"Sprig" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the smallest detail. He wore Brother Robert's boots when available; from appearances Brother Robert is now wearing the identical pair which made those footprints we saw, but I shall know in the morning, for that fiery young sprig obligingly left another well-marked set of prints in the same place twenty minutes ago. When circumstances compelled Hilton to walk that way in his own boots, he slipped on two roughly made moccasins, which he burned ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... second degree. This was H. L. (Hiao Lien, "Filial and Honest"), showing how ethical ideas continued to dominate the literary tribunals. It is now Chu-jin, and denotes nothing but promotion or prize man. The prize, a degree answering to A. M., poetically described as a sprig of the Olea fragrans, was the more coveted as the competitors were all honour men of the first grade, and it was limited to one in a hundred. Its immediate effect is such social [Page 123] distinction that it is said poor bachelors are common, ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... night-table, on which she spread a table napkin, and placed four wax candles on it, which she lighted; then she took a sprig of box, which was hanging over the chimney glass, and put it between the candles, into the plate, which she filled with clean water, as she had no holy water. But, after a moment's rapid reflection, she threw a pinch of salt into the water, no doubt, thinking she was performing some sort ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... man's instinct toward experiment exhibited itself as usual and he put the splinter against the string and drew it back and let it fly as he had seen Bark do—that promising sprig, by the way, being now engaged in peering from the wood and trying to form an estimate as to whether or not his return was yet advisable. Ab learned that the force of the bent twig would throw the sliver farther than he could toss it with his ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... lights in the desolate land he explored in his youth, there grows in the shelter of the spruce forests a flower which he found and loved beyond any other, the Linnaea borealis, named after him. In some pictures we have of him, he is seen holding a sprig of it in his hand. It is the twin flower of the northern Pacific coast and of Labrador, indeed of the far northern woods from Labrador all the way to Alaska, that lifts its delicate, sweet-scented pink bells from the moss ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... I have had a word with you, young sprig of a Bostonnais," said de Mezy, his florid face now almost a ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... is pleased to order that in future on St. Patrick's Day all ranks in Her Majesty's Irish regiments shall wear as a distinction a sprig of shamrock in their head-dress to commemorate the gallantry of Her Irish soldiers during the recent ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring
... the long, sunny hours Ardita's idea of the episode as incidental, madcap, a sprig of romance in a desert of reality, gradually left her. She dreaded the time when he would strike off southward; she dreaded all the eventualities that presented themselves to her; thoughts were suddenly troublesome ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... do not defray the expence of the settlement to the Company; but from the locality of its situation, it is convenient for their other islands. They had the monopoly of the sandlewood trade, which is used in all temples, mosques, and places of worship in the East, every Chinese having a sprig of it burning day and night near ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... gout by remaining in his wet things, but his thoughts were as full of anxious affection for Mrs. Nuessler as Fred's were of love for Louisa when on leaving the parsonage he exclaimed passionately: "Give her up, does he say! Give her up! The devil take that young sprig of the nobility!" ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... England farmer. New England does not go out in gay companies to bring back the first blossoms. But New England does nothing in gay companies. It has been taught to distrust ceremonies and expression of any sort. It rejoices with reticence, it appreciates with a reservation. And yet I have seen a sprig of arbutus in rough and clumsy buttonholes on weather-faded lapels which, the rest of the twelve-month through, know no other flower. And when, in unfamiliar country, I have interrupted the ploughing to ask for guidance, I usually get it:—"Arbutus? ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
... service: "Double-bass was a big fellow, with a black mustache, to whom life was all a joke, which he expressed by a comical smile, and Viola was a young Hercules, so full of beer that he dreamed himself in heaven, and Oboe was a young sprig, just out from Munich, with a complexion of milk and roses, like a girl's, and miraculously bright spectacles on his pale blue eyes, and there they sat — Oboe and Viola and Double-bass — and ogled each other, and raised their brows, and snickered behind the columns, without ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... shopping; if he was slow himself, he was quite willing that others should be so too, and to stand in unmoved calm while Mrs Jones fingered a material to test its quality, or Mrs Wilson made up her mind between a spot and a sprig. It was therefore a splendid place for a bit of talk, for he was so long in serving, and his customers were so long in choosing, that there was an agreeable absence of pressure, and time to drink a cup of gossip down to its last drop ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... the affectional longings of the patients, was about all. He carried among them no sentimentalism nor moralizing; spoke not to any man of his "sins," but gave something good to eat, a buoying word, or a trifling gift and a look. He appeared with ruddy face, clean dress, with a flower or a green sprig in the lapel of his coat. Crossing the fields in summer, he would gather a great bunch of dandelion blossoms, and red and white clover, to bring and scatter on the cots, as reminders of ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... fireside very much as the Parson does to ours. The Parson, to be sure, never prophesies, but he grumbles, and is the chorus in the play that sings the everlasting ai ai of "I told you so!" Yet we like the Parson. He is the sprig of bitter herb that makes the pottage wholesome. I should rather, ten times over, dispense with the flatterers and the smooth-sayers than the grumblers. But the grumblers are of two sorts,—the healthful-toned and the whiners. There ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... chimney-sweeper can convey a delicate excitement comparable to this mixture. Being penniless, they will yet hang their black heads over the ascending steam, to gratify one sense if possible, seemingly no less pleased than those domestic animals—cats—when they purr over a new-found sprig of valerian. There is something more in these sympathies than ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... Thur's not a tail o' anythin' else till we git clur roun' the mountain yander. Billee! throw your ugly props over that Navagh mustang. Putty hoss too; but I wudn't giv my old mar for a hul cavayard o' him. Gi's a sprig ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... given by the "English Colony" to Sir Walter Scott, the great sculptor wore a modest thistle-blossom in his lapel, which caused Lord Elgin to offer odds that if O'Connell should appear in Rome, Thorwaldsen would wear a sprig of shamrock in his hat and say nothing. The thistle caught Sir Walter, and the next day when he came to call on the sculptor he saw a tam-o-shanter hanging on the top of an easel and a bit of plaid scarf thrown carelessly across the corner of the picture below. The poet and the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... direction—to tread the moss that had been crushed by Norah's footsteps, to push against the branches that had touched her shoulders, to see the dead flowers that had dropped from her hands. He found a shriveled sprig or two of her woodland posy, and carried them to the ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... in imagination to swallow at one draught the contents of a metal tankard of half-and-half—half laurel-water, and half decoction of henbane—handed to me on a leaden salver by a demon-waiter, with a sprig of hemlock in the third buttonhole of his coat. This Lethean influence could hardly be that of the ailantus-tree alone. What of the plants on the balcony beneath,—the strange, rooty coilers which the mysterious planter sedulously ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... consisted of fruit cocktail with a sprig of mint atop of each portion, followed by a second course of chicken a la King generously sprinkled with capers, and accompanied by hot rolls and olives. Then came hot chocolate with a marshmallow floating ...
— Entertaining Made Easy • Emily Rose Burt
... milk for invalids with whom it disagrees is to mix equal parts of milk and thoroughly cooked barley, rice, oatmeal, or arrowroot water and boil them together for ten minutes. This may be served plain, or flavored by cooking with it a cut-up raisin, a sprig of mace, or a piece of stick cinnamon, which should be ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... copy of the New Quarterly—now here is popular praise, a sprig of it! Instead of the attack I supposed it to be, from my foolish friend's account, the notice is outrageously eulogistical, a stupidly extravagant laudation from first to last—and in three other articles, as my sister finds by diligent fishing, they introduce my name with the same felicitous ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... walked off, with a sprig of mint in his mouth. He was not a bad man, as men go. He was simply a man who wanted to please himself, and to be comfortable and easy. In his eyes the whole fabric of the universe revolved round Matthew Foljambe. He did not show it as the royal savage did, who beat a primitive gong ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... the Pict country with a tame Pict. You are quite safe so long as you are his guest, and wear a sprig of heather where it can be seen. If you went alone you would surely be killed, if you were not smothered first in the bogs. Only the Picts know their way about those black and hidden bogs. Old Allo, the one-eyed, withered little Pict from whom we bought our ponies, was ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... Charles picked a sprig of white heather on the hill one afternoon, after a picnic lunch, I regret to say, when he had taken perhaps a glass more champagne than was strictly good for him. He was not exactly the worse for it, but he was excited, good-humoured, reckless, and lively. He brought the sprig to Mrs. ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... and plucked a sprig of mint from the patch next to the house and chewed it absently. "But we'll be able to show motive and method once they're in jail and Tyler can talk. And with Captain Killian's evidence, that will clear Tyler anyway. Why should we worry whether the Kelsos get ...
— Smugglers' Reef • John Blaine
... not much given to dress — under which term are considered the movable adornments of persons. Little effort is made by the man toward dressing the head, though before marriage he at times wears a sprig of flowers or of some green plant tucked in the hat at either side. The young man's suklang is also generally more attractive than that of the married man. With its side ornaments of human-hair tassels, its dog teeth, or mother-of-pearl disks, and its red ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... white hat and a little sprig weskut and little knee cords and little top-boots and a little green coat with little bright buttons and a little welwet collar,' replied Tony, with great readiness ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... were brought on a snow-white napkin, which was artistically folded upon a piece of ornamented tissue-paper that covered a china plate; if I asked for cold ham, it came in flakes, arrayed like great rose-leaves, with a green sprig or two of parsley dropped upon it, and surrounded by a border of calfs'-foot jelly, like a setting of crystals. The bread revealed new qualities in the wheat, it was so sweet and nutty; and the fried potatoes, with which your beefsteak comes snowed under, are the very ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... standing against the window. She was of middle height, thoroughly ladylike and graceful; her features fair and beautiful, and her dark-blue eyes and smooth white brow wonderfully like Arthur's. She wore a muslin dress with a delicate pink sprig upon it, the lace of its open sleeves falling on her pretty white hands, which were playing unconsciously with a spray of jessamine, while she listened to her brothers as ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... view. A friend of ours, whom the author never saw or heard of, was at once recognized by his own family as the original of Mr. Bennet, and we do not know if he has yet got rid of the nickname. A Mr. Collins, too, a formal, conceited, yet servile young sprig of divinity, is drawn with the same force and precision. The story of the piece consists chiefly in the fates of the second sister, to whom a man of high birth, large fortune, but haughty and reserved manners, ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... I ask. And now suppose I tell you all about these wonderful herbs?" Picking up a sprig of each, the Motherkin related its qualities, while Laura, with a pencil and paper, wrote down her words; then she fastened each sprig in a slip of paper with its name attached. After this she assisted ...
— The Princess Idleways - A Fairy Story • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... two little stars, a pale sun and a red moon, alternately illumined all parts. King Loc descended into the well and found Nur in his laboratory. Nur looked like a kind little old man, and he wore a sprig of wild thyme in his hood. In spite of his learning he had the innocence and candour characteristic of ...
— Honey-Bee - 1911 • Anatole France
... the 24 C S.—18 c s, unite on twelfth. D c round this loop twenty-two times. S c up remaining c s for stalk. Fasten off, leaving an end to sew the sprig on the mat. Turn wrong side up. Commence on fifth stitch from stalk on the right-hand side of the flower, * 10 c s, unite in same stitch. Turn again. Into this circle work 18 d c stitches *. Turn wrong ...
— The Lady's Album of Fancy Work for 1850 • Unknown
... until all the flowers were gone. One had been taken by a carter, another by a donkey-driver, another by a muleteer, another by a man on a camel, and finally the last little sprig was eaten by a chicken. The servant was soundly berated each time and cautioned to be more careful, which she always promised but never performed, and was finally dismissed in disgrace without either a recommendation, or the wages she ...
— The Chinese Boy and Girl • Isaac Taylor Headland
... laureis involutae, wrapt in bay-leaves, which they sent to the senate from the victorious general: The spears, lances and fasces, nay, tents and ships, &c. were all dress'd up with laurels; and in triumph every common-soldier carryed a sprig in their hand, as we may see in the ancient and best bass-relievo of the ancients, as of virtue to purge them from blood and slaughter. And now after all this, might one conjecture by a mere inspection of those several sculps, statues, and medals yet exstant, representing the heads of emperors, ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... the useless effort to make English flowers grow. In Rika they must feel at home, for the whole air is scented with roses and mignonette. When Mrs. Royle took us to see her flowers, Boggley pulled a sprig of mignonette, sniffed it appreciatively, and ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... simplest plans upon which a pattern can be arranged is that of some form recurring at regular intervals over the surface. The principle involved is repetition; an example of it is shown at fig. 10. The form that is used here is a sprig of flower, but the repeating element admits of infinite variation, it may be anything from a dot to ...
— Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving • Grace Christie
... tablespoons of good olive-oil, and one small onion cut into pieces. Cook the onion in the oil over a slow fire, without allowing the onion to become colored, then add a small bunch of parsley stems, a small piece of celery, a bay-leaf, and a small sprig of thyme. Cool for a few moments, then add two tomatoes, skinned and with the seeds removed, and cut into slices, two tablespoons of dry white wine, and one medium-sized potato, peeled and cut into slices, and, ...
— Simple Italian Cookery • Antonia Isola
... divination practised at the period of the harvest moon is thus described in an old chap-book. When you go to bed, place under your pillow a prayer-book open at the part of the matrimonial service 'with this ring I thee wed'; place on it a key, a ring, a flower, and a sprig of willow, a small heart-cake, a crust of bread, and the following cards:—the ten of clubs, nine of hearts, ace of spades, and the ace of diamonds. Wrap all these in a thin handkerchief of gauze or muslin, and on getting into bed, cross ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... huge white calico flag, on which were painted roughly the figure of a sailor and an Eskimo sitting on an iceberg, with a kettle of soup between them. On one side were a pair of hands clasped together; on the other a sprig of heath, the only shrub that could be seen on ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... stewpan with at least two ounces of butter, and in it put slices of lean veal, ham, bacon, cuttings of beef, fowl, or game trimmings, three peppercorns, mushroom trimmings, a tomato, a carrot and a turnip cut up, an onion stuck with two cloves, a bay leaf, a sprig of thyme, parsley and marjoram. Put the lid on the stewpan and braize well for fifteen minutes, then stir in a tablespoonful of flour, and pour in a quarter pint of good boiling stock and boil very gently for fifteen ...
— The Cook's Decameron: A Study in Taste: - Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes • Mrs. W. G. Waters
... upon a scrap of white heather which marked the Service for the Burial of the Dead. Her tears fell upon the faded sprig, and she brushed her hand swiftly across her eyes, looking more closely as certain words underlined caught her attention. Other words had been written by her father's hand very minutely ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... kissed the rod. Pains, reading, study, are their just pretence, And all they want is spirit, taste, and sense. Commas and points they set exactly right, And 'twere a sin to rob them of their mite. Yet ne'er one sprig of laurel graced these ribalds, From slashing Bentley down to pidling Tibalds: Each wight, who reads not, and but scans and spells, Each word-catcher, that lives on syllables, Even such small critic some regard may claim, Preserved in Milton's or in Shakespeare's name. Pretty! in amber to observe ...
— English Satires • Various
... harsh. Six tumbrils carry the day's wine to La Guillotine. All the devouring and insatiate Monsters imagined since imagination could record itself, are fused in the one realisation, Guillotine. And yet there is not in France, with its rich variety of soil and climate, a blade, a leaf, a root, a sprig, a peppercorn, which will grow to maturity under conditions more certain than those that have produced this horror. Crush humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself into the same tortured forms. Sow ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... "Mr. Sprig! you are entirely behind the age. It matters not how long these gentlemen from Ireland have been in the country. They take to politics like rats to good cheese. A few months' residence, and a little working over you know, and they become trump voters. The Dutch are ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... light green cashmere, with a white embroidered guimpe, which was one of her favorite frocks. Her hair was tied with big white bows, and a sprig of holly was tucked in ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... about the garden in her much made-over black silk, and compared the progress of Mrs. Morrison's touch-me-nots and four-o'clocks with her own, nipping herself a sprig of tansy from the patch under the ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... had a very bumptious member on our board of judges. "My dear madam!" he exclaimed to an aspirant for the prizes, the underpinning of whose dwelling stood out unconcealed by any sprig of floral growth, "your house is barefooted! Nobody wants to see your house's underpinning, any more than he wants to ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... and her cousin's grief, but did nothing to dispel the one or assuage the other. She seemed to be too busy. She was embroidering a famous stomacher for herself, and while a sprig of it remained unworked she had neither eyes nor attention for anything else, even for the bleeding hearts around her. She would smile—O yes, smile upon me, smile upon Honora, and not smile upon him; but she would not meet her cousin's true eyes, nor ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
... soft greenish substance, within which, a little eminent, stand six or eight fruits like acorns, divided from each other, and enclosed in a whitish film, at first of a russet green, having the taste of nuts or acorns, and in the midst is a small green sprig, not fit ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... or those of the larger plants, like the lotus or the iris, the Japanese appreciation of their beauty is as phenomenal as is that beauty itself. Those who can afford the luxury possess the shrubs in private; those who cannot, feast their eyes on the public specimens. From a sprig in a vase to a park planted on purpose, there is no part of them too small or too great to be excluded from Far Oriental affection. And of the two "drawing-rooms" of the Mikado held every year, in April and November, both are garden-parties: the one given at the time and with the title of "the ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... righteous wrath that he hardly noticed the gasp she gave, and the collapse of her figure against the wall. She ran past him, and vanished without a word. He went up to his creatures and saw that she had placed on the head of each one of them a little sprig of jessamine flower. Why! It was idiotic! He could see nothing at first but the ludicrousness of flowers on the heads of his beasts! Then the desperation of this attempt to imagine something graceful, something that would give him pleasure touched him; for he saw now that this was a ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... say yes, but her blush and sparkling eyes answered him. The old gardener understood her, and was as good as his word. He began with cutting a beautiful sprig of a large purple geranium, then a slip of lemon myrtle. Ellen watched him as the bunch grew in his hand, and could hardly believe her eyes as one beauty after another was added to what became a most elegant bouquet. And most sweet too; to her ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... from that of the broom plant (Latin planta genesta), a sprig of which Henry's father used to wear in his hat. The family is also called Angevin, because Henry on his father's side descended from the counts of ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... of Geoffrey Plan-tag'e-net, Count of Anjou in France, and Matilda, daughter of King Henry I and granddaughter of William the Conqueror. Count Geoffrey used to wear in his hat a sprig of the broom plant, which is called in Latin planta genista. From this he adopted the name Plantagenet, and the kings who descended from him and ruled England for more than three hundred years are ...
— Famous Men of the Middle Ages • John H. Haaren
... on a minute or two longer, requiring no answer, and every now and then having his roving eye caught by some new marvel. He fingered a sprig of yew that was twisted into a crucifix hung over the bed. ("Expect it's one of those old relics," he said, "some lie or other.") He humorously dressed up the statue of the saint in a pocket-handkerchief, and said: "Let us pray," in a loud ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... buttonhole, COL. STARBOTTLE exhibiting extravagant gratitude in dumb show. Business prolonged through MISS MARY's speech.) If I am not wrong, colonel, the gentleman to whom you so kindly pointed out the road this morning was not a stranger to you. Ah! I am right. There, one moment,—a sprig of green, a single leaf, would set off the pink nicely. Here he is known only as "Sandy": you know the absurd habits of this camp. Of course he has another name. There! (releasing the colonel) it is much ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte
... a whole, shaped as it were by the hand of God, is a plant, an animal, a man. We cannot wonder enough at the beauty and the contrivance of its structure. But when we see some broken bone, some piece of animal's flesh, some sprig of a plant, there appears to be nothing but confusion, unless an excellent anatomist observe it: and even he would recognize nothing therein if he had not before seen like pieces attached to their whole. It is the same with the government of God: that which we have been able to see hitherto is ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... little, but he's first-rate blood, and a genuine sprig of the chivalry. He's a devil of a secessionist, sir. If ye were to hear that fellow make a stump speech on States' rights, you'd think him a Samson on Government. His father is the head of a good mercantile ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... surprise and delight were great enough to satisfy her sons, which is saying a good deal. She would not sit down till she had made the tour of the garden (it would be an insult to say 'desert' any longer); and she accepted a sprig of Johnnie's geranium, and a handful of Duncan's sweet-peas; tasted one of Archie's nasturtium flowers when assured by him that it was 'so nice;' was duly edified by the sight of the remains of the tooth-brush, worn to a stump by Georgie's sedulous and novel use of it; allowed Honorius ...
— Holiday Tales • Florence Wilford
... attainments. For some years he was a professor in a Southern military school. He has held the position of State Geologist of Indiana, and is the son of the celebrated Robert J. Owen, who founded the Communist Society at New Harmony, Indiana. Every sprig, leaf, and stem on the route suggested to Colonel Owen something to talk about, and he proved to be a very ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... relented—as they knew she would!—and, stopping to set the dish down, a sprig of holly dropped from her belt, just as Dot, turning, gave a particularly ecstatic ...
— The Book of the Cat • Mabel Humphrey and Elizabeth Fearne Bonsall
... the afternoon lolling on the grass under the lilacs, listlessly watching the woodpeckers on the dead pines. Chewing a sprig of mint, he lay there sprawling, hands clasping the back of his well-shaped head, soothed by the cadence of the chirring locusts. When at length he had drifted pleasantly close to the verge of slumber a voice from the road ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... was again Nana who was sent to the church to bring some back in a bottle. In practically no time the tiny room presented quite another appearance; on a little table a candle was burning beside a glass full of holy water into which a sprig of boxwood was dipped. Now, if anyone came, it would at least look decent. And they arranged the chairs in a circle in ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... our friend Mr. Duncan could have come with me. The country seems more and more wide and wonderful, and I am quite unconscious now of the motion of the cars and feel as fresh every morning and as sleepy every night as possible; so don't worry about me, but pick me a sprig of Aunt Barbara's sweetbrier roses now and then, and try not to be displeasing to any one, dear little girl. ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... Percival, with another sigh of relief, proceeded to make the tea. The water was boiling and the fire good. Emma was apt to set a chilly kettle on a glimmering spark, but Lydia treated him better. The bit of cold meat on the table looked bigger than he expected, the butter wore a cheerful sprig of green. Percival saw his advantages, but he thought them dearly bought, especially as he had to take a turn up and down Bellevue street while the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... up to Captain Frere's house with a return from Troke, and coming back through the garden had plucked a flower. Dawes had asked him for this flower, offering two days' rations for it. Hankey, who is not a bad-hearted man, gave him the sprig. "There were tears in his eyes as he took ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... nothing importunate in its behaviour. Gently, imperceptibly, it stole into the field of vision and stood there, delicately alluring. It could afford to wait. It had not even any pattern to speak of, only an indefinable white something, a dice, a diaper, a sprig. It was the sprig that touched her, ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair
... way! Prints of Mere Angelique and Ces Messieurs de Port Royal watching over us in her spacious bedroom, brown and yet light like the library it had become; and among those Jansenist worthies, the Turin Pallas Athena, with a sprig of green box as an offering from our friend. Yes; what I had written seemed good when read by her. And then there were the words which had to be looked out in the dictionary, bringing discussions on all manner ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... the Mint. Did some more sober critic come aboard; If wrong, I smiled; if right, I kissed the rod. Pains, reading, study, are their just pretence, And all they want is spirit, taste, and sense. Commas and points they set exactly right, And 'twere a sin to rob them of their mite; Yet ne'er one sprig of laurel graced these ribalds, From slashing Bentley down to piddling Tibbalds. Each wight, who reads not, and but scans and spells, Each word-catcher, that lives on syllables, Even such small critics some regard may claim, ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... industry, by giving each a plot of ground to cultivate for himself. I saw a fine field belonging to one of his sons, which has been under culture only three years. It is sown with barley and wheat, and planted with rows of sprig-palms, in the very childhood of growth; but, by the time the sons of the Marabout are married, and have young families, these green-shooting palm-sprigs will be branching trees high up, bearing mature and delicious fruit. Nature furnishes pretty and striking lessons of industry, more affecting ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... superfine. On one finger he wore a diamond that made all beholders wink, and in his shirt bosom still another. His wallet was stuffed with greenbacks, his watch and chain, Mr. Darrell affirmed were worth a thousand dollars—a sprig of gentility, whoever he might be, this wounded hero. They found no papers, no letters, no card-case. His linen was marked "C. S." twisted in a monogram. They must wait until he was able himself to tell ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... that usually occupied by Colomba. Above a kind of oaken prie-dieu, and beside a sprig of blessed palm, a little miniature of Orso, in his sub-lieutenant's uniform, hung on the wall. Miss Nevil took the portrait down, looked at it for a long time, and laid it at last on the table by ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee
... meant to act like they did, and from that day forward he lived upon water broth alone. The water broth of Tarascon is a few slices of bread drowned in hot water, with a clove of garlic, a pinch of thyme, and a sprig of laurel. Strict diet, at which you may believe poor Sancho ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... took a sprig from the fire and blew it out until only the point remained burning. He held the ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... dream, Prince James asked himself, even the vision of the lovely lady in the garden? At that thought his heart grew heavy. Then, as if to comfort him, a dove flew in at his window carrying in her mouth a sprig of gilliflowers. Upon the stalk in golden letters were written the words, "Awake! Awake! lover, I ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... restored to his throne, and the story of his dangers and his escape was made known throughout the kingdom, thousands of visitors came to look upon the faithful tree which had thus afforded his majesty its unconscious but effectual protection. Every one took away a leaf or a sprig for a souvenir, and when, at last, the proprietor found that there was danger that the whole tree would be carried away unless he interposed, he fenced it in and tilled the ground around it, to defend it from further mutilation. It has borne the name of the ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott
... happy homes the brown oak-bough Vies with the red-gemmed holly now; And here and there, like pearls, there show The berries of the mistletoe. A sprig upon the chandelier Says to the maidens, "Come not here!" Even the pauper of the earth Some kindly gift ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... cheap thanks thinly to repay Th' immortal grove of thy fair-order'd bay Thou planted'st round my humble fane, that I Stick on thy hearse this sprig of Elegie: Nor that your soul so fast was link'd in me, That now I've both, since't has forsaken thee: That thus I stand a Swisse before thy gate, And dare, for such another, time and fate. Alas! our faiths made different essays, Our Minds and Merits brake two several ways; Justice commands ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace
... sufficiently strong to go to school, and it was arranged that he should attend the Endowed School at the Wedgwood Institution. Horace accompanied him thither on the opening day of the term—it was an inclement morning in January—and left the young delicate sprig, apparently joyous and content, to the care of his masters and the mercy of his companions. But Sidney came home for dinner weeping—weeping in spite of his new mortar-board cap, his new satchel, his new box of compasses, and his new books. His mother kept him at ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... fair, that she might not catch that dangerous sort of admiration, or somewhat less holy, that she might sit down like an honest woman, contented with stout Henry Smith, who could protect his wife against every sprig of chivalry ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... and rub him clean with water and salt, but scale him not: then open him; and put him, with his blood and his liver, which you must save when you open him, into a small pot or kettle: then take sweet marjoram, thyme, and parsley, of each half a handful; a sprig of rosemary, and another of savoury; bind them into two or three small bundles, and put them in your Carp, with four or five whole onions, twenty pickled oysters, and three anchovies. Then pour upon your Carp as much claret wine as will only cover him; and season your claret well with salt, cloves, ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... that shall be, in the dim and mysterious future, mementoes of the walks, the frolics, the joys that have belonged to this staid New England home. From the very parsonage door she has brought away a sprig of a rampant sweet-brier that has grown there this many a year, and its delicate leaflets ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... interests herself in the sentimental affairs of the whole neighbourhood as well as in her own. Perhaps few young ladies now-a-days would write to their confidantes with the announcement that for some time past a young sprig had been teasing them to have him. This, however, is among Miss Nancy's confidences. She also writes poems and jeux d'esprit, and receives poetry in return from Betsy, who calls herself Camilla, and pays her friend many ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... man to continue with him under the Shade of a tree for an hour and then proceed on to the place I Should encamp which would be in the first good timber for canoes for the below. It may be proper to observe that the emence Sworms of Grass hoppers have distroyed every Sprig of Grass for maney miles on this Side of the river, and appear to be progressing upwards. about 4 Miles below the place I left Sergt. Pryor with Gibson found some large timber near which the grass was tolerably good I Encamped under a thick grove of those ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... examine a tree which she would tell Eunice might better be felled. As she walked she became uneasy, feeling that she had really imposed an unpleasant, possibly perilous, task upon the girl she scolded so freely yet already loved so dearly. Gathering a sprig of wintergreen she chewed it thoughtfully, and scarcely knew when she turned back to retrace her own steps to the cottage and learn what had befallen Katharine, who surely should have been ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... and Richardson's recently-published Clarissa, has no notice of Tom Jones, nor is there even any advertisement of the second edition issued in the same year. But, in the emblematic frontispiece, it appears under Clarissa (and sharing with that work a possibly unintended proximity to a sprig of laurel stuck in a bottle of Nantes), among a pile of the books of the year; and in the "poetical essays" for August, one Thomas Cawthorn breaks into rhymed panegyric. "Sick of her fools," sings this enthusiastic but scarcely ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... a little man, and he had a little gun, And his bullets were made of lead, lead, lead; He shot Johnny Sprig through the middle of his wig, And knocked it right off his head, ...
— Young Canada's Nursery Rhymes • Various
... appealed more closely to such imagination as the majority of the spectators possessed. They had regarded the other marvels they had seen merely as bewilderingly clever examples of legerdemain: but for a man to make a single sprig of rose grow into a tree bearing both red and white roses without even touching it meant something quite unbelievable—until they had seen it. Instinctively the circle narrowed, ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... three days. We are lying in smooth water, in a snug harbour, and I hope to get what I have not had for several nights—a good night's rest. A more bleak and comfortless prospect, in the way of landscape, could scarcely present itself to the eye. Nothing but land and rock—not a sprig of vegetation of any kind to be seen. In fact it never rains here, and this is consequently a guano region. We passed a bank of guano in Halifax island, a shanty, a few labourers, and a large army of penguins spread out with much solemnity ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... somewhat wanton, and she left the world as full of her vagaries as of the fame of her beauty. She treated with scorn a thousand gentlemen, men of valour and wisdom, and took up with a smooth-faced sprig of a page, without fortune or fame, except such reputation for gratitude as the affection he bore his friend got for him. The great poet who sang her beauty, the famous Ariosto, not caring to sing her ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... were very prepossessing, did not, however, belong to the country in which he was now a sojourner. His short gray cloak and hose were rather of Flemish than of French fashion, while the smart blue bonnet, with a single sprig of holly and an eagle's feather, was already recognized as the Scottish head gear. His dress was very neat, and arranged with the precision of a youth conscious of possessing a fine person. He had at his back a satchel, which seemed to contain a few necessaries, a hawking gauntlet ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... did not hear the news that night, but it was not necessary; she had seen Ralph and Cicely coming through the garden gate without a leaf of lettuce or a single sprig of parsley. ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... to one person for almost nineteen years, day and night, never lettin' 'em out of your sight, and layin' the foundation of their manners and morals and education, and see how you'll feel when a blackmailing sprig of a play-doctor threatens to collect a hundred dollars from you if you dast to ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... sprigs of nobility used to dress as coachmen and imitate the slang and behaviour of coachmen, from whom occasionally they would take lessons in driving as they sat beside them on the box, which post of honour any sprig of nobility who happened to take a place on a coach claimed as his unquestionable right; and then these sprigs would smoke cigars and drink sherry with the coachmen in bar-rooms, and on the road; and, when ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... in their food as much as we do. In summer there are many weeds which are a great treat to them. Dandelion, plantain, clover, grass and hay, with an occasional sprig of parsley, will give them much pleasure. In winter they may have carrots, turnips, and parsnips with barley meal and some oats. Too much green food is likely to make them ill, and too much grain is equally harmful. If we prevent them from finding their own ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy
... the mention of that dreadful time. Neither willingly spoke of it, and any reference to the affair was casual. Peggy stooped and picked a sprig of tender grass, and began to bite ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... and boy seeks an even-leaved sprig of ash; first of either sex that finds one calls out cyniver, and is answered by first of opposite sex that succeeds; and these two, if omen fails not, ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... kind of horse-man's riding-coat, calling itself a pet-en-l'air, made of a dark green (green I think it had been) brocade, with coloured and silver flowers, and lined with furs; boddice laced, a foul dimity petticoat sprig'd, velvet muffeteens on her arms, grey stockings and slippers. Her face less changed in twenty years than I could have imagined; I told her so, and she was not so tolerable twenty years ago that she needed to have taken it for flattery, but she did, and literally ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... spent, with bent knees, on a low chair, making bouquets. She fastened her violets together with marvellous deftness as she walked along. She counted out six or eight flowers, according to the season, doubled a sprig of cane in half, added a leaf, twisted some damp thread round the whole, and broke off the thread with her strong young teeth. The little bunches seemed to spring spontaneously from the layer of moss, so rapidly did she stick ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... pavilion was "utterly decayed," and the garden neglected, but Byron gathered "a sprig of Gibbon's acacia," and some rose leaves from his garden and enclosed them in a letter to Murray (June 27, 1816). Shelley, on the contrary, "refrained from doing so, fearing to outrage the greater and more sacred name of Rousseau; the contemplation of whose ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... enough for aught," said Ebbo, "but I thought he knew where to begin. Does he not know who is head of the house of Adlerstein, since he must tamper with a mechanical craftsman, cap in hand to any sprig of nobility! I would have soon ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the midst of his marble basin; the long stairs to the terrace were yet as damp and slippery as of old, and the noseless Roman senator was still persevering in his majestic attitude, although a sprig of maiden-hair was supporting its slender existence in the recess of his countenance which had once been occupied by his stately nose. Vincent and Cranbrook both regarded these familiar objects with peculiar ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... financial difficulties, they must have seen that it was an enterprise in which success could give their country little glory, while failure must cover it with disgrace. But what signifies to France the loss of such renown as victory bestows? What to her is the forgoing of one sprig of laurel more in addition to the accumulated honours of her victorious career? The multitude of Paris rather than France, the statesmen of the club and coffee-house, the politicians of the salons, ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... protection. "Shall they be green," he cried, "the colour of hope; or red, the colour of the free order of Cincinnatus?" "Green! green!" shouted the multitude. The speaker descended from the table, and fastened the sprig of a tree in his hat. Every one imitated him. The chestnut-trees of the palace were almost stripped of their leaves, and the crowd went in tumult to the house ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... time that Miss Emily came to this resolution, had she been clairvoyant, she might have seen Mara sitting very quietly, busy in the solitude of her own room with a little sprig of partridge-berry before her, whose round green leaves and brilliant scarlet berries she had been for hours trying to imitate, as appeared from the scattered sketches and fragments around her. In fact, before Zephaniah started on his spring fishing, ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... peace," the Kaiser pronounced. "He carries the sprig of olive in his mouth. My statesmen and counsellors would have sent to London an ambassador with sterner qualities. I preferred not. Terniloff is the man to gull fools, because he is a fool himself. He is ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... she followed him to the front door, and detained him a moment, to fasten in the button-hole of his coat a tuberose and sprig of heliotrope, ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... pounds lamb, cut from neck or shoulder. Cut into pieces two inches square. Melt one-fourth cup dripping, add meat and stir and brown evenly. Add two onions, thinly sliced, one sprig parsley, small bit bay leaf, two cloves and one-half teaspoonful peppercorns (tie last three spices in a bit of cheese cloth), and boiling water to nearly cover meat. Simmer slowly until meat is tender (about one and one-half hours). Then add two or three small carrots, scraped and cut ...
— Stevenson Memorial Cook Book • Various
... attack the eagle), was observed to direct its flight towards the senate-house, consecrated by Pompey, whilst a crowd of other birds were seen to hang upon its flight in close pursuit. What might be the object of the chase, whether the little king himself, or a sprig of laurel which he bore in his mouth, could not be determined. The whole train, pursuers and pursued, continued their flight towards Pompey's hall. Flight and pursuit were there alike arrested; the little king was overtaken by his enemies, who fell upon him as so many ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... Hussars, called, my papers tell me, Liechtenstein, and what with his good conduct and the help of Kirby's friends, he would have obtained a commission from the emperor, when, at the right moment to keep a sprig of Kirby's growth for his country, Lord Levellier sent word that he was down for a cornetcy in a British regiment of dragoons. Chillon came home from a garrison town, and there was a consultation about his future career. Shall it be England? Shall it be Austria? Countess Fanny's voice ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... even here with care," said Jackeymo, turning back to draw down an awning where the orange trees faced the north. "See!" he added, as he returned with a sprig ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... poured the water into the pot, from which the steam was rising. Ralph Peden could see the sunlight sparkle in the water as it arched itself solidly out of the pails. He was not near enough to see the lilac sprig on her light summer gown; but the lilac sunbonnet which she wore, principally it seemed in order that it might hang by the strings upon her shoulders, was to Ralph a singularly attractive piece of colour in the landscape. ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... that told of country birth. There was an indefinable atmosphere of goodness about her; I felt as if I were breathing sincerity and frank innocence. It was refreshing to my lungs. Poor innocent child, she had faith in something; there was a crucifix and a sprig or two of green box above her poor little painted wooden bedstead; I felt touched, or somewhat inclined that way. I felt ready to offer to charge no more than twelve per cent, and so give something towards establishing her in a ...
— Gobseck • Honore de Balzac
... Jose again. "Now we can eat!" and he pulled out a loaf of coarse bread from the injured pannier, and trimming off an end where the evil-smelling eggs had soaked it, divided it in two. On this and a sprig of garlic we broke our fast, and were munching and jogging along contentedly when we met the returning vedettes. They were not in the best of humours, you may be sure, and although we drew aside and paused with crusts half lifted to ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... depends entirely upon the height of the water) are—Orange and Grouse, Green Rail, Purple Rail, Black Rail, Orange Rail, March Brown, Hare's Ear, silver-tinselled body Black Rail, and Orange and Grouse with a sprig of Guinea Fowl ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... observed to direct its flight towards the senate-house, consecrated by Pompey, whilst a flock of other birds was seen to follow in close pursuit, apparently to destroy the little bird, or to deprive it of a sprig of laurel it carried through the air. The bird was overtaken, and torn ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... picture. Under the strictest test conditions, I have more than once had a solid, self-luminous, crystalline body placed in my hand by a hand which did not belong to any person in the room. In the light, I have seen a luminous cloud hover over a heliotrope on a side-table, break a sprig off, and carry it to a lady; and on some occasions I have seen a similar luminous cloud condense to the form of a hand and carry small objects about. During a seance in full light, a beautifully formed small hand rose up from an opening in ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... to Congress we had a glorious reception at our house in the country, and among others that came to it was a Mr. Sterling, the son of my father's college chum, and a promising young sprig of the law, father said. He came to stay a day or two in the house as a visitor before the reception, and was to leave the morning after it ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various |
