"Turf" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... each strove to gain an advantage; but strength on the one side, and activity on the other, foiled their opposing exertions. The turf was torn up under their feet, and they were whirled round, now in this direction, and now in that, until, maddened by the contest, neither thought of his personal safety, nor heeded the frightful abyss on the brink of which they fought. At length, foaming ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... this, and truth requires it also: for how can the narrator otherwise be trusted? Moreover, a grave is a tranquillising object: resignation in course of time springs up from it as naturally as the wild flowers, besprinkling the turf with which it may be covered, or gathering round the monument by which it is defended. The very form and substance of the monument which has received the inscription, and the appearance of the letters, testifying with what a slow and laborious hand ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... results from turning livestock on pastures too early in the spring. The ground is kept soft by spring rains, and the hoofs cut the turf. The grass needs its first leaves to enable it to make rapid growth, and the first grass of spring is ...
— Crops and Methods for Soil Improvement • Alva Agee
... flying overhead; cannonballs were ricocheting over the level valley, throwing turf in the air, tossing the dead and wounded that lay thick ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... going to Clovelly?" he puffed at last, and they flung themselves down on the short, springy turf between the drone of the sea below and the light summer wind among the inland trees. They were looking into a combe half full of old, high furze in gay bloom that ran up to a fringe of brambles and a dense wood of mixed timber and hollies. It was as though one-half the combe were filled ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... lucubrations of Mr. JEREMY and his servile tribe of moon-calves. I have public duties to perform, and if, in the course of my comments on racing, I should find myself occasionally compelled to run counter to the imbecile prejudices of some of the aristocratic patrons of the turf, I can assure my readers that I shall not flinch from the task. I therefore repeat that, in the middle of last month, the Duke of DUMPSHIRE killed two trainers, and that up to the present time the Jockey Club have not enforced ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, May 3, 1890. • Various
... was mixed sand hill and links; links being a Scottish name for sand which has ceased drifting and become more or less solidly covered with turf. The pavilion stood on an even space: a little behind it, the wood began in a hedge of elders huddled together by the wind; in front, a few tumbled sand hills stood between it and the sea. An outcropping ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... more, I suppose, in those craft," said Sir William musingly. He focused his glasses on a turf cabin ashore. "The Admiral was telling me that a London brain specialist was born in one of ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... reeked of yellow soap and iodoform. She would have exchanged these odours at the price of her soul—but souls are not vendible, and besides she did not know she possessed one—for the familiar redolences of naphtha and horse-dung and trodden turf. These were far away: they had quite forsaken her, or at best floated idly across her dreams. What held her to fortitude had been the drone and intermittent hoot of a steam-organ many streets away. ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and I made all traps, nets, cages, etc., myself. I learned from every working-man, I could get hold of the use of all ordinary carpenters' tools, and how to weld hot iron, pave, lay bricks and turf, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... father's lonely bed, You place me in the ground, And his green turf, with daisies spread, Has also wrapt me round; Rejoice to think, to you 'tis given, To have ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... She felt turf beneath her feet, and once or twice the brushing of twigs against her hand. She began to have a faint suspicion as to whither he was leading her. But she would not ask a second time. She had yielded to his guidance, and though ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... we have gained our most important victories, which should be handed down as heirlooms from father to son, are not the sword and the lance, but the bush-whack, the turf-cutter, the spade, and the bog-hoe, rusted with the blood of many a meadow, and begrimed with the dust of many a hard-fought field. The very winds blew the Indian's cornfield into the meadow, and pointed out the way which he had not the skill to follow. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... when her ear caught the sound of another horse's hoofs; and, looking back, she saw approaching her at a rapid rate a gentleman whom she knew to be a stranger. Not caring to be overtaken, she chirruped to the spirited Gritty, who, bounding over the velvety turf, left the unknown rider ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... As she was returning to the house she caught sight of the two figures hurrying toward the main gate. Back she sped to Star, and mounting him, rode along the soft turf as silently as a shadow, until she saw the two ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... in a humour between frowns and smiles wrote to him no more. And now the strange, poignant, pathetic, brilliant creature is gone into the night, and the voice is silent that uttered so much excellent discourse; and I am sorry that I did not write to him again. Yet I am glad for him; light lie the turf! The Saturday is the only obituary I have seen, and I thought it very good upon the whole. I should be half tempted to write an In Memoriam, but I am submerged with other work. Are you going to do it? I very much admire your efforts that ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... had now arrived, and with it two white tents, which sprang up suddenly one morning, like giant mushrooms, on one of Doll's smooth-shaven lawns. He groaned in spirit as he watched their erection. They would ruin the turf. ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... had lost his sword-arm, dropping the point of his saber, and courteously riding on. Peace be with that generous warrior, whatever were his fate! If he went down in the storm of battle, with the foundering fortunes of his chieftain, may the turf of Waterloo grow green above his grave! and happier far would be the fate of such a spirit, to sink amid the tempest, unconscious of defeat, than to survive and mourn over the blighted laurels ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... destined to be a day of adventures. I had led her a circuit through the Downs, in the hope of reviving her by the fresh air before we reached the villa; and we were moving slowly along over the velvet turf, and enjoying that most animating of all the breaths of sky or earth—the sea-breeze; when Mariamne's steed—one of the most highly maneged, and most beautiful of animals, began to show signs of restlessness, pricked up his ears, stopped ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... tell you that I was skilful in all games of mingled skill and chance? It requires an arithmetical head for that: a first-rate card-player is a financier spoilt. I am certain that you never could find a man fortunate on the turf or at the gaining-table who had not an excellent head for figures. Well, this French is good enough, apparently; there are but a few idioms, here and there, that, strictly speaking, are more English than French. But the whole is a work scarce worth ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... an alley or two, shaded by trees loaded with summer-fruit, into a pleached arbour, where, taking the turf-seat which was on the one side, he motioned to Roland to occupy that which was opposite to him, and, after a momentary silence, opened the conversation as follows: "You have asked a better warrant than ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... came over her and she watched the point where he had disappeared, with longing eyes, awaiting his return. As before, she was appraised of his presence by a soft sound behind her, and turned to see him coming across the turf with ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... object and its significance were familiar, paid no heed and passed on towards Oke Tor. On one side the mass rose gradually up by steps and turrets; on the other, the granite beetled into a low cliff springing abruptly from the turf. Within its clefts and crannies there grew ferns, and to the north-east, sheltered under ledges from the hot sun, cattle and ponies usually stood or reclined upon such a summer day as this, and waited for the oncoming cool of evening before returning to pasture. On ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... burial was here! Not as when one is borne from his home, among weeping throngs, and gently carried to the green fields, and laid peacefully beneath the turf and the flowers. No priest stood to pronounce a burial-service. It was an ocean grave. The mists alone shrouded the burial-place. No spade prepared the grave, nor sexton filled up the hollowed earth. Down, down they sank, and the quick returning waters smoothed out every ripple, and ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... the maiden's heart sank. For a peat fire smouldered on the hearth and the room was filled with smoke. There was no easy chair, no couch on which to rest her weary body, so Lizzie dropped down on to a heap of green turf. ...
— Stories from the Ballads - Told to the Children • Mary MacGregor
... High Street, we came directly upon this magnificent church, certainly the most harmonious in design of any in the Kingdom. The situation, too, is unique, the cathedral standing entirely separate from any other building, its gray walls and buttresses rising sheer up from velvety turf such as is seen in England alone. It was planned and completed within the space of fifty years, which accounts for its uniformity of style; while the construction of most of the cathedrals ran through the centuries with various ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy
... foot of the descending steps of the main entrance, lay the square, red-walled space of gravel and of turf. He looked at it curiously, for there, with the maiming and death of Thomas Calmady's bastard, if legend said truly, all this tragic history of disaster had begun. There, too, the Clown, race-horse of merry ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... blending with these were vines of honeysuckle and strawberries, gleaming with sapphires and topaz and amethysts, wreathing and flashing up to a ceiling of lapis lazuli blue as a June sky. The floor was a mosaic of turquoise forget-me-nots on a turf of ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... geyser, with the effect of causing an eruption. The sensitiveness of Strokr is due to its peculiar form. An observer states that, "The bore is eight feet in diameter at the top, and forty-four feet deep. Below twenty-seven feet it contracts to nineteen inches, so that the turf thrown in completely chokes it. Steam collects below; a foaming scum covers the surface of the water, and in a quarter of an hour it surges up the pipe. The fountain then begins playing, sending its bundles of jets rather higher ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... we were introduced into an atmosphere of drabness and restraint, best typified, perhaps, by the change from our tender, springy country turf, to the dry, blistered planks of Mrs. Handsomebody's back yard. Angel, fiery, candid, inconstant; the careless possessor of a beautiful boys' treble, which was to develop into the incomparable tenor of today—next, myself, a year younger, but equally ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... had passed back on the turf I lay with my boyish heart in a rage with the insults, both of pity and of praise, which had been offered me; for why should pity be offered unless there be the weakness of betrayal of suffering to warrant it, and why should there be praise unless there ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... coat. They laid her upon it. James Harrington knelt upon the turf, and lifted her head to his knee. The face was pale as death; purple shadows lay about the mouth, and under the eyes; her flesh was ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... upon the inner edge of Lincolnshire, in an undulating countryside amongst great old trees, where of an evening the sun throws bars of light across the levels of turf, where homing rooks fly in scattered lines against a gleaming sky, the air breathes coolness and peace, and the scene lays that ineffable spell upon the heart of which only the exile can ever know the full ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... above a pool. Again and again the sweet round notes fell on the meditations of the King, and he remembered with entrancement that this was the tender signal by which he was summoned to the Pond. So, rising silently, he wandered through the trees, and keeping his eyes fixed on the soft dim turf, lest some new beauty should tempt him to speech, he went across the open hill the Pond. Here he knelt down again, listening to the childlike bird, until at last the young piping ceased with a joyous chuckle. ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... stone, and square-towered churches, occur at rare intervals in cultivated hollows, where there are fields and fruit trees. Water is nowhere visible except in the wasteful river-beds. As we rise, we break into a wilder country, forested with oak, where oxen and goats are browsing. The turf is starred with lilac gentian and crocus bells, but sparely. Then comes the highest village, Berceto, with keen Alpine air. After that, broad rolling downs of yellowing grass and russet beech-scrub lead onward to the pass La Cisa. The sense of breadth in composition ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... green. We descended, and pursued our way through the forest glades with that feeling of enjoyment which the entrance into an unknown region, pleasant companionship, and fine weather, inspire. When we issued from the woods which clothe the sides of Melibocus, we sate down on the heathy turf, and gazed with a feeling of ever-youthful delight on the scene around us. Above us, and over its woods, rose the square white tower of Melibocus; below, lay green valleys, from among whose orchards issued the smoke of peaceful cottages; ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... earth was thrown in and the man had left the place, then I returned to the grave. Oh, how bare and cruel it was, without so much as a bit of green turf to soften it! Oh, how much harder it seemed to live than to die, when I stood alone looking at the heavy piled-up lumps of clay, and thinking of what was ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... one after the other, we reached a place to the side of the neck of the couloir, and scrambling round the coping of turf at the top emerged, to our surprise, upon a path, or rather upon the ghost of one. For we found ourselves upon a narrow ridge of soil between two chasms, ending in a pinnacle of clay, and along this ribbon of land ran a path, ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... Winter passed, and Spring was beginning to come. Its harbingers, in their livery of red and green, were already showing on the hillsides. The redbud was burning on the Southern slopes; the turf was springing, fresh and green; dandelions were dappling the grass like golden coins sown by a prodigal; violets were beginning to peep from the shelter of leaves caught along the fence-rows; and some favored peach-trees were ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... Curls, to seize or to affright; And, animated, strong, and many, 75 They dart forth polypus-antennae, To blister with their poison spume The wanderer. Through the dazzling gloom The many-coloured mice, that thread The dewy turf beneath our tread, 80 In troops each other's motions cross, Through the heath and through the moss; And, in legions intertangled, The fire-flies flit, and swarm, and throng, Till all the mountain ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... to his new acquaintance, he twined them into a wreath, and placed the sylvan diadem on Carl's head. The instant that he felt the light pressure on his temples, all his fears vanished; and he followed his guide, conversing pleasantly through wide avenues and over broad glades of fresh turf, which seemed to be laid out like a royal chase, till they came to a wall of rock resembling the Hahnen Klippers, and entering through an arch, a grey moss-covered tower arose in the distance. The ponderous doors were ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 268, August 11, 1827 • Various
... the trap on the ground, then mark the outline of it, allowing half an inch clear all round; out away the turf to this pattern, and in the centre dig a hole deep enough to receive a strong peg and the chain which fastens the trap to it, which will thus be entirely concealed; drive in the peg, arrange the chain neatly ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... killed within the range of their sport. The best were selected for the use of the principal farmers, the others divided among their shepherds, cottars, dependents, and others of inferior rank who attended. These fish, dried in the turf smoke of their cabins or shealings, formed a savoury addition to the mess of potatoes, mixed with onions, which was the principal part of their winter food. In the meanwhile a liberal distribution of ale and whisky was made among them, besides what was called a kettle of fish,—two or three salmon, ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... he; "my country home down on the Hudson is the same one we have had in the family for over two hundred years. My babies are to-day runnin' over the same turf that I rolled on in my boyhood, and their great-great-grandmothers played on ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... It is a tiny village of a dozen straw-thatched cottages in which I lived. I hear again blackbirds and thrushes in the hedges, and see again bluebells spilling out from the oak woods and over the velvet turf like a creaming of blue water. And most of all I remember a great, hairy-fetlocked stallion, often led dancing, sidling, and nickering down the narrow street. I was frightened of the huge beast and always fled screaming to my mother, clutching her skirts and hiding ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... straight toward the window of the log house, the feet of his horse making no sound upon the turf. Here was one who had come to ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... reached that country from the East; that they were a narrow-headed people (the Celts or later Britons were round-headed); that they dwelt in rude houses in the interior of the country, first digging a pit in the ground, and building over it a kind of hut, sometimes of turf and sometimes of stone; that they wore very rude clothing, and were generally much less civilised than the Celts, who lived mainly on the coast; that they loved to dwell, and especially to worship, on a mountain top; that they followed certain Eastern observances, such as running ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... the freshness of the day, was delightful to Strether, who liked the sound, under his feet, of the tight fine gravel, packed with the chronic damp, and who had the idlest eye for the deep smoothness of turf and the clean curves ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... to shriek and became panic-stricken. Fortunately the animal pursued peculiar tactics while bearing down upon his expected victim. Running forward for a short distance, he would stop to bellow furiously and toss up the turf with his short horns, upon which gilt balls had been fastened by the ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... spit, and it took me a goodish while to get up with it, crawling, often on all fours, among the scrub. Night had almost come when I laid my hand on its rough sides. Right below it there was an exceedingly small hollow of green turf, hidden by banks and a thick underwood about knee-deep, that grew there very plentifully; and in the centre of the dell, sure enough, a little tent of goat-skins, like what the gipsies carry about with them ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... steep, but luckily for me some tree-roots protruded in places, and by their aid I climbed up at last, and stretched myself upon the turf at the top, where I lay, more dead than alive, till the sun was high in the heavens. By that time I was very hungry, but after some searching I came upon some eatable herbs, and a spring of clear water, and much refreshed I set out ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... out from the hangar now, and rested on the great smooth landing field, its tremendous quarter million ton mass of lux and relux sinking a great, smooth depression in the turf of the field. They were waiting now for the arrival of the Ortolian ship. Zezdon Afthen assured them it would be there in ...
— Invaders from the Infinite • John Wood Campbell
... after a sharp fit as though a demon were going out of him, as he rolled on the turf of the cloister to which he had fled alone from the suffocating church, where the crowd still awaited the Procession of the relics and the Mass De reliquiis quae continentur in Ecclesiis, seemed ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... representation of the Virgin and Child, alongside of which is a figure of the Crucifixion.[19] This old bell is used to announce the half-hour as measured on the Steeple Clock,[20] as also to tell the living that the mortal remains of some brother or sister are about to be laid beneath the turf. ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... an old nursery folk-song they sing in the hovels of the Achill coast fixed in his memory, along with the rain and the wind and the smell of the burning turf, and the grunting of the pig and the knickety-knock of ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... number of separate observations on the depth, at which certain species have been dredged up. For we can understand the gradation, only as a prolonged struggle against unfavourable conditions. If a person were to find the soil clothed with turf on the banks of a stream of water, but on going to some distance on one side of it, he observed the blades of grass growing thinner and thinner, with intervening patches of sand, until he entered a desert of sand, he would safely conclude, especially if changes of the same ...
— Coral Reefs • Charles Darwin
... covered with a veil. She was inclined toward the rivulet, and profound sighs proceeded from her mouth. In her hand she held a small rod with which she was tracing characters on the fine sand that lay between the turf and the brook. Zadig had the curiosity to examine what this woman was writing. He drew near; he saw the letter Z, then an A; he was astonished; then appeared a D; he started. But never was surprise equal to his when he saw the two last ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... camp at this time—and not even a paling separated it from a similar strip in front of my quarters. My bit, I regret to say, was not like his in any respect but shape. I had a rather ragged bit of turf, and he had a glowing mass of flowers. The monotony of my grass-plat was only broken by the marrow-bones and beef-ribs which my dog first picked and then played with under my windows. I was as fond of him as my brother-officer was of his flowers. I am sorry to say that Dash had a ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... a drive to the two Beaches, two little bays with bathing sands, and then we drove to Miss Mason, who lives in a very pretty villa with her sister, and is very rich, and we all walked together to the Cliff, where there is a fashionable promenade, with rocks and sea on one side and green turf and the villas with their gardens all open on the other. If any one has a pretty house or place here it is all exposed to the public gaze, and even use, a great deal! We then drove to Mrs. Bruen's, where Hedley and I lunched. I am surprised ...
— The British Association's visit to Montreal, 1884: Letters • Clara Rayleigh
... that Alma might once more descend! Brother! were the turf our everlasting pillow, still would the Master's faith answer a blessed end;—making us more truly happy here. That is the first and chief result; for holy here, we must be holy elsewhere. 'Tis Mardi, to which loved Alma gives ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... stables. Darry was busy there as I had found him yesterday. He looked hard at me as I came up; and asked me earnestly how I felt that afternoon? I told him I was tired; and then I sat down on a huge log which lay there and watched him at his work. By turns I watched the sunlight streaming along the turf and lighting the foliage of the trees on the other side of the dell; looking in a kind of dream, as if I were not Daisy nor this Magnolia in any reality. I suddenly started and awoke to realities as Darry ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... would have been that he had never found any royal road to literature; that to his experience there was not even a common highway; that there were only byways; private paths over other people's grounds; easements beaten out by feet that had passed before, and giving by a subsequent overgrowth of turf or brambles a deceitful sense of discovery to ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... it was deeply so to me on this day; for when I observed the wide-swelling lawns, the broad groves, and glassy lakes of this little paradise; the Queen, with the princesses and royal suite, as they glided over the turf in a train of pony-carriages, lined and shining with the richest satins; the splendid and gaudy clusters of marquees, glittering in all the pride of Tippoo's eastern magnificence, from whom they had been rifled, with their bright crescents blazing in the ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... dazzled eyes, aching head, torn dress and faded bouquet, because one has thrown one's self on one's couch, and fallen asleep, thinking of some handsome officer,—is it possible that one no longer remembers that under the turf, in an obscure grave, in a deep pit, in the inexorable gloom of death, there lies a motionless, ice-cold, terrible multitude,—a multitude of human beings already become a shapeless mass, devoured by ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... around the cypress. Ivies twined about its trunk. On the bank the green turf looked dry, but cool. Just under the tree the brook broke into a miniature cascade, and went rippling down in a score of pygmy, sparkling waterfalls. On a tiny promontory a marble nymph, a fine bit of Greek sculpture, was pouring, without respite, from a water-urn into the gurgling flood. ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... as did the base of the actual image of Athene in Troy, towards which Cassandra fled from Ajax. The second class of altars, called bomoi by the Greeks and altaria by the Romans, appears to have originated in temporary constructions such as heaps of earth, turf or stone, made for kindling a sacrificial fire as occasion required. But sacrifices to earth divinities were made on the earth itself, and those to the infernal deities in sunk hollows (Odyss. x. 25; Festus s. v. Altaria). The note of Eustathius ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... wake me from my sleep? It was a dream of bliss, And ye have torn me from that land, to pine again in this; Methought, beneath yon whispering tree, that I was laid to rest, The turf, with all its with'ring flowers, upon ...
— The Liberty Minstrel • George W. Clark
... one moment from the pasture while you pass; and to the plants that grow beneath your feet. The latter end of May is the time when spring begins in the high Alps. Wherever sunlight smiles away a patch of snow, the brown turf soon becomes green velvet, and the velvet stars itself with red and white and gold and blue. You almost see the grass and lilies grow. First come pale crocuses and lilac soldanellas. These break the last dissolving clods of snow, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... nowhere seen so many ducks together as were in the creek in front of this house. The water was so black with them that it seemed when you looked from the land below upon the water, as if it were a mass of filth or turf, and when they flew up there was a rushing and vibration of the air like a great storm coming through the trees, and even like the rumbling of distant thunder, while the sky over the whole creek was filled with them like a cloud, ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... the turf propped up by his elbow before the fire, looked up at the skies, which were now a clear silver, in which countless stars appeared to hang, lower and larger than he had ever seen them before. It was a beautiful sky, and whether it was merely fate or chance that had sent the Little Giant ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... large bay, which appeared to him wholly suited to his purpose, but he was not long in discovering that what had been taken by preceding navigators for woods of moderate height, were only reeds. Not a tree, not a shrub grew in the islands. Fortunately an excellent turf did for fuel in their stead, whilst fish and game offered ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... perseveres? The morning wakes, the huntsman sounds, At once rush forth the joyful hounds. They seek the wood with eager pace, Through bush, through brier, explore the chase. Now scattered wide, they try the plain, And snuff the dewy turf in vain. 10 What care, what industry, what pains! What universal silence reigns. Ringwood, a dog of little fame, Young, pert, and ignorant of game, At once displays his babbling throat; The pack, regardless of the note, Pursue the scent; with louder strain He still persists to vex the train. ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... canoe beside it. The turf seemed springy, though here and there it gave way to patches of dark mud. It was on one of these that Ricky had left her mark in the clean-cut outline of the ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... castle moat the lord of that burg and many of his folk with him; when he had dismounted on the turf he greeted them courteously, and the ...
— The Romance of Morien • Jessie L. Weston
... horse racing. There were in the division a number of blooded and speedy animals, and not a little friendly rivalry was developed in the various commands when the merits of their respective favorites were to be tested on the turf. ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... astonished men. He made straight for the hole that led to the cave, and was about to leap into it when Hauskuld stepped out and almost received him in his arms. Before the berserk could plant his feet firmly on the turf, Alric heaved up his brother's sword and brought it down on Hauskuld's head with right good will. His arm, however, had not yet received power to cleave through a steel helmet, but the blow was sufficient to give it such a dint that its wearer tumbled ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... dwellings with their ancient inhabitants, and understand something of their manners of life and customs. Their rude abodes had probably cone-shaped roofs made of rafters lashed together at the centre, protected by an outside coat of peat, sods of turf, or rushes. The spindle-whorl is evidence that they could spin thread; the mealing stones show that they knew how to cultivate corn; and the bones of the animals found in their dwellings testify to the fact that they were not in the wild state of primitive hunters, ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... Danes would have wished to live long, they bore long through their lands when he was dead. The great chief's body, with this turf heaped above it, bare earth covers under ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... readers may never have seen a coal pit. The wood is set up on the ends of the sticks, till a circular pile from ten to twenty feet in diameter is formed and two tiers in height. Its shape is that of a cone, or a sugar loaf. It is then covered with turf and soil. Fire is communicated to the wood, so that it shall smoulder, or burn slowly, without blazing. Just enough air is admitted to the pit to keep the fire alive. If the air were freely admitted the pile would burn to ashes. Sometimes the outer covering of dirt and sods falls in, as the wood ...
— Try Again - or, the Trials and Triumphs of Harry West. A Story for Young Folks • Oliver Optic
... to thrust Rome aside and return to Egypt with her, to reign there as an independent king. To her Rome was almost a barbarian city. In it she could not hold sway as she could in her beautiful Alexandria, with its blue skies and velvet turf and tropical flowers. At Rome Antony would be distracted by the cares of state, and she would lose her lover. At Alexandria she would have him ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... Jungle Circuit knew an event remotely approaching a turf classic, it was the Northwestern Handicap, by usage shortened to "the Handicap." It was their Metropolitan, Suburban, and Brooklyn rolled into one. The winner was crowned with garlands, the jockey was photographed in the floral horseshoe, ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... bright; but its waves ere long Must hear a voice of war, And a clash of spears our hills among, And a trumpet from afar; And the brave on a bloody turf must lie, For the Huntsman hath ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... brought home one evening a very considerable sum of money, which he had won on the turf, and the following morning he was found murdered in his bed. Kershaw, fortunately for himself, was able to prove a conclusive alibi; he had spent the night on duty at the hospital; as for Barker, ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... make a large hole in that beautiful turf?" she asked at once. "You began in the third person, but I expect you and this Mr. Ward did it; you ought to have been rusticated, ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... a time, until first a beggar came, and then a Phoenician sailor, and a thievish Egyptian from the Rhakotis—neither of whom could read. So the tablet told them nothing; and as, moreover, they distinguished less carefully between mine and thine, one trampled the turf and another snatched from the boughs a flower or fruit. More and more of the rabble came, and you can imagine what followed. No one punished them for the crime, for they did not fear the barking of the lap-dog, and this gave even those who ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... got a start of everyone else by ten minutes. The Doctor, on his handsome, long-bodied Arabian mare, was making good work of it across the plains, when he heard the rush of a horse's feet behind him, and turning, he saw tall Widderin bestridden by Sam, springing over the turf, gaining on him stride after stride. In a few minutes they were alongside ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... down upon the grass under the overhanging branches of an appletree to rest. After his long walk repose seemed delicious, and with a feeling of exquisite enjoyment he stretched himself out at full length upon the soft turf, ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... over on Wednesday morning, but the day was gray and chill and the crisping turf and the hardening road indicated a coming frost. There was nothing, however, to prevent the contemplated visit to Burrell Court, and a painful momentary shadow flitted over John's face when Denas came to breakfast in her new ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... was the little city of the dead that sits on top of the hill far above the shining river. At the great iron gates he stopped a moment, peering through. He saw a wilderness of white slabs and, not until he made his way across the thick green turf and spelled out the names carved on them, could he make out what they were for. How he wondered when he saw the innumerable green mounds, for he hardly knew there were as many people in the world ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... been there before her, evidently, for the turf was worn around the log, and there were even hints of footprints here and there. "Some rural trysting place, probably," she thought, then a gleam of scarlet caught her attention. A small red book had fallen into the crevice between the log and the other ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... quadrangle, which you reach through the rooms of the Museum, is the best thing it has to show. Remote from the dust and bustle of the highway the little cloistered square is gay with flowers upon the turf, and statues from various churches are set here and there, like pensioners in Chelsea Hospital, after their active service in religious wars has left them mutilated and useless, but not without honour in the days of their old age. From the walls and windows sculptured saints ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... levelled terrace on which the Lodge stood, and looked down. Blent Hall made three sides of a square of old red-brick masonry, with a tower in the centre; it faced the river, and broad gravel-walks and broader lawns of level close-shaven turf ran down ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... a second or so, and answered up: 'If I'd a tav of turf handy, I'd bung it at your mouth, you greasy cavalryman, and learn you to speak respectful of your betters. The Marines are the handiest body o' men ...
— The Roll-Call Of The Reef • A. T. Quiller-Couch (AKA "Q.")
... of a day in early April that two ladies were seated by the open windows of a cottage in Devonshire. The lawn before them was gay with evergreens, relieved by the first few flowers and fresh turf of the reviving spring; and at a distance, through an opening amongst the trees, the sea, blue and tranquil, bounded the view, and contrasted the more confined and home-like features of the scene. It was a spot remote, sequestered, shut ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book I • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... Their fires are lit at night in hollows or places well surrounded with thickets, and, that the flame may not be seen, they will build screens of fir boughs or fern. When they have obtained a good supply of hot wood coals, no more sticks are thrown on, but these are covered with turf, and thus kept in long enough for their purposes. Much of their meat they devour raw, and thus do not need a ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... should even take the stroke with calmness and start to the building again. So the Macarthurs, some of them back from their flight before Antrim and Athole, were throng bearing stone from the river and turf from the brae, and setting up those homes of the poor, that have this advantage over the homes of the wealthy, that they are so easily replaced. In this same Carnus, in later years, I have made a meal that showed curiously the resource of its people. Hunting one day, I went to ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... cavalry, and made provision against it. Having a rivulet in front, he commanded deep pits to be dug along its banks, and sharp stakes to be planted in them; and he ordered the whole to be carefully covered over with turf.[*] The English arrived in sight on the evening, and a bloody conflict immediately ensued between two bodies of cavalry; where Robert, who was at the head of the Scots, engaged in single combat with Henry de Bohun, a gentleman of the family ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... of letters were these?-They were letters from Mouat telling them not to prepare their turf or anything to keep them in their farms, because they had their warning to go. I got a letter ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... the turf in the court-house yard under the locust-tree, and did not say anything till Jim Leonard asked him if he was afraid to go off and live with the Indians, because if he was going to be a cowardy-calf like that, it was all that Jim Leonard ...
— The Flight of Pony Baker - A Boy's Town Story • W. D. Howells
... 27, 1884, at Tysnas, Norway, a meteorite had fallen: that the turf was torn up at the spot where the object had been supposed to have fallen; that two days later "a very peculiar stone" was found near by. The description is—"in shape and size very like the fourth part ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... to have heard: she went on with her reading. I looked out. Two men were in the church-yard: one held a measuring-line in his hand, the other a spade. The one with the spade went on to mark the hard winter-beaten turf,—the knotted grass he cut through. I saw him describe the outline of a grave,—the other standing there, silently looking on. When the grave was marked, the one wielding the spade looked up at the silent looker-on, who bowed his head, as if to say, "It is right." ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... about, his eyes fell upon the little breadth of grass waving there by the step. One or two gay, crimson asters nodded in the warm wind, planted there by the same hand that watered and cared for the bit of turf. Trafford sat down by them, stroking the turf's green blades, and gazing at the warm-hued flowers through tears. "Gone—gone," they seemed to whisper as they softly rustled. Somehow these tender, soulless things brought up the boy's memory most vividly. He remembered how ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... hand, Copernicus approached the dark form, moving with great caution over the clumps of grassy turf. Presently he reached the side of the machine. Rebecca heard him strike it with his hand two or three times, as though groping for something. Then she was drawn forward again, and suddenly found herself entering an invisible doorway. She stumbled on the threshold and flung out ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... ardent as ever, and his heart beat strongly as, after leaving his bicycle at the lodge, he walked up the avenue through the deep gloom beneath the beeches. Near the house, the first notes of "Grudel perche finora" reached him, and he stepped softly on to the turf lest his footsteps on the gravel should rouse the dogs and make them mar the harmony by barking. A rustle made him stop and listen. Then Gertrude's ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... I 'ave ter do, lookin' after you and the cookin' and gettin' everythin' ready and doin' all the 'ouse-work, and goin' aht charring besides—well, I says, if I don't 'ave a drop of beer, I says, ter pull me together, I should be under the turf ...
— Liza of Lambeth • W. Somerset Maugham
... after it. It was a low stone dwelling, white-washed, and heather-roofed, and containing only three rooms. David and Maggie entered the principal one together. Its deal furniture was spotless, its floor cleanly sanded, and a bright turf fire was burning on the brick hearth. Some oars and creels were hung against the wall, and on a pile of nets in the warmest corner, a little laddie belonging to a neighbor's household ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... to persuade myself in these intervals that the contents of my Essay could not be true. The more, however, I reflected upon them, or rather upon the authorities on which they were founded, the more I gave them credit. Coming in sight of Wades Mill, in Hertfordshire, I sat down disconsolate on the turf by the roadside and held my horse. Here a thought came into my mind, that if the contents of the Essay were true, it was time some person should see these calamities to their end. Agitated in this manner, I reached home. This was ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... could he learn anything of Zoulvisia. At length, one evening, they both stopped to rest by a cottage not far from a great city, and as the king was lying outstretched on the grass, lazily watching his horse cropping the short turf, an old woman came out with a wooden bowl of fresh ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... deep shadow of umbrageous oaks a century old. They whispered among themselves at her coming, they fanned her with a little cool wind from the encircling mountains, and she threw herself gratefully down upon the soft, warm turf at ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... as lies about unburnt, and the final burning of these heaps. During April and May the rains begin; and then grass seed is sown broadcast over the charred expanse. It soon sprouts up, and in a couple of months there will begin to be some pasturage. Before next season a good strong turf ought to have formed among the stumps. Every farmer has his own particular ideas as to the kinds of seed to use. We used a mixture of poa pratensis, timothy, and Dutch clover, and have abundant reason to be ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... for which he would have to go far afield among the giant grass, where his watchful foes are lying in wait to seize him; he saves himself from this danger by making a clearing all round his abode, on which a smooth turf is formed; and here the animals feed and have their evening pastimes in comparative security: for when an enemy approaches, he is easily seen; the note of alarm is sounded, and the whole company scuttles away to their refuge. ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... outside though, and in a minute or so I sees what the Commodore was aimin' at. Out to one side was a cute little fish-pond, about a hundred feet across, and he was makin' a bee line for that. It was down in a sort of hollow, with nice smooth turf slopin' clear ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... differ, Abimelech. Sir Alexander wants me to turf them over! He says that, where you may have the smooth verdure, gravel walks are ridiculous; and are only tolerable in common pathways, where continual treading would wear away the greensward. But I know what has given him such a love for the soft grass. Sir Alexander ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... hall and entered a small office. Its one wide window looked out upon a tree-lined street. There were no bars on the window and one of its side wings stood open. Stan saw people walking up and down the street. An expanse of smooth turf lay between the window and the sidewalk. Stan turned back to Domber, who had ...
— A Yankee Flier Over Berlin • Al Avery
... the critic. 'I'd git orf the turf if I cud spit 'em out that style; mek m' fortin', I ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... was fairly well chosen for the purpose. It was a tolerably firm piece of turf about a hundred yards long by some twenty broad and almost as smooth as a bowling green. It was the only solid piece of earth for some distance, all around being at a lower level ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... seized our rifles and listened intently. The sound was evidently approaching. It was a low, dull, booming roar, which at one moment seemed to be distant thunder, at another the cry of some huge animal in rage or pain. Presently the beating of heavy hoofs on the turf and the crash of branches were heard. Each of us sprang instinctively towards a tree, feeling that if danger were near its trunk would ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... joy of being still alive with the unconscious melancholy of fast approaching death; the sweetness of the sun was indescribable. Fertile fields streaked with furrows, honest peasants' cottages; under the trees a turf covered with shade, the lowing of cattle as in Virgil, and the smoke of hamlets penetrated by rays of sunshine; such was the complete picture. The clanging of anvils rang in the distance, the rhythm of work amidst the harmony of nature. I listened, I mused ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... among them. In a few more years, if the course they then pursued had been continued, the whole tribe must have become utterly extinct; their name existing but in the recollection of the story-teller, and the green turf alone marking the lands they once inhabited. It fortunately happened, however, at the period alluded to, that the prophets, together with a few of the elder chiefs, who had stood aloof from the contaminating influence of the white men, were enabled ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... often disappointed in going out on what you consider trustworthy and certain information. They often remind me of the story of the Laird of Logan. He was riding slowly along a country road one day, when another equestrian joined him. Logan's eye fixed itself on a hole in the turf bank bounding the road, and with great gravity, and in trust-inspiring accents, he said, 'I saw a tod ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... Places for their Men, Care ought to be taken to clean them well, and to air and dry them by Means of Fires, before the Soldiers go into them; and to supply well the Men who are to lodge in them with Straw and Blankets, and with Wood or Turf. ...
— An Account of the Diseases which were most frequent in the British military hospitals in Germany • Donald Monro
... they refused, and tried to persuade him to go back with them; but finally he made a proposition that got home to them all. He planned that they should all go back to the inn, and there get a couple of dozen bottles of whisky, a donkey-load of turf and wood, and some more candles. Then they would come back, and make a great fire in the big fire-place, light all the candles, and put them 'round the place, open the whisky and make a night of it. And, by Jove! he got ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson
... was what most truly appealed to him. It was not at all certain that he would hunt; break-neck adventure in the saddle scarcely attracted him. But there was no reason in the world why he should not breed racing horses, and create for himself a distinguished and even lofty position on the Turf. He had never cared much about races or racing folk himself, but when the Prince and Lord Rosebery and people like that went in for winning the Derby, there clearly must be something ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... Lilies well requires a deep, moist, rich loam. A stubborn clay may be improved for them by deep digging, and incorporating with the staple plenty of rotten manure and leaf-mould. They all thrive in peat, or rotten turf, or, indeed, in any soil containing an abundance of decomposing vegetable matter. The autumn is the proper time to plant Lilies, but they may be planted at any season, if they can be obtained in a dormant state or growing in pots. They ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons |
