"Plod" Quotes from Famous Books
... some tea and talk, them home by King. The horses have an antiquated plod; The team is old, but not too old to balk If ... — Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... never looked so beautiful—had never felt so proud and happy; proud to present her husband to her good uncle and aunt, who were waiting to welcome them; happy that her beloved Frank would no longer have to plod on life's dull round in poverty ... — Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... his customer are waiting in the man shambles, while the negro messenger with his boy article of trade plod their way along through the busy streets. The negro looks on his charge with a smile of congratulation. "Mas'r 'll laugh all over 'e clothes when he sees ye-dat he will!" he says, ... — Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... of Schiller, raised to a white heat and translated into action. The young student, dreaming the dreams of youth and pining for freedom and action, had more than once felt his gorge rise to the choking-point as he found himself forced to plod on among the dull, oppressive, unheroic facts of life; and those acts of official villainy against which Moor draws the sword he had himself seen flourishing unavenged in his native Wuerttemberg. But, on the other hand, he ... — The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... sure that he could and would follow the advice given. Never before had right living seemed so attractive, and the path of duty so luminous. But the thought that chiefly filled him with joy was that henceforth he would not be compelled to plod forward as a weary pilgrim. He felt that he had wings; some of the divine strength had been given him. He believed himself changed, renewed, transformed; he was confident that his old self had perished and passed away, and that, as a new ... — A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... a favor of Martin Howe if she had to plod every step of the three scorching miles; and if he were brute enough to let her toil along in the heat—to walk while he rode—well, that was all she ever wanted to know about him. Her heart beat tumultuously as she heard ... — The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... knew that they had worked their way down toward the river, but how far down? Was the deep canyon he had tried to follow the right one? Somewhere he had lost the "squaw ax," and dry wood was inaccessible under snow. If it were not for Sprudell, he knew that he could still plod on. ... — The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... Nature shall we widely stray, Where Virgil, not where Fancy, leads the way? Yes, thus the Muses sing of happy swains, Because the Muses never knew their pains: They boast their peasant's pipes; but peasants now Resign their pipes and plod behind the plough; And few, amid the rural tribe, have time To number syllables and play with rhyme; Save honest DUCK, what son of verse could share The poet's rapture and the peasant's care? Or the ... — The Village and The Newspaper • George Crabbe
... outcome of this act; its philosophy, its reasonableness, its result, then I will obey. But the Spirit answers, "It is enough for thee, O child of man, to know Me. Canst thou not trust? Wilt thou not obey? And as thou obeyest thou shalt know. Take this path, plod along its difficult way, climb where it climbs, so shalt thou ascend the steep of obedience, and at each step a further horizon of the truth ... — Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... night were given to sleep. In a few huts Nadia again found a little mutton; but, contrary to Michael's hopes, there was not a single beast of burden in the country; horses, camels—all had been either killed or carried off. They must still continue to plod on across this weary ... — Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... get services for nothing, the good people reject your money as if you had been trying to corrupt a voter. When people take the trouble to do dignified acts, it is worth while to take a little more, and allow the dignity to be common to all concerned. But in our brave Saxon countries, where we plod threescore years and ten in the mud, and the wind keeps singing in our ears from birth to burial, we do our good and bad with a high hand and almost offensively; and make even our alms a witness-bearing and an act of war ... — An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... wouldn't do anything that lay in his power to have the master back once more as he used to be a few years ago. Why, the business seems to have lost all its spring, nowadays," Mr. Jarvis went on, mournfully. "We do well, of course, because we couldn't help doing well, but we plod along more like a machine. It was different altogether in the days when Mr. Weatherley used to bring out the morning orders himself and chaff us about selling for no ... — The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... given to hospitality," he said; "we're always looking for the angel we are going to entertain unawares. Come along home with us, Lewis." And Lewis would plod up the hill and take his turn at the tin washbasin, and then file down the men's side of the stairs to the dining-room, where he and the three old brothers sat at one table, and Athalia and the eight sisters sat at the other table. ... — The Way to Peace • Margaret Deland
... thou rest; and what if thou withdraw In silence from the living, and no friend Take note of thy departure? All that breathe Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care Plod on, and each one as before will chase His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave Their mirth and their employments, and shall come And make their bed with thee. As the long train Of ages glide away, the sons of men— The ... — McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... eyes of most of the town the Wheelers were objects of envy. They had an automobile. They could ride while others must plod along behind them on foot, blinded by their dust and sickened by their noisome odor ... — The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... was compelled by his agreement to devote himself mainly to the musical telegraph, although his heart was now with the telephone. For exactly three months after his interview with Professor Henry, he continued to plod ahead, along both lines, until, on that memorable hot afternoon in June, 1875, the full TWANG of the clock-spring came over the wire, and the telephone ... — The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... Talladega applications from fifty such in a single year. It is often pitiful to hear their appeals to be admitted to school, when denial is forced upon them, since there is neither room nor money. Still, there are many who secure books, seek help, and blindly plod on. ... — The American Missionary - Volume 52, No. 1, March, 1898 • Various
... "an infidel!" Ah, no! The tale's incredible—it was not so. The untutored savage through the world may plod, Reckless of Heaven and ignorant of his God; But that a mind that's culled improvement's flowers From all her brightest amaranthine bowers, A mind whose keen and comprehensive glance Comprised at once a world—should worship chance, Is strangely inconsistent—seems ... — Heart Utterances at Various Periods of a Chequered Life. • Eliza Paul Kirkbride Gurney
... sod, Weet the lang roads whaur gangrels plod - A maist unceevil thing o' God In mid July - If ye'll just curse the sneckdraw, ... — Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson
... bellman's. [484] His time however was not always so absurdly wasted. He had that sort of industry and that sort of exactness which would have made him a respectable antiquary or King at Arms. His taste led him to plod among old records; and in that age it was only by plodding among old records that any man could obtain an accurate and extensive knowledge of the law of Parliament. Having few rivals in this laborious and unattractive ... — The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... is the 4/3 step throughout, but with a difference. It is more of a plod, with less of stamping and much less lifting of the feet. Morris Off, danced in the traditional manner, gives one the impression of a company agreeably tired, but pleased and comfortable, having rollicked ... — The Morris Book • Cecil J. Sharp
... standard of excellence, of such as have in them the makings of striking and eloquent preachers. Dull and stupid fellows never deviate into the extravagance and absurdity which I specially understand by Veal. They plod along in a humdrum manner; there is no poetry in their soul,—none of those ambitious stirrings which lead the man who has in him the true spark of genius to try for grand things and incur severe and ignominious tumbles. A heavy dray-horse, walking along the road, may possibly advance ... — Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... minds to wait tranquilly, and put some confidence in my goodwill, if not my power, to get on as well as may be, I shall not repine; but I verily believe that the "nobler sex" find it more difficult to wait, to plod, to work out their destiny inch by inch, than their sisters do. They are always for walking so fast and taking such long steps, one cannot keep up with them. One should never tell a gentleman that one has commenced a task till it is nearly achieved. Currer Bell, even if he had no ... — Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... the staff of Peaceful Moments to arrive at the office on the following morning was Master Maloney. This sounds like the beginning of a "Plod and Punctuality," or "How Great Fortunes have been Made" story, but, as a matter of fact, Master Maloney, like Mr. Bat Jarvis, was no early bird. Larks who rose in his neighborhood, rose alone. He did not get up with them. He was supposed to be at the office ... — The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... me, an' lang's the road! He fain at my side wud hae timed his plod, But, eh, he was sent for, an' hurried awa! Noo, I'm thinkin he's harkin to hear ... — Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... Christian; had he lives many as the footprints he had trodden, vengeance should demand them all. In a tempest of murderous hate he followed on in haste, for the track was plain enough, starting with such a burst of speed as could not be maintained, but brought him back soon to a plod for the spent, sobbing breath to be regulated. He cursed Christian aloud and called White Fell's name on high in a frenzied expense of passion. His grief itself was a rage, being such an intolerable anguish of pity and shame at the thought of his ... — The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... thing to jump a hook and ladder truck up Broadway to the relief of a fire-threatened block, and quite another to plod humbly along the curb from ash-can to ash-can. How Silver did hate those cans. Each one should have been for him a signal to stop. But it was not. In consequence, he was yanked to a halt ... — Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... wretched present from Chitunkue; bad flour and a fowl, evidently meant to be rejected. He sent also an exorbitant demand for gunpowder, and payment of guides. I refused his present, and must plod on without guides, and this is very ... — The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... Christian is a good hater. "Ye that love the Lord hate evil." This is an age of toleration. Almost any false doctrine may be preached, while many of the religious teachers of so-called orthodoxy plod on their way indifferently. Error thrives, a multitude of souls are deceived, but many seem but little concerned. Evil raises its head everywhere and sneers at the Christian people. Dens of vice, gambling-houses, lewd picture-shows, ... — Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... commercial failure means to English merchants—utter ruin, present and prospective, and obliterating all the successful past; how little chance they have of ever getting up again; how they feel that they must plod heavily onward under a burden of disgrace—poor men and hopeless men and men forever ashamed. I doubt whether any future prosperity (which is unlikely enough to come to them) could ever compensate them for this misfortune, or make them, to their own consciousness, the men they were. ... — Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... horse with wings! Hear'st thou, Pisanio? He is at Milford Haven. Read, and tell me How far 'tis thither. If one of mean affairs May plod it in a week, why may not I Glide thither in a day? Then, true Pisanio, (Who long'st like me, to see thy lord—who long'st— O let me bate, but not like me—yet long'st, But in a fainter kind—O not like ... — Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... the earth men pant and plod, March, laughing at the showers and days unsteady, And whispering secret orders to the sod, ... — Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier
... fortune to meet with any difficult points, I fret not my selfe about them, but after I have given them a charge or two, I leave them as I found them. Should I earnestly plod upon them, I should loose both time and my selfe, for I have a skipping wit. What I see not at the first view, I shall lesse see it if I opinionate my selfe upon it. I doe nothing without blithnesse; ... — Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... white sun, with its glazed, coalescing, lurid fire; the caked split lips and rasping, dry-puffed tongue; the sickening ache in the pit of his stomach; the insupportable silence, the empty space, the utter desolation, the contempt of life; the weary ride, the long climb, the plod in sand, the search, search, search for water; the sleepless night alone, the watch and wait, the dread of ambush, the swift flight; the fierce pursuit of men wild as Bedouins and as fleet, the willingness to deal sudden death, ... — Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... Yet rather would I dwell With them, with wildness and its stealthy forms— Yea, rather with wild men, wild beasts and birds, Than in the sordid town that here may rise. For here I am a part of Nature's self, And not divorced from her like men who plod The weary streets of care in search of gain. And here I feel the friendship of the earth: Not the soft cloying tenderness of hand Which fain would satiate the hungry soul With household honey-combs and parloured sweets, But the strong friendship of primeval things— The rugged ... — Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair
... wished Wittemore would come back and say his mother was better! It was Wittemore that had started all this queer side-track of philanthropy; that had sent him off to make toast for old women and manage funerals for strange young girls. If Wittemore would get back to his classes and plod off to his slums every day, with his long horse-like face and his scared little apologetic smile, why, perhaps his own mind would assume its normal bent and let him get at his work. And with that he sat down and wrote a letter to Wittemore, brief, sympathetic, inquiring, offering any help that ... — The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... and effort between us and the longed for summit. We have not been discouraged for behind us lay fifty years of marvelous achievement. We have known that we should reach that goal but we have also known that there was no way to do it but to plod on patiently, step by step. Yet suddenly, almost without warning, we see upon that summit another army. How came it there? It has neither descended from heaven nor made the long, hard journey, yet there above us all the women of Finland stand today. Each ... — The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... there are enough of them, I must plod along in the ways that are made for me already. We can make ... — On the Church Steps • Sarah C. Hallowell
... dull tormented earth into towers, domes, and pinnacles of gleaming metal,—and weaves for every distant summit a robe of variegated light, such as the "Delectable Mountains" must have worn for the rapt gaze of weary "Christian;"—and another to plod over the same forty miles, drenched to the skin, seeing nothing but the dim, grey roots of hills, that rise you know not how, and you care not where,—with no better employment than to look at your watch, and wonder when you shall reach your ... — Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... time his father died, without leaving him, a younger son, a competence. Nor would his great relatives give him an office or sinecure by which he might be supported while he sought truth, and he was forced to plod at the law, which he never liked, resisting the blandishments and follies by which he was surrounded; and at intervals, when other young men of his age and rank were seeking pleasure, he was studying ... — Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... streets. There is no change they are not willing to make; and their patience and perseverance are unconquerable, about staying and going on with their work. As an Eastern writer said of them: "They bow to the storm, and rise up, and plod on in the intervals." It is very true of them, as we see them here,—so unresisting, ... — Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... iron ring in its nostrils, Covered with crimson cloth, and a cushion placed for a saddle. She should not walk, he said, through the dust and heat of the noonday; Nay, she should ride like a queen, not plod along like a peasant. Somewhat alarmed at first, but reassured by the others, 1000 Placing her hand on the cushion, her foot in the hand of her husband, Gayly, with joyous laugh, Priscilla mounted her palfrey. "Nothing is ... — Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... one way for us to go Mr. Gist," said Washington; "you and I must strike right through the wilderness alone, leaving the party to reach there as best they can. My report will be too late if we plod along in this way." ... — From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... struggling down the road through the storm of the afternoon before, had worried not a little about him, and would have gone back to his aid, if they could have done so. But the wind and snow had been too fierce; and they could only plod on, hoping that his usual luck and cleverness would not desert him, and that he ... — The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... hour and the last room, he would come upon the painting that gave him the peg for his eloquence, make an elaborate study of it, tell us his task was finished, and hurry off exultant. But envy him as I might, I couldn't borrow his briskness. I had to plod on all morning and again all afternoon until the Academy closed, to look at every picture before I could be sure which was the right peg or whether there might not be a dozen pegs and more. And I had to collect elaborate notes, not daring to trust to my memory ... — Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... proficiency of the French in philosophy, the arts, and sciences, is not so much the result of patient investigation and laborious and continued study, as a kind of intuition which amounts to genius. The French mind is quick, and does not plod slowly toward eminence; it leaps to it. Certainly, in brilliancy of talents the French surpass every other nation. I will not do them the injustice to speak of them as they are at this moment—crushed under the despotism of Louis Napoleon—but as they have been in the last few ... — Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... all when thou dost plod, Alone, upon these wintry days, Along the old familiar ways Wherein his little feet ... — The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... end, where last week the poor fellow fell who lifted his helmet a moment too soon after he got out and caught one whiff which sent him to the hospital, but instead we seem to be turning around and going back. But there is no time for explanations or questions now; we just plod on through the darkness and soon we are out in the sunlight again—safe!—in God's pure air. Oh, why did man ever want to pollute it and poison his brother with these ... — With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy
... stay-at-home little housewives, the angels of many a happy hearth, whose busy fingers, beaming smiles and gentle accents are the rest and refuge of many a toil-worn weaver at life's heavy loom. To lay aside the world's distressing cares at sunset, to wipe his moistened brow, and "homeward plod his weary way" to his cabin small and lowly, where glows this cheerful love in one dear breast, in one sweet face, is to the uncouth "ploughman" a joy, a comfort, which many ... — The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... a mile ere they come at you, and smell 'am half an hour after they are past you: sixe or seaven make a perfect Morrice-daunce; they need no Bells, their Spurs serve their turne: I am ashamed to traine 'am abroade, theyle say I carrie a whole Forrest of Feathers with mee, and I should plod afore 'am in plaine stuffe, like a writing Schole-maister before his Boyes ... — English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... sky, I drifted back again in thought to the glorious days of Kublai Khan. My heart was hot with resentment that this thing had come. I realized then that, for better or for worse, the sanctity of the desert was gone forever. Camels will still plod their silent way across the age-old plains, but the mystery is lost. The secrets which were yielded up to but a chosen few are open now to all, and the world and his wife will speed their noisy course across the miles of rolling prairie, hearing nothing, feeling nothing, knowing nothing ... — Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... Bois-le-Pretre, did a thriving business selling fruit to the soldiers, and I once saw an old peasant woman, who was digging potatoes in her garden when a small shell burst about two hundred feet from her, shake her fist toward the German lines, mutter something, and plod angrily home to her cellar. There are rarely any children close to the trenches, but in villages that are only occasionally shelled, the school is open, and the class hurries to the cellar at ... — A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... watch, yes, but on the whole sparingly practise. Their snuffy old scholars will even be proud to decry them. Where once the simians swung high through forests, or scampered like deer, their descendants will plod around farms, or mince along city streets, moving constrictedly, ... — This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.
... stretches of rock. Here wild vines and lupines were growing in patches where the lava had decayed into soil. Then came bare slopes with dark hollow and sharp ridges. We walked on old stiff lava-streams. Sometimes we had to plod through piles of coarse, porous cinders. Sometimes we climbed over tangled, lumpy beds of twisted, shiny rock. Sometimes we looked into dark arched tunnels. Red streams had once flowed out of them. A few times we passed near fresh cracks in the ... — Buried Cities: Pompeii, Olympia, Mycenae • Jennie Hall
... cried triumphantly. "He amuses me that way sometimes, and my fascinations never disturb the even tenor of his thoughts: he will plod on with his foolish old mathematics with my head on his shoulder. There! I oughtn't to have said that," she added with a little ... — Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... is due in great part to their own corruption: their type is continually arising again; Goethe and Leopardi, for example, belong to it. Behind them plod the philologist-savants. This type has its origin in the sophisticism of ... — We Philologists, Volume 8 (of 18) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... by slow decay, A hundred codes and systems proven vain Lie hearsed in sand upon the heaving plain, Memorial ruins mounded, still and gray; And we who plod the barren waste to-day Another code evolving, think to gain Surcease of man's inheritance of pain And mold a state immune ... — The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... there alone! So shalt thou rest; and what if thou withdraw In silence from the living, and no friend Take note of thy departure? All that breathe Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care Plod on, and each one, as before, will chase His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave Their mirth and their employments, and shall come And make their bed with thee. As the long train Of ages glide away, the sons of men— The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes In the ... — The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... before hired bravos to transact their crimes, while their own person and reputation sat under shelter. I was the first that ever did so for his pleasures. I was the first that could thus plod in the public eye with a load of genial respectability, and in a moment, like a schoolboy, strip off these lendings and spring headlong into the sea of liberty. But for me, in my impenetrable mantle, ... — Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
... resistless will—the same will which once went before without force. They are all trimmed as much as possible to one pattern, and all make the same sad plaint. It is a day on which to thank God for the unknown tongue. The drover and his lad in dusty blue coats plod along stolidly, deaf and blind to all but the way before them; no longer wielding the crook, instrument of deliverance, or at most of gentle compulsion, but armed with a heavy stick and mechanically dealing blows on the short thick fleeces; without evil intent because without ... — The Roadmender • Michael Fairless
... need more patience than those dealing with Psychology. Even those who put their knowledge to a practical use in such studies as divination by tea-leaves, must still plod patiently along a path thickly strewn with new knowledge. The powers of clairvoyance, for instance, cannot be forced or hurried; such arbitrary laws as time have no meaning for the subconscious self, therefore the need ... — Telling Fortunes By Tea Leaves • Cicely Kent
... language doesn't seem to be sufficient, for so far the team looks on me with mild scorn." Jim grinned. "It's nervous work for Joe, too. I got him with the tail of the whip yesterday, when I'd every intention of correcting old Ranger! However, I plod on, and Joe keeps well out of the way now. He yells instructions at me from some way ... — Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... man, and straightway man made God; No wonder if a tang of that same sod, Whereout we issued at a breath, should cling To all we fashion. We can only plod Lit by a starveling candle; and we sing Of what we can ... — Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... start again early in the morning. They had by this time grown quite accustomed to the plod, plodding of the train; it seemed almost one of the normal and necessary conditions of life. They went down by Genoa, Spezia, Pisa, Sienna, and Rome, making the shortest ... — Sunrise • William Black
... been indefatigable in my service, and writes with such zeal for my interests, and such warmth of sorrow for my sufferings, as if he wrote with fire and tears. God bless him! I wish above all things to realize a school. I could be well content to plod from morning to night, if only I could secure a secure competence; but to toil incessantly for uncertain bread ... — Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... whose presence I had felt more than seen the last few days, now forsook me altogether. But I was not alone. By some process which I was too weak to solve, my arms, legs, and stomach were transformed into so many traveling companions. Often for hours I would plod along conversing with these imaginary friends. Each had his peculiar wants which he expected me to supply. The stomach was importunate in his demand for a change of diet—complained incessantly of the roots I fed him, their present effect and more remote consequences. I would ... — Thirty-Seven Days of Peril - from Scribner's Monthly Vol III Nov. 1871 • Truman Everts
... more ordinary than is supposed. Plod rather than cleverness is often the best missionary equipment." Rev. J. ... — Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... covenant comes out, When every man gathers his fee; I'le take my blew blade all in my hand, And plod to the green wood ... — English Songs and Ballads • Various
... Andy about it, and he liked the idea immense. Andy was a man of an involved nature. He was never content to plod along, as I was, selling to the peasantry some little tool like a combination steak beater, shoe horn, marcel waver, monkey wrench, nail file, potato masher and Multum in Parvo tuning fork. Andy had the artistic temper, which is not to be judged as a ... — The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... work much depends on our attitude regarding our calling. We can plod like an ox, or like Markham's semi-brute man with the hoe, and make that the badge of servitude to toil, or we can make it a wand in a magician's hand to call forth radiant forms of beauty from the somber earth to smile upon ... — Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... see every little dyke or embankment with a crowd of bustling villagers, each with a heavy bundle of grain on his head, hurrying to and fro like a stream of busy ants. The women, with clothes tucked up above the knee, plod and plash through the water. They go at a half run, a kind of fast trot, and hardly a word is spoken—garnering the rice crops is too important an operation to dawdle and gossip over. Each hurries off ... — Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... rapids still toss'd into foam of pure whiteness; On falls the most glorious that Earth has e'er seen! Strength acquiring, in admiring All as the matchless work of God; Can, with pleasure, leave such treasure, And my journey onward plod. ... — The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... the slender stem of a wild sunflower, warbles a sweet assurance of this as I pass near by. Breaking off the clear crystal song, he turns his wee head from side to side eyeing me wisely as slowly I plod with moccasined feet. Then again he yields himself to his song of joy. Flit, flit hither and yon, he fills the summer sky with his swift, sweet melody. And truly does it seem his vigorous freedom lies more in his little spirit than ... — American Indian stories • Zitkala-Sa
... pleasant to lose sight entirely of a beautiful scene, and to plod along for a few hundred yards in almost objectless shadow. Our conceptions and feelings are bright and strong from the nearness of their objects, yet the dream is somewhat different from the reality. ... — Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... stroll, tramp, stride, plod, trudge, tread, ambulate, pace, march, promenade, shamble, stalk, strut, step, bundle, toddle, daddle, waddle, shuffle, gad, galavant, hike, saunter, foot it, slouch; perambulate ... — Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... life for a long time, but you must not ask me to think or give way to feeling, much less to talk about myself and—and—the others. If I should lose this stolid self-control which I am gaining, and which enables me to plod along day by day with my eyes shut to what may be on the morrow, I believe I should become ... — Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... satisfied to plod along in the good old way which their fathers had trod before them; content because they knew no better, and the times ... — Silver Links • Various
... but in a weary, devious way, till he seemed to wake up all at once to the fact that it was growing dark, and that a thick mist was gradually creeping round him, and he was growing wet, as well as so faint and weary that he could hardly plod along. ... — Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... almost the only things she did enjoy, however. It was hard work to read for two hours every morning with Miss Rachel, who made her plod wearily through dreary histories and works of science that are reduced to compendiums and abridgements for the favoured students ... — The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... field on the ridge to plough, and Brindle must be shod, And at noon, through the lane from the farm-house, I see him slowly plod; In the strong frame, chewing his cud, he patiently stands, but see! The bands have been placed around him—he struggles to be free: But John and Timothy hammer away, until each hoof is arm'd, Then loosen'd Brindle looks all round, as ... — The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... said in a tired voice. "Don't heckle her any more. After all, I'm getting on toward fifty and I guess it's too late for me to begin over, anyhow. I'll plod ... — Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... muse, unraimented with rhyme, Her hair unfilleted, her feet unshod, Naked and not ashamed demands of God No covering for her beauty's youth or prime. Clad but with thought, as space is clad with time, Or both with worlds where man and angels plod, She runs in joy, magnificently odd, Ruggedly wreathed with flowers of every clime. And you to whom her breath is sweeter far Than choicest attar of the martyred rose More deeply feel mortality's unrest Than poets born beneath a happier star, ... — Walt Whitman Yesterday and Today • Henry Eduard Legler
... while I must struggle with those bookes which I vnderstand and content myselfe to plod upon them, in hope that God (who knoweth the sincerenesse of my desire) will be pleased to open my vnderstanding, so as I may reape that profit of my reading, which I trauell for. Yet is there a gentleman in this company, whom I have had often a purpose to ... — A Biography of Edmund Spenser • John W. Hales
... party were to go to Count von Rappoltstein in the village of Rappolts, and this time Ulrich was not to plod along on foot, or he in a close baggage-wagon; no, he was to be allowed to ride a spirited horse. The escort would not consist of hired servants, but of picked men, and the count was going to join the train in person at the hill crowned ... — Uarda • Georg Ebers
... moral. The quaintness of the objects unearthed seems to be a sufficient recompense for the labour of the search. Fortunately for his design, he lived in the time when a poet might have spoken without hyperbole of the 'fairy tales of science.' To us, who have to plod through an arid waste of painful observation, and slow piecing together of cautious inferences before reaching the promised land of wondrous discoveries, the expression sometimes appears to be ironical. Does not science, we may ask with a prima facie resemblance of right, destroy as much poetry ... — Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... Plod on through the sand-wastes of Fact, Long level of gritty aridity; With pompous conceit make a pact, Be bondsman to bald insipidity; Be slab as a black Irish bog, Slow, somnolent, stupid, and stodgy; ... — Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 15, 1893 • Various
... world where we shall not have to plod through so much doubt and misgiving, and where our real feelings will be ... — Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams
... Grundyite, who says "Shocking," "Not nice," when human nature writhes in its agony and cries aloud for that drop of water which he, the virtuous conformist, refuses. He goes to the flat-footed and broad-waisted; those who plod along the beaten highway, and turn neither to the right hand nor to the left, neither to the hills nor the hollows. But he speaks a foreign language, and they heed him not. The iron-bound care nought. Does that cry of suffering raise the price ... — The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... inconvenience coupled with being called upon to pose as a genius at the comparatively early age of twenty-six. Popular theory to the contrary, notwithstanding, it is easier to plod slowly along on the path to fame. Greatness does not repeat itself, every day in the week. But fate had overtaken Gifford Barrett, and had hung a wreath of tender young laurels about his boyish brow. He ... — Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... sitting very tight, was thrown forward when the horse rose, and, when he alighted, lost his stirrup, reeled, and came over on to mother earth; and when he rose to his feet he had the mortification to see Sir Robert careering away in great delight, and he proceeded to plod through the heavy ground ... — Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... there had been a change of the olden customs, and instead of the long chapter, through which Uncle Ephraim used to plod so wearily, there was now read the Evening Psalms, Aunt Betsy herself joining in the reading, which she mentally classed with the "quirks," but confessed to herself that it "was most as ... — Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... reasons for these lapses, if the hermit but knew them. Though he is stagnant in his cell, his connections without are whirling in the very vortex of life. That void interval which passes for him so slowly that the very clocks seem at a stand, and the wingless hours plod by in the likeness of tired tramps prone to rest at milestones—that same interval, perhaps, teems with events, and pants with hurry for ... — Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... motley, unattractive throng, They toil and plod, Dead to the holy ecstasies of song, ... — Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... never saw such ugly shadows, and once I had to stop and get breath before I could make up my mind to pass a clump of old mulberry bushes. Once in a while I heard a crackle behind me like a footstep, but I didn't look back. I knew my only chance was to plod ahead, no matter how my heart thumped or my knees shook. I thought of everything I could to bolster me up—of dear old Aunt Pam and poor little Maggie. But the sound of the waves on the beach was awful! ... — Harper's Young People, January 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... learned it well. Then, you can play the violin, and not one of the lads can, though they want to do it very much. But, best of all, Nat, you really care to learn something, and that is half the battle. It seems hard at first, and you will feel discouraged, but plod away, and things will get easier and easier ... — Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... healthful and good, For tuning the nerves and digesting the food— Graceful gymnastics for stirring the blood Without the gross purpose of use Ant, let me tell you 'tis not a la mode To plod like a pilgrim, and carry a load, Perverting the limbs that for grace were bestowed, By ... — The Youth's Coronal • Hannah Flagg Gould
... smiled. "Well said, sir. Science knows no party lines. Your chosen subject rises above the valley of partisanry where we old wheel-horses plod—stinging each other in the dust, as the poet finely says. Mr. West has told ... — Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... envy, he would lay the fault upon the world. How great he could have been, if he had been rich and high-born! Oh, he was made to spend, not to save,—to command, not to fawn! He was not formed to plod through the dull mediocrities of fortune; he must toss up for the All or the Nothing! It was no control over himself that made Varney now turn his thoughts from certain grave designs on Percival St. ... — Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... happinesse, that remaines loyall to his Vow, and your encreasing in Loue. Leonatus Posthumus. Oh for a Horse with wings: Hear'st thou Pisanio? He is at Milford-Hauen: Read, and tell me How farre 'tis thither. If one of meane affaires May plod it in a weeke, why may not I Glide thither in a day? Then true Pisanio, Who long'st like me, to see thy Lord; who long'st (Oh let me bate) but not like me: yet long'st But in a fainter kinde. Oh not ... — The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... Submission would come easier if you took up some of those neglected duties, and you would be stronger for patience, if you used more of your strength for service. You do well if you do not sink under your burden, but you would do better if, with it on your shoulders, you would plod steadily along the road; and if you did, you would feel the weight less. It seems heaviest when you stand still doing nothing. Do not cease to toil because you suffer. You will feel your pain more if you do. Take the encouragement which Scripture gives, that it may animate ... — Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... plod back along the road by which she had come not altogether full of hope, but full of a conviction that a crisis in her life was approaching. No crisis, apparently, had supervened; and there was nothing left for her to do but to continue upon that starve-acre farm till ... — Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... exhilarating air gave my mind a new sense of liberty, and Jacqueline, who had been watching me anxiously, seeing the gloom disappear from my face, tried, first to tempt me to mirth, and then to match me in it. Sometimes we would run a little way, and then we would fall back into our steady, ambling plod ... — Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... as they are castigated. It is true they praise me so much, that had I Paradise in my bosom, less of praise would suffice. I perceive that you suppose me to be just what God wishes that I were. I am a poor man and of little merit, who plod along in the art which God gave me, to lengthen out my life as far as possible. Such as I am, I remain your servant and that of all the house of Martelli. I thank you for your letter and the poems, but not as much as duty bids, for I cannot soar to ... — The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... our notion of teaching and teachers has been reconstructed. When we secure teachers who have education and not mere knowledge, we may begin to hope. We must look to the colleges and normal schools to furnish such teachers. If they cannot do so, our schools must plod along on the path of tradition without hope of finding the better way. There are faint indications, however, here and there, that the colleges and normal schools are beginning to stir in their sleep ... — The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... humble feet did plod, My bosom beating with the glow of song; And high-born fancy walk'd with me along, Treading the earth ... — The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 343, November 29, 1828 • Various
... the principles by which they are governed, and which sometimes serves them for their excuse; since they know better, but do not care to give themselves the trouble of acting up to their knowledge. Thus they plod in the safe, and broad road of mediocrity, but without any reputation or name. They are neither envied ... — A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... flashed one quick glance. There was something to come yet. The officers-of-the-day had gone—Curbit to shed furs and sabre at his quarters and say "Thank God!" Snaffle, his junior in rank but senior in years, a veteran of the old dragoons, to plod wearily back towards the guard-house for a conference with ... — Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... at the bottom of the wine there is a bitter dreg called satiety; but Virtue does not much heed that; like the woman she is, she only notes that Sin drives a pair of ponies in the sunshine, while she herself is often left to plod wearily through the everlasting falling rain. So she dubs us "cynics" and leaves us—who can wonder if we won't follow her through the rain? Sin smiles so merrily if she makes us pay toll at the end; whereas Virtue—ah me, Virtue will ... — Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... sirrah; bear you these letters tightly; Sail like my pinnace to these golden shores. Rogues, hence, avaunt! vanish like hailstones, go; Trudge, plod away o' hoof; seek shelter, pack! Falstaff will learn the humour of this age; French thrift, you ... — The Merry Wives of Windsor • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... type, don't attempt to win success in any vocation requiring quick thought and quick decision. You like to reason things out; you want to know why before you go ahead. Your success lies in lines which require slow, thoughtful, careful reasoning, mature deliberation, and an ability to plod diligently through ... — Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... written in the pouring rain, in a shaking stagecoach, or by the light of a lantern. They were also promptly handed in at the office, despite the fact that the stages sometimes broke down and left their passengers to plod on foot through the miry roads leading into London. These reports and newspaper articles soon attracted attention; and Dickens received an offer for a series of humorous sketches, which grew into the famous Pickwick Papers, and earned L20,000 ... — Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... was happy. True, it was not all play. There were muddy roads to plod through and treacherous sloughs to cross. There were nights when camp had to be pitched in rain, and mornings when he was obliged to rise stiff and sore to find the cattle strayed away and everything wet and grimy. But the sunshine soon warmed ... — The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... crestfallen, Donald returned to Kildun and urged the Prince to instant flight. But not even the fear of immediate capture could induce the three wearied men to set out again in the wet and darkness to plod over rocks and morasses with no certain goal. So Donald had to control his fears and impatience ... — The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... water, doing its own cooking, and washing up its own tin dinner service, while one man in each division stood guard. Special duties were assigned to the "extras," and Will's was to ride up and down the train delivering orders. This suited his fancy to a dot, for the oxen were snail-gaited, and to plod at their heels was dull work. Kipling tells us it is quite impossible to "hustle the East"; it were as easy, as Will discovered, to ... — Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... with a cheerful mien. It was, of course, an annoyance to have to plod back along the road they had before traversed but, upon the other hand, there was a general satisfaction that they were, after all, to take part in the capture ... — On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... he seems a God, While Sophs and Freshmen, tremble at his nod. Whilst all around sit wrapt in speechless gloom, His voice in thunder shakes the sounding dome; Denouncing dire reproach, to luckless fools, Unskill'd to plod ... — Fugitive Pieces • George Gordon Noel Byron
... disguises—unhook them, rather. He must know all the cant-phrases, the cant-references. There are very, very many of them, and belike it is hard to keep them all at one's finger-tips. But, at least, there is no difficulty in collecting them. Plod through the 'leaders' and 'notes' in half-a-dozen of the daily papers, and you will bag whole ... — Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... into tears, Then calmed again: "my reindeer fleet, I gave them up: on foot, my dears, I now must plod through snow ... — The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... one. Nowhere else can such a mixture of races be seen, and each nationality was enjoying itself in its own peculiar fashion—all except the Chinese, who were, as usual, hard at work in their little dens. No recreation for this people. Work, work, work! They never play, never smile, but plod away, from early morning until late at night. The Chinaman's objection to giving his creditor in New York a note was because it "walkee, walkee alle timee; walkee, walkee, no sleepee." They seem to me to emulate ... — Round the World • Andrew Carnegie |