"Pry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... In order to provide for this contingency some Bhoyars give their children ten or twelve names at birth. If all the names fail, the Joshi invents new ones of his own, and in some way brings about the auspicious union to the satisfaction of both parties, who consider it no business of theirs to pry into the Joshi's calculations or to question his methods. After the marriage-shed is erected the family god must be invoked to be present at the ceremony. He is asked to come and take his seat in an earthen pot containing a lighted wick, the pot being supported ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... the Jesuits entered heart and soul into the work of education, winning their pupils' hearts by kindness, watching their moods, directing their minds into congenial studies, and inspiring them with generous sentiments, they did not stop to pry into their motives; and universities, when they discovered the superior culture of educated Jesuits, outstripping all their associates in learning, and shedding a light by their genius and erudition, very naturally appointed them to the highest chairs; ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... ravine—to her. But Blake's work was not the kind to slip or pull out. The watcher looked at the powerful figure backing rapidly down that roof-like pitch. One of the toes of the level tripod under the taut loop would easily pry the rope off the spike-head. He turned his pack around to get at the tripod—and paused to look upwards at the three tiny faces peering down over the ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... Stan's pardner, of course. These two laddie-bucks are some small part of the gang, bunch, or congregation that's been preyin' on Stan.' 'What they tryin' to put over on Stan now?' I asks, curiosity getting the better of my good manners. 'Not to pry into private matters any,' says I, 'but this thing is getting personal. I can feel malicious animal magnetism coursin' through every vein and leapin' from crag to crag,' says I. 'A joke's a joke, and I can take a joke as well as ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... the Kapellmeister slowly, "Don't be offended if I ask, or think that I am trying to pry into your affairs. When you were rehearsing this morning it occurred to me.—There was something new in the quality of your tone. Before, you were a virtuoso; your technique was something to gaze at and harken to, and there was no technique like ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... meant by that "not many more opportunities," but forebore to ask him lest she might unintentionally pry into some matter of which he did not wish to speak. Another enigmatical fragment from his secret thought came out when she asked his advice about her own relations with Brand. She told him how repugnant she was beginning to find her work because—and here she skipped lightly and diplomatically ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... patience and courtesy—in the latter part of which I was entirely in their power, from their having possession of our arms—they had manifested no ungenerous sign of taking advantage of the helplessness and dependance of our situation; no rude curiosity to pry into the packages with which they were entrusted; or no sordid desire to possess the contents of them; although among them were articles exposed to view, of which it afterwards appeared they knew the use, and longed for the benefit. Let the banks of those rivers, "known to ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... quickly and stood in front of him. There was a spot of color on both her cheeks, and her hands were clasped together. "Gilbert, let's both go there. Let's get away from all these people for a time. I won't ask you any questions or try and pry into what's happened to you. I'll be very quiet and help ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... welcome to look elsewhere and anywhere," Harleston interjected. "I'll trust you not to pry into matters other than the letter. By the ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... to tell me, Ned, anything that happens at home—God forbid that I should pry into matters so sacred as relations between a boy and a parent!—but I can see, my boy, that something is wrong. You are not yourself. At first when you came back I thought all was well with you; you were, as was natural, ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... from lack of knives and forks! On such a walk, how easy to pick one's self up after lunch, throw the dinner-table away, and trot on to the next village. As a girl passes from town to town, how eager she is to note their characteristics, to look at the people curiously, and to pry into their shop-windows. How much she learns about Nature! Is the sky so blue at home? Are the wild flowers so abundant? Is the grass so soft and green? Oh, girls! try to make yourselves at home with Nature, and walk out among her attractions. In all your observations of Nature do not ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... he said, and taking the paper in his hand he glanced over it. He had no desire to pry into any man's private affairs, but he wasn't going to sign anything without ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... impatience, and partly from a wish to pry—he opened the door of the parlour. "Oh, my God!" he screamed, leaping back, and with his bulky bag got stuck in the kitchen door, in his ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... forward, those on the wings hung back. Near the head of the jam the men worked like demons. Wherever the timbers caught or hesitated for a moment in their slow crushing forward, there a dozen men leaped savagely, to jerk, heave and pry with their heavy peavies. Continually under them the footing shifted; sullen logs menaced them with crushing or complete engulfment in their grinding mill. Seemingly they paid no attention to this, but gave all their energies to the work. ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... Mrs. Meeker's gate. He swung it open and she followed him across the garden to where a worn, grassy path, once a carriage drive, led past the house to the back yard. Here stood Mrs. Meeker, a hatchet in her hand, trying to pry ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... I had no wish to pry further into their bloody practices; but Bill seemed bent on it, so I turned and went. We passed rapidly through the bush, being guided in the right direction by the shouts of the savages. Suddenly there was a dead silence, which continued for some time, while Bill and I involuntarily quickened ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... their own Hops and Barley. Those at Helm, when they acted in Publick, shew'd themselves on all Accounts exempt and wholly divested from Thirst; made several Laws to prevent the Growth of it, and punish the Wicked who openly dared to quench it. If you examin'd them in their private Persons, and pry'd narrowly into their Lives and Conversations, they seem'd to be more fond, or at least drank larger Draughts of Small Beer than others, but always under Pretence that the Mending of Complexions required greater Quantities of Liquor in them, than it did in those they ruled over; and that what ...
— A Letter to Dion • Bernard Mandeville
... But the great migrations of the fourth century had destroyed the classical world of the Mediterranean, and the Christian Church, which was more interested in the life of the soul than in the life of the body, had regarded science as a manifestation of that human arrogance which wanted to pry into divine affairs which belonged to the realm of Almighty God, and which therefore was closely related ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... on finding out things that were not intended for her to know. I hadn't thought. If mothah took all the trouble of sending a special-delivery lettah to you to keep me from knowing till my birthday, I'm not going to pry ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... act, therefore, was to send out a galley under Volusenus "to pry along the coast," and meanwhile to order the fleet which he had built against the Veneti to rendezvous at Boulogne. Besides these war-galleys (naves longae) he got together eighty transports, enough for two legions, besides ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare
... bejeweled mid flowers at play! A snip of a birdling, the blossom-bells' king, A waif of the sun-beams on quivering wing! O prince of the fairies, O pygmy of fire, Will nothing those brave little wings of yours tire? You follow the flowers from southern lands sunny, You pry amid petals all summer for honey! Now rest on a twig, tiny flowerland sprite, Your dear little lady sits near in delight; In a wee felted basket she lovingly huddles— Two dots of white eggs to her warm breast she cuddles! Whiz-z! whiff! off to your flowers! ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... a wire at my sister and tell her not to move out to Jiggersville until day after to-morrow. In the mean time we'll have to get a crowbar and pry your family circle loose from my premises. Nothing doing ...
— Back to the Woods • Hugh McHugh
... to Knollsea,' said Ethelberta, half in doubt. 'Yes—otherwise it will be difficult to see about aunt's baptismal certificate. We will hope nobody will take the trouble to pry into our household. . . . And now, Picotee, I want to ask you something—something very serious. How would you like me to ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... try to pry into the private affairs of others by asking what their profits are, what things cost, whether Melissa ever had a beau, and why Amarette never got married? All such questions are extremely impertinent and are likely ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... horse-driver, and to doughty Eumolpus and Celeus, leader of the people, she showed the conduct of her rites and taught them all her mysteries, to Triptolemus and Polyxeinus and Diocles also,—awful mysteries which no one may in any way transgress or pry into or utter, for deep awe of the gods checks the voice. Happy is he among men upon earth who has seen these mysteries; but he who is uninitiate and who has no part in them, never has lot of like good things once he is dead, down in the ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... knew nothing about tables and chairs, and that he would accept, in the way of a lodging, with his eyes shut, anything that Tristram should offer him. This was partly veracity on our hero's part, but it was also partly charity. He knew that to pry about and look at rooms, and make people open windows, and poke into sofas with his cane, and gossip with landladies, and ask who lived above and who below—he knew that this was of all pastimes the ...
— The American • Henry James
... to prowl round among Ernest's things and pry into the state of his wardrobe? If I had not had my time so broken up with giving lessons, I should have found out that he needed new shirts and set to work on them. Though I must own I hate shirt-making. ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... It was a great point with Roy to find favour in the sight of Mr. Massingbird, his possible future master. Lionel partially saw through the man; he believed that he had some covert motive in seeking the interview with him, and that Roy was trying to pry into his affairs. But Roy found himself baffled also by Mr. Verner, as he had been by Matiss, in so far as that he could learn nothing certain of the existence or ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... Well, I never!" gasped Miss Paulina Pry, which was unquestionably the absolute truth, though not characteristic. "That was Beverly Ashby's brother and her beau!" Eleanor's selection of common nouns was at times decidedly common. "Now, Miss High-and-Mighty, ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... a learned body, are, as an order, the best friends of the people. They seem to mingle with them more immediately, as their counsellors and comforters; and to go among them more, when they are sick; and to pry less than some other orders, into the secrets of families, for the purpose of establishing a baleful ascendency over their weaker members; and to be influenced by a less fierce desire to make converts, and once made, to let them go to ruin, soul and body. They may be seen, in ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... further, and Huxley agreed with him. He declared that the mind cannot "make any discoveries when it would pry into the nature and hidden cause of these ideas." We must, in fact, definitely reject what we know as matter as the absolute reality of the universe, for it becomes very plain that what we call matter we know merely as affections ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... round Marguerite. Child as she was, she felt the poignancy of her friend's grief, and with the infinite tact of her girlish tenderness, she did not try to pry into it, but ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... at a summer resort in northern Indiana, where I noticed a nuthatch hitching up and down and around the slender stem of a sapling, pausing at intervals to thrust something into the crevices of the bark. My curiosity led me to pry into the bird's affairs. Stepping smartly forward, I drove him away, not heeding his vigorous protest of "yank, yank," and examined the bark of the sapling. What did I discover? A colony of black ants were scuttling up and down the tree, apparently under stress of great excitement; ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... troubled with strange misgivings about the future life. I had a hope that man might live hereafter, but death was a solemn fact to me, into whose mystery I did not wish too closely to pry. ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... conventionality may be suddenly revealed; and when a wicked system goes mad, such depths of perfidy are disclosed as few imagined to exist. During the last two years, while our Southern sky has been aglow with the red light of the slave-masters' insurrection, few of us could probe and pry about among details of lesser villanies than those pertinent to the day. And so it is fortunate that M. Cochin now comes to address a people instinctively grasping at the principle which may give them peace, and to offer them his calm and thorough investigation of the material basis ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... arts, whereby they thought to protect themselves from evil, and to pry into the secrets of futurity. Because of these things, ancient Babylon was suddenly overwhelmed,—"for the multitude of thy sorceries, and for the great abundance of thine enchantments." These could not save, as they supposed. Therefore God said to them: "Stand now with thine ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... see it when I come along wid mah mule, Boomerang, an' I tried t' git it outer de way, but I couldn't. Den I left Boomerang an' mah wagon at de foot ob de hill an' I come up heah t' git a long pole t' pry de log outer de way. I didn't t'ink nobody would come along, case dis road ain't ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-boat - or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa • Victor Appleton
... You have. Now, will you be good enough to go—if there is nothing more in my room that you are anxious to pry into? ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... come to save, and not destroy— I would not pry into thy secret soul; But if these things be sooth, there still is time For penitence and pity: reconcile thee With the true church, and through ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... One night after I had had supper and washed myself, I said to th' missus, 'There's a peep-show i' Tithebarn Street, and if you'll wash Bobby's face I'll tek him there; its nobbut a penny.' You know it was one o' them shows where they hev pictures behind a piece o' calico, Paul Pry with his umbrella, Daniel i' th' lions' den, ducks swimming across a river, a giantess who was a man shaved and dressed in women's clothes, a dog wi' five legs, and a stuffed mermaid—just what little lads would like. There was a man, besides, who played on a flute, and another singing ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... was—the boarded partition. Marishka took the candle from his hand again while he examined the fastenings—nails somewhat rusted, which would not resist leverage. He found a piece of plank which he inserted in the edge of the door and managed to pry it open a little, and then bracing a foot against the stone wall, made an opening ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... of the phrase "To kick the bucket," the tradition among the slang fraternity is, that "One Bolsover having hung himself to a beam while standing on the bottom of a pail, or bucket, kicked the vessel away in order to pry into futurity, and it was all UP with him from that moment—Finis!" Our Querist will find a very humorous illustration of its use (too long to quote) in an article on "Anglo-German Dictionaries," contributed by De Quincy to the London Magazine ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 223, February 4, 1854 • Various
... hair, to take off her own clothes; and that she was not, either by nature or education, an incapable young woman. But that honour and glory demanded it, she would almost as lief have had no Patience Crabstick to pry into her most private matters. All which Crabstick knew, and would often declare her missus to be "of all missuses the most slyest and least come-at-able." On this present night she was very soon despatched to her own chamber. Lizzie, ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... be cautious in your communications, Abimelech, concerning our money matters. My daughter gave me a hint about the last mortgage, which I did not half like. Children think they have a right to pry into a father's expences; and to curb and brow-beat him, if the money be not all spent in gratifying their whims. Be more close, Abimelech, ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... smiled and smirked at each other. They had not been playing the same game before. Now they recognised that there was a conspiracy between them.... But he was host, his business for the moment was to make his guests comfortable, and not pry into their inmost bosoms. So before Mrs Weston realised that she had the whole table attending ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... (Hartless) wants her Deer, Scuds through the woods and Fern with hearkening ear, Perplext, in every bush and nook doth pry, Her dearest Deer might answer ear or eye; So doth my anxious soul, which now doth miss, A dearer Deer (far dearer Heart) than this. Still wait with doubts and hopes and failing eye; His voice to hear or person to descry. Or as the pensive Dove doth all alone (On withered bough) ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... produce new Worlds, whereof so rife There went a Fame in Heavn, that he erelong Intended to create, and therein plant A Generation, whom his choice Regard Should favour equal to the Sons of Heaven: Thither, if but to pry, shall be perhaps Our first Eruption, thither or elsewhere: For this Infernal Pit shall never hold Celestial Spirits in Bondage, nor th' Abyss Long under Darkness cover. But these ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... easy for the giant to pry out one of the boxes with his iron bar, and with another blow from his bar ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton
... Paul Pry! we were love-making and love-breaking, both. You came just in time to hear that my engagement to Lancy is—not a settled thing," and she laughed at the surprise in Elsie's eyes. "So please unsay what you told Mrs. Fremont ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... directions. From the thickest of the crowd, a mighty creature of bone and muscle, a giant in height and breadth, grasping an iron support twisted from a bench, had forced his way out to the street, and now was using it to pry up the bricks from the sidewalk, which in turn were seized by ...
— The Angel of the Tenement • George Madden Martin
... dearie!" he protested in a soothing tone. "But these shyster lawyers who hang around those places—you 'member Jim O'Leary out home to Athens? Well, they don't know a lady when they see one, and they wouldn't care if they did; and they'll try and pry into ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... he had no one else to trust. And Marie Louise, for all her anxiety, was sadly glad of his confidence, regarded it as sacred, and would not violate it so much as to make the least effort to learn what messages she was carrying. Nothing, of course, would have been easier than to pry open one of these envelopes. Sometimes the lapel was hardly sealed. But she would as soon have ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... bravely, but, were driven foot by foot, until they wore compelled to retreat to the loft and draw up the ladder. The lower portion of the cabin was in full possession of the besiegers, who demolished everything they could lay their hands on, with much gusto. They did their utmost to pry up the trap door, but were beaten back. Suddenly to the "Wild Geese's" surprise, the lower part of the cabin was abandoned by the Hens. They thought it a ruse to draw them out, so I they lay quiet for some time. There were no ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... very good terms; for, some time before, when he thought I was away from home, he tried to get into my house. I heard him, and, running up stairs, I put my claws in the two little holes in the lining of the lid, and braced myself so that he could not pry open the lid. He said he only wanted to pay me a visit; but I knew he was hungry, and wanted to eat ...
— The Nursery, February 1878, Vol. XXIII, No. 2 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... first impulse of my love is to dissuade you from seeking to know more. Your mind will be full of ideas; your hands will be perpetually busy to a purpose into which no human creature, beyond the verge of your brotherhood, must pry. Believe me, who have made the experiment, that compared with this task, the task of inviolable secrecy, all others are easy. To be dumb will not suffice; never to know any remission in your zeal or ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown
... avert the dreadful calamities which Antiochus, the wicked emperor of Greece, threatened to bring upon his subjects and city of Tyre, in revenge for a discovery which the prince had made of a shocking deed which the emperor had done in secret; as commonly it proves dangerous to pry into the hidden crimes of great ones. Leaving the government of his people in the hands of his able and honest minister, Helicanus, Pericles set sail from Tyre, thinking to absent himself till the wrath of Antiochus, who was mighty, ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Prince. "This letter, which the disposition of Almighty Providence has so strangely delivered into my hands, was addressed to no less a person than the criminal himself, the infamous President of the Suicide Club. Seek to pry no further in these perilous affairs, but content yourself with your own miraculous escape, and leave this house at once. I have pressing affairs, and must arrange at once about this poor clay, which was so lately a gallant and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... do not interrupt me in my course. Why I descend into this bed of death Is partly to behold my lady's face, But chiefly to take thence from her dead finger A precious ring,—a ring that I must use In dear employment: therefore hence, be gone:— But if thou, jealous, dost return to pry In what I further shall intend to do, By heaven, I will tear thee joint by joint, And strew this hungry churchyard with thy limbs: The time and my intents are savage-wild; More fierce and more inexorable far Than empty tigers ...
— Romeo and Juliet • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... vain that Fortunato, uplifting his dull torch, endeavored to pry into the depths of the recess. Its termination the feeble light did not enable ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... she cried reprovingly, "Mr. Verslun will think you are very inquisitive. You must not pry ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... craft before and since, he was a vain, meddlesome vagabond, and must needs pry into a secret which ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... "that I said it was the misfortune of the prince that he was the brother only, as he was worthy of being mentioned for himself; but I beg, sir, be a little indulgent, and do not pry into my very soul with your godlike eyes. It will craze me, and I shall run through the streets of Berlin, crying that the Apollo-Belvedere has arrived at Potsdam, and invite all the poets and authors to come ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... the two hours was spent in "franking"—that is censoring—his men's letters. It was a very unwelcome task, and although he thoroughly appreciated the military necessity, he cordially hated being forced, as it were, to pry into ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... Kennedy exultingly, "I think we have stolen a march on them. I don't believe they were prepared for this, not at least at this stage in the game. Don't ask me any questions, Walter. Then you will have no secrets to keep if anyone should try to pry them loose. Only remember that this man Lawrence is a ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... out to field agents all over the United States, and, quietly but efficiently, the FBI went to work. Agents began to probe and pry and poke their noses into the files and data sheets of every mental institution in the fifty states—as far, at any ...
— Brain Twister • Gordon Randall Garrett
... pain shot across the painter's face. He paused for a moment, and a wild feeling of pity came over him. After all, what right had he to pry into the life of Dorian Gray? If he had done a tithe of what was rumoured about him, how much he must have suffered! Then he straightened himself up, and walked over to the fireplace, and stood there, looking at the burning logs with their ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... me alone, boy? Into what have you come here to pry? You are odious—yes, odious!" She stamped her foot. "And I thought last night, that you were in trouble. Was I not kind to you for that, and that only?" She broke off pitifully. "Oh, ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Excellency had no right to pry into my domestic concerns. His business was with me as a governess only; on any other subject I declined conversing. I enjoyed the expression of blank amazement with which he regarded me on receiving this somewhat defiant reply. "Tam chai!" ("Please yourself!") he said, and proceeded ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... was lawful for the children of Israel to borrow jewels of the Egyptians, which supposes a promise of restitution, though they intended not to pry them back again. God gave commandment so to spoil them, and the Egyptians were divested of their rights, and were to ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... a long thirst, a long purse, and a short memory!" was his toast, into whose cryptic meaning Gonzaga made no attempt to pry. As the fellow set down his cup, and with his sleeve removed the moisture from his unshorn mouth, "May I not learn," he inquired, "whose hospitality I have ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... an obligation, Mr. Pether. There seems to be some little mystery about the matter, and I do not want to pry into ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... right here until the next boat," he heard Locke saying as the victoria stopped. "I'd like to see somebody pry ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... reply, but before she could speak, Strong assured her that the congregation wouldn't do anything to stop her if she wished to go. He saw the blank look on her face. "We ain't tryin' to pry into none of your private affairs," he explained; "but my daughter saw you and that there feller a makin' up to each other. If you're calculatin' to run away with him, you'll save a heap of trouble for the ...
— Polly of the Circus • Margaret Mayo
... Portlethorpe said that even if we had not come to Edinburgh on a fool's errand—which appeared to be his secret and private notion—we had at any rate got the information which Mr. Lindsey wanted, and had far better go home now and attend to our proper business, which, he added, was not to pry and peep into other folks' affairs. He was convinced that Sir Gilbert Carstairs was Sir Gilbert Carstairs, and that Mrs. Ralston's and Mr. Lindsey's suspicions were all wrong. He failed to see any connection between ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... fascinating place I've ever been in," she added with an effort. "I haven't heard a thing about war, but the whole establishment is buzzing with conspiracies and mystery. There isn't any rest. Everyone is afraid of his neighbor; no one trusts himself to fall asleep in peace, for fear someone will pry his secret away—a terrible atmosphere—but what an adventure if it breaks into war before my eyes.... And ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... was a mighty badly broken-up woman the last time I saw her, but even so I judge she's still got spunk enough left in her to resent having an unauthorized and uninvited stranger coming about, seeking to pry into her own private sorrow. But it's your affair, not mine. Besides, judging by everything, you probably don't think my ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... great help. Now, you do your part, and I'll do mine. No one knows of this business but me. I didn't tell Everdean a word. He don't know why I hustled out there and back, nor why I asked so many questions. And he ain't the kind to pry into what don't concern him. So you're pretty safe, I cal'late. Now, if you don't mind, I wish you'd run along home. ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... watchfulness to see them, as the whole surface of the road was flowing with slush and mud. When a wheel went into one, the wagon dropped to the axle, and even where there was no upset it was a most difficult task to pry the wagon out and start it on the way again. The wagon-master was lucky if it did not stop his whole train, and it was no uncommon thing for a mule to be drowned by getting down in one of these pits. ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... the acts; an advantage she shared with the younger and fairer and more dashing, the dancing, Miss Malvina, who footed it and tambourined it and shawled it, irruptively, in lonely state. When not admiring Mr. Burton in Shakespeare we admired him as Paul Pry, as Mr. Toodles and as Aminadab Sleek in The Serious Family, and we must have admired him very much—his huge fat person, his huge fat face and his vast slightly pendulous cheek, surmounted by a sort of elephantine wink, to which I impute a remarkable ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... stable be threatened, carry out the cow-chains. Never mind the horse,—he'll be alive and kicking; and if his legs don't do their duty, let them pay for the roast. Ditto as to the hogs,—let them save their own bacon, or smoke for it. When the roof begins to burn, get a crow-bar and pry away the stone steps; or, if the steps be of wood, procure an axe and chop them up. Next, cut away the wash-boards in the basement story; and if that don't stop the flames, let the chair-boards on the first floor share a similar ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... these wires on the wall behind the steam-pipes. The floor moulding running along the window wall will move if you remove the screws—four of them. Then count off the sixteenth floor board—you work it this way," Walker showed Ted how, "and it will pry loose. It is all very simple and should take no more than twenty minutes. It would take ...
— Ted Marsh on an Important Mission • Elmer Sherwood
... Faith up, and preach all Reason down, Making those jar whom Reason meant to join, And vesting in themselves a right divine), Let me, through Reason's glass, with searching eye, Into the depth of that religion pry 580 Which law hath sanction'd; let me find out there What's form, what's essence; what, like vagrant air, We well may change; and what, without a crime, Cannot be changed to the last hour of time. Nor let me suffer that outrageous zeal Which, without knowledge, furious bigots ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... a word of the affair itself, for John didn't seem to know that he had been frightened, and I was afraid to alarm him by speaking of it. He asked no questions of any sort, although in general he is a miniature Paul Pry, expressed no surprise that I was bareheaded and bloody, or that we had come so far from the fishing place and left our tackle behind. His face expressed confusion, such as a child will exhibit when he is waked suddenly by falling out of bed, and commences grasping around the bedpost preparatory ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty
... heroism for humanity, too. They meet death face to face, as they pry close into the cause of decay, the secret of morbid growth. There is more danger in certain germs than in lions. Blood-poisoning is to the surgeon a more constant menace than hunger to an Arctic explorer. These students never know what destroyer they may unwittingly unloose. Cross-section ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... Nathan Hale, beloved of Washington, but of the two estimable young men not long emerged from under the area steps in 5— Street, let us dismiss the contempt with which we have been wont to regard Paul Pry and Betty the housemaid, listening at key-holes, in our favorite dramas, and look mercifully upon the ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... this fortress ourselves, except that our teacher of handicrafts, the sapper Sabum, sometimes gave us a hint. The first thing was to mark out the plan, then with the aid of levers pry the rocks out of the fields, and by means of a two-wheeled cart convey them to the site chosen, fit them neatly together, stuff the interstices with moss, and finally put on a roof made of pine logs which we felled ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... could see the shining sands of Polkimbra, still desolate, and, beyond, the purple line of cliffs towards Kynance; on my right the rock hid everything from view, except the open sea and the gulls returning after the tempest to inspect and pry into the fresh masses of weed and wreckage. I looked timidly at my companion. He was still gazing out towards the sea, apparently deep in thought. The cap was on his head, and his legs still dangled, while he muttered ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... land fever, too?" the agent asked, as he consulted his tariffs. "Riles went up the other day. You'll be making a clean-up on the cheap land, I suppose. But I tell you, Harris, if I'd a farm like yours you couldn't pry me off it with a pinch-bar. No more worries for little Willie, and I'd leave the free land to those that ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... of them at least, had arisen a very different sense of injury. From the moment when James had the impertinence to pry into his affairs—as he put it—old Jolyon no longer chose to credit this story about Bosinney. His grand-daughter slighted through a member of 'that fellow's' family! He made up his mind that Bosinney was maligned. There must be some other reason ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... bewilderment, and even intellectual loss, in regard to what is best of him. When Shakspeare invoked a curse on the man who should stir his bones, he perhaps meant the larger share of it for him or them who should pry into his perishing earthliness, the defects or even the merits of the character that he wore in Stratford, when he had left mankind so much to muse upon that was imperishable and divine. Heaven keep me from incurring any part ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... never breathed through our Empire during my time, or yet through any other empire of which I have any knowledge. Everybody, or almost everybody, doing something for England, and few or none idle who are of military age except such as have heavy burdens or secret disabilities into which I dare not pry. ...
— The Drama Of Three Hundred & Sixty-Five Days - Scenes In The Great War - 1915 • Hall Caine
... Aggie?" scoffed Neale. "That Trix girl has been treating her as mean as she knows how for months, and now you couldn't pry Aggie away from ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... achieve more by getting the services to prosecute their current policies vigorously. Although Chairman Reid promised that these suggestions would all be taken into consideration, he still hoped to use the Air Force response to pry further concessions out of the ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... I don't think we have any right to pry into the Unknown. Some day, undoubtedly, it will be given us to know, but until that day comes, we had far better leave ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... impossible not onely to the vulgar, but to those also who are otherwise wise men, and excellent schollers; and hence it will follow, that every new thing which seemes to oppose common Principles is not presently to be rejected, but rather to be pry'd into with a diligent enquiry, since there are many things which are yet hid from us, and ...
— The Discovery of a World in the Moone • John Wilkins
... to enact the spy On fellow souls, a Spiritual Pry— 'Tis said that people ought to guard their noses, Who thrust them into matters none of theirs; And tho' no delicacy discomposes Your Saint, yet I consider faith and pray'rs Amongst ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... microscope—a short, complacent-looking implement it is, of brass—and he goes about everywhere now with little glass bottles in his pocket, ready to jump upon any stray polly-woggle he may find, and hale it home and pry into its affairs. Within his study window are perhaps half a dozen jars and basins full of green scum and choice specimens of black mud in which his victims live. He persists in making me look through this instrument, though I would rather I did not. It seems to me a kind of impropriety ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... you like it, my dear, 'answered Miss Wendover. 'Bessie said it would suit you; and all I ask you is to keep it tidy. I hope I am not a tyrant; but I am an old maid. Of course, I shall never pry into your room; but I warn you that I have an eye which takes in everything at a flash; and if I happen to go past when your door is open, and see a bonnet and shawl on your bed, or a gown sprawling on your sofa, my teeth will be set on ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... Even to Lola and her biologists. Everybody's full of joy and gratitude and stuff—as well as information. And we managed to pry ourselves loose without waking you two trumpet-of-doom sleepers up. So we're ready to jump again. I wonder where in hell we'll wind up ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... that was here last fall, that used to board around with the church people all the week, and talk about Zion and laying up treasures where the moths wouldn't gnaw them, and they wouldn't get rusty, and where thieves wouldn't pry off the hinges. He was the one that used to go home with Ma from prayer meetings, when Pa was down town, and who wanted to pay off the church debt in solid silver bricks. He's the bilk. I guess if Pa should get him by the ...
— The Grocery Man And Peck's Bad Boy - Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa, No. 2 - 1883 • George W. Peck
... diapered with Flora's riches, as if she meant to wrap Tellus in the glory of her vestments: round about in the form of an amphitheatre were most curiously planted pine trees, interseamed with limons and citrons, which with the thickness of their boughs so shadowed the place, that Phoebus could not pry into the secret of that arbor; so united were the tops with so thick a closure, that Venus might there in her jollity have dallied unseen with her dearest paramour. Fast by, to make the place more gorgeous, was there a fount so crystalline and clear, that it seemed Diana with her Dryades and ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... book was not written for America; it was written for England. So many Englishmen have done their sincerest best to teach us something for our betterment that it seems to me high time that some of us should substantially recognize the good intent by trying to pry up the English nation to a little higher ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... stand in my room; he shall die, but I shall live." Having said this, the neck of the fowl was drawn and its throat cut; and either the dead fowl, or its value in money, was given to the poor. In the evening previous to the feast of expiation, a man wishing to pry into futurity carried a lighted candle to the synagogue, and from particular appearances of the flame he prognosticated whether good was to follow him and his, or whether he and his family were to ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... I had reason to think," said Mr. B., "that he had seen her unmask; and I said, 'It becomes not any character, but that you wear, to pry into the secrets of others, in order to make ill-natured remarks, and perhaps ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... eyes that peer and spy, Sad eyes that heed not skies nor trees, In dismal nooks he loves to pry, Whose motto evermore is Spes! But ah! the fabled treasure flees; Grown rarer with the fleeting years, In rich men's shelves they take their ease, ...
— Ballads in Blue China and Verses and Translations • Andrew Lang
... listeners hear no good of themselves, they also occasionally hear much that is valuable. So Bates and Miss Ocky were in conspiracy to conceal from him some conversation they had had! Um. It would be funny if he couldn't pry the truth out of one of them; mentally, he girded up ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... maid, Nay, shrink not, thus afraid - I'll harm thee not! Fly not, my love, from me - I have a home for thee - A fairy grot, Where mortal eye Can rarely pry, There ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... forming a prominent and important feature in the history of the human mind. It is certainly one link of the degrading chain of superstitions which have long enslaved mankind, but which are now quivering to their fall. The desire for power to pry into hidden things, and more especially events to come, is inherent in the human race, and has always been considered as of no ordinary importance, and rendered the supposed possessors objects of reverence and fear. The belief in astrology, or the power to read in the stars ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII. F, No. 325, August 2, 1828. • Various
... anstatauxulo. Prudence singardemo. Prudent singardema, prudenta. Prune cxirkauxhaki. Prune seka pruno. Pruning shears brancxotondilo. Prussian, a Pruso. Prussic acid ciana acido. Pry sercxi, rigardeti. Psalm psalmo. Psalmody psalmokantado. Psalter psalmaro. Pseudonym pseuxdonomo. Psychology psikologio. Puberty virigxo. Public publika. Publican drinkejmastro. Public-house ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... missing volumes of records, and others. He put them carefully aside and stepped to the chest. It was old, strong, and rusty. He looked at the vast and old-fashioned lock and flashed his light on the hinges. They were deeply incrusted with rust. Looking about, he found a bit of iron and began to pry. The rust had eaten a hundred years, and it had gone deep. Slowly, wearily, the old lid lifted, and with a last, low groan lay bare its treasure—and he saw ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... no more to Lanfranc than my need of him, and he was little interested to pry deeper into the matter. He was himself a lively youngster of no more than twenty, but he had been trained to arms, had fought in Spain, and had an honourable record on the grass. Merely his black eyes flashed when he learned what was toward, ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... up to him, an' says he, 'Ye know that ordhnance Schwartz inthrajooced?' 'I do,' says Dochney, 'an I'm again it. 'Tis a swindle,' he says. "Well,' says th' la-ad, 'they'se five thousan' in it f'r ye,' he says. They had to pry Dochney off iv him. Th' nex' day a man he knowed well come to Dochney, an' says he, 'That's a fine ordhnance iv Schwartz.' 'It is, like hell,' says Dochney. ''Tis a plain swindle,' he says. ''Tis ...
— Mr. Dooley: In the Hearts of His Countrymen • Finley Peter Dunne
... I must. Nothing easier than to pry open a door or window in the north wing, by the ball-room. When I saw Grafton I would tell him. Nay, I would write him that day. I was even casting about me for an implement, when I heard a step on the gravel ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... continued the colonel, "that your preceptor, Judge Reeve, is the brother-in-law of Colonel Burr. If I speak freely of him, it is because I know him, and because you seem curious to pry into these secret histories of national men. It is not to be repeated to offend Judge Reeve, or disturb our relations as friends; for we are such, and have been ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... time f'r to pry thim off. Near ivry man iv th' Saint Aloysiuses was tied in a knot around wan iv th' Christyan Brothers. On'y wan iv thim remained on th' field. He was lyin' face down, with his nose in th' mud. 'He's kilt,' says I. 'I think he is,' says Dorgan, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... as Rameses the Great, laid a hand upon the girl's shoulder as, passing to the left of the tent, she walked slowly towards the door leading to the grounds, whilst sounds of wrath came from the serried ranks of those who wished to pry into the future. ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... I; "but, pry'thee, dear Ibrahim, read me this riddle: if the devil gets into water and kills, why don't he kill ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... with the well concocted story that his wife, having just become the mother of a sturdy son, must on no account be disturbed. On this point apparently a compromise is effected, the search to be executed on tip-toe, for the shepherds do somewhat poke and pry about, yet under so sharp a fire of abuse as to render them nervous of pressing their investigations too closely. Thus they pass the cradle by, and all would have gone well with Mak but for that same warm-heartedness of which we spoke earlier. They are already ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... the hip and shoulder of one side approach each other, and so lessen the space within the abdomen on that side. On the other side a support has been removed for the contents of the abdomen, and they sag down until they pry the uterus out of place and press it over towards the side where there is less pressure. The broad ligament on one side is stretched from use and on the other side shortened from disuse, and so the uterus ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen |
