"Petal" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... humble, that needest to be courted forth from the shelter, and developed under the calm and genial atmosphere of holy, happy love—can such affection as Harley L'Estrange may proffer suffice to thee? Will not the blossoms, yet folded in the petal, wither away beneath the shade that may protect them from the storm, and yet shut them from the sun? Thou who, where thou givest love, seekest, though meekly, for love in return; —to be the soul's sweet necessity, the life's household partner to him who receives all thy faith and ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... This, of course, is difficult at first, but with the proper training the pupil should be able to see the phrases at a glance, just as a botanist in examining a new flower would divide it in his mind's eye into its different parts. He would never mistake the calyx for a petal, and he would be able to determine at once the peculiarities of each part. In addition to the melodic phrases the pupil should be able to see the metrical divisions which underlie the form of the piece. ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... not fly another yard, she saw a single cowslip under her claws. In an instant she dropped to the ground, and at the same moment Abdullah seized her tail. But Fantosina put forth her beak as far as it would go and just succeeded in touching the pale yellow petal of the one cowslip which ...
— The Bountiful Lady - or, How Mary was changed from a very Miserable Little Girl - to a very Happy One • Thomas Cobb
... himself. He knew without seeing. He did not wish to see. He strove to shut away thought of the devastation of what had once been a man's goodly face. Doris' skin was like a child's, smooth and soft and tinted like a rose petal. Love, he said to himself, had made her bloom. It made him quake to think that she might suddenly see out of those dear, blind eyes. Would she look and shudder and turn away? He shook off that ghastly thought. She would never see him. She could only touch him, feel him, hear the tenderness ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... less experienced. The picked river-drivers stood upon the rocks of the upper rapid, pole in hand. And here, watching them with a lack-lustre eye, stood Mamie in the shade of a dogwood tree in full blossom. Now and again a soft white petal would fall upon the water and be swept away. Above the hemlocks soughed softly. At her feet the giant maidenhair raised its delicate fronds till ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... task, glanced over her shoulder at him. She did not know how tantalizingly her face, close and clear in skin texture as the petal of a lily, flashed out her dislike. A heavier woman's rudeness ...
— The King Of Beaver, and Beaver Lights - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... feel guilty again—began to wonder just how much his daily visits to Denny's place had led her to suspect. But Dryad did not wait for any reply. She had turned once more until she was facing him, her lips beginning to curl again, petal-like, at the corners. ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... who happened to be named at plucking the last leaf or petal was, she supposed, to be her husband. Another way: pluck an even ash leaf, and keep ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... yet I cannot but think, clever as the whole is, that parts are weak, as when he doubts whether each curvature of the beak of humming-birds is of service to each species. He admits, perhaps too fully, that I have shown the use of each little ridge and shape of each petal in orchids, and how strange he does not extend the view to humming-birds. Still odder, it seems to me, all that he says on beauty, which I should have thought a nonentity, except in the mind of some sentient being. He might have ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... sunrise crept down the snowy slopes of the mountains, until at last, with a quick sudden burst, it poured a flood of light into the valley, tinging our little white tent with a delicate pink, like that of a wild-rose petal, turning every pendent dewdrop into a twinkling brilliant, and lighting up the still water of the river, until it became a quivering, flashing mass ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... A sepal, petal, and a thorn Upon a common summer's morn, A flash of dew, a bee or two, A breeze A caper in the trees, ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... hyperaesthetic every breeze has a sting, and life is full of pin pricks. "The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" are multiplied in number, and furthermore the reaction to them is intensified. In the "Arabian Nights" the princess boasts that a rose petal bruises her skin, while her competitor in delicacy is made ill by a fiber of cotton in her silken garments. So with the hyperaesthetic; an unintentional overlooking is reacted to as a deadly insult; the thwarting of any desire robs life of ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... flower once opened does not close again. In others, such as the Sweet Pea and the Bird's-foot Lotus, Nature has been more careful. When the Bee alights it clasps the "wings" of the flower with its legs, thus pressing them down; they are, however, locked into the "keel," or lower petal, which accordingly is also forced down, thus exposing the pollen which rubs against, and part of which sticks to, the breast of the Bee. When she leaves the flower the keel and wings rise again, thus protecting the rest of the pollen and keeping it ready until another visitor comes. It is ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... the petal-strewn grass under some Judas trees beside the lake shore, as I meander among these thoughts, and each of us, disregardful of his companion, follows his ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... the wings that by-and-by shall pass the immense sea. It is in this marvellous transformation of clods and cold matter into living things that the joy and the hope of summer reside. Every blade of grass, each leaf, each separate floret and petal, is an inscription speaking of hope. Consider the grasses and the oaks, the swallows, the sweet blue butterfly—they are one and all a sign and token showing before our eyes earth made into life. So that my hope becomes as broad ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... see, this little one shan't count to make up," said Levin, tearing off a little half-grown petal. "Here's ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... way with a sick feeling in the region of his heart. Who was he, Marc Dupre, trapper of the big woods, that he should dare think so often of that woman from Grand Portage, with her wondrous beauty and her tongue that could be like a cold knife-blade or the petal of a lily for softness? And yet he was conscious of a mighty change that had come over him with that day on the flat rock by the stockade when she had talked to him of the trapping,—a change like that which ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... picture. It was almost finished. Midsummer. Harrietta's little bungalow garden was ablaze with roses, dahlias, poppies, asters, strange voluptuous flowers whose names she did not know. The roses, plucked and placed in water, fell apart, petal by petal, two hours afterward. From her veranda she saw the Sierra Madre range and the foothills. She thought of her "unexcelled view of Park" which could be had by flattening one ear and the side of your face against ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... one of his stateliest songs, and after it a gay chanson, and then a string of epigrams. All true,—he said,—all flowers of his soul; only one with the corolla spread, and another with its disk half opened, and the third with the heart-leaves covered up and only a petal or two showing its tip through the calyx. The water-lily is the type of the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... and stared into dark space. She walked languidly and purposelessly to the wardrobe. She stopped to pick a petal from the carpet. The sound of the last door was over, the retiring footfall had died away in the distance, the last voice was hushed; the moon was shining on the sea. A lovely scene, silver and blue; but how the girl's ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... little creature, is as harmless as a baby, and about as slow and undecided in its movements. Its cold body seems to like the warmth of your hand. Yet in color it is as rich an orange as the petal of the cardinal flower is a rich scarlet. It seems more than an outside color; it is a glow, and renders the creature almost transparent, an effect as uniform as the radiance of a precious stone. Its little, innocent-looking, ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... and Arthur listened, holding his cup and saucer carefully on his knee with his big freckled hands. His eyes were fixed on Joanna, on the strong-featured, high-coloured face he thought so much more beautiful than Ellen's with its delicate lines and pale, petal-like skin.... Yes, Joanna was the girl all along—the one for looks, the one for character—give him Joanna every time, with her red and brown face, and thick brown hair, and her high, deep bosom, and sturdy, comfortable waist ... why couldn't he ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... nectaries to the heads of pigeons in a ring round a dish, a favourite device of ancient artists" (Dr. Prior); or to "the figure of a hovering dove with expanded wings, which we obtain by pulling off a single petal with its attached sepals" (Lady Wilkinson); though it may also have had some reference to the colour, as the word is ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... Pierrot, and a beautiful lady who wore a grey satin domino. She had taken off her mask and pushed back the hood from her hair, which was encircled by a diadem made of something shining and silvery, and a ray of moonlight fell on her face, which was as delicate as the petal of a flower. Pierrot was masked; he was holding her hand and looking into her eyes, which were turned upwards ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... upon a polished surface, only made brighter to her vision the form which the other had sought to blacken. What a new existence seemed opening before her, with new and higher capacities for enjoyment! The half-closed bud had suddenly unfolded itself in the summer air, and every blushing petal thrilled with a more exquisite ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur
... herself be allowed to tell Mr. Perkins. She felt better already in her conscience, she declared, and even sang as she set about rearranging her roses. Each one of these she named with a girl's name, Johnnie assisting; and the two were able, by the curl of a petal, or the number of leaves on a stem, or some other tiny sign, to tell Cora from Alice, and Elaine from Blanchefleur, and the Princess Mary from Buddir al Buddoor, as well as to recognize Rebecca, and Julia, and Anastasia, and Gertie, and June—and ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... stream On which we strew Petal by petal the flower of our heart; The end lost in dream, They float past our view, We only ...
— A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass • Amy Lowell
... woo the daughter of the King of the Fire-flies until every petal was dotted with them. One after another in a long troop they appeared. Each in his own way, proudly, humbly, boldly, mildly, with flattery, with boasting, even with tears, each proffered his love, told his rank or expatiated on his fortune or vowed his constancy, sang his tune ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... and elliptical, bearing a spine at the extremity, 3 stipules to each pair of leaflets. Flowers yellow and red, in racemes on the ends of the branches. Calyx divided almost to the base, with 5 concave parts. Corolla, 5 petals 1' long with short claws, one petal very small and straight, the others larger, with wavy edges. Stamens 10, crimson, 3' long, free, woolly, united at the lower end. Pistil the same length as the stamens. Stigma somewhat concave. Ovary sessile, unilocular, many-ovuled. Pod compressed, ...
— The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines • T. H. Pardo de Tavera
... small loaf with a plain icing. But round the sides of it were trailed long sprays of ivy geranium, making a beautiful bordering. The centre was crowned with a white camellia in its perfection. From the tip edge of each outer petal depended a drop of gold, made to adhere there by some strong gum probably; and between the camellia and the ivy wreaths was a brilliant ring of gold spots, somewhat larger, set in the icing. Somebody, and it was probably the doctor, for want of better to do,—had ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... bending outside, so that the whole looks like an inverted pentapod; but gradually the tips of the arms bend outward as the arms diverge more and more, and when fully expanded the crown has the appearance of a lily of the L. martagon type, in which each petal is curved upon itself, the pinnules of the arms spreading laterally more and more, as the crown is more fully open. I have not been able to detect any motion in the stem traceable to contraction, though there is no stiffness in its bearing. When disturbed, the pinnules of ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... leaves, unfold flowers of yellow, red, and pink. Delicate little crucifers of white and yellow shine modestly below all these; little cream-colored flowers on slender scapes look skyward on every side; while others of purer white, with every variety of petal, crowd up among them. Standing now upon some hill-side that commands miles of landscape, one is dazzled with a blaze of color, from acres and acres of pink, great fields of violets, vast reaches of blue, endless sweeps ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner
... appear this season. The strong, vigorous development of the buds, of one plant in particular, continued to claim our attention, and we watched it with intense interest. Day by day the buds grew larger, and then finally a day came when the first petal lifted, and the next morning the petals spread forth in all their glory. It was a gem, we realized we had something first class. My father said after he had studied it a while, "It pays me for all my time, and money, and work. If I never get another as good ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... mother. There was nothing scared or faded about her, and she was dreadfully sick too, once in a while since she had the fever. She was a little bit of a woman, coloured like a wild rose petal, face and body—a piece of pink porcelain Dutch, father said. She had brown eyes, hair like silk, and she always had three best dresses. There was one of alpaca or woollen, of black, gray or brown, and two silks. Always there was a fine rustly black one with a bonnet and mantle to match, ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... come, And he's crunching crust and crumb, He'll no longer look a glum Little dunce; But be brisk as bees that settle On a summer rose's petal: Wherefore, Polly, put the ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... of taking satisfaction or pleasure in the luxury that surrounds him. He does not congratulate himself on his wealth, nor upon the comforts he possesses and that he values so highly. He thinks of nothing but the little crumpled petal which causes him imaginary distress, and all his faculties are ...
— Poise: How to Attain It • D. Starke
... her heart burned that everything in the world should be more free than she herself. She felt the wind fanning over her on its way, she took the rich odors that it brought, she looked after the flower-petal that fluttered away with it, she saw the strong sunshine penetrating among the shadows of a jungly spot and catching a thousand points of color in the gloom, she recognized the constant fluent interchange among all the atoms of the universe;—why was she alone, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... put out the light In some wilderness Of far forsaken life Might each kiss blossom Into a lotus and a Shephali.[2] And in the desolate hours Of loneliness of traveling In the dusk of despair One petal of these Will cheer the vagrant souls That tread the pathway Of love's forsaking. Or, when Death will sow This Soul of mine On the lake-shore of sorrow, Like a weeping willow I will spring, And with my green tresses And bending body Shall ...
— Sandhya - Songs of Twilight • Dhan Gopal Mukerji
... lotus-petal, sweet her tender jasmine form, And a maiden's stainless honour doth her ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... loveliness quaintly thoughtful as she sucked at the little mouthpiece of chased silver and exhaled faint clouds of aromatic vapour. From time to time she smiled pensively and put aside the tube while she played with the rings upon her slender, petal-like fingers; five rings there were to each hand, from the heavy thumb circlet that might possibly fit a man's little finger to the tiny band that was on her own, all linked together by light strands of gold radiating from the big, gem-encrusted ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... remembered from the solido. He pulled it off and the thing writhed slowly in his hands. It was alive—a green length a metre long, like a noduled section of a thick vine. One end flared out into a petal-like formation. The Disan took a hook-shaped object from his waist and thrust it into the petaled orifice. When he turned the hook in a quick motion the length of green writhed and curled around ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... shoulder, she made him, somehow, think of a hollyhock, by the tilt of her tall, slim, young figure, and by the colors of her hat from which her face flowered; no doubt the deep-crimson silk waist she wore, with its petal-edged ruffle flying free down her breast, had something to do with his fantastic notion. She was a brunette, with the lightness and delicacy that commonly go with the beauty of a blonde. She could not have been more than fifteen; her skirts had not yet matured to the ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... made of silk or satin; it may have as many petals as desired. Each petal is cut from a piece of folded material like the diagram (1). It is highly important that the folded edge be on a true bias. Begin the rose by cutting three petals like the illustration, with the bias edge one and one-half inches long. Run a gathering thread ...
— Make Your Own Hats • Gene Allen Martin
... of skin from under his pillow; it was as tiny and as fragile as a periwinkle petal. He showed ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... she met Brent at the door, was pale with the waxen softness of a magnolia petal and though the vividness of her lips and eyes were emphasized by contrast, suffering seemed to have endowed her remarkable beauty with a sort of nobility—an exquisite delicacy that was a paradox for ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... pink roses had lost a petal another box was brought to Miss Sterling's door. Her fingers quivered with hope as she untied the ribbon. The address was in the same firm, open hand. A shimmer of gold met her first glance, but the scrap of white she had longed for was missing. Without doubt the pilferer ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... with a genealogy reaching unbroken through the Flood back to the overhanging blossoms of Eden, have come down to us, as it were, only in their travelling costume, with their best dresses packed away in stamen, or petal, or private seedcase, to be brought out at the end of fifty centuries at the touch of human genius. Those of which Solomon sang in his time, and which exceeded his glory in their every-day array, even "the hyssop by the wall," never showed, ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... first wild rose when it hung from its stem with its center of stamens and pistils and its single whorl of pale petals had only begun its course, and was destined, as the ages passed, to develop stamen upon stamen and petal upon petal, till it assumed a hundred forms of joy ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger
... apple blossom that had fallen into her lap. The fingers that held the petal tingled, and a flush ...
— Viviette • William J. Locke
... this nonsense with extreme gusto, and when the final petal on the large daisy proclaimed that "twelve he marries," she flung the stalk ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... she brought a garland of wild flowers, fragrant, fair, Which she culled whilst onward leading her flock with patient care; The diamond dew-drops clinging to every petal sweet,— For the mystic Rose of Heaven was ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
... in such a case we likewise have an opportunity to observe that leaves of the stalk become transformed into petals. Thus on the stalk of tulips, for instance, there sometimes appears an almost completely developed and colored petal. Even more remarkable is the case when such a leaf, half green and half of it belonging to the stalk, remains attached to the latter, while another colored part is raised with the corolla, and the leaf is thus torn ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... lonely room, tomb-like to thee as mine, Tomb-like as tomb of some returning ghost Seems only bright about my lily-flower. And, mayhap, while I wrong thee thus in thought Thou bendest o'er it, feigning for some ease Of parted ache conceits of poet-wit On petal and on stamen—let me try! If lilies be alike thine is as this, I wonder ...
— English Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... planes. In the old aphorism, nature is always self-similar. In the plant, the eye or germinative point opens to a leaf, then to another leaf, with a power of transforming the leaf into radicle, stamen, pistil, petal, bract, sepal, or seed. The whole art of the plant is still to repeat leaf on leaf without end, the more or less of heat, light, moisture, and food, determining the form it shall assume. In the animal, nature makes a vertebra, or a spine of vertebrae, and ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... space of some eight acres of garden ground on the hilltop, around which are the dwelling-places of the priests) is built in the shape of a sunflower, with a dome-covered central hall, from which radiate twelve petal-shaped courts, each dedicated to one of the twelve months, and serving as the repositories of statues reared in memory of the illustrious dead. The width of the circle beneath the dome is three hundred feet, the height of the dome is four hundred feet, and the length of the ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... better to let them first imbibe it unconsciously in their study. Whenever their minds are ready for it, it will be readily understood. The chief difficulty is that they imagine that there is a direct metamorphosis of a leaf to a petal or a stamen. ...
— Outlines of Lessons in Botany, Part I; From Seed to Leaf • Jane H. Newell
... present, occupied a suite of rooms in Frina Mavrodin's house, and this evening she reclined at full length among the cushions of a low couch, and watched a door at one end of the room expectantly. Her hand was stretched out to a bowl of flowers on a table by her side, and she plucked a petal at intervals which she crushed and let fall. Something of the girl's character seemed to be in the action. She was not weary, not worn out with the day's work or pleasure, whichever it might have been, but was waiting anxiously, irritably even, for news, or ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... flower petal consists essentially of these two parts, variously proportioned and outlined. It {74} expands from C to a b; and closes in the external line, and ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... which the experienced naturalist has long since got utterly tired of. But has your rash objector ever lighted upon that rare larva which lives among the periwinkles, and exactly imitates a periwinkle petal? Has he ever discovered those deceptive creatures which pretend for all the world to be leaves of lady's-bedstraw, or dress themselves up as flowers of buttonweed? Has he ever hit upon those immoral caterpillars which wriggle through ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... this, the director showed us some very curious and exquisite specimens of castings, such as baskets of flowers, in which the most delicate and fragile blossoms, the curl of a petal, the finest veins in a leaf, the lightest flower-spray that ever quivered in a breeze, were perfectly preserved; and the basket contained an abundant heap of such sprays. There were likewise a pair of hands, taken actually from life, clasped together as they were, and they looked like ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... white shoe on the carpet with no more noise than a rose-petal falling. Then followed a second of indecision. Should she risk pushing the man aside, and fleeing past him into the hall? No, her touch would break the spell. She must go on with the ghost-play, and vanish ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... is flecked from you, scales are dashed from your stem, sand cuts your petal, furrows it with hard edge, like ...
— Sea Garden • Hilda Doolittle
... simply parted on a broad forehead, and was gathered in heavy masses low on the neck. Her lips were full and red, and, when parted, exhibited teeth of dazzling whiteness, while her complexion, which was very dark, was yet clear and pure as the hue of the magnolia's petal. But that face was pale, very pale, almost as colorless as that of the quiet sleeper at its side, and upon it rested an expression of love unutterable, mingled with the sadness ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... crevices of the pathway down to the quaint old iron-work gate. Yes! they have gone off to spend their honeymoon, and Margaret has written to me twice to say how happy they are together in the Hesperides. Dear happiness! Selfish, indeed, were he who would envy you one petal of that wonderful rose—Rosa Mundi—God ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... together, and it is not until these stout-stemmed plants are cultivated and duly sheltered and watered, and can grow, as it were, with confidence, that they are able to do justice to the inherent beauty of penciled petal and veined leaf. Then the stem contracts to ordinary dimensions, and leaf and blossom expand into things which may well be a joy to the botanist's eye. A thousand times during that shady saunter did I envy my companions their scientific ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... works of William Hunt, of the Old Water-colour Society, in this respect, continually, and make frequent memoranda of the variegations in flowers; not painting the flower completely, but laying the ground colour of one petal, and painting the spots on it with studious precision: a series of single petals of lilies, geraniums, tulips, &c., numbered with proper reference to their position in the flower, will be interesting to you on many grounds besides those of art. Be careful to get the gradated distribution ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... grew to be quite the loveliest lass in all the world. Her hair was as black as the raven's wing, her eyes were as blue as the midsummer sea, and her skin was fair as the petal of a rose. One spring morning a little yellow bird flew into the cedar grove, and gave the dwarf a letter which ...
— The Firelight Fairy Book • Henry Beston
... mirth-making? Did she realize in a flash of prescience that there was no earthly future for our sweet Cecily? Not for her were to be the lengthening shadows or the fading garland. The end was to come while the rainbow still sparkled on her wine of life, ere a single petal had fallen from her rose of joy. Long life was before all the others who trysted that night in the old homestead orchard; but Cecily's maiden feet were never to leave the ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... my forehead glance and gleam, A ray, a single ray, of your star, veiled always, Since I have felt the fall, upon my lifetime's stream, Of one rose petal plucked from the ...
— Ballads and Lyrics of Old France: with other Poems • Andrew Lang
... tell of a love that grew without sight? So much of the love of romance and history is a matter of flower-petal complexions, heart-consuming eyes, satin lips, and all the form and color that make beauty. How can I make clear a love that grew strong and passionately demanding, knew delicate coquetries of advance and evasion, intimacy of minds like the meeting of eyes in understanding—all in the dark? The ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... discretion, the maiden proceeds to choose the style of beauty she prefers. Will she be a Juno, a Venus, or a Helen? Will she have a Grecian nose, or one tip-tilted like the petal of a rose? Let her try the tip-tilted style first. The professor has an idea it is going to be fashionable. If afterwards she does not like it, there will be time to try the Grecian. It is difficult to decide these ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... breasted birds bursting with the shrill ecstasy of life in nesting time. All is hot and fierce and passionate, ardent and unashamed in its exulting and importunate desire for life and love. And, do you know that the scarlet lilies are woven petal by petal from my heart's blood, these little quivering birds are my soul made incarnate music, these heavy perfumes are my emotions dissolved into aerial essence, this flaming blue and gold sky is the "very me," that part ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... harbor. Take the message to your Chieftain, That the foe comes from the Northland; Yet they shall not harm your people If you stand upon the hilltop With the talisman I give you. Take this Magic Iris with you, Guard it well for every petal Has a charm that brings an answer To a prayer that is unselfish, To a prayer for all the people That will live around your harbor. Never, while you guard the hilltop, Shall a foe invade your country. Petals three there are; three wishes Shall be granted when you ...
— The Legends of San Francisco • George W. Caldwell
... of lily-haunted field The tired birds had stayed their amorous tune, And broad and glittering like an argent shield High in the sapphire heavens hung the moon, Did no strange dream or evil memory make Each tremulous petal of its ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde
... strongly, all the morning, and the waves were rolling in heavily. Their green tops were crested with white foam which rose high and higher, curved over as softly as a rose petal, balanced for a brief second, then fell with a crash and went flowing up the bank of the beach, circling and twisting in countless eddies that now and then crept to the very awnings and caused a stampede ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... through the woods, or sitting between the knees of the old hemlock beside the river. And always her hair was blond and soft and loosely curling, her eyes of a brown so bright and clear that it seemed to glow with hidden gold, and her face a full oval, tinted like the petal of a ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... skillful fisherman withdraws his lines heavy with eels. Give back to me the blue gleaning under the moon, and my timid and clandestine loves amid the wild sorrel, where I could no longer distinguish the rosy tongue of my beloved from the dew-laden petal of the eglantine which had fallen upon the grass. Give back to me my weakness, oh thou, my dear heart. And go, and say unto God, that I can ...
— Romance of the Rabbit • Francis Jammes
... miracle happened. Michael, with the hand that had just taken hers, stroked a petal of this prized vegetable, with no thought in his mind stronger than the thoughts that had been indigenous there since Christmas. As his finger first touched the rim of the town-bred petals, undersized yet not quite lacking in "rose-quality," he had intended nothing more than ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... or delayed a fortnight, very likely upon returning you would find that their fleeting loveliness was over. Their slender red stems rise but a few inches, and are surrounded with three leaves; the six white petals of the cup-shaped flower droop a little and have a golden centre. Under the petal is a tinge of purple, which is sometimes faintly visible through it. The leaves are not only three in number, but are each cut deeply thrice; they are hardy, ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... grass is thinner are the heads of purple clover; pluck one of these, and while meditating draw forth petal after petal and imbibe the honey with the lips till nothing remains but the green framework, like stolen jewellery from which the gems have been taken. Torn pink ragged robins through whose petals a comb seems to have ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... confesses to have named the day-flowers after three brothers Commelyn, Dutch botanists, because two of them—commemorated in the two showy blue petals of the blossom—published their works; the third, lacking application and ambition, amounted to nothing, like the inconspicuous whitish third petal! Happily Kaspar Commelyn died in 1731, before the joke was perpetrated in "Species Plantarum." Soon after noon, the day-flower's petals roll ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... characteristics than have been achieved by the most expert trainers of animals. He could not make a carrot into a calla; but he did take the dwarf natural calla plant and develop it into a splendid lily that bears flowers measuring a foot across the petal. He also multiplied the characteristic colors of the natural calla and has evolved great blossoms of a score of shades, from pure ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... a lady, as a lady was before the light of that poor worn word went out. Quiet, reserved, gracious, continent, bearing in face and form the fragile beauty of a rose-petal come to its fading on a windless ledge, she moved down the years with the stedfast sweetness of the gentlewoman—gentle, ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... first sight from the description he already had, for the leaves of the plant grew thick about the root and put forth an upright stem, some two to three feet high, from which proceeded shoots, like broccoli sprouts on an enlarged scale, the outer petal-like leaves of which were six to eight inches long, and of a dark olive-green hue and fleshy nature, rounded and ciliated at the margin; while the inner leaves were of a paler green that approximated to yellow in the centre, where they were crumpled together, exactly like as in the "heart" of ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... tenderly. The dark cloak about her had fallen a little aside, and showed a gleam of white neck emerging from snowy drapery underneath—it was, to his fancy, as though a white rose- petal had been suddenly and delicately unfurled. He longed to kiss that virginal whiteness, and trembled at the audacity ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... France's writings with brief, clear cut, decisive touches, but "the murmurs and scents" of the great waters, the silences of the shadowy forests are not allowed to cross the threshold of his garden of Epicurus. Each single petal of a rose will have its curves, its colours, its tints; but the mysterious forces of subterranean life which bring the thing to birth are pushed back into the darkness. The marble-cold resistance of Anatole France's classical ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... opening forming the enclosure of the altar contains alternating masks expressing Intelligence and Ignorance in equal measure, symbolizing the Peoples of the World. A gradual development to the higher forms of plant life is expressed upward in the altar tower, the conventionalized lily petal being the highest form." ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... Even though she were not worth while, even though I wholly lost hope, still I'd not give her up. I couldn't—that's my nature. But—she is worth while." And I could see her, slim and graceful, the curves in her face and figure that made my heart leap, the azure sheen upon her petal-like skin, the mystery of the soul luring ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... Heavenly origin, a quite remarkable power resides in it. If a maiden, whose mind harbours a doubt, pulls off, one by one, the white petals of the flower-star, whispering meanwhile a certain sentence at the fall of the last little petal, she is quite sure of what she ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... a white-crepe peignoir, and there was no color in her cheeks. Her skin had the soft whiteness of a rose petal. Her eyes were like stars. As I lay there and looked at her I wondered if it was Anthony's kisses or the memory of Olaf's singing which had made ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... of the flowers in the light of a window to show its crisp details, its delicate contrasts, its arabesques of color, and allow the sovereign lady to see a tear upon some petal more expanded than the rest. What do we give to God? perfumes, light, and song, the purest expression of our nature. Well, these offerings to God, are they not likewise offered to love in this poem of luminous flowers ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... sheath, from which rose the whiteness of her arms and shoulders, and the full column of her throat, on which the black head looked small. Until now, he had seen her bared wrist—no more. Now the only break on the long arm was a band of black velvet, which as it were insisted on the petal-white purity of the skin, and served in ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... near the window with the full light on her face, somehow oddly defenceless in her extreme embarrassment, and he could see the light powdering of freckles on her nose, as well as that curious, camellia-petal fineness of skin which always escaped notice until the observer came quite close, for there was a tinge of sallowness in the colour which prevented people from admiring it ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... the better. As to the browns, they will put your whole picture out of key. In this palette I am sure you will find every color which is needed. There are few greens, but those given can be used to gray a petal as well as to paint a leaf; therefore there is no likelihood of your using a color in a leaf which is not in ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst
... Then came the large hall, with its noiseless carpets and great Chinese jars, its lacquered cabinets and the wide staircase, and floating down the wide staircase, impatient to greet him, light and shining as a flower petal, sweet and welcoming, radiating a joyfulness as cool and clear as a dewy morning, came his mother. "WELL, little man, my son," she would cry in her happy singing ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... respiration already spoken of belongs particularly to the shoots or buds, but there is another pulmonary system, perhaps totally independent of the green foliage, which belongs to the fructification only, I mean the corol or petals. In this there is an artery belonging to each petal, which conveys the vegetable blood to its extremities, exposing it to the light and air under a delicate membrane covering the internal surface of the petal, where it often changes its colour, ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... hair was short and very thick, and perched upon it was a round scarlet cap; her mouth was scarlet; her eyes were like Scotch braes, brown and laughing; the curves of her long, delicate lips ran upward; her curving thin, black eyebrows were like question-marks; her chin was tilted upward like the petal of a flower. She was very slim, and wore a very short brown skirt which revealed the slenderest of feet and ankles; a sweater clung to her unformed, lithe little figure. She had an air of pointed sharpness and firmness like a lifted sword. She might have been sixteen, ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... clear blues and first appleblossom pinks, the colors of a hardy garden that has no need for the phoenix-colors of the poppy, because it has passed the boy's necessity for talking at the top of its voice in scarlet and can hold in one shaped fastidious petal, faint-flushed with a single trembling of one serene living dye, all the colors the wise mind knows and the soul released into its ecstasy has taken for its body invisible, its body of delight most spotless, as lightning takes bright body of rapture and ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... of the breaking dawn, as tender as the notes of a cooing dove calling gently to its mate, as soft as the touch of a flower-petal the words drifted through the curtain. With a whispered cry to Allah, his God, the man was upon his feet. With the strength of the oriental, which has its root in patience and its flower in achievement in all that appertains to love, he had uncomplainingly waited ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... the one slant must be maintained throughout. In small curved figures, the stitches may be placed more closely at the inner edge and spread slightly at the outer edge. In flat work where the leaf or petal is large, two or three stitches taken in the cloth, back of the face stitch, holds them even and prevents misplacement in laundering. (All embroidery should be ironed on the ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson
... force abroad in Albert that could do these things, an iron force that had no mercy for iron, a mighty mechanical contrivance that could take machinery and pull it all to pieces in a moment as a child takes a flower to pieces petal by petal. ...
— Unhappy Far-Off Things • Lord Dunsany
... belly; is restless and active, like the willow-wrens, and hops from bough to bough, examining every part for food; it also runs up the stems of the crown-imperials, and, putting its head into the bells of those flowers, sips the liquor which stands in the nectarium of each petal. Sometimes it feeds on the ground like the hedge- sparrow, by hopping about on the grass-plots ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White
... praised them as she always did, and then began to finger them over, choosing the finest to save for her guest. Rare as they were in kind, and opened that morning, there was not a perfect rose among them. Each one showed the touch of blight in bloom. Every petal, just unclosed and dewy at the core, was curled along the edges, scorched in the bud. It was not mildew or canker or disease, ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... to the fortune teller's, who had said, "A great love is in store for you." "How dreadfully I look! This is the picture of me that he must take away with him." She entered the living room as Parr and the taxi driver were carrying out the valises. She took a flower from the gourd. A petal fell off; and the taxi driver, brushing past her, ground it into ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... had planted, flung sackfuls of bloom at his feet. They poured themselves out in abandoned, open-armed, spendthrift, wasteful—perfectly prodigal—quantities of rose-tinted petal; prodigal as a river which flows full to the brim, never questioning but what there will be ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... was still, the unrivaled beauty of Seddon Hall. Her complexion was as soft and pink as a rose petal, and her shimmering golden hair and big blue eyes made you think of gardens and Dresden china. She was never known to hurry, and she spoke with a soft lazy drawl, which, curiously enough, never irritated any one. She had won quite a renown as a poet, but was too quiet ...
— Polly's Senior Year at Boarding School • Dorothy Whitehill
... serenely contemplating them from her movable throne, crowned with pearls and phosphorescent stars drawn from the depths of her dominion. White as the cloud, white as the sail, white as the foam, entirely, dazzlingly white was her fair majesty except where a rosy blush tinted the petal-like skin of ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... chocolate, little companion!" Hunger, too, awoke, and she dropped two sticks of chocolate into the water. "The fire dies down to-night. To-morrow I shall be gone." A petal from the apple blossom on the mantelpiece fell against ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... could be received from outside, but thanks to the United States Minister, who had resolved to remain in Paris, a letter arrived from time to time. It was in this way that I received a thin slip of paper, as soft as a primrose petal, bringing me the following message: "Every one well. Courage. A thousand kisses.—Your mother." This impalpable missive ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... subjects are selected more or less at random from the multitude. What would be his conclusion if he examined painters and others who have developed their sensibilities to a deep appreciation of light and color? It is certain that the painter who picks up a purple petal fallen from a rose and places it upon a green leaf is as thrilled by the powerful vibrant color-chord as the musician who hears an exquisite ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... was not one of her greatest beauties. It was slightly sallow, so she made artistic use of a white cosmetic, which gave her skin the clearness of a camellia petal. But she had been putting on rather more than usual since her father's death, because it was suitable as well as becoming to be pale when one was in deep mourning. Consequently Margot could not turn perceptibly whiter, but she felt the blood go ebbing away from her face ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... those innocent looking flowers really possess powerful weapons in the shape of tiny lassos, which are concealed in lasso-cells. These lasso-cells, which are very small, are carefully hidden in the walls of those petal-like tentacles, or feelers of the Anemone. Still other lasso-cells are hidden in the mouth of the Anemone, and inside its stomach. In the cells the long, slender, thread-like lassos lie coiled up ready for use. The lassos escape from the cells by turning themselves inside out with lightning-like ...
— How Sammy Went to Coral-Land • Emily Paret Atwater
... name, of course, to the more or less feathery effect resulting from its rather open character. Like buttonhole, it may be worked solid, as in the leaf and petal forms on the sampler, Illustration 25, but it is better suited to cover narrow than broad surfaces. The jagged outline which it gives makes it useful in embroidering plumage, but it is not to be confounded with what is called "plumage-stitch," which is not feather-stitch ...
— Art in Needlework - A Book about Embroidery • Lewis F. Day
... ye?" inquired old Mrs. Bray, sharply. "There's nothin' to whisper about as I know. Did ever you see anything purtier than this pink chiny piece, Myry? It broke so clean, and curved as a petal. And this here piece of George's wife's lemonade-glass—it's handsome as a brooch. See how the flower come out! Why, Myry, I've set here and fairly ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... he threw the rose towards the musician, and lo! the petals fell in a shower on the ground. Sir Buzz went down on his knees and instantly gathered them up; but one petal escaping, changed into a mouse. Whereupon Sir Buzz, with the speed of lightning, turned into a cat, which caught ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... in the broad June light On the open bank of the river, In the summer of manhood, young; And over the water bright Is a lair that is overhung With coned pink blooms that quiver And droop, till the water's breast Is of petal ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... nervous hands, and the slim, lace-covered arms, were of the same satin-textured duskiness as the heart-shaped face, with its laughing red mouth. Her cheekbones were rather high and touched with colour, as if a geranium petal had been rubbed across them, just under the brown shadows beneath the eyes. Her chin was small and pointed, her forehead low and broad, and this, with the slight prominence of the cheekbones and the narrowing of the chin, ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... a corner of the throne-room, near a little fountain that trickled continually a sort of silver-colored syrup, which made a drowsy sound as it fell. Then they flew away again, and after a good while returned carrying a pat of butter in a large magnolia petal. The magnolia petal was about the size of Mother's best turkey-platter, and as white and fragrant as the magnolias at home. And the pat of butter was about as large as a veal loaf. Of course it did not look in the ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... glory that world bloomed and changed beneath her. Petal by petal its splendours fell away and were swallowed in the sea of space, whilst from the deep heart of the immortal rose new splendours took their birth, and fresh-fashioned, mysterious, wonderful, reappeared the measureless city ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... epic of the Cosmos, evoked when the "Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters"—an epic printed in stars on blue abysses of illimitable space; in illuminated type of rose leaf, primrose petal, scarlet berry on the great greenery of field and forest; in the rainbows that glow on tropical humming birds, on Himalayan pheasants, on dying dolphins in purple seas; and in all the riotous carnival of color on Nature's palette, from shifting ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... swaying reeds of grace, and being in radiant spirits at the prospect of "going to Europe," were companions to lure a man to any desperate lengths. They laughed incessantly, as though they were chimes of silver bells; they had magnolia-petal skins which neither wind nor sun blemished; they had nice young manners, and soft moods in which their gazelle eyes melted and glowed and their long lashes drooped. They could dance, they played on guitars, and they sang. They ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... of your sketches where you wish to get rich and luscious effects. Study the works of William Hunt, of the Old Water-color Society, in this respect, continually, and make frequent memoranda of the variegations in flowers; not painting the flower completely, but laying the ground color of one petal, and painting the spots on it with studious precision: a series of single petals of lilies, geraniums, tulips, etc., numbered with proper reference to their position in the flower, will be interesting to you on many ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... never will wine-red rose or white, Petal by petal, fall On that stretch of mud and sand that lies By the hideous prison-wall, To tell the men who tramp the yard That God's ...
— Book of Old Ballads • Selected by Beverly Nichols
... quivers a little, and swiftly, before your eyes, the first of the hundred petals detaches its delicate edges, and springs back, opening towards the water, while its white reflection opens to meet it from below. Many moments of repose follow,—you watch,—another petal trembles, detaches, springs open, and is still. Then another, and another, and another. Each movement is so quiet, yet so decided, so living, so human, that the radiant creature seems a Musidora of the water, and you almost blush with a sense of guilt, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... When I was in San Francisco I used to visit the Chinese Quarter frequently. There I used to watch a great hulking Chinese workman at his task of digging, and used to see him every day drink his tea from a little cup as delicate in texture as the petal of a flower, whereas in all the grand hotels of the land, where thousands of dollars have been lavished on great gilt mirrors and gaudy columns, I have been given my coffee or my chocolate in cups an inch and a quarter thick. I think I have ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... the hours of unthinking pleasure over? Do you not know that I am no more than what you see before you? For me there is no vista beyond. The dew that hangs on the tip of a Kinsuka petal has neither name nor destination. It offers no answer to any question. She whom you love is like ...
— Chitra - A Play in One Act • Rabindranath Tagore
... And now the petal, twisted tight, Above the calyx peers to sight With apex tipped with purple, bright As if the rainbow dyed it. While on the air it vacillates, Its owner's bosom palpitates To see it open, as he waits Impatient ...
— The Youth's Coronal • Hannah Flagg Gould
... five to three. In one section of the Malpighiaceae the closed flowers, according to A. de Jussieu, are still further modified, for the five stamens which stand opposite to the sepals are all aborted, a sixth stamen standing opposite to a petal being alone developed; and this stamen is not present in the ordinary flowers of this species; the style is aborted; and the ovaria are reduced from three to two. Now although natural selection may well have had the power to prevent ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... "coo-roo, coo-roo," Mingles with the wooing note That bubbles from the song-bird's throat; Where on waves of rosy light at play, Mingle a thousand airy minions, And drifting as on a golden bay, The butterfly with his petal pinions, From isle to isle of his fair dominions Floats with the languid tides away; Where the squirrel and rabbit shyly mate, And none so timid but finds her fate; The meek hen-robin upon the nest Thrills to her lover's ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... petal-like agaric is so called from the fancied resemblance of the plant to the petal of a flower. The plant usually grows in a nearly upright or more or less ascending position, or when it grows from the side of a trunk it is somewhat shelving. It is somewhat spathulate in form, i. e., broad ...
— Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. • George Francis Atkinson
... handbags and other pretty articles, each a marvel of minute handicraft. One bag in my possession measures only four inches square, and is worked on fine canvas, about forty threads to the square inch, the design being the favourite Tudor rose, each petal worked in lace stitch, and raised from the centre which is made of knots worked with golden hair, flat green leaves exquisitely shaded, and a charming bit of the worker's skill in the shape of a pea's pod, open and raised, ...
— Chats on Old Lace and Needlework • Emily Leigh Lowes
... heads, looking like cherubim drunk with light, floating in spheres of harmony and beauty, I would think: "Ah, what a garden, what flowers to gather, to breathe! Ah! Marguerites, Marguerites! What will your last petal say to him who plucks it? A little, a little, but not all. That is the moral of the world, that is the end of your smiles. It is over this terrible abyss that you are walking in your spangled gauze; it is on this hideous ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... their accommodating nature lies in the fact that within the Hyacinth or Tulip every petal of the coming flower is already stored. During the five or six years of its progressive life the capacities of the bulb have been steadily conserved, and we have but to unfold its beauty, aiming at short stout ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... honesty or his courage. Even the private secretary of His Excellency hesitated to have this rubber prince and mahogany baron haled before him as a common citizen of Anchuria. So he sent Goodwin a flowery epistle, each word-petal dripping with honey, requesting the favour of an interview. Goodwin replied with an invitation to dinner at his ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... in brimming armfuls bore Slight wanton flowers and foolish toys of fruit: And round him ladies thronged in warm pursuit, Fingered and lipped and proffered the strange store: And from one hand the petal and the core Savoured of sleep; and cluster and curled shoot Seemed from another hand like shame's salute,— Gifts that I felt my cheek ...
— The House of Life • Dante Gabriel Rossetti
... this time, bub, that I'm in my second childhood, and playing dime novel. But there are some things in politics that have to be done as gentle and careful as picking a rose petal off a school-ma'am's shoulder." The Duke chuckled and smoked for a time. "When I've had a job of that sort to do I haven't even talked to myself, Harlan. So you mustn't think I'm distrustful of you because I don't tell ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... you think about them. They electrify the atmosphere. I see this girl so distinctly somehow: little, white thing; big, gloomy eyes like storms in deep woods, and thin eyelids—you know, that transparent, flower-petal kind, where you fancy you see the iris looking through, like spirit eyes, always awake while the body's eyes sleep; and—and lots of dark hair without much colour—hair like smoke. I see her a suppressed volcano—but ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Cut from red tissue paper a couple of dozen little leaf shaped pieces to be crimped and creased and coaxed into representing rose petals. On each petal write a familiar quotation ...
— Breakfasts and Teas - Novel Suggestions for Social Occasions • Paul Pierce
... well-opened blooms with beautifully spotted and variegated throats. Shades of red predominated at first, but light colors have since been developed in a very satisfactory manner. The only just criticism of this strain is that some kinds lack substance of petal and are not as lasting as Gandavensis ...
— The Gladiolus - A Practical Treatise on the Culture of the Gladiolus (2nd Edition) • Matthew Crawford
... with the bronze mail of beetles and the softened glory of purple emperors! What a thing it was to examine; how you could look in and discover afresh, and dwell for five minutes at a time on that hollow petal of a flower steeped in honey, on that mote of a ladybird crawling to its ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... grass and his own cold tears Were one in brooding mystery, Though death's loud thunder came upon him, Though death's loud thunder struck him down— The boughs and the proud thoughts swept through the thunder, Till he saw our wide nation, each State a flower, Each petal a park for holy feet, With wild fawns merry on every street, With wild fawns merry on every street, The vista of ten thousand ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... chatter from the compound behind the cottages, the crooning of ring-doves among the pines. Butterflies, like detached flowers, fluttered in and out. A faint breeze stirred the roses, so that an occasional creamy petal fell circling ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... quite a different class of holdfasts from either of those which we have examined. The blossom of the cobea is formed of a curious and elegantly-formed calyx of five angles, exquisitely veined, and of a tender green—itself a flower, or, at least, when divested of its one bell-shaped petal, looking like one. From this calyx slowly unfolds a noble bell, at first of a soft, creamy green; but the second day of its existence it becomes tinged and veined with a delicate plum colour, which on the third day is its prevailing hue. The blossom is then in its full perfection; the vigorous ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 454 - Volume 18, New Series, September 11, 1852 • Various
... fate of man, is for us only a professor, a piece of chalk, and a blackboard. The solemn and unapproachable skies we have vulgarized; we have peeped and botanized among the flowers of light, pulled off every petal, fumbled in every calyx, and reduced them to the bare stem of order and class. The stars can no longer maintain their divine reserves, but whenever there is a conjunction and congress of planets, every enterprising newspaper ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... crowning achievement of a coiffeur, and in colour it exactly matched her soft frock, which was of the sports variety with a finely pleated skirt. The skin of her throat was milky-white and of the fineness of a flower petal. Against it her pearls showed a faint rosy tinge. She was smoking a cigarette through ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... of the stove the cat sat on its haunches, licking a paw rhythmically with a pink curling tongue like a rose petal. ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... such decorative ones. The transition from the entirely leaf-like shape of the active plume, with its oblique point, to the more or less symmetrical dualism of the decorative plume, corresponds with the change from the pointed green leaf to the dual, or heart-shaped, petal of many flowers. I shall return to this part of our subject, having given you, I believe, enough of detail for ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... and reproach must have been strangely mingled. What eyes she had!—of that blackly lustrous sort nearly always associated with unusually dark complexions; but Karamaneh's complexion was peachlike, or rather of an exquisite and delicate fairness which reminded me of the petal of a rose. By some I had been accused of raving about this girl's beauty, but only by those who had not met her; for ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... precious stone I would leave unturned. Conceive a parure all of white stones—diamonds, white sapphires, white topazes, tourmalines. Another, of rubies and amethysts, set in gold filigree. Rings that once were poison-combs on Florentine fingers. Red roses for your hair—every petal a hollowed ruby. Amulets and ape-buckles, zones and fillets. Aye! know that you would be weeping for wonder before you had seen a tithe of these gauds. Know, too, Miss Dobson, that in the Peerage ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... no bales—but wonder, Not anything of note: How should she, being merely A slender petal-boat?... But rated in the shipping: The dearest ...
— Ships in Harbour • David Morton
... the artisan, has certainly been well done. The structures we have been traversing are, in their way, works of art—very worthy, if not the choicest conceivable, blossoms of our century-plant. For fitness, the quality that underlies beauty throughout Nature from the plume to the tendril and the petal, they have not been surpassed in their kind. Every flange, bolt, sheet and abutment has been well thought out. Whatever the purpose, to bind or to brace, to lift or to support, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... had, Melancholy without bad. Knowledge this man prizes best Seems fantastic to the rest: Pondering shadows, colors, clouds, Grass-buds and caterpillar-shrouds, Boughs on which the wild bees settle, Tints that spot the violet's petal, Why Nature loves the number five, And why the star-form she repeats: Lover of all things alive, Wonderer at all he meets, Wonderer chiefly at himself, Who can tell him what he is? Or how meet in human elf Coming ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... of the goldenrod, which, though remaining fresh and bright, when called upon to decorate our homes, obstinately refuses to open a petal after it is gathered; and the fairy-like elder, which sullenly resents being touched, gives up the struggle for existence and droops at once; and the cactus, which promptly draws its satin petals together, and stubbornly declines to open again. The loveliest bouquet of late July on the ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller |
