he complained, emerging from his refuge and throwing his mackinaw and cap on the floor; "anybody'd think there was something in that basket ...
— Christmas Eve at Swamp's End • Norman Duncan
... pages full, straight across, they would turn the sheet sideways, and write at right angles to the other lines, and then corner-wise, perhaps, with a different-colored ink. There were no envelopes in those days, and the sheets had to be ingeniously folded, so that no curious postmaster could pry into family secrets. There was always a portion of the last page left blank, to form the outside of the letter, which, after being folded and directed, was sealed with a big red wafer. It was then ready ...
— Harper's Young People, November 4, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... little time to skip down to Sarita Creek and see if those girls are still there. If they took a notion to stick, they'd try to do it, whether McDonnell sent after them or not. But I'll pry them out. If the storm breaks in a hurry, get the men and teams into camp at once. Don't take any ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... a portrait grey as lead, Of many a mustard-coloured sky, Say much, where little should be said, Lay on thy censure dexterously, With microscopic glances pry At textures, Tadema's delight, Praise foreign swells they always sky, Take up the pen, my ...
— Rhymes a la Mode • Andrew Lang
... perfectly symmetrical. By standing on one foot, the hip and shoulder of one side approach each other, and so lessen the space within the abdomen on that side. On the other side a support has been removed for the contents of the abdomen, and they sag down until they pry the uterus out of place and press it over towards the side where there is less pressure. The broad ligament on one side is stretched from use and on the other side shortened from disuse, and so the uterus remains ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... get Fergus to pry open the drawer of the lowboy," said Grandmother. "It won't open at all." Then noticing Hortense's soiled dress for the ...
— The Cat in Grandfather's House • Carl Henry Grabo
... difficulty to his readers, is pleasing to those accustomed to find an American novel a good deal like the now extinct American stage-coach whose passengers not only walked over bad pieces of road, but carried fence-rails on their shoulders to pry the vehicle out of the sloughs and miry places. It was partly the fault of the imperfect roads, no doubt, and it may be that our social ways have only just now settled into such a state as makes smooth going ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... blooming old blighter," was Van Horn's greeting to the old chief, as the dandy, with a pry of his steering-paddle against the side of the canoe and part under its bottom, brought the dug-out broadside-on to the Arangi so that the sides of both ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... lightly, and disappeared between the woody banks. These boats have the two parallel sails attached to the same yard, and some have two sails, one surmounting the other. They trade to Waterville and thereabouts,—names, as "Paul Pry," on their sails. ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... adds, "Nor can it make any discoveries when it would pry into the nature and hidden causes of ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... was necessary. Julia has sacrificed herself for us. With another love in her heart, she has magnanimously thrown away her freedom and given up her maiden love for the promotion of our happiness. We owe it to her to preserve her honor untarnished, that the calumnious crowd may not pry into the motives of her generous act. For Julia's sake, the world must and shall believe that she is in fact your wife, and that it was love that united you. We must, therefore, preserve appearances, and you must conduct your wife to your estate ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... storks. In truth, I am by no means sure that everybody knew this before the publication of "The Man Shakespeare," and for the sake of a mystified posterity it may be well to explain that there was once a school of criticism that thought it indecent to pry into that treasure-house of individuality from which, if we reject the nursery hypotheses mentioned above, it is clearly obvious that authors derive their works. That the drama must needs be closely ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... innately honest person it went sorely against the grain with Josie to pry into anybody's private mail, even though he be an arch-villain who was doing his best to keep two poor little children out ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson
... the spheres, Captivate their mortal ears; While Jove descends into this tower, In a golden streaming shower. To disguise him from the eye Of Juno, who is apt to pry Into my pleasures: I to day Have bid Ganymede go to play, And thus stole from Heaven to be Welcome on earth to Danae. And see where the princely maid, On her easy couch is laid, Fairer than the Queen of Loves, Drawn about with ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... abominable manners and poisoning their nascent minds against him, and he has no redress. She may neglect her home, gossip and lounge about all day, put impossible food upon his table, steal his small change, pry into his private papers, hand over his home to the Periplaneta americana, accuse him falsely of preposterous adulteries, affront his friends, and lie about him to the neighbours—and he can do nothing. She may compromise his honour by indecent ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... a long thirst, a long purse, and a short memory!" was his toast, into whose cryptic meaning Gonzaga made no attempt to pry. As the fellow set down his cup, and with his sleeve removed the moisture from his unshorn mouth, "May I not learn," he inquired, "whose hospitality I have the ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... sharply, but still fearful of being heard. Silence. There could be no delay in action. With his nerves still a-tingle, the boy seized a stout bit of wood, evidently cut for the fireplace, inserted it between the window bars, bore down and with a low squeak of protest the nails came out. Another pry, with the sill for a fulcrum, and there was a hole big enough for a body to get through. The bit of wood now acted as a step and in a moment Gus was ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple
... watched the searchlight. He wondered how many pairs of lovers it had discovered along the shores of Pelham Bay, how many mint-juleps it had seen drunk on the veranda of the country club, how many kisses it had interrupted; and whether it would rather pry into people's private affairs or look for torpedo-boats and night attacks in time of war. But most of all he wondered why it spent so much of its light on space, sweeping the heavens like a fiery broom with indefatigable zeal. There were no lovers or torpedo-boats up there. Even the birds were ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... poor friend Le Geyt had murdered his wife, in a sudden access of uncontrollable anger, under the deepest provocation, the police naturally began to inquire for him. It is a way they have; the police are no respecters of persons; neither do they pry into the question of motives. They are but poor casuists. A murder is for them a murder, and a murderer a murderer; it is not their habit to divide and distinguish between case and case with Hilda Wade's ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... definiteness to particular impressions. The virtue of curiosity is, therefore, to direct attention to the novel until it is made familiar. There is a type of curiosity, however, which craves for mere astonishment and not for understanding. It is such curiosity that causes children to pry into other people's belongings, and men ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education
... places. If the tariff drives us to this, we say, let the name be sacred in all future generations."[12] Next year William Ellison of the South Carolina uplands welcomed even the low price of cotton as a lever[13] which might pry the planters out of the cotton rut and shift them into industries ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... sailor's chest. Hidden treasures are always found in sailors' chests, ye know. And taking a three-foot bar of iron, which every gentleman in tales carries concealed upon his person, we, you and I,—none of the others, of course,—will pry this chest open—to find ducats and doubloons, and piastres, and sous-marquees—and a map of the Spanish Main and the Dry Tortugas—with crosses in blood. I'll tell you, ye can have my share of it now," he cried, laughing ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... at Andujar, the lights of our great acetylene lamps (lit before the sky turned from opal to amethyst) prying into dark doorways and windows as Roentgen rays pry through flesh to bone. ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... conventionality may be suddenly revealed; and when a wicked system goes mad, such depths of perfidy are disclosed as few imagined to exist. During the last two years, while our Southern sky has been aglow with the red light of the slave-masters' insurrection, few of us could probe and pry about among details of lesser villanies than those pertinent to the day. And so it is fortunate that M. Cochin now comes to address a people instinctively grasping at the principle which may give them peace, and to offer them his calm and thorough investigation ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... stood for a little watching the sunlight play upon the golden head and pry into the soft shadows of the curls, and her face saddened and her ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... them, and prised away the upper end of the midmost timber without any trouble. Then he drew it toward him, and the lower end wrenched free at once, for the nails that held this building which was to be burnt were not long. And while he did this, he stood on one side, that he might not pry into the chamber idly, as it were, while Dalfin and I could see nothing from where we stood. Only a little peat smoke seemed to come out gently when the ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler
... church of San Polo, to visit the beautiful Barozza; and he resolved, if possible, to catch him on one of these journeys. 'It so chanced on the 28th of February, which was the second Sunday of Lent, that having gone, as was my wont, to pry out whether Lorenzo would give orders for going abroad that day, I entered the shoemaker's shop, and stayed awhile, until Lorenzo came to the window with a napkin round his neck for he was combing his hair—and ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... reached Mrs. Meeker's gate. He swung it open and she followed him across the garden to where a worn, grassy path, once a carriage drive, led past the house to the back yard. Here stood Mrs. Meeker, a hatchet in her hand, trying to pry open ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... candle, and took a good look at me, and all said, "Why, HE ain't a Shepherdson—no, there ain't any Shepherdson about him." Then the old man said he hoped I wouldn't mind being searched for arms, because he didn't mean no harm by it—it was only to make sure. So he didn't pry into my pockets, but only felt outside with his hands, and said it was all right. He told me to make myself easy and at home, and tell all about myself; but ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... in the inland districts the villagers go and roll naked in the dew of the meadows, which is supposed to be a sovereign preservative against diseases of the skin. On this evening, too, girls who would pry into the future put a vessel of water on the sill outside their window; and when the clocks strike twelve, they break an egg in the water and see, or fancy they see, in the shapes assumed by the pulp, as it blends with the liquid, the likeness of future bridegrooms, castles, coffins, ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... the least what she meant; but afterwards she explained that if your neck is always pivoting round, to pry into other people's affairs, it is a Rubber Neck, and I shall remember the expression to tell Stan when I go home. He will like to add it to his ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... foul weather, master," observed the younger of the two, in a half querulous, half positive tone, as standing on a huge bank of sea-weed, he regarded first the heavens, and then the earth, with the scrutinising gaze of one accustomed to pry into their mysteries. His companion made no answer, but commenced unrolling a rich silk scarf, that had enveloped his throat, and twisting it into loose folds, passed it several times around his waist—having previously withdrawn ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... chance at the girl, lettin' her know first what he'd done, but jest trustin' to his power of talk. Which, of course, didn't give him no show. While he was makin' love to the girl she outs with a knife and tries to stick him—nice, pleasant sort she must have been—and Drew, he had to pry the ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... warriors towards the grounds in the rear of the dwelling, as it was characteristic of their habits, is worthy of being mentioned. Neither spoke, neither manifested any womanish impatience to pry into the musings of the other's mind, and neither failed in those slight but still sensible courtesies by which the path was rendered commodious and the footing sure. They had reached the summit of the elevation ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... Wellington and his colleagues, following out the maxims of a Whig policy, should be viewed by their own party somewhat in the light of traitors. Accordingly we see them figuring in this character in some of the caricatures of the day, one of which (one of the "Paul Pry" series), published by Geans in 1829, may be cited as an example of the rest, and shows them to us in the act of Burking Old Mrs. ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... dread foundations; I beheld safe roads, a garden blooming in the desert, pious people crowding to worship; I was aware of my parents' tenderness and all the harmless luxuries of my existence; and why should I pry beneath this honest seeming surface for the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... days of Margot's illness, and who had been the girl's companion on the misty moor. What had happened during those hours of suspense and danger? What barriers had been swept aside; what new vistas opened? Edith's own love was too sweet and sacred a thing to allow her to pry and question into the heart-secrets of another, as is the objectionable fashion of many so-called friends, but with her keen woman-senses she took in George Elgood's every word, look, and movement ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Huber had discovered more than had ever been known before about bees and ants, and when he was sure he could learn more still, and was more and more anxious to peep and pry into their tiny homes, and their curious ways, ...
— The Crofton Boys • Harriet Martineau
... a very puzzling aspect to her mind. She admitted that scientists, viewed as a genus, were objectionable; but insisted that Fern, to whose personal charms she was keenly alive, was an exception to the rule. She felt confident that so good a man as he could never have tried to pry into the secrets of God Almighty. Tharald yielded grumblingly, inch by inch, and thus saved his dignity, although his daughter, in the end, prevailed. She obtained his permission to request the guest to remain, and not interpret too literally the rather hasty words he had used. Thus a compromise ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... she felt something squirming under her, thought that one of the boa constrictors had got loose, and that she had sat down on it. So naturally she fainted away. I came running in with one of my men as soon as I heard the outcries, and after a while we managed to pry up the Fat Woman with a couple of cart-rungs and get the Dwarf out from under her, after which she came to in due time and got over her fright. But the Dwarf was a good deal flattened out by the pressure, and I was afraid at first that his ribs had been stove in. It turned out in the end ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... Inasmuch as he had made no visible impression upon the bulkhead by his direct attack, he changed his tactics now and undertook to loosen one of the jambs where it was wedged into the rock at top and bottom. After a desperate struggle he succeeded in loosening the entire structure so that he could pry it out far enough to ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... Guesclin, "it does not befit so great and wondrous a power to pry and search and play the varlet even to the beautiful chatelaine of Villefranche. Ask a worthy question, and, with the blessing of God, you shall have ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... those of us who haven't automobiles, life is pleasant and without responsibilities. We ride in every new automobile, and, what is more, we go over it as carefully as a farmer does a new horse. We open its hood and pry into its internal economy. We crank it to test its compression—half the Homeburg men who have achieved broken wrists by the crank route haven't autos at all. We denounce the owner's judgment on oils and take his machine violently away from him in order to prove that it will pull better uphill ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... To PRY. To examine minutely into a matter or business. A prying fellow; a man of impertinent curiosity, apt to peep and ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... and chant their dirge of old. Oft, too, the ant from out her inmost cells, Fretting the narrow path, her eggs conveys; Or the huge bow sucks moisture; or a host Of rooks from food returning in long line Clamour with jostling wings. Now mayst thou see The various ocean-fowl and those that pry Round Asian meads within thy fresher-pools, Cayster, as in eager rivalry, About their shoulders dash the plenteous spray, Now duck their head beneath the wave, now run Into the billows, for sheer idle joy ...
— The Georgics • Virgil
... Lanfranc than my need of him, and he was little interested to pry deeper into the matter. He was himself a lively youngster of no more than twenty, but he had been trained to arms, had fought in Spain, and had an honourable record on the grass. Merely his black eyes flashed when he learned what was toward, and such was his eagerness that it was he who gathered ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... orb's last verge shall go, And see the ocean leaning on the sky; From thence our rolling neighbours we shall know, And on the lunar world securely pry. ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... reflect upon the distinct social advantages of a good living; or he may have nothing else in particular to do; or he may simply desire to rouse the impertinent curiosity of all the indolent quidnuncs of his acquaintance, without the remotest intention of ever gratifying their underbred Paul Pry proclivities.' ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... out every night to gaze upon the stars. It happened one night that, with his whole thoughts rapt up in the skies, he fell into a well. One who heard his cries ran up to him, and said: "While you are trying to pry into the mysteries of heaven, you overlook the common objects under ...
— Aesop's Fables - A New Revised Version From Original Sources • Aesop
... would not have been otherwise handled by him who drew the not more immortal picture of Antigone. Unlike modern novelists, Sir Walter deals neither in analysis nor in rapturous effusions. We can, unfortunately, imagine but too easily how some writers would peep and pry into the concealed emotions of that maiden heart; how others would revel in tears, kisses, and caresses. In place of ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... indigestible, ready for any business that requires sagacity and acute senses, ready for every adventure, owing to an excess of "free will", with anterior and posterior souls, into the ultimate intentions of which it is difficult to pry, with foregrounds and backgrounds to the end of which no foot may run, hidden ones under the mantles of light, appropriators, although we resemble heirs and spendthrifts, arrangers and collectors from morning till night, misers of our wealth and our full-crammed drawers, ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... with levers. We apply them every day. A box arrives with its lid nailed down; we take a chisel, use it as a lever, pry the lid open, and see no marvel in what we have done (Fig. 1). And yet we thereby did with ease what would have been impossible for us even if we had put out the whole of our unaided strength. The use of levers is an old discovery; more than 1500 years before Christ, Englishmen, ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent
... squadrons halted in turn for a few minutes to fire on them. In this way perhaps half-a-dozen were killed or wounded. The others, however, paid little attention to the bullets, and continued to pry curiously, until at last it was thought necessary to send a troop to drive them away. The score of Lancers galloped back towards the inquisitive patrols in the most earnest fashion. The Dervishes, although more numerous, were scattered ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... quoth the Corporal, snatching up his basket and closing the cover, lest the young Squire should pry into it. No man is more tenacious of his secrets than your true angler. "Sent the best home two hours ago; one weighed three pounds, on the faith of a man; indeed, I'm satisfied now; time to give up;" and the Corporal began to disjoint ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... more of the anchor chain. But they couldn't go very far, for the wind was so strong and the waves were so high and the heavy anchor chain held them back near the ship. When they had got as far as they could, they managed to pry the anchor overboard. It went into the water with a tremendous splash, wetting all the men; but they didn't mind, for they were all wet through already with the rain and the splashing of the waves. And the boat turned around and went back to ...
— The Sandman: His Sea Stories • William J. Hopkins
... living in a boarding house, which suited her tolerably well. The two women who kept the boarding house were educated and considerate and had long ago ceased to be inquisitive. Such a variety of people met there that it would have been too much of an undertaking to pry into the secrets of each individual. Such things only interfered with business. Effi, who still remembered the cross-questionings to which the eyes of Mrs. Zwicker had subjected her, was very agreeably impressed with the reserve of the boarding house ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... awful gloom of the cavernous hall of Arimanes, Byron's "Prince of Earth and Air." The gray figure from most ancient myth is not less real to us than Mefistofeles in "Faust." At least we clearly feel the human daring that feared not to pry into forbidden mysteries and refused the solace of unthinking faith. And it becomes again a question whether the composer had in mind this subjective attitude of the hero or the actual figures and abode of the spirits and their king. It is hard ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... In peace there 's nothing so becomes a man As modest stillness and humility: But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger; Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, Disguise fair nature with hard-favored rage; Then lend the eye a terrible aspect; Let it pry through the portage of the head Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it As fearfully as doth a galled rock O'er hang and jutty his confounded base, Swilled with ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... bushy grey head. "That's not the real reason, son. The world has a wife for every man; if he hasn't found her by the time he's thirty-five, there's some real reason for it. Well, I don't want to pry into yours, but I hope it's a sound one and not a mean, sneaking, selfish sort of reason. Perhaps you'll choose a Madam Selwyn some day yet. In case you should I'm going to give you a small bit of good advice. Your mother—now, she's a splendid woman, Selwyn, a splendid woman. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... inferior to those v of the Mediterranean. And how cheap everything is—eggs you can get for the asking almost, whilst a whole fowl (prepared and cooked in a manner which, out of charity to the Chinese culinary art, we wont pry into too closely, but which our sailor gourmands relish nevertheless) is obtainable for five cents! I refer, of course, to that bird which our shipmates denominate "dungaree chicken." Our first impression of Chefoo is that it is the place of all others on the station ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... into the Unknown," she wrote—"that Unknown in which she seemed to be forever trying to pry. We knew she was going, and we told her. She was quite brave, but she begged us to try some way to keep her till after Christmas. 'My presents are not finished yet,' she made moan. 'And I did so want to see what ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie
... was right. When the starved and exhausted malamutes dragged their silent burden into the Northwest Mounted Police outpost barracks at Crooked Bow twenty-four hours later, an ax and a sapling bar were required to pry Francois Breault from his bier. Previous to this process, however, Sergeant Fitzgerald, in charge at the outpost, took possession of the soiled envelope pinned to Breault's red scarf. The information it bore was simple, and yet exceedingly definite. Few men in dying as Breault ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... threatened, carry out the cow-chains. Never mind the horse,—he'll be alive and kicking; and if his legs don't do their duty, let them pay for the roast. Ditto as to the hogs,—let them save their own bacon, or smoke for it. When the roof begins to burn, get a crow-bar and pry away the stone steps; or, if the steps be of wood, procure an axe and chop them up. Next, cut away the wash-boards in the basement story; and if that don't stop the flames, let the chair-boards on the first floor share a similar fate. Should the "devouring element" still pursue the "even tenor ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... favorite cap and bells, their favorite swords, their favorite doublet and hose—all of them sit around in the special Valhalla of the Great Actors reading their press notices to one another and listening to the hosannas of such critics as have managed to pry into the anterior heaven. ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... in fear to know him. I know God is wise in all, wonderful in what we conceive, but far more in what we comprehend not; for we behold Him but asquint upon reflex or shadow; our understanding is dimmer than Moses' eye; we are ignorant of the back parts or lower side of His divinity; therefore to pry into the maze of His counsels, is not only folly in man, but presumption even in angels; like us, they are His servants, not His senators; He holds no counsel, but that mystical one of the Trinity, wherein though there ...
— Sir Thomas Browne and his 'Religio Medici' - an Appreciation • Alexander Whyte
... addressed giggled confusedly, and looked for assistance to a sardonic Boer whom she was going to marry, who shook his head sadly, indicating thereby that these were mysteries into which it was not well to pry. Thrown on her own resources, she plunged into the recesses of an intricate calculation, in which her fingers played a considerable part, and finally, with an air of triumph, announced that it ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... free, aff han', your story tell, When wi' a bosom crony; But still keep something to yoursel Ye scarcely tell to ony. Conceal yoursel as weel's ye can Frae critical dissection; But keek thro' ev'ry other man [pry] Wi' ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... must not pry then. But can you answer one question more? Was it connected with any person who has ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... tangled up in long coils of Red Tape, She's the butt for each Jeremy Diddler's coarse jape, Every filthy Paul Pry's ghoulish giggle. JOHN BULL, my fine fellow, wake up, and determine To stamp out the lives of the venomous vermin Who round your ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 January 11, 1890 • Various
... cannot serve as a norm by which we are able to regulate our faith and life. Particularly when considering the question how God is disposed toward us individually, we must not take refuge in the secret counsels of God, which reason cannot spy and pry into. According to Luther, all human speculations concerning the hidden God are mere diabolical inspirations, bound to lead away from the saving truth of the Gospel into despair ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... past the church of San Polo, to visit the beautiful Barozza; and he resolved, if possible, to catch him on one of these journeys. 'It so chanced on February 28, which was the second Sunday of Lent, that having gone, as was my wont, to pry out whether Lorenzino would give orders for going abroad that day, I entered the shoemaker's shop, and stayed awhile, until Lorenzino came to the window with a napkin round his neck—for he was combing ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... that (Hartless) wants her Deer, Scuds through the woods and Fern with hearkening ear, Perplext, in every bush and nook doth pry, Her dearest Deer might answer ear or eye; So doth my anxious soul, which now doth miss, A dearer Deer (far dearer Heart) than this. Still wait with doubts and hopes and failing eye; His voice to hear or person to descry. Or ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... to prowl round among Ernest's things and pry into the state of his wardrobe? If I had not had my time so broken up with giving lessons, I should have found out that he needed new shirts and set to work on them. Though I must own I hate shirt-making. ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... more took refuge behind the trees while Tom touched them off. This time there were three sharp explosions, a shower of fragments rattled through the branches above our heads, and on going to inspect the result we found that the rock had been so shattered that it was an easy matter to pry out the pieces with pick and crowbar—a task of which Joe ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp
... like. Perhaps every one knows her own soul best.... It is not for me to pry into yours. You have confessed, and your grief ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... company is by no means disposed to let him reap any benefit from his deficiencies. Regarded in the light of a mechanical power, whenever there is any plain, hard work to be done, he is put to it like a lever; everyone giving him a pry. ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... furnish his brother with whatever sums should be necessary for executing so bold and so generous a design. His brother went accordingly over to Italy; and after a long stay and a great expense in that country, he found means to see this engine so often, and to pry into the nature of it so narrowly, that he made himself master of the whole invention and of all the different parts and ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... "we don't want to pry into your affairs, nor trouble you in any way, but if we can help you we will be glad to—Miss Lavillotte and I. We believe you are man enough to wish to know the worst, without mincing, whatever it may be, and have come ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... else wouldn't be," declared the man. "Leastways nobody with jest one pair of hands. While I pry it off one end it slips back on the other. Are you strong?" he asked, stopping to look ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... of the Cicadae (The Cicada Cigale, an insect akin to the Grasshopper and found more particularly in the south of France.—Translator's Note.); you subject cell and protoplasm to chemical tests, I study instinct in its loftiest manifestations; you pry into death, I pry into life. And why should I not complete my thought: the boars have muddied the clear stream; natural history, youth's glorious study, has, by dint of cellular improvements, become a ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... Tutties are Deceitful Shifts, The Stoppers, Jealousy, Which hath Sir Argus hundred Eyes, Wherewith to watch and pry. ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett
... Mr. Crow had a long talk. They got on famously together, because the old gentleman liked to pry into other people's affairs and the Major ...
— The Tale of Major Monkey • Arthur Scott Bailey
... lights on a place in which Captain Swan had inveighed bitterly against most of his Men, especially against another John Reed a Jamaica man. This was such stuff as he did not seek after: But hitting so pat on this subject, his curiosity led him to pry farther; and therefore while the Gunner was busie, he convey'd the Book away, to look over it at his leisure. The Gunner having dispatch'd his business, lock'd up the Cabbin-door, not missing the Book, and went ashore. Then ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... the monarch! how happy are they Who breathe and exist in the sun's rosy light, But he who is doom'd in the ocean to stray, Views nothing around him but horror and night; Let no one henceforward be tempted like me To pry in the secrets contain'd ...
— The Song of Deirdra, King Byrge and his Brothers - and Other Ballads • Anonymous
... ambition to enact the spy On fellow-souls, a spiritual Pry— 'Tis said that people ought to guard their noses Who thrust them into matters none of theirs And, though no delicacy discomposes Your saint, yet I consider faith and prayers Among the ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... Kennedy exultingly, "I think we have stolen a march on them. I don't believe they were prepared for this, not at least at this stage in the game. Don't ask me any questions, Walter. Then you will have no secrets to keep if anyone should try to pry them loose. Only remember that this man Lawrence is a ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... the sun. With his mouth in a continual O of admiration and wonder, the little fellow squatted repeatedly to gaze at the exquisite geometrical designs in their crystal depths; but after one or two half-hearted attempts to pry them apart to see how they were made he contented himself with adding one to his already overburdened nightgown. Even in the thrill of discovery he had an instinctive antipathy against ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... pleased to take it,—that she was quite able to dress herself, to brush her own hair, to take off her own clothes; and that she was not, either by nature or education, an incapable young woman. But that honour and glory demanded it, she would almost as lief have had no Patience Crabstick to pry into her most private matters. All which Crabstick knew, and would often declare her missus to be "of all missuses the most slyest and least come-at-able." On this present night she was very soon despatched to her own chamber. Lizzie, ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... Phil. I won't turn coward unless you do." Madge picked up a sharp stick to pry under ...
— Madge Morton's Secret • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... time before, when he thought I was away from home, he tried to get into my house. I heard him, and, running up stairs, I put my claws in the two little holes in the lining of the lid, and braced myself so that he could not pry open the lid. He said he only wanted to pay me a visit; but I knew he was hungry, and wanted ...
— The Nursery, February 1878, Vol. XXIII, No. 2 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... hung. The Monarch drank, that happy hour, 775 The sweetest, holiest draught of Power— When it can say, with godlike voice, Arise, sad Virtue, and rejoice! Yet would not James the general eye On Nature's raptures long should pry; 780 He stepped between—"Nay, Douglas, nay, Steal not my proselyte away! The riddle 'tis my right to read, That brought this happy chance to speed. —Yes, Ellen, when disguised I stray 785 In life's more low but happier way, 'Tis under name which veils my power, ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... back in his corner like a shy, retiring mouse. For a moment the cowman regarded him intently, as if seeking for some exculpating infirmity; then, leaving the long line of drinkers to chafe at the delay, he paused to pry into the matter. ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... warmest welcome at an inn," found George's to be economical. "What do you think," he writes, "must be my expense, who love to pry into everything of the kind? Why, truly one shilling. My company goes to George's Coffee-house, where, for that small subscription I read all pamphlets under a three shillings' dimension; and indeed, any larger would not be fit for coffee-house perusal." Shenstone relates that Lord Oxford ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... be the child of ignorance, ignorance is also the child of fear; the two react on, and produce each other. The more men dread Nature, the less they wish to know about her. Why pry into her awful secrets? It is dangerous; perhaps impious. She says to them, as in the Egyptian temple of old—"I am Isis, and my veil no mortal yet hath lifted." And why should they try or wish to ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... were not yet unhorsed. The Jewish police-officers, though they allowed coach-gentry to enter and take up their quarters where they pleased, did not fail to pry into their affairs the next day, as well for the protection of the Jewish community against equivocal intruders as in accordance with its ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... the lady and the cargo at the lighthouse itself, gives me as fair a chance of getting out of it as any plan I can think of. The cargo's not all my own and it's a valuable one, I daresay you have guessed as much; and it's not the kind we want revenue men to pry into. I could not unload elsewhere that I know of, without creating suspicion. As to storing it elsewhere, it's out of the question. Scarthey's the place, though it's a damned risky one just now! But we've run many a risk together in our day, ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... to the water's edge, had been wiped out of existence by the rush of maddened bison along the beach, and the keenings of their relatives rose above the shouts and cries of embarkation. Fully half the rafts were afloat, with their loads, by now, and men grunted heavily in the effort to pry the others free, while women and children crowded into the water around them, waiting to struggle aboard as soon as the ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... hated it most awfully. I wanted to be let alone and to work out my own theory of things. If you'd said a word—if you'd tried to influence me—the spell would have been broken. But just because the actual you kept apart and didn't meddle or pry, the other, the you in my heart, seemed to get a tighter hold on me. I don't know how to tell you,—it's all mixed up in my head—but old things you'd said and done kept coming back to me, crowding between me and what I was trying for, looking ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton
... rotten, I have to walk on tiptoe to save my boots? If I write to you overmuch concerning myself, is it concerning ANOTHER man, rather, that I ought to write—concerning HIS wants, concerning HIS lack of tea to drink (and all the world needs tea)? Has it ever been my custom to pry into other men's mouths, to see what is being put into them? Have I ever been known to offend any one in that respect? No, no, beloved! Why should I desire to insult other folks when they are not molesting ME? Let me give you an example of what I mean. A man may ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... you won't go until you have told us a little something about yourself," said Betty, with an inviting smile. "We don't want to pry into your private affairs," she went on, "but we would like to help you. And please don't disappear so mysteriously again. You are the girl who fell out of the branches of ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... butterfly reminded me of the Camarones Mountain; the wild bee and the ladybird-like Ba'zah stuck to us as though they loved us; and we were pestered by the attentions of the common fly. The Egyptian symbol for "Paul Pry" is supposed to denote an abundance of organic matter: it musters strong throughout Midian, even in the dreariest wastes; and it accompanies us everywhere, whole swarms riding upon ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... there amid the wet leaves. Nevertheless, with experienced eyes, I explore amid the bare alders and the huckleberry-bushes and the withered sedge, and in the crevices of the rocks, which are full of leaves, and pry under the fallen and decaying ferns, which, with apple and alder leaves, thickly strew the ground. For I know that they lie concealed, fallen into hollows long since and covered up by the leaves of the tree itself,—a proper kind of packing. ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... standing on the doorstep," she said to herself, "lighting a cigarette"; and then, "but he is a long while about it. This is strange." Still as her ear caught no sound of him, Santa sprang up and slipped, guitar in hand, to the outer door—the fence being too tall for her to over-pry, and moreover prickly. She opened the door and peeped out. There was no one down the pathway. There was no one up the pathway, which here, for some fifty or sixty yards, climbed straight, full in view. "And what on earth has become ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... do, that will do!" Chia Lien rejoined laughing, "none of these sham attentions for me! So long as you don't pry into my doings it will be enough; and will I go so far as to bear you ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... heart, she has magnanimously thrown away her freedom and given up her maiden love for the promotion of our happiness. We owe it to her to preserve her honor untarnished, that the calumnious crowd may not pry into the motives of her generous act. For Julia's sake, the world must and shall believe that she is in fact your wife, and that it was love that united you. We must, therefore, preserve appearances, and you must conduct your wife to your estate in ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... signs himself 'John Hagar' in the handwriting of my father, it shows that somebody is not telling the truth. I used to pore over the old farm records in my father's hand at Stone Ridge in the old account books stowed away in places where a boy loves to poke and pry. I know it as well as I know yours. Do you suppose she would not know it? When a man writes as few letters as he does, the handwriting does not change." Paul laid the letter upon the coals. "It is the only witness against her, but it loses ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... say, like Michael Scott's mystic head, 'Time was, Time is, Time will be.' The time we know affords us no measure at all for even the nearest and briefest epochs of the time we know not; and the time we know not seems to demand still vaster and more inexpressible figures as we pry back curiously, with wondering eyes, into its ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... had been secured cleverly and tightly. Pry and pull as he could, they gave no more than if they ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... stepped to the chest. It was old, strong, and rusty. He looked at the vast and old-fashioned lock and flashed his light on the hinges. They were deeply incrusted with rust. Looking about, he found a bit of iron and began to pry. The rust had eaten a hundred years, and it had gone deep. Slowly, wearily, the old lid lifted, and with a last, low groan lay bare its treasure—and he saw ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... picture of misery in a balldress. In the adjoining room, long tables were laid out, on which servants were placing refreshments for the fete about to be given on this joyous occasion. I felt somewhat shocked, and inclined to say with Paul Pry, "Hope I don't intrude." But my apologies were instantly cut short, and I was welcomed with true Mexican hospitality; repeatedly thanked for my kindness in coming to see the nun, and hospitably pressed to join the family ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... the place of Receiver-General was at present too important, and would occasion too much surprise and speculation; that it would not do to go beyond a place worth fifteen thousand to twenty thousand francs a year; that they had no desire to pry into the King's secrets; and that his correspondence ought not to be communicated to any one; that this did not apply to papers like those of which I was the bearer, which might fall into his hands; that he would confer an obligation by communicating them, in order that blows aimed in the dark, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... long stay in Europe to detect a strange drooping of spirit. The rank corn and cotton optimism of the West quickly feels the deep sadness that lurks behind French balls, Prussian parades, and Italian festivals. Europe, when once you pry beneath its surface and find what its people are thinking and feeling, seems cankered and honeycombed with pessimism. You need go but a little way beyond the table d'hote and the guide book to feel the chill of despondency. Without taking into account this new mood, it is vain ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... been during the last three or four centuries wrapped, surrounded, and encircled in mystery, according to some writers who have been studying the Gipsy character. They have been a theme upon which a "bookworm" could gloat, a chest of secret drawers into which the curious delight to pry, a difficult problem in Euclid for the mathematician to solve; and an unreadable book for the author. A conglomeration of languages for the scholar, a puzzle for the historian, and a subject for the novelist. These are points which it is not ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... irritated the old lady. "I don't want to pry into anybody's secrets," she said—"least of all, my son's. But I should like to be so far frank with you as to ask you if Alick has ever talked to ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... than useless to lose your temper and order him to "Clear out!" it is a physical impossibility for him to do either; the law of his being requires him to remain where he is and to indefatigably get in the way. If he did not pry into everything and ask a thousand questions, the thoughtful observer would be fearful lest he were an idiot. The American small boy is not idiotic; tested by his curiosity concerning automobiles, he is the fruition of the centuries, the genius the world is awaiting, the coming ruler of men ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... I am filled with presage That, some fair noon of balmy airs, I shall indite a rude Field Message If Colonels pry in my affairs; Shall tell them simply, "It is early May, And here the daffodils are almost old; About that sentry-group I cannot say—— In fact ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, May 10, 1916 • Various
... at him coolly, her gaze defying him to pry into matters which did not concern him. He understood the look and ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... her stepmother she could see only the distressed figure which had sat on the sofa, with hands jerking on its knee. Did she love Philip Caniper? Had they quarrelled long ago, and did she now want to make amends? No, no! She shut her eyes. She must not pry. She felt as though she had caught herself reading a letter which belonged ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... licentiousness out of which the whole sordid story grew, and no one treated with more contemptuous austerity the objects of the King's passion, and the pandars to his vices. However high his own ideal of domestic virtue, Clarendon was a man of the world, not blind to its vices, and not eager to pry into scandals or pursue the secrets of private life. It was not only the vice of Charles's courtiers, it was the sickening parade of debauchery in all its nakedness, which seemed to him to make the Court unmanly and contemptible. Feeling as he did, he had spoken words of bold remonstrance to the ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... the two Assassins pulled out a long knife from his pocket, and tried to pry Pinocchio's mouth ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... won't say where he picked up this notion of his about the dead body," continued the captain. "It's not my place to pry into secrets; but I advise you to call the crew aft, and contradict the boy, whether he speaks the truth or not. The men are a parcel of fools who believe in ghosts, and all the rest of it. Some of them say they would never have signed our articles if they had known ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... squeals, and the horses cut up some; but the driver has landed on his feet and has them by the head in no time at all, so we wa'n't dragged around any. Noticin' that, I lays still and waits for Toodle to pry himself loose. But the Doc. don't seem in any hurry to move, and the next thing I know I hear him groanin' and mumblin' under his breath. Between groans he was tryin' to say over ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... will understand its difficulties. I had six shots in my revolver, and I must fire two or three ranging shots in any case. I must not exhaust all my cartridges, for I must have a bullet left for any servant who came to pry, and I wanted one in reserve for myself. But I did not think shots would be heard outside the room; ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... are directed towards the suppression of crime, sir, they must have the support of every reasonable member of the community, though I cannot doubt that the official machinery is amply sufficient for the purpose. Where your calling is more open to criticism is when you pry into the secrets of private individuals, when you rake up family matters which are better hidden, and when you incidentally waste the time of men who are more busy than yourself. At the present moment, for example, I should be writing ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... spared. They became enthusiastic over dry-farming, and their resentment toward the Happy family increased as their enthusiasm waxed strong. The Happy Family complained to one another that you couldn't pry a nester loose from ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... not pursue the subject; even under their strange circumstances, favourable as they were to intimacy and confidences, it seemed impertinent to him to pry into the mysteries of his companion's life. Only he asked, ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... enterprise in milk, a tribute of many thousands of babies every year. We try to reduce this tribute by inspection. But why should the State pay money for inspection, upon keeping highly-trained and competent persons merely to pry and persecute in order that private incompetent people should reap profits with something short of a maximum of child murder? It would be much simpler to set to work directly, employ and train these private persons, and run the dairies ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... before you go," he retorted. "She was a mighty badly broken-up woman the last time I saw her, but even so I judge she's still got spunk enough left in her to resent having an unauthorized and uninvited stranger coming about, seeking to pry into her own private sorrow. But it's your affair, not mine. Besides, judging by everything, you probably don't think my advice is worth ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... had learnt at the expense of the poor Unitarians at York. So they went into the house, and presently arrived another chaise, but ere I could make any farther observations, the porter of the out-of-the-way house came up to me, asking what I was stopping there for? bidding me go away, and not pry into other people's business. "Pretty business," said I to him, "that is being transacted in a play like this," and then I was going to say something uncivil, but he went to attend to the new comers, and I took myself away on my ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... and ignorance were not yet unhorsed. The Jewish police-officers, though they allowed coach-gentry to enter and take up their quarters where they pleased, did not fail to pry into their affairs the next day, as well for the protection of the Jewish community against equivocal intruders as in accordance with its responsibility to ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... to say that. How do you know? If you are not going to read her letter, you had better say so at once. I dont want to pry into it: I only want to know ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... was another of Hook's more familiar associates. He is the Hull of "Gilbert Gurney," and is said to have been the original of Paul Pry, (which Poole, however, strenuously denied,)—a belief easily entertained by those who knew the man. A little, round man he was, with straight and well-made-up figure, and rosy cheeks that might have graced a milkmaid, when his years numbered certainly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... power to press into the retirements of conscience, to torture us by interrogatories, or put himself in possession of our secrets and our lives. But though we have thus controlled his usurpations, his just and original power remains unimpaired. He may still see, though he may not pry: he may yet hear, though he may not question. And that knowledge which his eyes and ears force upon him it is still his duty to use, for the benefit of his flock. A father who lives near a wicked neighbour, ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... the stranger peer and pry One's vacant house of life about, And drag for curious ear and eye ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... edge the mules were unhitched, a long rope was attached to one end of the boat, stout shoulders were placed under the pry poles, and with a "Heave'o! and another! and still another!" it was finally slid into the water amid loud cheers from the assembled spectators. These cheers were answered from the other side of the river, where nearly the whole population ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe
... some way," cried the robber. "Let me see," and taking the trap from Teddy he put it down on the floor and began to pick and pry at the bars, but he could not get the cheese out, and the more he tried the more eager he grew. "There's one way," he muttered to himself, looking up at Teddy suspiciously from ...
— The Counterpane Fairy • Katharine Pyle
... little brown eyes assume a reddish tinge, their expression passing from suspicion and alarm to the most stubborn resolve. All this was somewhat ludicrous, because nobody really felt particular interest in her movements, or desired to pry into her actions; but on discovering what appeared to be the weak point in her character—because it was out of all proportion strong—idle people, in search of amusement, availed themselves of the knowledge to lead her a very uncomfortable life. Her most intimate ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420, New Series, Jan. 17, 1852 • Various
... whatever sums should be necessary for executing so bold and so generous a design. His brother went accordingly over to Italy; and after a long stay and a great expense in that country, he found means to see this engine so often, and to pry into the nature of it so narrowly, that he made himself master of the whole invention and of all the different parts and ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... spacious raised cabin in the after part of the boat. It moved along lightly, and disappeared between the woody banks. These boats have the two parallel sails attached to the same yard, and some have two sails, one surmounting the other. They trade to Waterville and thereabouts,—names, as "Paul Pry," ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... Lola and her biologists. Everybody's full of joy and gratitude and stuff—as well as information. And we managed to pry ourselves loose without waking you two trumpet-of-doom sleepers up. So we're ready to jump again. I wonder where in hell we'll ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... earth that filled the tunnel and still he pulled great rocks back with his shovel. All his life he had fought for his own hand. He would not let himself believe fate had played so scurvy a trick as to lock him alive into a tomb closed so tightly that he could not pry a ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... was not for her to make conditions, but to thank her stars that there were none made for her. If she persisted, she might find it coming to pass that there would be conditions, and the formal rupture—the rupture that the world would hear of and pry into—would then proceed from the ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... had been shrewd enough to save her strongest point till the last. That was the lever by which she could pry Elizabeth loose from her seated conviction that nothing could be done. Those sentiments had been Elizabeth's, not her mother's. Something was due the mother who had been compelled to share the blame for ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... on that tack. But Chung's idea might be worth probing a little. "Sure," he said. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pry." He took another sip as he hunted for suitable words. A beautiful girl, a golden wine ... and vice versa ... why couldn't he simply relax and enjoy himself? Did he have to go fretting about what was probably a perfectly harmless conundrum?... ...
— Industrial Revolution • Poul William Anderson
... mirror of imperfection.—Had I done what they have said, I should have been a pious and moral man.—Verily, I may conceal myself from the sight of my neighbor, but God knows what is secret and what is open.—There is a shut door between me and mankind, that they may not pry into my sins; but what, O Omniscience! can a closed door avail against thee, who art equally informed of what is ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... may bring up his children carelessly and idiotically, cursing them with abominable manners and poisoning their nascent minds against him, and he has no redress. She may neglect her home, gossip and lounge about all day, put impossible food upon his table, steal his small change, pry into his private papers, hand over his home to the Periplaneta americana, accuse him falsely of preposterous adulteries, affront his friends, and lie about him to the neighbours—and he can do nothing. She may compromise his honour by indecent dressing, write ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... then?" asked Teddy curiously. "That is," he went on hastily, "if you care to tell us. We don't want to pry into ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... vain predictions of judicial astrology, and Leicester, though exempt from the general control of superstition, was not in this respect superior to his time, but, on the contrary, was remarkable for the encouragement which he gave to the professors of this pretended science. Indeed, the wish to pry into futurity, so general among the human race, is peculiarly to be found amongst those who trade in state mysteries and the dangerous intrigues and cabals of courts. With heedful precaution to see that it had not been opened, or its locks tampered with, Leicester ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... sinned against the whole spirit of uprightness. Has it never occurred to you that you may keep the ten commandments strictly, and yet be a most objectionable person? You might smoke, drink, listen at doors, repeat private conversations, open other people's letters, pry amongst their papers, be vulgar and offensive in conversation, and indecent in dress—altogether detestable, if your code of morality were confined to the ten commandments. But why will you talk like this, Angelica? ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... pins by striking them on all four sides before you try to pull them up. A spade is a fine thing to use to pry out a pin that is deep in the ground, and a wooden mallet is better than an axe or hatchet to drive them in with; but, unless you have a large number of pins to drive, it will hardly pay you to get a mallet especially for ...
— How to Camp Out • John M. Gould
... care to make it an object for well-meaning detectives to pry into the affairs of indiscreet members of society," ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... the man that makes me shed them does not lower himself to such petty calculations; he has confidence in me, he knows that at the end of the year the account will be there; but you! you watch me, you pry into me, you study me. I see very well that, while you are looking at me, you are indulging in little dialogues with yourself, and these little dialogues are insupportable to me. Mark me now, I forbid you to understand me. It is an affront which you have no ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... Killam, his voice sort of shrill and quivery. "I have one of the logs loose. Now pry here with your picks, everybody. Together, now! It's coming! Once more! There! Now the next one above. Oh, put your weight on it, Mr. Ellins. Get a fresh hold. Try her now. It's giving! Again. Harder. Look out for your toes! And let's have that light ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... an elm draped to the ground in flounces of its own green. The last response to her whistle had seemed to come from a spot so close in front of her that she feared to risk another step, and yet, peep and pry as she might, she could neither spy out nor nearer decoy the cunning challenger. In a sense of delinquency she noted the sky showing yellow and red through the hill-top pines, and seeing she must make short end of her play, prepared ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... especial grace; And the tall Pinta, till the noon, had held her close in chase. Forthwith a guard at every gun was placed along the wall; The beacon blazed upon the roof of Edgecumbe's lofty hall; Many a light fishing-bark put out to pry along the coast, And with loose rein and bloody spur rode inland many a post. With his white hair unbonneted, the stout old sheriff comes; Behind him march the halberdiers; before him sound the drums; His yeomen round the market cross make clear an ample space; ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... undistinguishing head, that make a judgment of things according to what they are in themselves, when their whole nature consists barely in the opinions that are had of them. For all sublunary matters are enveloped in such a cloud of obscurity, that the short-sightedness of human understanding, cannot pry through and arrive to any comprehensive knowledge of them: hence the sect of academic philosophers have modestly resolved, that all things being no more than probable, nothing can be known as certain; or if there could, ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... the vestry of one of them. Upon her knees, but with unbent head and eyes fixed steadily to the grille, she rehearsed her tale from the beginning, neither faltering nor losing countenance. What followed upon that was not communicated to her protectress, nor do I care to pry. I imagine that she had always said her prayers, but that now ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... who were very much about town in Theodore Hook's time, took pains, by dressing alike, to deceive their friends as to their identity. Tom Hill (the original of Paul Pry) was expatiating upon these modern Dromios, at which Hook grew impatient. "Well," said Hill, "you will admit they resemble each other wonderfully: they are as like as two peas."—"They are," retorted Hook, ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... burst into occasional angry petulance, if she tried to urge him to cut loose from the club and from the constantly-growing influence of Lloyd Avalons who was discerning enough to discover that Lorimers appetite was a possible lever by which he himself might pry himself up into a more stable position in society. In this matter, however, Lloyd Avalons was not quite so unprincipled as he seemed. To his mind, there was nothing so very bad about a little matter of social intoxication. ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... she does!" said sallow Miss Pry. "There never was such a complexion as that born on ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... the new president, already enshrined in so many hearts; but, boy though he was, he knew that a grown up man would not care for his poor presents. He even lifted his little blue bank and rattled it softly; but he did not take the trouble to pry it open, for he knew that for all its jingling, the pennies inside would not amount up to more than a dollar. Disappointed, yet determined not to let Mr. Kohn outdo him in the matter, Morris crept back ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... was clever enough to bridle her indignation. He followed up his advantage swiftly, leaving her no time to pry for a weak spot in ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... impatiently, "that is not at all unlike my lady to have taken this silly freak into her head. I dare say she was afraid we should go into her rooms, and pry about among her pretty dresses, and meddle with her jewelry. It is very provoking, for the best pictures in the house are in that antechamber. There is her own portrait, too, ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... intending to be absent for some time, gave the key of his study to his wife, with strict orders that no one should enter it during his absence. The lady herself, strange as it may appear, had no curiosity to pry into her husband's secrets, and never once thought of entering the forbidden room: but a young student, who had been accommodated with an attic in the philosopher's house, burned with a fierce ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... he added; "we listened only for our own good, and we shall show you how to insulate your thoughts. We do not pry." ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... for humanity, too. They meet death face to face, as they pry close into the cause of decay, the secret of morbid growth. There is more danger in certain germs than in lions. Blood-poisoning is to the surgeon a more constant menace than hunger to an Arctic explorer. These ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... had no mind to pry openly among the people of these Lowland depths, looking for smugglers. I might, indeed, find them too unexpectedly! Over-curious strangers are not welcomed by the Lowlanders. Many have gone into the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... the scissors slipped to the floor. His mother was down on her knees beside him, one arm about his shoulders, trying to pry his face from his hands, trying to look into his eyes. "You're my man, Davy! You're the only man, the only help I've got. You're my life, Davy. Poor boy! ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... Oh, that I had never waited! How does it happen though, so many Neighbours prone to pry, as I am, Are not caught ...
— The Wonder-Working Magician • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... assumed names, as well as names given for distinction, call for capitals, as, "The Wizard of the North," "Paul Pry," "The Northern Gael," "Sandy ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... but one day he invented a trick that was a surprise to me. It occurred at a summer resort in northern Indiana, where I noticed a nuthatch hitching up and down and around the slender stem of a sapling, pausing at intervals to thrust something into the crevices of the bark. My curiosity led me to pry into the bird's affairs. Stepping smartly forward, I drove him away, not heeding his vigorous protest of "yank, yank," and examined the bark of the sapling. What did I discover? A colony of black ants were scuttling up and down the tree, apparently under stress of great excitement; and good ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... stabilized to a point where we can afford such luxuries. As it is, we need those ships desperately, and as soon as he gets in, I'm sending Hideyoshi O'Leary to Grank with the Northern Star and a load of Kragan Rifles, to pry them loose. The audio-visual of which this is the last scene is going to be one of the crowbars ...
— Ullr Uprising • Henry Beam Piper
... mentioned. At Paris, under the auspices of Mazarin, many architects and artists were assembled. "I hope I shall give you a very good Account of all the best Artists in France," he wrote to a friend. "My business now is to pry into Trades and Arts. I put myself into all shapes to humour them; 'tis a comedy to me, and tho' sometimes expenceful, I am loth yet to leave it." He mentions not only leading men like Colbert, but more than twenty architects, painters, ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of St. Paul - An Account of the Old and New Buildings with a Short Historical Sketch • Arthur Dimock
... he might have bought back his name, but the prisoners' artel, or guild, always insisted upon the strict fulfilment of such bargains in default of the money being refunded; and if the authorities suspected such exchanges, they did not pry into them, it being immaterial to the officials (in Siberia at least) what man served out the sentence, so long as they could make their accounts tally. Thus much in explanation abbreviated ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... such a Subject as stands the utmost Test of Examination. Though it appears formed with the nicest Wisdom, upon the most superficial Survey of it, it still mends upon the Search, and produces our Surprize and Amazement in proportion as we pry into it. What I have here said of an Human Body, may be applied to the Body of every Animal which has been the Subject of ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... come there to force an entrance into the cabin, was quickly made plain to even Dan's dull comprehension. He saw them try the door, and then go around to the other side of the building and attempt to pry off the planks that covered the window. Dan heard something crack as Bob laid out his strength on the lever he was using, and believing that the thieves were on the point of accomplishing their object, he uttered a loud whistle to let the rest of the pack know that they were ...
— The Boy Trapper • Harry Castlemon
... let me alone, boy? Into what have you come here to pry? You are odious—yes, odious!" She stamped her foot. "And I thought last night, that you were in trouble. Was I not kind to you for that, and that only?" She broke off pitifully. "Oh, Harry, I ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the berries that he has packed, although, by reason of his ancient pipe, they may outrank all the fruit in the market. This man never walks nor runs, no matter how great the emergency and press of work; he merely jogs around, and picks a raspberry as he would pry out a bowlder. He does his work fairly well, usually; but the fact that it would require a hundred such men to care for a small place causes not the slightest solicitude. He would smoke just as stolidly ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... we could," replied Ethan, rubbing his head to stimulate his ideas. "I kin cut some rollers, and kinder pry it along." ...
— Hope and Have - or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People • Oliver Optic
... 'who knows?' of the Romans, is a shaft that would kill Paul Pry. It nearly throws an inquisitive man into convulsions. He meets it at every turn. The simplest question is knocked to pieces by it. So common is it for a Roman of the true plebs breed to give you this for an answer to almost ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... elegant of language, begged her not to be alarmed. And after that they talked together about everything delightful, while Sir Buzz stood at the door and did sentry; but he stood a brick up on end first, so that he might not seem to pry upon ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... contributions to the literature about nature: one must admire the man's untiring enthusiasm, but his book is mainly a storehouse of facts; how rarely does he invest the facts with charm! To pry into nature's secrets and conscientiously report them seems to be the aim of the English parson; but we get so little of the parson himself. What were his feelings about all these things he has been at such pains ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... more. She went a little too far this morning, and I'll show her that I'm Miss Wilton, and that she's only the governess—and—and——Now, where's that child gone to? I do think Marjorie is a perfect nuisance. I don't see anything good in her. Paul Pry, I call her. Paul Pry, and a little busy-body. I suppose she'll go and make up to Miss Nelson now, and tell her what I've said. No, though, that isn't like her. She does try to stick up for one. Poor little plain mite. Well, I don't intend to obey Miss ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... o'clock that summer afternoon when the three women—Margaret Bean, the tavern-keeper's wife, and the storekeeper's wife—who had followed Dorothy and Eugene into the lane to pry upon them set forth to communicate by word of mouth the scandalous proceedings they had witnessed; and long before midnight all the village knew. The women crept cautiously at a good distance behind Dorothy and Eugene ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... upon the return out of Spain of Gellianus, whom he had sent to pry into Galba's actions, understanding that Cornelius Laco was appointed commander of the court guards, and that Vinius was the great favorite, and that Gellianus had not been able so much as to come nigh, much less have any opportunity to offer any words in private, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... me. Mr. Martin boards with me, and as long as he pays for his board I don't want to pry into his affairs. If he has taken a tin box from you, I presume he had a better right to it than you had. Are you going to bring your son ...
— Rufus and Rose - The Fortunes of Rough and Ready • Horatio Alger, Jr
... partition. Marishka took the candle from his hand again while he examined the fastenings—nails somewhat rusted, which would not resist leverage. He found a piece of plank which he inserted in the edge of the door and managed to pry it open a little, and then bracing a foot against the stone wall, made an opening wide enough ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... fourth century had destroyed the classical world of the Mediterranean, and the Christian Church, which was more interested in the life of the soul than in the life of the body, had regarded science as a manifestation of that human arrogance which wanted to pry into divine affairs which belonged to the realm of Almighty God, and which therefore was closely related ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... 38), fell the tree (see Figs. 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, and 118), and then cut a circle around the trunk at the two ends of the log and a slit from one circle clean up to the other circle (Fig. 38); next, with a sharp stick shaped like a blunt-edged chisel, pry off the bark carefully until you take the piece off in one whole section. If it is spruce bark or any other bark you seek, hunt through the woods for a comparatively smooth trunk and proceed in the same manner as with the birch. To take it off a standing tree, cut one circle down at the ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... welcome to look elsewhere and anywhere," Harleston interjected. "I'll trust you not to pry into matters other than the letter. By the way, whose was ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... almost too good. Hee-hee! You sent your two precious reporters out to my house to pry into my secrets, and thought to display my name all over your yellow sheet; but you forgot that you were dealing with Professor Anton Kell, didn't you?" The last he fairly shrieked. "A lot of people have tried to intrude upon me before, but none ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... Bozzle, and there came over him a crushing feeling of ignominy, shame, moral dirt, and utter degradation, as he reconsidered his dealings with that ingenious gentleman. He was paying a rogue to watch the steps of a man whom he hated, to pry into the home secrets, to read the letters, to bribe the servants, to record the movements of this rival, this successful rival, in his wife's affections! It was a filthy thing,—and yet what could he do? Gentlemen of old, his own grandfather, or his father, would have taken such a fellow ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... old prejudice is a-dying. We need not pry into the secret of its birth. Rather is this a time of jolliness and glad indulgence. For the era of rouge is upon us, and as only in an elaborate era can man, by the tangled accrescency of his own pleasures and emotions, reach that refinement which ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... barr'd; suffer no Men to converse with them even in Publick, but where there are Grates between them, and not even then within Reach of one another: And tho' hardly a Male Creature of any Kind is allow'd to come near them, yet they are ever suspicious of them, pry into their most Secret Thoughts, and keep constantly a watchful ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... of the character of Paul Pry was suggested by the following anecdote, related to me several years ago, by a beloved friend:—An idle old lady, living in a narrow street, had passed so much of her time in watching the affairs of her neighbours, that she, at length, acquired the power of distinguishing the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 479, March 5, 1831 • Various
... to go. After all, I had nothing more to say. I didn't want to stop and pry, only ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... the beautiful Barozza; and he resolved, if possible, to catch him on one of these journeys. 'It so chanced on February 28, which was the second Sunday of Lent, that having gone, as was my wont, to pry out whether Lorenzino would give orders for going abroad that day, I entered the shoemaker's shop, and stayed awhile, until Lorenzino came to the window with a napkin round his neck—for he was combing his hair —and at the same moment I saw a certain Giovan Battista Martelli, who ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... upright and honest, therefore unsuspecting and credulous. They are too much engrossed with their own business to pry into the conduct of their neighbours, and too indifferent, in point of disposition, to interest themselves in what they conceive to be foreign to their own concerns. They are wealthy and mercantile, of consequence liberal and adventurous, and so well disposed to take a man's own word for ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... had that very afternoon parted from a knot of young friends who had teased her most unmercifully on the score of attentions received, till she began to think the very leaves and stones were so many eyes to pry into her secret feelings; and then to have the whole case set in order before the very person, too, whom she most dreaded. "Certainly he would think she was acting like a fool; perhaps he did not mean any thing more than friendship, after all; and she would not for the world have him suppose ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... northward. It was, for some length, uninhabited and unpaved. Presently I reached a pavement, and a painted fence, along which a row of poplars was planted. It bounded a garden into which a knot-hole permitted me to pry. The enclosure was a charming green, which I saw appended to a house of the loftiest and most stately order. It seemed like a recent erection, had all the gloss of novelty, and exhibited, to my unpractised eyes, the magnificence of palaces. My ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... other reader ever suspected; but they have no perception of the cogency of arguments, the force of pathetick sentiments, the various colours of diction, or the flowery embellishments of fancy; of all that engages the attention of others they are totally insensible, while they pry into worlds of conjecture, and amuse themselves with ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... Now pry off the connectors with the screw driver, as shown in Fig. 193. Lay a flat tool such as a chisel or file on the top edge of the ease to avoid damaging the ease ...
— The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care And Repair • O. A. Witte
... because the jaded horses could barely pull the empty vehicle through the mire or up the weary hill. They were frequently compelled to alight and grope around in impenetrable darkness and beating storm for rails from a neighbouring fence, with which to pry the wheels out of a mud-hole, into which they had, to all appearance, hopelessly sunk, or to dig themselves out of snow banks in which both horses and stage were firmly wedged. If they were so fortunate as to escape these mishaps, the deep ruts and corduroy bridges tried ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... grit that in opening and closing the breech caused the mechanism to stick, and the honey clinging to the shells caused the breech chamber to stick, making the shell cases jam in the gun after being discharged, forcing us to pry open with a sharp pick the breech each time to extract the empty cartridge. All during the operation the Major was cursing like a madman at the men, whoever they were, that brought the bees ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... disappointed, and he and his sister felt very sorrowful. But not for long, for in a little while along hopped Uncle Wiggily Longears, with his crutch. It didn't take him any time, with the aid of the June bug, and Buddy and Brighteyes, to pry that turnip up out of ...
— Buddy And Brighteyes Pigg - Bed Time Stories • Howard R. Garis
... king's son was not there. They went back to the queen. She looked long in her magic crystal, but little could she see; for the king's son had hidden himself in a small cave beside the tarn-stones, and into the darkness the crystal could not pry. ...
— The Field of Clover • Laurence Housman
... believed that we could move the rock by throwing our united weight on a long pry; and many of the boys agreed with him. We felled a spruce tree seven inches in diameter, trimmed it and cut a pry twenty feet long from it. Carrying it to the rock, we set a stone for a fulcrum, and then threw our weight repeatedly on the long end. The rock, which ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... weeks with her, She went to see the doctor three times a week. He used a pry to open her jaws, which was very painful to her but she gradually grew better. We were so happy in each other's society. I took her every place to see sights in that grand, philanthropic city. I ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... Barber replied, "By Allah, O my lord, he went up before my eyes and I am still awaiting him." Then the Captain hurried away a second time and rummaged about, high and low, and left no place whereinto he did not pry and spy, yet he came upon no one. He was perplext at his affair and again going down to the Barber said to him, "O Man, we have found none." Still the fellow said to him doggedly, "Withal a man did go within, whilst I who am his familiar here stand expecting him, and thou sayest ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... not to be extinguished, however. In 1831 she started a newspaper, with the ill-chosen name of PAUL PRY. In 1836 another took its place, called THE HUNTRESS. And on the sale of these newspapers and her books, the indomitable old lady lived to fight and fought to ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... it; but this plea of simplicity did not save him from a repetition of his old sentence of three months imprisonment in the House of Correction, with the uncomfortable addition, this time, of hard labour. Perhaps the best punishment for this juvenile addition of Paul Pry would have been that suggested by the Satirist, in the following paragraph: "As the urchin Jones, in a letter to his father, stated that his reason for entering the Queen's house was to 'seek for noose, in order to rite a book,' it is a matter of general regret that, instead ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... left thy shores, O Naxos; The merry Flageolet; When young men come a sighing; Comin' thro' the Rye; Love was once a little Boy; I've been Roaming; My Heart and Lute; Draw the Sword, Scotland; Adventures of Paul Pry; I have Fruit and I have Flowers; The Washing Day; The Light Guitar, and Answer; Long Summers have smiled—&c. ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 4: Quaint and Curious Advertisements • Henry M. Brooks
... arrival of his parents, who came up to town beseeching of him to do nothing rash, only served to intensify his determination, and, losing his temper utterly, he told his father and mother that he would never set his foot in Appleton Park in their lifetime if they ever again ventured to pry into his private affairs; and, refusing to give any information regarding his intentions, he asked them to leave his lodgings. What he did after they never knew; years went by, and they sighed and wondered, but the matter was never alluded to ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.
... and mother, who were an honourable couple and of good repute; because I would not have her at my home, said he, to make abode in solitude. Yet, notwithstanding this her residence beside her parents, do not fail, quoth he, with a most heedful care and circumspection to pry into her ways, and to espy what places she shall go to with her mother, and who those be that shall repair unto her. Not, quoth he, that I do mistrust her virtue, or that I seem to have any diffidence of her pudicity and chaste behaviour,—for of that ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... for another armed attack on Slavery in Kansas. The sentimentalists asked no questions. And if hard-headed business men tried to pry too closely into his plans, they found him a past master in the art of keeping his ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
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