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Delve   /dɛlv/   Listen
Delve

verb
(past & past part. delved; pres. part. delving)
1.
Turn up, loosen, or remove earth.  Synonyms: cut into, dig, turn over.  "Turn over the soil for aeration"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Delve" Quotes from Famous Books



... which to get into he had only to lift a hatch in the deck under his revolving chair and let himself drop, he had a young library, which after-hours he, used to delve into for anybody's or everybody's benefit. He was particularly strong on folk-lore, and could dig up a few fat volumes any time on the folk-lore of any nation we had ever heard of. He liked to lie flat on the ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly

... that he had accidentally stumbled upon a more complicated plot than mere blackmail. Mrs. Dupont's intimacy with Molly, and the use she was making of her distant relationship with the Major to further her ends, made him eager to delve deeper into her real purpose. At least these two, apparently ignorant of their guest's true character, should be warned, or, if that was impossible, protected from imposture. Their open friendliness and ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish

... full of dreary noises! O men, with wailing in your voices! O delve'd gold, the wailers heap! O strife, O curse, that o'er it fall! God strikes a silence through you all, And "giveth his ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... were suddenly called upon to labor from morning to night, to dig and delve, and to stand up to their hips in water washing the river sands. They were forced to change their habits and their food, and from free and, in their own way, happy masters of the soil they became the slaves of a handful of ruthless men from beyond the sea. When Ponce's order ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk

... when she said "Know, O King, that I am the Queen of this land and that all the troops thou hast seen, whether horse or foot, are women, there is no man amongst them; for in this our state the men delve and sow and ear and occupy themselves with the tillage of the earth and the building of towns and other mechanical crafts and useful arts, whilst the women govern and fill the great offices of state and bear arms." At this the youth marvelled with exceeding marvel and, as they were in discourse, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... scheme, since then by argument, blandishments, threats, force, or appeal to their sense of loyalty, it mattered not which, he would bring about its abandonment. But she wanted to fulfil that scheme, to be free of Bambatse, its immemorial ruins, its graveyard cave, and the ghoul, Jacob Meyer, who could delve among dead bones and in living hearts with equal skill and insight, and yet was unable to find the treasure that ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard

... who hesitates is lost"), as she lay awake pondering the whole matter, she thought: "It can't be worse than it is, and it won't be very long either way, I think. I can be faithful to him, make and mend, dig and delve, if needs be, for his benefit, in return for the honor he does me in giving me his name and protection. I shall expect nothing, literally nothing, from him that wives usually demand. I, who have borne for years with the caprice of ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.

... using the capital on hand? There sits our 'admiral,' with money enough in that basket to start the whole business. Set Wolfgang to manage, and the rest of us to dig and delve. More'n one here has tried mining for a yellower metal than this"—holding up the bit of copper—"'twould do us proud to give the first pick to Sobrante's ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond

... and tried to delve into the past. The first connecting link seemed years ago,—he was running away from something, her hand within his. The girl—yes, he remembered now, but still very indistinctly. But soon with a great influx of joy he recalled that moment at the door when he had realized what she meant to him, ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... as to words' past experience enables us to read with keener understanding the literature of preceding ages. Of course we should not, even so, go farther back than about three centuries. To read anything earlier than Shakespeare would require us to delve too deeply into linguistic bygones. And to read Shakespeare himself requires effort—but rewards it. Let us see how an insight into words will help us to interpret the Seven Ages ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... {56} Cease, Labour, to dig and to delve; All hail to this tenth of October, One thousand eight hundred and twelve! {57} Ha! whom do my peepers remark? 'Tis Hebe with Jupiter's jug; O no, 'tis the pride of the ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith

... buckle my shoe; Three, four, shut the door; Five, six, pick up sticks; Seven, eight, lay them straight; Nine, ten, a good fat hen; Eleven, twelve, who will delve? Thirteen, fourteen, draw the curtain; Fifteen, sixteen, the maid's in the kitchen; Seventeen, eighteen, she's a-waiting; Nineteen, twenty, my plate's empty; Please, mamma, give me ...
— Harry's Ladder to Learning - Horn-Book, Picture-Book, Nursery Songs, Nursery Tales, - Harry's Simple Stories, Country Walks • Anonymous

... you meant," said Abe quietly. "All the same, Mrs. Crawford, I don't always mean to delve and grub ...
— Abe Lincoln Gets His Chance • Frances Cavanah

... sentiment, something commensurate with the beauty and dignity of the woman's bodily frame, something that would explain and gild with delicate interest the expression of sombre and uncommunicative melancholy that hung like a cloud over her face. I felt reluctant to delve further into a history that was footed upon so unsatisfactory a foundation as this enigmatic creature who had blazed suddenly upon the painter-cousin's vision, a mere spendthrift man of pleasure, inarticulate save in his startlingly decadent behaviour. ...
— Aliens • William McFee

... kept her seat rampant, like the split eagle of the Austrian Empire: in fact, it would be well nowadays if the split eagle were as firm as Mrs. Primmins! As for the canary, it never failed to respond, by an astonished chirp, to every "Gracious me!" and "Lord save us!" which the delve into a rut, or the bump out of it, sent forth from Mrs. Primmins's lips, with all the emphatic dolor of the "Ai, ai!" in ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... of all time, Great deeds extolled in prose and rhyme, Delve deep in Clio's treasured store, Exhaust encyclopedic lore— You will not find in one edition A hint ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson

... provincial life. In their eager search for data they forced every possible passage to yield some personal allusion, till the poems came to be nothing but a symbolic biography of the author. The modern student must delve into this material if only to clear away a little of the allegory that ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank

... existence of the silver dome of Theros, yet you came without greed or malice and we have taken you in to enlighten you on the many questions that are in your minds and to return you to mankind with a knowledge of Theros—which you must keep secret. You are about to delve into a mystery of the ages; to see and learn many things that are beyond the ken of your kind. It is a privilege never before accorded to ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various

... all metals, for which men delve and starve and toil and die, still lies hidden in immeasurable masses, in unsuspected places, screened perhaps by a thin sheeting of earth, over which thousands have tramped, never dreaming of the boundless riches just beneath their feet. And rubies and diamonds strew the bottom ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis

... the letter in a safe place, and curb his impatience. He felt that necessity for silent isolation and absolute solitude which a reader, anxious to delve into a new book, experiences. This bundle of papers doubtless contained for him the most ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... patiently labouring with axe and bill; who has trudged across the furrow, hand on plough, facing sleet and mist; who has swung the sickle under the summer sun—this is the man for the trenches. This is the man whom neither the snows of the North nor the sun of the South can vanquish; who will dig and delve, and carry traverse and covered way forward in the face of the fortress, who will lie on the bare ground in the night. For they who go up to battle must fight the hard earth and the tempest, as well as face bayonet and ball. As of yore with the brown bill, so ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies

... are, you and I must do it, Bigot. Zounds! I learned to dig and delve when I was a stripling at Charlebourg, and in the trenches at Louisbourg, and I have not yet forgotten the knack of it! But where to get spades, Bigot; you are master ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... thrifty, hard-working man should marry a woman tolerably saving and industrious. As the "almighty dollar" is now the great motor-wheel of humanity, and that to which most husbands devote their entire lives to delve ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols

... the nearer to his own age the better, and it may well be that Albert would be like to gain rank and honour more quickly in this way than by doughty deeds in the field. It is good that each man should stick to his last. As for me, I would rather delve as a peasant than mix in the intrigues of a Court. But there must be courtiers as well as fighters, and I say not ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty

... condense anecdotes only where we think we can make them pithier and racier. We will neglect no fact that is interesting, and blend together all that old Time can give us bearing upon London. Street by street we shall delve and rake for illustrative story, despising no book, however humble, no pamphlet, however obscure, if it only throws some light on the celebrities of London, its topographical history, its manners and customs. Such is a brief ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... pave the centre of the space beneath the cover, flush with the soil, with a brick, which I sprinkle with a thin layer of sand. This will be the soil that cannot be dug. All around it, for some distance and on the same level, lies the loose soil, which is easy to delve. ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre

... Zazemang, fine fruits from the Iberian shore, and soft furs, and ivory tusks of the sea-beast, from the frozen coasts of the north. Never before was country so richly blessed; for Siegfried taught his people how to till the soil best, and how to delve far down into the earth for hidden treasures, and how to work skilfully in iron and bronze and all other metals, and how to make the winds and the waters, and even the thunderbolt, their thralls and helpful servants. And he ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin

... lifted up from the plane of labor to the plane of love, and a glory spans your life. With your friend, speech and silence are one,—for a communion mysterious and intangible reaches across from heart to heart. The many dig and delve in your nature with fruitless toil to find the spring of living water: he only raises his wand, and, obedient to the hidden power, it bends at once to your secret. Your friendship, though independent of language, gives to it life and light. The mystic spirit stirs even in commonplaces, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... of knowledge. I returned to California and opened the books. While thus equipping myself to become a brain merchant, it was inevitable that I should delve into sociology. There I found, in a certain class of books, scientifically formulated, the simple sociological concepts I had already worked out for myself. Other and greater minds, before I was born, had worked out all that ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London

... the precious pearl Or Ethiopian topaz, for their price Transcendeth rubies, or the dazzling ray Of concentrated jewels. In what place Are found these wondrous treasures? Who will show Their habitation? which alike defies The ken of those who soar, or those who delve In cells profound. Death and destruction say, From their hoarse caverns, "We have heard their fame But know them not." Lo! He who weighs the winds Measures the floods, controls the surging sea And points the forked lightnings where to play, He, unto whom all mysteries are plain All secrets ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney

... the air that tossed our hair about, and fanned our flushed cheeks, and we knew that it was spring, sweet spring! that had come again to us. Oh, how delightful it was when, escaped from all watchful eyes, I could throw aside the troublesome sun-bonnet, that so obstructed my sight, and dig and delve at pleasure! Never in all my life have I been so happy as in these delightful spring days, when I roved about the paths with a heart full of happiness, and a sensation of thankfulness ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman

... two trombones, two straight flutes, one cornet, one traverso and two lutes, and in a motet composed in 1569 he had eight viols, eight trombones, eight flutes, an instrument of the spinet family and a large lute, together with voices. To delve backward from this point is not so easy as it looks, yet however far back we may choose to go we cannot fail to find evidences that assemblies of instruments were employed, sometimes to accompany voices and ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson

... thought of the fact that when the barons at Runnymede laid the foundations of democratic government for the world they overlooked the almost equally important matter of creating a democratic system of finance. Well—let's not delve into that now. The point is that under our present system we do acquire wealth which we do not earn, and the only thing to be done for the time being is to treat that wealth as a trust to be managed for the benefit of humanity. That is what I call the new morality as applied ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead

... last day's work he heard the Troll Hammer and delve in the quarry's hole; Before him the church stood large and fair: "I have builded ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various

... human being inhabits the malarious extent; even a hunted murderer would shrink from hiding there. Serpents and slimy lizards are the only denizens; sometimes the coon takes refuge in this desert from the hounds, and in the soil mud a thousand odorous muskrats delve, with now and then a tremorous otter. But not even the hunted negro dares to fathom the treacherous clay, nor make himself a fellow of the slimy reptiles which reign absolute in this terrible solitude. Here the soldiers prepared to seek for the President's assassin, and ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend

... date of, and should delve into the details of the accident; special note being made of the occurrence of laryngeal spasm, wheezing respiration heard by the patient or others (asthmatoid wheeze), fever, cough, pain, dyspnea, dysphagia, odynphagia, regurgitation, etc. The amount, character ...
— Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy - A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery • Chevalier Jackson

... their souls restored. The scientific control of life, however, is not adequate for that. Electricity and subways and motor cars do not restore the soul; and to know that there are millions upon millions of solar systems, like our own, scattered through space does not restore the soul; and to delve in the sea or to fly in the air or to fling our words through the ether does not restore the soul. The need of religion is perennial and would be though our scientific control over life were extended infinitely beyond our present hope, for the innermost ministry of religion to human life is the ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick

... therto dyke and delve, For Cristes sake, for every poure wight, Withouten hire, if it lay in ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley

... poor-house's aid All smell of it! Tramping with boots thickly clayed From brown field or furrow, or lowered at last In our special six-feet by the sexton up-cast, We smack of the earth, till we earthy have grown, Like the mound that Death gives us—best friend—for our own. We tramp it, we delve it, we plough it, this soil, And a grave is the final reward of our toil. Attached? The attachment of love is one thing, The attachment of profit another. Gurth's ring Is our form of attachment at bottom, Sir, still, And to favour that bond HODGE doubts ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 24, 1891 • Various

... day marks a crisis in the conscience of Europe. It occurs in the chapter "De l'Homme": "We see certain wild animals, male and female, scattered over the fields, black, livid and scorched by the sun, fastened to the soil which they delve and stir with an invincible obstinacy; they have a sort of articulate speech, and when they stand up upon their feet, they show a countenance that is human: and in short they are human beings. They creep back at nightfall into dens, ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse

... else; and though there is usually a great difference between the results hoped for and those attained, the effect is good. The newspapers publish at length the recommendations of the Executives, and also the results obtained, and keep up public interest in all important matters. "Free to delve in the allurement and fascination of science, emancipated man goes on subduing Nature, as his Maker said he should, and turning her giant forces to his service in his constant struggle to rise and become more like Him who gave the commandments and showed him how he should go. "Notwithstanding ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor

... and snorted like a river-horse roused amongst his reeds by thunder. Some of the American merchants felt threatenings of apoplexy, and had themselves bled—all, like wise men, at this first moment of prosperity, prepared to rush into the bowels of speculation, and to delve new difficulties, in whose depths they might lose themselves at some future day. Stocks which had been accumulating for years now went off in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. Warehouses were lightened, ships were ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... they praise her sun and soil, her mountains and streams, and her precious metals. They tell you that she is filled with the basis of all material prosperity, with gold, silver, lead and iron: but greatness can not come from material resources alone—it must come from the people who till and delve. Utah is great because her people are great. When she has centuries behind her she will make a splendid showing because she has started right. She has given to that part of the people who instinctively know what is ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... reach it by considering some aspects of the social condition of ancient Greece. The lessons to be learned from that wonderful country are not yet exhausted Each time that we return to that richest of historic mines, and delve faithfully and carefully, we shall be sure to dig up some jewel worth ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske

... was enough, he says, to drive a man "at last, through murmuring and despair, to thoughts of Atheism." But was there no remedy? Ah! in the very power of putting this question lay the advantage of the strong man over the weak Oxfordshire girl. He could reason, he could delve into the subject, he could revolve it intellectually. What if the plight in which he found himself were no necessary and irremediable evil? What if the permanence of marriage once contracted between two persons utterly unsuitable for each other were no ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... of which I have just spoken, furnished by this same lawyer- poet's agricultural industry. We may even stop a moment longer to hear his stately appeal to France, which, heeded by her, would have made Lescarbot's a name familiar in the homes of America instead of one known only to those who delve ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley

... letters seal'd: and my two schoolfellows,— Whom I will trust as I will adders fang'd,— They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way And marshal me to knavery. Let it work; For 'tis the sport to have the enginer Hoist with his own petard: and 't shall go hard But I will delve one yard below their mines And blow them at the moon: O, 'tis most sweet, When in one line two crafts directly meet.— This man shall set me packing: I'll lug the guts into the neighbour room.— Mother, good-night.—Indeed, ...
— Hamlet, Prince of Denmark • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... maidens. They are not wholly free from the taint which is to be detected in nearly all French fiction. The mark of the beast is set on not a little of the work done by the strongest men in France. M. Meilhac is too clean and too clever ever to delve in indecency from mere wantonness: he has no liking for vice, but his virtue sits easily on him, and though he is sound on the main question, he looks upon the vagaries of others with a gentle eye. M. Halevy, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various

... blacksmith, will appear to you in glory like the blessed spirits in paradise. What radiance surrounds the forge! To guide the plough, to bind the sheaves, is joy. The bark at liberty in the wind, what delight! Do you, lazy idler, delve, drag on, roll, march! Drag your halter. You are a beast of burden in the team of hell! Ah! To do nothing is your object. Well, not a week, not a day, not an hour shall you have free from oppression. You will be able to lift nothing without anguish. Every ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... women had been taxed to build colleges to educate men, and if we could pick up a literary crumb that had fallen from their feasts, we surely had a right to it. Moreover, I told him that man's duty in the world was to work, to dig and delve for jewels, real and ideal, and lay them at woman's feet, for her to use as she might see fit; that he should feel highly complimented, instead of complaining, that he had written something I thought worth using. He answered like the nobleman he is; susceptible of taking in a new idea. He ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... infinite solitude. The possession of the same noble qualities which we affect to reverence among our nations makes us kill him. If he would be as the African or the Asiatic it would be all right for him; if he would be our slave he might live, but as he won't be that, won't toil and delve and hew for us, and will persist in hunting, fishing, and roaming over the beautiful prairie land which the Great Spirit gave him; in a word, since he will be free we kill him. Why do I call this wild child the great anomaly of the human race? I will tell you. Alone amongst ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler

... toil in the stithy and deep mine. Multitudes must accustom themselves to odors offensive to the nostril. Men toil from morning till night midst the din of machinery from which the ear revolts. Myriads dig and delve, and scorn their toil. He who spends all his years sliding pins into a paper, finds his growth in manhood threatened. Others are stranded midway in life. Recently the test exhibition of a machine was successful, and those present gave the inventor heartiest congratulations. But ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis

... franklin in whose house "it snowed of meat and drink"; the sailor fresh from frays in the Channel; the buxom wife of Bath; the broad-shouldered miller; the haberdasher, carpenter, weaver, dyer, tapestry-maker, each in the livery of his craft; and last the honest ploughman who would dyke and delve for the poor without hire. It is the first time in English poetry that we are brought face to face not with characters or allegories or reminiscences of the past, but with living and breathing men, men distinct ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green

... Or one may consult textbooks and published papers. (This, by the way, is known as library research, and is generally conceded to be indicative of the superior student, especially if he points out the fact that he is so interested that he just had to delve into the literature.) By any technique, the expected results are always obtained. Always. And by everyone. The initial confusions—that some honest students perpetuate—are easily brushed aside as errors due to inexperience, sloppiness, lack of initiative, stupidity ...
— On Handling the Data • M. I. Mayfield

... said Zell, almost fiercely. "I tell you there is no place for you here, unless you wish to go to perdition. Go home, where you are known. Scrub, delve, do anything rather than stay here. Your big brother can and will take care of you, though he does ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe

... Unknown World.—But how different is the picture of primitive man suddenly brought face to face with an unknown world. With no knowledge of nature or art, with no theory or practice of social order, he began to dig and to delve for the preservation of life. Suffering the pangs of hunger, he obtained food; naked, he clothed himself; {8} buffeted by storm and wind and scorched by the penetrating rays of the sun, he built himself a shelter. As he gradually became ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar

... throughout this great country of ours come of their own free will to the shearing pens of the "System" each year, voluntarily chloroform themselves, so that the "System" may go through their pockets, and then depart peacefully home to dig and delve for more money that they may have the debasing operation repeated on them ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... men in the centre; and thus did they set off from the place of bondage to seek freedom. In vain did the tyrant-whose name democracy has enshrined with its glories-pursue them, and exhaust persuasion to procure their return. For three days did they wander the woods, delve morasses, and swim rivers, ere they reached the haven of St. Augustine, where, being provided with provisions, their case was tried, and, albeit, though Turnbull interposed all the perfidy wealth could purchase, their fredeom established. But alas! not so well was it with those fair daughters ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... into citizens, that the present inhabitants of the suburb dwell. And never have they been burnt out of those homes, although the same period has seen all Buev save Zhitnaia Street consumed, and everywhere that one may delve within the township one will be sure to come across ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky

... sorry for such people as I can be and I'd like to help them all," Grace said. "But it makes me actually ill to go near them. How mother can delve as she does in the very slums—well, I can't do it! Walter is like mother; ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr

... Oi knows Pzalmist 'e had na rest vrom voes; Vor po-or ole Dave gre-at pits they'd delve, An' then, dam loons, vail in theirselve. This iz ma readin' ov the Book, An' to ma self do mak' me look; Wi' dew respeck, Oi veel loike him, Tho' later born, and ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie

... Bess!" groaned Amelia, "the term hasn't really opened yet. Don't make us delve into the past for the roots of our language. It's us for the ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr

... Delve away beneath the surface, There is treasure farther down,— Keep a-pluggin' away. Let the rain come down in torrents, Let the threat'ning heavens frown, Keep a-pluggin' away. When the clouds have rolled away, There ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... as if I wanted to take this manuscript and all the others, and run off to some profound retreat, and study it all over, and reproduce it again with my own faculties. Oh, that I could read them with you! I almost begin to love the pain with which I delve after the thoughts presented in such a close and ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

... give notice. After I had helped her clean the kitchen and the pantry I noticed an expression of deepest pity overspreading her lumpy features. The expression became almost one of agony as she watched me roll out some noodles for soup, and delve into the sticky mysteries of a ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber

... eighth century before Christ. Artists of the middle of the sixteenth century always depict Jeanne d'Arc in the armour and costume of their own time, wholly unlike those of 1430. This is the regular rule. Late rhapsodists would not delve in the archaeology of the Mycenaean prime. Indeed, one does not see how they could discover, in Asia, that corslets were not worn, five centuries earlier, on the other side of ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang

... do all that a maiden might and more—delve could they no less than spin, hunt no less than weave, brew pottage and helm ships, wake the harp and tell the stars, face all danger ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock

... your leave, ever since the creation, or at all events ever since the deluge, the mountains, and stones, and rocks, and metals, and gems, have been lockt up in their houses and never gadded abroad. We dig and delve in here at top, and hardly get even at deepest below the upper skin of the warts, as the mountains are in comparison to the whole earth, much such a part as a nail-paring is of a man. Wherever we can set foot, ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck

... has put it. True enough in its application is this livid sentiment,—perhaps,—but its jewel-like south portal, like the "gemmed" west front of Tours, forms an attractive enough presentment to please most observers who do not delve too deeply into cause and effect. The north portal is less ornate, but its beautifully carved doors are by the same hand as that which worked the opposite portal. The ornamental stonework here is unusual, suggesting ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun

... eight years nothing was seen or heard of Sergeant Basket. The fright killed my mother. Before next spring she fell into a decline, and early next fall the old man—for he was an old man now—had to delve her grave. After this he went feebly about his work, but held on, being wishful for me to step into his shoon, which I began to do as soon as I was fourteen, having outgrown ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Mason and Captain John Underhill over the Pequots on the hills of Mystic, in 1637, in its results was far greater than that of Wellington on the field of Waterloo. This fact will impress itself in indelible characters on the minds of those who delve into the historical truths connected with the genesis of our settlements, so wide spreading were the fruits of this victory. As the native inhabitants of the eastern part of Long Island and the adjacent ...
— John Eliot's First Indian Teacher and Interpreter Cockenoe-de-Long Island and The Story of His Career from the Early Records • William Wallace Tooker

... am quite satisfied with the experiment, and fancy that we shall not have to repeat it, only don't go to the other extreme and delve like slaves. Have regular hours for work and play, make each day both useful and pleasant, and prove that you understand the worth of time by employing it well. Then youth will be delightful, old age will bring few regrets, and life become ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott

... thou dost spend with friend and foe, At home che hold the plough by th' tail: Che dig, che delve, che zet, che zow, Che mow, che reap, che ply my flail. A pair of dice is thy delight, Thou liv'st for most part by the spoil: I truly labour day and night To get my living by my toil. Chill therefore sure this issue make: The best deserver ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various

... your hands and eyes, but this your nee'le to keep? What devil had you else to do? ye keep, ich wot, no sheep. Cham[50] fain abroad to dig and delve, in water, mire and clay, Sossing and possing in the dirt still from day to day. A hundred things that be abroad cham set to see them well: And four of you sit idle at home and cannot keep ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne

... Lincoln at Gettysburg and Pericles at Athens, storm the Bastile with Hugo, and wander through Paradise with Dante. You may explore darkest Africa with Stanley, penetrate the human heart with Shakespeare, chat with Carlyle about heroes, and delve with the Apostle Paul into the mysteries of faith. The general knowledge and the inspiring ideas that men have collected through ages of toil and experiment are yours for the asking. The Sage of Chelsea ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... error still for e'er and aye, They delve for phantom shapes that ride Across their minds alone,—and they But mock the ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous

... of it," asserted Ferris. "It was no doubt organized for the sole purpose of bidding on this job. Probably when you delve into the matter you will discover the fine Italian ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester

... practicable, should have a small plot of ground to cultivate, that he may dig and delve in, and make dirt-pies if he choose. Children now-a-days, unfortunately, are not allowed to soil their hands and their fine clothes. For my own part, I dislike such model children; let a child be natural—let him, as far as is possible, choose his own sports. ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse

... he to the spade; and so the spade began to dig and delve till the earth and rock flew out in splinters, and so he had the well soon dug ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent

... beginning of Prudence's golden summer. She was not given to self-analysis. She did what seemed good to her always,—she did not delve down below the surface for reasons why and wherefore. She hadn't the time. She took things as they came. She could not bear the thought of sharing with the parsonage family even the least ardent and most prosaic of Jerrold's letters. But she never asked herself the reason. It seemed a ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston

... said good night to Meryl she could not refrain, from just one little delve into the perplexing situation. "If you and Major Carew met at six o'clock and did not get back until seven, you must have had quite a long chat together. Such a new thing for him! I don't think even I, his trusted friend, can boast ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page

... If we delve amid more recent strata, we find the flint weapons have become bronze. Their owner has learned to handle a ductile metal, to draw it from the rocks and fuse it in the fire. Later still he has discovered how to melt the harder ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various

... heart that music cannot melt? Ah me! how is that rugged heart forlorn! Is there, who ne'er those mystic transports felt, Of solitude and melancholy born? He needs not woo the Muse; he is her scorn. The sophist's rope of cobweb he shall twine; Mope o'er the schoolman's peevish page; or mourn, And delve for life, in Mammon's dirty mine; Sneak with the scoundrel fox, or ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie

... it began in the door of a pioneer log cabin; and oh, what do you think, Claribel, the two ancestors we are proudest of, the ones we all quote the oftenest, and plume ourselves the most on being their descendants, had to dig and delve for everything they got. Old Mrs. Carter told me so this morning." She pointed to the two portraits that headed the long line. "Now if sister makes any objections to our plans, I'll just refer her ...
— Cicely and Other Stories • Annie Fellows Johnston

... which his own individual personal experience, however varied, must necessarily limit him. He would see it under greater varieties, under all varieties of conditions. He would know the history of it; he would 'delve it to the root.' He would know how that particular form of it, which he found on the surface in his time, had come to be the thing he found it. He would know what it had been in other times, in the ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... private utility. The spirit which gives freely, because it knows that it has received freely; which communicates knowledge without hope of reward, without jealousy and rivalry, to fellow- students and to the world; which is content to delve and toil comparatively unknown, that from its obscure and seemingly worthless results others may derive pleasure, and even build up great fortunes, and change the very face of cities and lands, by the practical ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley

... becoming familiar with history, is to delve into the origin and development of periods in furniture. The story of Napoleon is recorded in the unpretentious Directoire, the ornate Empire of Fontainebleau, while the conversion of round columns into obelisk-like pilasters surmounted by heads, the bronze ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood

... some years librarian of Laval, is a most creditable example of critical acumen and typographical skill. In the same field there is much yet to be explored by the zealous antiquarian who has the patience to delve among the accumulations of matter that are hidden in Canadian and European archives. This is a work, however, which can be best done by the State; and it is satisfactory to know that something has been attempted ...
— The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People • John George Bourinot

... Lord gives us each one when we come into the world," answered the gray-haired woman earnestly. "But many of us are content enough with the glitter of the fool's gold which is found a-plenty in every life; and we don't delve for the real gold. We slip along in a don't-care way, neglecting the opportunities that come to us to better humanity; seeking the easiest tasks, satisfied with that kind of existence. The miner who digs in the ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown

... different public schools without knowing anything about "sex hygiene." That married women had babies and that somehow these were due to the presence of men in the household was the limit of her sex knowledge. Beyond that it was not "nice" for a girl to delve, and Milly was very scrupulous about being "nice." Nice girls did not discuss such things. Once when she was fifteen a woman she knew had "gone to the bad" and Milly had been very curious about it, as she was later ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick

... twenty-five years. And then—in what state of repair I know not—it was sold at an advance equal to a yearly increase of but six-sevenths of one per cent, on the purchase price of the gaping ruin sold in 1837. There is a certain poetry in notarial records. But we will not delve for it now. Idle talk of strange sights and sounds crowded out of notice any true history the house may have had in those twenty-five years, or until war had destroyed that slavery to whose horridest possibilities the gloomy pile, even when restored and renovated, stood a ghost-ridden monument. ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... these years, thereby saving it from destruction, and warding off the conspiracy that would reduce you to beggary. For your sake only have I so guarded the secret of its wealth that no living soul suspects it. Even the men who delve in its depths know not the value of the material in which they toil, for I have not told them. Nor have I allowed an assay to be made of its smallest fragment; but I know its worth, its fabulous value, that will make the owner of the Copper Princess one of ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe

... attempt to delve down into the mysterious depths of mind and matter which form the basis of this system. In the first place, it is an impossible task for an ordinary intelligence; then, again, it were labor lost, for even if one did get down far enough one could get nothing ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton

... soldiers with a badge of crossed axes on their sleeves clear themselves a fairway and swiftly delve holes in the wall of the trench. We watch them sideways as we don ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... said. Then, almost curtly, in a quick, incisive way, as the keen, alert brain began to delve and probe: "You say this man Clarke never returned to ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... Henri Lothiere, am no sorcerer but a simple apothecary's assistant. It was always my nature, from earliest youth, to desire to delve into matters unknown to men; the secrets of the earth and sea and sky, the knowledge hidden from us. I knew well that this was wicked, that the Church teaches all we need to know and that heaven frowns when we pry into its mysteries, ...
— The Man Who Saw the Future • Edmond Hamilton

... done for those braw fellows. They canna ditch and delve like an Irish peasant. It would be like harnessing ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... notions, conceits, our worthless or ignoble purposes. Especially it is necessary to shake off the love of worldly gain. With Freedom comes the longing for worldly advancement. In that race men are ever falling, rising, running, and falling again. The lust for wealth and the abject dread of poverty delve the furrows on many a noble brow. The gambler grows old as he watches the chances. Lawful hazard drives Youth away before its time; and this Youth draws heavy bills of exchange on Age. Men live, like the engines, at high pressure, a hundred years in a hundred ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... Robinson Crusoe. No doubt, if you were sitting upon a rock on the Gulf of Finland, my respected Californian friend, you would be hammering off the croppings and trying to discover the indications. You consider that the true philosophy of life—to dig, and delve, and burrow in the ground, and get gold and silver out of it, and suffer rheumatism in your bones and cramps in your stomach, and wear out your life in a practical way, while we visionaries are dreaming sentimental nonsense! But, after all, does the one pay ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... two chairmen with infinite approbation of the audience." The snuff-box of Mr. L. has not a less imposing air; and when a high-priced book is balancing between 15l. and 20l. it is a fearful signal of its reaching an additional sum, if Mr. L. should lay down his hammer, and delve ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... yet sore I fear lest thou come back to me and say, 'Sooth thou hast spoken in thy speech, O my mother!" However Zayn al-Asnam took up a pickaxe and, descending to that part of the palace where his sire lay entombed, began to dig and to delve; nor had he worked a long while[FN19] ere, lo and behold! there appeared to him a ring bedded in a marble slab. He removed the stone and saw a ladder-like flight of steps whereby he descended until he found a huge souterrain all ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... arter nightingales, the pappy poet's darlings, I'm qvite content vith blackbirds brisk, and even busy starlings. The birds vot delve, vot track the plough, vot vatch the rustic thatcher, Are good ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 12, 1892 • Various

... rigorously. Instead of making it possible for them to enjoy the blessings of an enlightened Christianity and a noble civilization, they refuse them the right to live, unless they are content to slave for farmers or descend into the bowels of the earth to delve the gold which enslaves the world, and before whose charms all freedom flies. In short, the object of the white man's rule to-day is not to develop the faculties of the Coloured races so that they ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje

... bank in the Red Light. No one remarks this partic'lar, which said spectacles is frequent. The general idee is that Cherokee's on the squar' an' his game is straight, an' of course public interest don't delve no further into ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis

... and thought of the complications of the present amazed him with proof of how far he had drifted from his old life. He discovered that he hated to take up the broken threads, to delve into dark problems and difficulties. In this beautiful valley he had been living a beautiful dream. Tranquillity had come to him, and the joy of solitude, and interest in all the wild creatures and crannies of this incomparable ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey

... life in the world, crying, "If the contact of Life and Sleep be Death, shame on such Life." To be sure, behind this thought lurks the afterthought of force and dominion,—the making of brown men to delve when the temptation of beads ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois

... runs straight and bare As the pale parting-line in hair Across the heath. And thoughtful men Contrast its days of Now and Then, And delve, and measure, and compare; ...
— Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy

... many historical efforts, principally concerning England in different periods, his History of the Anglo-Saxons stands out prominently as a great work. He was an eccentric scholar, and an antiquarian, and he found just the place to delve in when he undertook that history. The style is not good—too epigrammatic and broken; but his research is great, his speculations bold, and his information concerning the numbers, manners, arts, learning, and ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... little school girls leaping out to delve; One leaped into Cole's Book Arcade, And then there ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole

... not study eternally. The change from a toiling body and idle mind to an idle body and toiling mind requires time to make the latter condition unirksome. Happily there was small need to delve at learning. His brain was like that of a healthy wild animal freshly captured from nature. And as such an animal learns to snap at flung bits of food, springing to meet them and sinking back on his haunches keen-eyed for more; so mentally ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen

... Piazza San Marco, nothing save the tourists and the contents of the bewildering shops; all else remains the same, a little more tarnished by the sea-winds and the march of the decades, perhaps, but still the same. Read your poets and study your romances, but delve into no disillusioning guide-books. Let us put our faith in the gondolier; for his lies are far more picturesque ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath

... boast of a bold art and literature which delve deeply into the social and sexual problems of our time, exercising a severe critique of all our shams. As with a surgeon's knife every Puritanic carcass is dissected, and the way thus cleared for man's liberation from the dead weights of the past. But with Puritanism ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman

... Final Endorsement.—Messrs. DIGGE AND DELVE having had the honour to be commanded to make the necessary arrangements for the obsequies of the late Mr. PITT WELLINGTON, beg to say (on this memorandum) that they have not been fortunate enough to carry out the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 6, 1892 • Various

... rugged heart forlorn! Is there, who ne'er those mystic transports felt Of solitude and melancholy born? He needs not woo the Muse; he is her scorn. The sophist's rope of cobweb he shall twine; Mope o'er the schoolman's peevish page; or mourn, And delve for life in Mammon's dirty mine; Sneak with the scoundrel fox, or ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]

... as the stars come up out of the sea Thou risest from the Earth. How is it down In the dark depths? Should I delve there, O Flower, For beauty? Shall I find the Summer there Met manifold, as in an ark of peace? And Thou, a lone white Dove art thou sent forth Upon the winter deluge? It shall cease, But not for thee—pierced ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... "I don't intend to delve, grub, shuck corn, split rails, and the like always," he told Mrs. Crawford after he had finished reading the "Life of Washington." "I'm going to fit ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden

... stir him to attempted solution. If to make a gentleman one must begin with his grandfather, surely to make a poet one must begin with the race, and in poems even of such bulk as the Prelude one does not find a complete analysis of the singer's forbears. In only one case do we delve far into a poet's heredity. He who will, may perchance hear Sordello's story told, even from his remote ancestry, but to the untutored reader the only clear point regarding heredity is the fusion in Sordello of the restless energy and acumen of his father, Taurello, with the refinement and sensibility ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins

... apostolic twelve Of goods allotment made, So equity dealt out with care The widow's and the orphan's share, And of the aged forced to delve At ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard

... delve to the ultimate springs of slang? A verb which I never met before I enlisted was "to spruce." This is almost, if not quite, a blend of "swinging the lead" and "doing a mike." To spruce is to dodge duty or to deceive. A man who contrived to slip out of the ranks ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir

... regiments have arms of our own already, and as for the mass—he led the way to the war foundry, and showed me scores and scores of knives, of swords, of spits, hatchets, and axes, and reaping-hooks. 'Anything or everything,' he told me, 'which men use to delve in earth, cut timber, or quarry stone, would serve our purpose; nay, the instruments used for other arts would in nine cases out of ten furnish weapons enough and to spare, especially when dealing with unarmed antagonists.'" Once more being asked what time the affair was to come ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon

... which we can already predict; it is rather like a tree, shooting out branches which adapt themselves to the new aspects of the sky towards which they climb, and roots which contort themselves among the strange strata of the earth into which they delve. To us who breathe only the spirit of our own age, and know only the characteristics of contemporary thought, it is as impossible to predict the general tone of the science of the future as it is to anticipate the particular ...
— Five of Maxwell's Papers • James Clerk Maxwell

... toward her and said with grave intensity, "How, dear, are the great truths of science to be ascertained unless men—men and their wives—are willing to delve lovingly, to sacrifice comforts, and even endure hardships in ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant

... times the honest fellow would speak hopefully of a good day to come; but I poured cold water on that, and, pointing to my lute and my copy of "Plutarch's Lives," was wont to say that there was enough happiness there for my life without seeking to reopen the past or delve into the future. ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats

... grain of hardy fame; The imp rejoined, I never heard its name; What is it. Tousell, say'st thou?—I agree, If good return, 'twill be the same to me; Work fellow, work; make haste, the ground prepare; To dig and delve should be the rabble's care; Don't think that I will ever lend a hand, Or give the slightest aid to till the land; I've told thee I'm a gentleman by birth, Designed for ease: not doomed to turn the earth. Howe'er I'll now the diff'rent parts ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine

... fault with you, not a bit. It's only to save you trouble in store that I warn you to look where you stand, and see that you don't lose your heart before you know it. It's an awful thing for a woman, Miss Ivy, to get a notion after a man who hasn't got a notion after her. Men go out and work and delve and drive, and forget; but there a'n't much in darning stockings and making pillow-cases to take a woman's thought off her troubles, and sometimes they get sp'iled ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... of dark and silent thought Sometimes I delve and find strange fancies there, With heavy labour to the surface brought That lie and mock me in the brighter air, Poor ores from starved lodes of poverty, Unfit for working or to be refined, That in the darkness cheat the miner's eye, I turn away from that base cave, ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various

... infected the spirits of the whole county; as it might well do, seeing that, as everyone knows, there are little people who guard the treasures of the mines; and who, if they cannot do bodily hurt to those who delve for metals, can yet infect their spirits with a black melancholy, and do ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty

... right bank of Elbe, it is mere intrenchment for five-and-twenty miles. With bogs, with thickets full of Croats; and such an amount of artillery,—I believe they have in battery no fewer than 1,500 cannon. A position very considerable indeed:—must have taken time to deliberate, delve and invest; but it is done. Near fifty miles of it: here, clear to your glass, has the head of Lacy visibly emerged on us, as if for survey of phenomena:—head of Lacy sure enough (body of him lying invisible in the heights, passes and points of vantage); ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... matter for awhile as though I had not a single doubt as to the authenticity of the old man's tale. I have a theory, and if I am correct I believe I will be able to delve until I strike a clue, and if I do and prove the story correct and solve the mystery, we shall have performed one of the most extraordinary ...
— Two Wonderful Detectives - Jack and Gil's Marvelous Skill • Harlan Page Halsey

... you love me, delve a tomb, And lay me there the earth beneath; After a year, come see my bones, And make them dice to play therewith. But when you're tired of that game, Then throw those dice into the flame; But when you're tired of gaming free, Then throw ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds

... thus from childhood's hour! My fondest hopes would not decay: I never loved a tree or flower Which was the first to fade away! The garden, where I used to delve Short-frock'd, still yields me pinks in plenty: The peartree that I climb'd at twelve I see still ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley

... of the name "Wellfleet" has always been a source of lively interest to those who delight to delve to the roots of things historical. So many of our early towns in Massachusetts were named by the Englishmen who settled them for English towns familiar to them before they came oversea, that England is the natural source ...
— Cape Cod and All the Pilgrim Land, June 1922, Volume 6, Number 4 • Various

... freshman days. I fell into the hands of such an instructor in Greek. We were reading that most charming of Greek stories—The Odyssey. Textual criticism was this man's hobby, and we were put to work trying to compare texts, to delve into the intricacies of form and structure—trying to improve upon Homer! Such information as we could not find he gave us, in the formal lecture, day after day. But when we got it, we did not want it because we did not know what to do with it. Now, I am not quarreling ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd

... his brain, the wish that this case might seem as simple to him as it apparently did to the commissioner. It would certainly have saved him a lot of work and trouble if he could believe the obvious as most people did. What was this devil that rode him and spurred him on to delve into the hidden facts concerning matters that seemed so simple on the surface? The devil that spurred him on to understand that there always was some hidden side to every case? Then the sigh and the smile passed, and Muller raised his head in one of the rare moments of pride in his own gifts ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner

... mental calisthenics, miscalled education. But even this is by no means to be despised. With mind strengthened by exercise, even in a desert, and lungs developed by football, the youth may be able to delve the harder for knowledge when happily released from the "gerund-grinder," to pray the more lustily to the immortal gods for understanding, which transmutes what were else base metal into ingots of fine gold. There was a time when more was expected of a teacher; but that was before the application ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... didn't promise not to act, but only to keep the child's secret. For Ingua's sake, as well as to satisfy your curiosity—and my own—I'm going to delve to the bottom of Ned Joselyn's disappearance. That will involve the attempt to discover all about Old Swallowtail, who is a mystery all by himself. I shall call on you to help me, at times, Mary Louise, but you're not to be told what is weighing so ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)

... the city moans with a human cry, And the man-gnomes delve and burrow for gold till they drop and die; But here there is naught for conquest and the spoiler stands at bay, For God still keeps one playground where He and ...
— Pan and Aeolus: Poems • Charles Hamilton Musgrove

... to delve among pedigrees, genealogies and family connections, may perhaps be a little disappointed to learn that, in spite of the odorous nature of the herbs, there are none whose history reveals a skeleton ...
— Culinary Herbs: Their Cultivation Harvesting Curing and Uses • M. G. Kains

... is more cunning and variegated. He can also delve down to deeps which the other never essayed to fathom. "Fuyez l'infini que vous portez en vous"—a line which, in my friend's copy of the book, had been marked on the margin with a derisive exclamation-point. ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas

... only actual deeds and historical facts, but to aspire to an even higher goal—to conjure to life for a few brief moments the "Souls" of my subjects, stark in all their deathless beauty. What task could be nobler than to delve in these vivid famous lives and bring to light, perhaps, some hitherto undiscovered motive—some delicate and radiant action which so far has escaped the common historian and lain unplucked like a wee wood violet in ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward

... confidence in that fellow. I think I'll wire the San Francisco office to look him up in Dun's and Bradstreet's. Folks up this way are taking too much for granted on that fellow's mere say— so, but I for one intend to delve for facts—particularly with regard to the N.C.O. bank-roll and Ogilvy's associates. I'd sleep a whole lot more soundly to-night if I knew the answer to two ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne

... venturing once more upon the water that you held back so long?" I asked her, seeking rudely to delve into the secret of ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish



Words linked to "Delve" :   withdraw, furrow, rut, rout, spade, burrow, tunnel, trowel, take, groove, take away, turn over, root, shovel, rootle, remove



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