"Demesne" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... checked directly it passed a very sober limit. So a sensible man who has lost his chance of some beautiful inheritance might tread out the narrow bounds of his actual dwelling-place, and assure himself that life is supportable within its demesne, only one must grow turnips and cabbages, not melons and pomegranates. Certainly Ralph took some pride in the resources of his mind, and was insensibly helped to right himself by Mary's trust in him. She wound her ivy spray round her ash-plant, and for the first time ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many Western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told, That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne: Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He star'd at the Pacific—and all his men Look'd at each ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... be so great as that by which he would be overwhelmed were he still to allow himself to be forced into that marriage. "It would be better," Mrs. Hittaway had said, "to retire to Ireland at once, and cultivate your demesne in Tipperary." This was a grievous sentence, and one which had greatly excited the brother's wrath;—but it had shown how very strong was his sister's opinion against the lady to whom he had unfortunately offered his hand. Then there came to him a letter from Mr. Greystock, ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... encounter with an enemy of flesh and blood was a less fearsome prospect than the chance of an encounter with more invulnerable foes, who, my skin told me, haunted every heugh and howe of that still and sombre demesne of Dalness. But I set my teeth tight in my resolution, and with my dirk drawn in my hand—it was the only weapon left me—I crept over the grass from bush to bush and tree to tree as much out of the revelation ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... were obliged to content ourselves by roaming through all the old beloved haunts, and talking of Margaret. We were returning one evening through the fine avenue of oaks, which led to the front entrance of the demesne, when a pony rushed past us at full gallop. A boyish impulse, tempted me to give a loud halloo, in order to set the beautiful animal off at its wildest speed. In a few minutes we met a lad of my own age, booted and spurred, with a whip in his hand, running ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... minion of Henry the Eighth. As there generally is some resemblance of character to create these relations, the favorite was in all likelihood much such another as his master. The first of those immoderate grants was not taken from the ancient demesne of the crown, but from the recent confiscation of the ancient nobility of the land. The lion, having sucked the blood of his prey, threw the offal carcass to the jackal in waiting. Having tasted once the food of confiscation, the favorites became fierce ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... Fanshawe who had walked out of Mr. Harte's demesne to Jimville and wore names that smacked of the soil,—"Alkali Bill," "Pike" Wilson, "Three Finger," and "Mono Jim;" fierce, shy, profane, sun-dried derelicts of the windy hills, who each owned, or had owned, a mine and was wishful to own one again. They laid up on the ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... like Dragon's blood[FN334] for her love I pour. First I saw that face 'mid parterre and rill, Outshining full Lune on horizon-hill; And stood like a captive for awe, and cried, 'Allah's Peace, O who in demesne[FN335] doth hide!' She returned my salam, gaily answering With the sweetest speech likest pearls a-string. But when heard my words, she right soon had known My want and her heart waxed hard as stone, And quoth she, 'Be ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... herself. "It is a duty, and it must be done," she muttered, and letting clown the veil she had raised on entering the demesne, she hurried on, not retracing her steps in the same path, but taking that into which the doe had stricken, perhaps in the confused mistake of a mind absorbed and absent-perhaps in revived recollection of the localities, for the way ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... American different from a Norwegian, for instance. The two people in the class who needed the preamble least are the ones that have learned it. I'm disappointed. We'll go on to the lesson. Reisenweber, what is a demesne?" ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... brightness, sometimes quite terrible to look upon, although tempered at most times by a Sweet Mildness; yet there were seasons when this brightness, as that of the Sun in a wholly cloudless sky, became Fierce, and burnt up him who beheld it. Time had been so long a husbandman of her fair demesne, had reaped so many crops of smiles and tears from that comely visage, that it were a baseness to infer that no traces of his husbandry appeared on her once smooth and silken flesh, for the adornment of which she had ever disdained the use of essences and unguents. Yet I ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... boundary of the Phoenix Park approaches the little river Tolka, which winds through a succession of delightful bits of sylvan scenery, such as may be found in the wide demesne of Abbotstown and the classic shades of Glasnevin. From the banks of the Tolka, on the opposite side of the park, the pastures ascend in a gentle slope to culminate at Dunsink, where at a distance of half a mile from the stream, of four miles from Dublin, and at ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... stately pile of Hatherop Castle and Williamstrip Park on the left, the Coln flows silently onwards through the delightful demesne of Fairford Park. Here the stream has been broadened out into a lake of some depth and size, and holds some very large fish. Another mile and Fairford town is reached, another good specimen of the Cotswold ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... Murrays, like other border clans, were in a very lawless state, and held their lands merely by occupancy, without any feudal right. Indeed, the lands of the various proprietors in Ettrick Forest (being a royal demesne) were held by the possessors, not in property, but as the kindly tenants, or rentallers, of the crown; and it is only about 150 years since they obtained charters, striking the feu-duty of each proprietor, at the rate of the quit-rent, which he formerly paid. This state of ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... handsomest and best laid out I have seen in any part of the continent, and a proof in itself that such things can be done—and well done too—even out of England. My intention was merely to stretch my cramped legs by a stroll to the southern angle of the demesne, and so be back in time for the quiet, early supper of the family. After moving along for a quarter of an hour under the shade of some fine old beech-trees, at the foot of a steep bank which overhangs the level meadow-ground, I came upon the outskirts ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various
... a lordly demesne makes Firman Mentula count for Wealthy! the rich fine things, then the variety there! Game in plenty to choose, fish, field, and meadow with hunting; Only the waste exceeds strangely the quantity still. Wealthy? perhaps I grant it; if all, wealth asks for, is absent. 5 Praise ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... have I travell'd in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne; Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific—and all his men Look'd at each other ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... I travelled in the realms of gold And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne: Yet never did I breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: Then felt I like some watcher in the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific—and all his men Looked at each other with a ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman
... the park which figure in the play, such an estate had many acres of land devoted to agriculture—some of it, called the demesne, which was cultivated for the benefit of the owner, and some land held in villeinage which the unfree tenants, called villeins, were allowed to till for themselves. All this land might be in one large tract, or the demesne might be separate from the other. Mertoun speaks of their ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... held only for a few years what he did possess. So long, however, as he continued proprietor of the manor, it is said that he lived at MERDON, I suppose at the castle, a part of which was probably then standing and habitable. Sir Thomas, it would seem, kept the demesne lands in his own occupation, requiring the tenants or copyholders of the manor, according to ancient usage, to perform the customary service of reaping and housing his crops: (1) The days employed in this service were called Haydobyn days; (2) and during ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... go on parade, to look after his small-holders and agricultural slaves, to drive one of those bargains in which African cunning triumphs—such were the employments of Patricius. In short, he drifted through life on his little demesne. Sometimes this indolent man was overcome by a sudden passion for work; or again he was seized by furious rages. He was violent and brutal. At such moments he struck out right and left. He would even have hit his wife or flogged the skin off her back ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... was above an average of resolution in the style of going at the fences. The ground almost all plough, naturally drained by chalk sub-subsoil, fortunately rode light; but presently we passed the edge of the Wolds, held on through some thin plantations over the demesne grass of a squire's house, then on a bit of unreclaimed heath, where a flock of sheep brought us to a few minutes' check. With the help of a veteran of the hunt, who had been riding well up, a cast forward set us agoing again, and brought us, still running hard, away from the Wolds ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... or fields that lay beyond; and this latter area was the particular domain of agriculture. This book understands the garden to be that part of the personal or home premises devoted to ornament, and to the growing of vegetables and fruits. The garden, therefore, is an ill-defined demesne; but the reader must not make the mistake of defining it by dimensions, for one may have a garden in a flower-pot or on a thousand acres. In other words, this book declares that every bit of land that is not used for buildings, walks, drives, and fences, should be planted. ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... reconciled myself to this state of things had it not been for Jorrocks of Havistock Farm. Jorrocks is a coarse, burly, matter-of-fact fellow whom I only happen to know through the accidental circumstance of his fields adjoining my demesne. Yet this man, though utterly devoid of all appreciation of archaeological unities, is in possession of a well authenticated and undeniable spectre. Its existence only dates back, I believe, to the reign of the Second George, when a young lady cut her ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... to bring you in to lunch. She said she wanted to see you. By jingo, I forgot all about it! But you've all become very stupid among you, I know that." And so they rode back to Desmond Court, entering the demesne by one of the straight, dull, level roads which ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... demesne My plain-beholding, rosy, green And linnet-haunted garden-ground, Let still the esculents abound. Let first the onion flourish there, Rose among roots, the maiden-fair, Wine-scented and poetic soul ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson
... back from the demesne which used to be mine. In the autumn many of them were stubble fields and among them were gorse covered hills. I used to go through them with my gun and dogs in early October mornings. There were—no doubt there still are—though I shall not see them—very fine threads ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... forthlot). They appear to have been customary payments to the servants who had the care of the carts and carriages belonging to the manor, which, at the time of this particular Compotus, were not payable by the lord, because the demesne lands were in farm; and these dues were paid by the tenant. A reference to the Promptorinm Parvulorum (a further instalment of which I rejoice to learn, from Mr. Way's communication, in No. 15., is in a state of progress) ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 20, March 16, 1850 • Various
... aching in every joint from the rolling and jolting of the carriage, the vehicle turned off the main road into a lane, access to which was gained through a pair of massive timber gates hung upon piers of ancient, moss-grown masonry; and Don Hermoso announced that they were now upon his own demesne. And here at once Jack became conscious of a very great change in the appearance of everything; for not only was the road upon which they were travelling smooth and well kept, but the fields on either hand, instead of being half-choked ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... The demesne of Tossbury (by Camden written Tossbery) was anciently a grant in feoffment to the College of Physicians by King John. On the spot now occupied by the burial grounds formerly stood their college; and here they flourished until the population, originally abundant, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 375, June 13, 1829 • Various
... intelligence to see. The table may be loaded and the appetite wanting; the purse may be full, and the heart empty. He may have gained the world and lost himself; and with all his wealth around him, in a great house and spacious and beautiful demesne, he may live as blank a life as any tattered ditcher. Without an appetite, without an aspiration, void of appreciation, bankrupt of desire and hope, there, in his great house, let him sit and look upon his fingers. It is perhaps a more fortunate destiny ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... did these three long-boats shed their false keels, which half an hour later were but harmless-looking stacks of timber among Sir Felix's undergrowth. Half an hour later, had your unwary feet led you to a certain corner of Sir Felix's well-timbered demesne, you might have scratched your head and wondered what magic carpet had transported you into the heart of the Cognac District. And all this was the work of the men of Troy (not being volunteers) who had come either in the long-boats or in the many ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Usually the forlorn demesne was supervised by a mangy waiter brooding over mangy tables and by a mangier cat who kept a furtive eye on the placarded list of each day's plat du jour and wondered when her turn would come for Thursday's Saute de lapin. But tables, ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... pike-handles, that the clubs would not allow any more to be taken thence, in compassion to the proprietor. At Mount Bolton the owner had it cut and left outside the wood for the people, to prevent further waste; at Lord Waterford's demesne more ash-trees had been cut down, and the useless parts left behind. All the anvils in the country ring with pike-forging, and every weapon is put in ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... BOLDEN BOOK. As this ancient document gives the first trace of the Washington family, it merits especial mention. In 1183, a survey was made by order of Bishop de Pusaz of all the lands of the see held in demesne, or by tenants in villanage. The record was entered in a book called the Bolden Buke; the parish of Bolden occurring first in alphabetical arrangement. The document commences in the following manner: Incipit liber qui ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... involved in the taking of timber from the forest. "Robert de Hampton, Rector of Middleton, took at different times three green oaks below Cropton Castle, and on a third occasion took there a green oak, without the demesne, without livery of the foresters ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... of getting an order on the royal demesne, or the crown jewels, or the taxes,' said Lorimer. 'Nay, I hold one even now that will be but waste if ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "tyrant" oneself nor the lessee of an "exterminator"; for the ways of the most just and generous of the new men do not suit those of the natives like the system, or rather want of system, of the old chiefs. Even when a demesne only is leased by a "foreigner," and all risk of quarrelling with tenants is thus avoided, it is hard work to achieve popularity. As I drove up the avenue of a dwelling thus inhabited, I asked the driver what he ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... courtier Abbot Richard Beere, the house had boasted its chapel, hall, parlour, chambers, storehouses and offices; its fishponds and orchards; and a park in which might be kept some four hundred head of deer. It was in this fair demesne that the aged, pious, and benevolent Abbot Whiting, Abbot Richard's successor, was seized by the king's commissioners, and summarily hung, drawn, and quartered on the top of the neighbouring Tor Hill. Sharpham ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... cheerfulness. It was a pleasant fertile spot, well wooded, and rich in pasture. After winding along it for more than a mile, they reached their own house. A small green court was the whole of its demesne in front; and a neat wicket ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... his earth-brood, needles red and white and green, Horns of silver, fangs of crystal set on edge in his demesne." ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... invisible coursers of never-erring necessity. And now, this dew-drop in the sky, this ball, ponderous with mountains, lucent with waves, passing from the short tyranny of watery Pisces and the frigid Ram, entered the radiant demesne of Taurus and the Twins. There, fanned by vernal airs, the Spirit of Beauty sprung from her cold repose; and, with winnowing wings and soft pacing feet, set a girdle of verdure around the earth, sporting among the violets, ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... them to view this world of time and space as shadow and not as reality. No mystic, further, could say harsher things than he does of "Reason."[18] Human reason—or more properly "reasoning"—has for him, as for them, a very limited area for its demesne. It is a good guide in the realm of earthly affairs. It can deal wisely with matters that affect our bodily comfort and our social welfare, but it is "barren" in the sphere of eternal issues. It has no eye for realities ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... it is practical too. It tells us how our ancestors of not so many generations ago—in Stuart times chiefly—went to the herb garden as we go to the chemist's and the perfumer's and the spice-box, and gave that part of the demesne much of the honour which we reserve for the rock-garden, the herbaceous borders and the pergola. And no wonder, when from the herbs that grow there you can make so many of the lenitives of life—from elecampane a sovran tonic, and from purslane ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 10, 1920 • Various
... doubtful assertion of Providence as a slender counterpoise to the certainty of innumerable evils in the world, pursued one another in varied succession. Still keeping in his hands Les Delices, he purchased in 1758 the chateau and demesne of Ferney on French soil, and became a kind of prince and patriarch, a territorial lord, wisely benevolent to the little community which he made to flourish around him, and at the same time the ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... we guessed it, faithful ghosts, Proudly chose the present for our scene, And sent out indomitable hosts Day by day to widen our demesne. ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton
... is essentially gregarious in his instinct, and the possession of a vast feudal domain, with a high wall round it, can never make up to him for the excitement of near neighbours. It may seriously be doubted whether the American millionaire who buys a lordly demesne in England is not doing violence to his natural and national tastes every ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... touch'd thy stretch of power, O Death; Thy brigandage hath beggar'd Love's demesne And quench'd the lamp that lit it, and the queen Of all the flowers snapped with thy ragged teeth. Hollow and meagre stares our life beneath The querulous moon, robb'd of its sovereign: Yet the report of her, her deathless mien— Not thine, O churl! Not thine, thou greedy Death! They ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... were concluded, and the time had almost arrived to bid farewell to Kilmore Castle and the surrounding demesne. Honor's friends in the village mourned her approaching departure with ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... seemed to hesitate. Suddenly he wheeled his horse and blew a blast upon his bugle. "Back!" he cried somewhat bitterly. "We will not linger here for a paltry doe. Let us leave this cursed wood and this crusty hermit. Back to our own demesne, where we shall find sport enough, I ...
— John of the Woods • Abbie Farwell Brown
... storms would waken Of the dream your soul was not forsaken: In the room where the dormer windows look— There were your knight and the tattered book. With colors of the forest green Gabled roofs and the demesne Of faery kingdoms and faery time Storied in pre-natal rhyme. ... Past the orchards, in the plain The cattle fed on in the rain. And the storm-beaten horseman sped Rain blinded and with bended head. And John the ploughman comes and goes In labor ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... of considerable extent, and is approached by a drive nearly a mile and a half long, up which Vasilovich usually rides at a foot-pace. Now, at this time of the year, it will be quite dark in the park at seven o'clock, and nobody will then be likely to be out about the demesne. I know the place well, and happen to be aware of a spot, about midway between the chateau and the lodge gates, where the Flying Fish can be effectually concealed for the moment, close to the road, and near ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... Then it seemed to John that his cup brimmed, that everything he desired had been granted unto him. Verney Boscobel stood in the heart of the great forest, one of the few large manors within that splendid demesne. The boys arrived at Lyndhurst Road Station late in the evening, long after dusk, and were driven in darkness through Bartley and Minstead up to the high-lying moors of Stoneycross. Next morning, early, John woke his friend, and ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... the Duke of Chateaurouge was of a temper not to be crossed, and I believe that bloodshed would have taken place had we endeavoured to thwart him. He enjoyed your majesty's favour, and a forcible arrest, with perhaps the shedding of blood, in the royal demesne would have been a scandal as grave as that of ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... such respectability as could ever belong to so ugly a place. It was a large red stone mansion, standing in a demesne of very poor ground, ungifted by nature with any beauty, and but little assisted by cultivation or improvement. A belt of bald-looking firs ran round the demesne inside the dilapidated wall; but this was hardly sufficient ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... They sing of the blessed Gods and of high Olympus, and above all do they sing of boon Hermes, how he is the fleet herald of all the Gods, and how he came to many-fountained Arcadia, the mother of sheep, where is his Cyllenian demesne, and there he, God as he was, shepherded the fleecy sheep, the thrall of a mortal man; for soft desire had come upon him to wed the fair- haired daughter of Dryops, and the glad nuptials he accomplished, and to Hermes in the hall she bare a dear son. From his birth he was a marvel ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang
... of the folk who dwelt in a house and of their manner of living. Thus, not so much the position of the Castle (it could and did claim that title), or its handsome front, or the high wall that enclosed it and its demesne on every side save where it faced the river, caught his attention as the apparently trifling fact that, whereas one half of the facade was brilliant with lights in every window, the other half was entirely dark and, to all seeming, uninhabited. "They are poor, ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope
... environment is a crib, a room, our mother's eyes. Sensations of hunger, heat, and motion beat upon the baby-brain; there is a vague murmur of sound in the baby-ears. Yet it is this babe who, in after days, has all the universe for his soul's demesne! His environment stretches out to towns and rivers, shore and sea. Looking upward into space, he can view a star whose distance is a thousand times ten thousand miles. Beyond the path of his feet or of his sight, there is the path of thought, which leads him into ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... long, low, red-brick house standing in prettily-wooded grounds, bordered by the river, on the other side of which lay the park belonging to the squire. The park ran for some distance on both sides of the stream, and the Rectory grounds were, so to speak, taken out of the very midst of the squire's, demesne. The continuation of wooded ground on either side the narrow winding river made the place particularly picturesque; and it was a favorite amusement for the rector's son and daughter to push a rather crazy boat out of the little boat-house at the foot of the garden, and row ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... going to the ground in superstition-saturated Spain; while eager workmen are demolishing the last hiding-places of monkery, and letting the daylight into places that have well kept the frightful secrets of three hundred years, and turning the ancient cloister demesne into public parks and pleasure-grounds,—the Romish priesthood here, in free Bavaria, seem to imagine that they cannot only resist the progress of events, but that they can actually bring back the owlish twilight of the Middle Ages. The reactionary party in Bavaria has, in some of the provinces, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the banks of the Tweed, seven miles above Selkirk, where, for several years, he continued to reside during the vacation of the Court. The ruling desire of his life was, that by the proceeds of his intellectual labour he might acquire an ample demesne, with a suitable mansion of his own, and thus in some measure realise in his own person, and in those of his representatives, somewhat of the territorial importance of those olden barons, whose wassails ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various |
