"Thistle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... painted across its curving front. The Lady of the Snows had obviously been christened as a welcome to the scores of his fellow colonials who had gone that way before; and he and Carew had dashed past Killarney and The Scotch Thistle, to take possession of its ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... high wood whistle, Over the coppice and down the lane Where the goldfinch chirps from the haulm of the thistle And mangolds gleam in the farmer's wain. Last year's dead and the new year sleeping Under its mantle of leaves and snow; Earth holds beauty fast in her keeping But ...
— Punch, Volume 156, January 22, 1919. • Various
... male to his great-grandfather, Lord Mackenzie of Kintail, in his lands in the Lordship of Ardmeanach and in the Earldom of Ross; was made a member of the Privy Council by James II. on his accession to the throne in 1685, and chosen a Knight Companion of the Thistle, on the revival of that ancient Order in 1687. The year after the Revolution Seaforth accompanied his Royal master to France, but when that Prince returned to Ireland in the following year to make a final effort for ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... the hardy plants in a plantation from among the tender ones as effectually as if it were the wind, and they, the sand and pebbles, of our illustration; or, on the other hand, as if the intelligence of a gardener had been operative in cutting the weaker organisms down. The thistle, which has spread over the Pampas, to the destruction of native plants, has been more effectually "selected" by the unconscious operation of natural conditions than if a thousand agriculturists had spent their ...
— Criticisms on "The Origin of Species" - From 'The Natural History Review', 1864 • Thomas H. Huxley
... desolate pile of rock; — it well deserves its name of Hurtado, or separated. The mountain is steep, extremely rugged, and broken, and so entirely destitute of trees, and even bushes, that we actually could not make a skewer to stretch out our meat over the fire of thistle- stalks. [1] The strange aspect of this mountain is contrasted by the sea-like plain, which not only abuts against its steep sides, but likewise separates the parallel ranges. The uniformity of the colouring gives an extreme quietness to the view, — the whitish ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... occasional visitors to the yard were two American goldfinches, or thistle-birds, in bright yellow and black plumage, both males. They also went to the new homestead in the oak, inspected it, chatted over it in their sweet tones, and then passed on. It began to look as though the nest were in the market for any ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... their motion makes one think of the grace of young girls, daintily costumed, in robes with long fluttering sleeves... And old Japanese proverb declares that even a devil is pretty at eighteen: Oni mo jiu-hachi azami no hana: "Even a devil at eighteen, flower-of-the-thistle." ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn
... creep in and out through a little place where the barbed wire is down. We lie in the long grass and crush dandelions between our two cheeks till the milk comes out on our faces. We hold each other tight and the wind tip-toes all over us and pelts us with thistle-down. ...
— Sun-Up and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... to me like a little white lily of the valley, all pure and sweet, but I was no more fit to be with her than a prickly thistle. I loved dearly to tease her. Once she had some bronze shoes, and I wanted some too, but there were none to be had in town, and to console myself, I said to dear little Fel, "I'd twice rather have black shoes, bronzes look so rusty; O, ...
— Aunt Madge's Story • Sophie May
... time, the C.-in-C. was granted the Order of a Knighthood of the Thistle. It was given to him by the King during his visit to France in a chateau at Cassel. No one was present when he received this honour. Just afterwards I did a little ...
— An Onlooker in France 1917-1919 • William Orpen
... Collyer speak in a sermon of James Oliver as "a transplanted thistle evolved into a beautiful flower," and "the man of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... separate one, began to chase one another back and forth with bewildering rapidity. As the veil swayed to and fro, it seemed to shake the crowns into skeins of fire, each thread strung with countless minute globes of every conceivable color and hue. Those fiery threads, aerial as thistle down, wove themselves in and out in a tangled mass of gorgeous beauty. Suddenly the beads of color fell in a shower of gems, topaz and emerald, ruby and sapphire, amethyst and pearly crystals of dew. I looked upward, ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... because he had had so little sleep of late; and then he would be fresh for her, fresh for youth and beauty, coming towards him across the sunlit lawn—lady in grey! And settling back in his chair he closed his eyes. Some thistle-down came on what little air there was, and pitched on his moustache more white than itself. He did not know; but his breathing stirred it, caught there. A ray of sunlight struck through and lodged on his ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... after this, the children set out to fish in the river, and while walking round by the common they came upon a donkey standing all alone, without a bridle or even a rope on it. It was close to a large juicy thistle, but it did not seem to be eating it, and every minute or ...
— Carry's Rose - or, the Magic of Kindness. A Tale for the Young • Mrs. George Cupples
... and scale insects thrive mischievously. The black and grey rats have driven the native rat into the recesses of the forest. A score of weeds have come, mixed with badly-screened grass-seed, or in any of a hundred other ways. The Scotch thistle seemed likely at one stage to usurp the whole grass country. Acts of Parliament failed to keep it down. Nature, more effectual, causes it to die down after running riot for a few years. The watercress, too, threatened at one time to choke half the streams. The sweetbriar, taking kindly to both ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... Every hogfish and lamprey in American waters—that's a near-fish that sucks the blood of other fish, you know—should be exterminated just in the same way that the farmers of the country are making away with the Canada thistle. Against the sharks—the tigers of the sea, the killers—the wolves of the sea, and all the other predatory forms, relentless war should be waged until the wild fishes of the sea are destroyed, as the wild beasts of the forest have fled ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... With the proud heron-plume. From his steed's shoulder, loin, and breast, Silk housings swept the ground, With Scotland's arms, device, and crest, Embroidered round and round. The double tressure might you see, First by Achaius borne, The thistle and the fleur-de-lis, And gallant unicorn. So bright the king's armorial coat, That scarce the dazzled eye could note, In living colours, blazoned brave, The lion, which his title gave; A train, which well beseemed his state, But all unarmed, around him wait. Still is thy name ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... Cobweb, good Mounsier get your weapons in your hand, & kill me a red hipt humble-Bee, on the top of a thistle; and good Mounsieur bring mee the hony bag. Doe not fret your selfe too much in the action, Mounsieur; and good mounsieur haue a care the hony bag breake not, I would be loth to haue you ouerflowne with a hony-bag signiour. Where's ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... that Scotland's thistle is not fair? Of sturdy growth and free determined air, Type of a race, in mental vigour strong, Of perseverance and ...
— Home Lyrics • Hannah. S. Battersby
... fled, for what I know," said De Valence, "in search of a more enterprising lover than one who is so willing to interpret every air of frost as a killing blight to his hopes; perhaps she seeks the Black Douglas, or some such hero of the Thistle, to reward with her lands, her lordships, and beauty, those virtues of enterprise and courage, of which John de Walton was at one time thought possessed. But, seriously, events are passing around us of strange import. I saw enough last ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... the sluggard; I hear him complain, You have waked me too soon, I must slumber again. I passed by his garden, I saw the wild brier, The thorn, and the thistle, grow broader and higher; The clothes that hang on him are turning to rags; And his money he wastes, till he ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... fell, a column falls! Here, where the mimic eagle glared in gold, A midnight vigil holds the swarthy bat! Here, where the dames of Rome their gilded hair Waved to the wind, now wave the reed and thistle! Here, where on golden throne the monarch lolled, Glides, spectre-like, unto his marble home, Lit by the wanlight—wan light of the horned moon, The swift and silent lizard ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... with thistle-leaves," said Zarah.—"I know not a slighter thing than your Buckingham! I saw him at your request—saw him when, as a man, he should have shown himself generous and noble—I stood the proof at your desire, for I laugh at those dangers from which the poor blushing ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... brought up to a state of things which did not exist. He was like a sailor who has put out to sea in an ornamental boat, and finds that his sail is useless, the ropes not made to work, and the rudder immovable. The long, buoyant wind of the world blew away like thistle-down the conventions which had seemed so secure a foundation. But he discovered in himself a wonderful curiosity, an eagerness for adventure which led him boldly to affront every peril; and the unknown lands of the ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... made it seem the less considerable; for it looks most remarkable to ships that are to the westward of it. We had brisk north-north-east and north-east winds from Tenerife, and saw flying-fish, and a great deal of sea-thistle weed floating. By the 9th of February at noon we were in the latitude of 15 degrees 4 minutes so we steered away west-north-west for the island of Mayo, being by judgment not far to the east of it, and at 8 o'clock ...
— A Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier
... for I can't see!—he rung the front door bell and yanked me right out of the dish water, and he says his ma found the letter in Balaam's other pants when she was mendin' 'em, and would I please excuse his forgettin' it 'cause he had so much on his mind lately. Mind! Land of love! if he had a thistle top on his mind 'twould smash it flat. ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... but France—Good-bye an hour. [Kissing her.] I must dictate some letters. This new move Of England on Madrid may mean some trouble. Come, dwell not gloomily on this cold need Of waiving private joy for policy. We are but thistle-globes on Heaven's high gales, And whither blown, or when, or how, or why, Can choose us not at all!... I'll come to you anon, dear: staunch ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... become. abrasado, -a burning, hot. abrasar burn. abrazo m. embrace. brego m. southwest wind. abreviar shorten. abrir open, expand, cut; —se open, yawn, unfold, split. abrojo m. thistle, thorn. absolucin f. absolution. abundante adj. abundant, abounding, teeming. ac adv. here, hither. acabar end, cease; —se come to an end. acacia f. acacia. acariciar cherish, soothe, caress. acaso adv. perchance, perhaps. accin f. action, feat. acento m. accent, ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... his "other legs" and gave him, then led Balaam away from the late thistle blooms he was browsing. Hallam mounted, crossed his crutches before him, and lifted his cap. Amy tossed him a kiss and turned millward, while he ascended the hill road. But no sooner was she out of sight than her assumed cheerfulness gave way, and for a time it was a ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... of the butler more quickly than is usual, for, as the door opens, and before I can get a view of the inmate or inmates, I hear a hurried noise of scrambling, as of some one suddenly jumping up. For a little airy woman who looks as if one could blow her away—puff!—like a morsel of thistle-down or a snowball, what a heavy foot Mrs. Huntley has! The next moment, I am disabused. Mrs. Huntley has clearly not moved. It was not she that scrambled. She is lying back in a deep arm-chair, her silky head gently denting the flowered cushion, the points of two pretty shoes slightly ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... as Christ was—kindly, too, It seems so strange the thistle, hatred, grew To whip your tender backs, with great ado, Because you ...
— Hydesville - The Story of the Rochester Knockings, Which Proclaimed the Advent of Modern Spiritualism • Thomas Olman Todd
... a column falls! Here, where the mimic eagle glared in gold, A midnight vigil holds the swarthy bat; Here, where the dames of Rome their gilded hair 20 Waved to the wind, now wave the reed and thistle; Here, where on golden throne the monarch lolled, Glides, ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... end of a "thistle tube" (used by chemists) a thin animal membrane, such as a piece of the pericardium or a strip of the membrane from around a sausage. Then fill the bulb and the lower end of the tube with a concentrated solution of some solid, such as sugar, salt, or copper sulphate. ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.
... contrasted with her pure white front, and twisted in a dainty curve to match her features. Her feet and tiny claws were the pink of a sea-shell. Her eyes were small (harvest mice have small eyes), but they were very gentle. As she sighted him, she swung lightly up a thistle stem, and sat for a moment balanced on the head. Evidently ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... succeeded another dish essentially Provencal, carde. The carde is a giant thistle that grows to a height of five or six feet, and is so luxuriantly magnificent both in leaf and in flower that it deserves a place among ornamental plants. The edible portion is the stem—blanched like celery, which it much resembles, by being earthed-up—cooked ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... Drenched us with may, we might be happy then! With sweet blue wood-smoke curling thro' the boughs, And just a pigeon's flap to break the silence, And ferns, of course, there's much to make men happy. Well, well, the forest conquers at the last! I saw a thistle in the castle courtyard, A purple thistle breaking thro' the pavement, Yesterday; and it's wonderful how soon Some creepers pick these old grey walls to pieces. These nunneries and these monasteries now, They don't spring up like flowers, ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... a whole; and yet, to give the mannikin its due, the face of the thing is about as accurate as counterfeits usually are. The colour is not often right, however, and I suspect Reprint & Co. are ignorant that the colour is of any consequence. The thistle-framed portrait, nevertheless, is tolerably well copied; enough so, to deserve the greatest proportion of credit belonging to the whole, as an imitation. You look for the familiar imprint in vain. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... transformed thorn and the thistle blooming with flowers of peace and sweetness, where once ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... investigation was putting on armour of proof. Self-confidence was gradually swallowed up by dependence upon the word—the result of the severest spiritual training. Those painful exercises produced a life of holiness and usefulness. Can the thistle produce grapes, or the noxious weeds corn? Never! His experience came from heaven, in mercy to his soul, and to make him a blessing to millions of his race. By this he was made truly wise, civilized, enlightened, and elevated. Every painful feeling ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the fulsome thistle in the prime: Young trees bend lightly, but grow strong in time. Were I the worthiest to advise your honour, You should pursue him with your spredding bandes Swifter in march then is the lightning flame, And take him tardy whilst his plots are tame. Now to charge on his army, questionlesse Would ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... active duty on the field, Mr. M'Quarrie is even now in football harness as the treasurer of the Partick Thistle. He did not play in many of the first eleven matches of the club, but being a promising lad was always available as first reserve forward. He was rather a neat dribbler and good backer-up, but a little slow in tackling. He was always a steady player, and did very ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone
... your counsel and assistance.' To these words, all the deities that were present, having first filled the court with murmurs, answered in this manner: 'Great goddess, be pleased to reflect a little on the animosities such a choice may create among the rival flowers; even the worthless Thistle will pretend to deserve the crown, and if denied, will perhaps grow factious, and disturb your peaceful reign.' 'Your fears are groundless,' replied the goddess; 'I apprehend no such consequence; my resolution is already fixed; hear, ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... poor little donkey on wheels. It had never wagged its tail, or tossed its head, or said, "Hee-haw!" or tasted a tender thistle. It always went about, anywhere that anyone pulled it, on four wooden wheels, carrying a foolish knight, who wore a large cocked hat and a long cloak, because he had no legs. Now, a man who has no legs, and rides a donkey on wheels, has little ...
— Very Short Stories and Verses For Children • Mrs. W. K. Clifford
... become pierced. Most flowers have the fruit case in the middle, or it may be the flower is on the top of the pericarp as in pomegranate, apple, pear, plum, and myrtle ... for these have their seeds below the flower.... In some cases again the flower is on top of the seeds themselves as in ... all thistle-like plants'.[36] Thus Theophrastus has succeeded in distinguishing between the hypogynous, perigynous, and epigynous types of flower, and has almost come to regard its relation to the fruit as the ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... me what the clover Nods about beneath the gorgeous blue; While the snowballs tell me old love-stories Thistle-birds half hinted as ...
— Behind the Arras - A Book of the Unseen • Bliss Carman
... em the correlation of the body with the ether, and by thinking of it as light as thistle-down, will come the ...
— The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali • Charles Johnston
... search of the boy himself. Storing himself with gold and precious jewels, he set off, attended only by his faithful De Fistycuff. From place to place he wandered, year after year, till his locks were turned to silvery grey, and his beard became like the down of a thistle. One evening his heart fainting, and his once firm knees trembling, he reached the gate of a monastery in Bohemia. Then he sunk down before even his Squire could ring the bell to summon the monks to his assistance. ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston
... Thistle. Of the class Confederate Males. The seeds of this and of many other plants of the same class are furnished with a plume, by which admirable mechanism they perform long aerial journeys, crossing lakes and deserts, and are ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... there was about my partner—a whimsical humor, a slight mocking sound in his voice, which pleased me; he took nothing seriously; everything he said was as light as a thistle-down; he reminded me of the wit of grandmamma and the Marquis; we got ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... order made two persons happy, and alleviated the distress of many a poor soul whom I never expect to see. It is more than one can often say that, in doing right, one has made two happy in one day. Speed, die when I may, I want it said of me by those who know me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower when I thought a flower would grow."—(Vouched for by Joshua R. Speed, the first to be friend to Lincoln when he set out to become a lawyer, at Springfield, ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... an old lord about London in those days,—or, rather, one who was an old Liberal but a young lord,—one Lord Mount Thistle, who had sat in the Cabinet, and had lately been made a peer when his place in the Cabinet was wanted. He was a pompous, would-be important, silly old man, well acquainted with all the traditions of his party, and perhaps, on that account, useful,—but a bore, and very apt to ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... his hand, has flown up to the sun, which he seems to touch; like Prometheus in the myth when he stole the fire, a shower of flowers and flames falls around him. Groueleau, of Paris, had for motto Nul ne s'y frotte, with the thistle for badge. These are beautifully combined in the title-page of his version of Apuleius, 'L'Amour de Cupido et de Psyche' (Paris, 1557). There is probably no better date for frontispieces, both for ingenuity of device and for elegance of arrangement of title, than the years between ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang
... beast had been tethered by his master in the early morning where a hedge and margin of sward bordered the domain of Admiral Parkins. Uninstructed in modern law, he broke loose and strayed along the green, cropping here and there a succulent shoot of thorn or thistle, until, when approaching repletion, he was surprised by the policeman, reprimanded, captured, and led ignominiously towards the gaol for vagrant animals—a ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... tasted the wine, from the first and last cask, smacked his lips, and said, "That's what I call good! Here, monkey, take this thistle; when you reach home you will find in it everything you wish." In an instant, giant, casks, and ...
— The Two Story Mittens and the Little Play Mittens - Being the Fourth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... Land in the hopes of finding a stray Boche, or encountering a Boche patrol. In front of Essarts the lines were so far apart that there was plenty of room for a small pitched battle, and night after night Lieuts. Pearson, Creed, Poynor, and others visited such familiar haunts as the "Osier Bed," "Thistle Patch," "Lonely Tree," and other well-known places. The first to meet the enemy was Lieut. Pearson, who came upon a small party in the "Thistle Patch," who made off rapidly back to their lines. Our patrol used their rifles, but, though they hit one of the enemy, ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... but rises to her absolute rule, and the husbandman and hunter acknowledge her for their mistress. Asters and golden-rods reign along the way, and the life-everlasting withers not. The fields are reaped and shorn of their pride, but an inward verdure still crowns them. The thistle scatters its down on the pool, and yellow leaves clothe the vine, and naught disturbs the serious life of men. But behind the sheaves, and under the sod, there lurks a ripe fruit, which the reapers have not gathered, the true harvest of the year, which it bears forever, annually watering and maturing ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... battlements, Newstead, [2] the hollow winds whistle: [ii] Thou, the hall of my Fathers, art gone to decay; In thy once smiling garden, the hemlock and thistle Have choak'd up the rose, which late ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... unprofitably lose it not; For he that liveth in authority, And neither gets him friends nor fills his bags, Lives like the ass that Aesop speaketh of, That labours with a load of bread and wine, And leaves it off to snap on thistle-tops: But Barabas will be more circumspect. Begin betimes; Occasion's bald behind: Slip not thine opportunity, for fear too late Thou seek'st for much, but canst not compass it.— ...
— The Jew of Malta • Christopher Marlowe
... clear blue eyes which passed for black, and stiff black hair, were all of that Huguenot Southern type, which, like the signs of the Scotch Covenanter or of the old English Puritan, are as unlikely to die out as the Canada thistle, where they who sow the wind are content to reap the whirlwind. In their steadfast pertinacity, whether right or wrong, in their adamantine logic, as unyielding as death, and calm, serious energy of action, and in a part of their transcendental theories, they were alike; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... year. They slept in companies, on beds made of the tops of reeds, which they gathered with their own hands, without knives, and brought from the banks of the Eurotas. In winter they were permitted to add a little thistle-down, as that seemed to have some warmth ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... catch him," said Ralph. So he walked slowly up to the thistle and put out his hand to catch the butterfly. But the butterfly spread his wings and flew up in the air. In a moment he came back and lighted on the ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... the thistle, provide their seed with downy wings, by which the wind carries them afar to other fields. Other seeds have a faculty of tumbling and rolling along the ground to great distances, owing to their peculiar shape and formation. The maple provides ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... bloom off the freshness of young writers if they are determined to exhibit the last new words that are in, or out of season. New words have a doubtful position at first. They float here and there like thistle-down, and their future depends upon where they settle. But until they are established and accepted they are out of place for children's use. They are contrary to the perfect manner for children. ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... swung and swept and thrashed to and fro in the thundering wind like a thistle, and flamed in the full sunshine like a bonfire. The green, fantastic human figure, vivid against its autumn red and gold, was already among its highest and craziest branches, which by bare luck did not break ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... of displeasure blows me fairly away!' she said, jumping up and floating off to the mill door like any thistle down, on the tips ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... stumpy thistle, like the top of a young pineapple. It did prick.—Yes, it is pretty soft, and it smells nice, and heigh ho ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... the water, leaping over the stones, clambering on the trunks—aw, dear! aw, dear! Bareheaded and barefooted in those times, sir; but smart extraordinary, and a terble notion of being dressy, too. Twisting ferns about her lil neck for lace, sticking a mountain thistle, sparkling with dew, on her breast for a diamond, twining a trail of fuchsia round her head for a crown—aw, dear! aw, dear! And now—well, well, to ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... plan, which, I think, will look very well, if tolerably executed,—namely, to have the lady seated in due form on the top of the lid (which will look handsome, and will be well taken), and to have a thistle wreathed around the sarcophagus and rising above her head, and from the top of the thistle shall proceed the birse. I will bring a drawing with me, and they shall get the cup ready in the mean time. I ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... but went straight to his work, And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk, And laying his finger aside of his nose, And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose. He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle, And away they all flew like the down of a thistle. But I heard him exclaim, ere they drove out of sight, "Happy Christmas to all, and to ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... obscurely, he felt a change in her, from the beginning of their talk. Why had she sent for him? The wildest notions had possessed him, ever since her letter reached him. Yet, now that he saw her, they seemed to float away from him, like thistle-down on the wind. ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... all the friends and families of the prisoners together on the public square. Then they dug five graves. Then five Japanese officers came stalking across the public square, whisking at the thistle-tops with swords as they came; and then walked up to these innocent Russian boys, and whacked off ...
— Flash-lights from the Seven Seas • William L. Stidger
... for good. [Applause.] And that is why this hall is to-day a temple for free men instead of a negro livery-stable. [Great applause and laughter.] Once let slavery get planted in a locality, by ever so weak or doubtful a title, and in ever so small numbers, and it is like the Canada thistle or Bermuda grass—you can't root it out. You yourself may detest slavery; but your neighbor has five or six slaves, and he is an excellent neighbor, or your son has married his daughter, and they beg you to help save ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... while the grasshopper sang out shrill In the grass beneath the blanching thistle, And the afternoon air, with a tender thrill, Harked to ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... two, and a few of the larger purple varieties that had lingered on from October made quite a creditable fungus record for the League, and specimens of wild flowers were also secured, a belated foxglove or two, a clump of ragwort, some blue harebells, campion, herb-robert, buttercup, yarrow, thistle, and actually a strawberry blossom. The leaders had brought note-books and wrote down each find as reported by the members, taking the specimens for Miss Lever to verify if there were any doubt as to identification. Animal and bird life was not absent. Shy ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... prime adventurer of the party, now got ready to settle at Portland Bay. He chartered a small schooner, "The Thistle", loading her with stores and live stock, and with selections of seed, fruit trees, vegetables, etc., part of them bought from Fawkner, who had then a market garden on Windmill Hill, near Launceston, besides keeping the Cornwall Hotel there; and with these he sailed ...
— Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne & Victoria • William Westgarth
... set light to the dried sage, and thistle and thorn, and soon the whole place was blazing. It was a fearful sight. Many wounded tried to crawl away, dragging their broken arms and legs out of the burning ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... of 2000 francs has been awarded to M. Mosson, for his method of drying and preserving vegetables for long sea voyages, as published a few months ago. M. Naudin states, that a certain kind of furze or thistle, of which cattle are very fond, may be made to grow without thorns—an important consideration, seeing that at present, before it can be used as food, it has to undergo a laborious beating, to crush and break the prickles with which it is covered. As the plant thrives ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various
... I started a stone rolling, which as it went plunging into a hazel thicket, thrust out a deer, whose flight seemed fairly miraculous to me. He appeared to drift along the hillside like a bunch of thistle-down, and I took a singular delight in watching ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... isle is fresh water; and cabbage-palm, wood-sorrel, sow-thistle, and samphire, abounding in some places on the shore, we brought on board as much of each sort as the time we had to gather them would admit. These cabbage-trees or palms were not thicker than a man's leg, and from ten to ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... the eye of a country gentleman and a justice of the peace, the spectacle was scandalously disreputable. It was moss-grown; it was worm-eaten; it was broken right in the middle; through its four socketless eyes, neighboured by the nettle, peered the thistle,—the thistle! a forest of thistles!—and, to complete the degradation of the whole, those thistles had attracted the donkey of an itinerant tinker; and the irreverent animal was in the very act of taking his luncheon out of the eyes and ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... impossible to see into it more than a few inches. The branched were tough and elastic, and when it struck the ground after being tossed up it would rebound several inches. But it was almost as light asa thistle-ball, and when we turned it loose it rolled away across the prairie again as if ...
— The Voyage of the Rattletrap • Hayden Carruth
... in the way of hunger or horror, but not permanent presence in one place. In this there is certainly danger. The more dead and dry and dusty a thing is the more it travels about; dust is like this and the thistle-down and the High Commissioner in South Africa. Fertile things are somewhat heavier, like the heavy fruit trees on the pregnant mud of the Nile. In the heated idleness of youth we were all rather inclined to quarrel with the implication of that proverb which says that a rolling stone gathers ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... with the food of pride sustained his soul In solitude.—Stranger! these gloomy boughs Had charms for him; and here he loved to sit, His only visitants a straggling sheep, The stone-chat, or the glancing sand-piper; And on these barren rocks, with juniper, And heath, and thistle, thinly sprinkled o'er, Fixing his downcast eye, he many an hour A morbid pleasure nourished, tracing here An emblem of his own unfruitful life: And lifting up his head, he then would gaze On the more distant scene; how lovely 'tis Thou seest, and he ...
— Lyrical Ballads, With Other Poems, 1800, Vol. I. • William Wordsworth
... little yard in front of my cave," he said, "for my goat to live in." But from whence must come the tools? He had neither hatchet nor saw. Where then were the stakes to come from? He went in search of something. After hunting for a long time he came upon a kind of thistle about two feet higher than himself, having at its top a red torch-like blossom. There were ...
— An American Robinson Crusoe - for American Boys and Girls • Samuel. B. Allison
... wooly brown caterpillars wend their way in the short grass by the wayside, where the wild carrot and the purple bull-thistle are coming ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... disassociate the call of the burrowing owl from the late slant light of the mesa. If the fine vibrations which are the golden-violet glow of spring twilights were to tremble into sound, it would be just that mellow double note breaking along the blossom-tops. While the glow holds one sees the thistle-down flights and pouncings after prey, and on into the dark hears their soft pus-ssh! clearing out of the trail ahead. Maybe the pinpoint shriek of field mouse or kangaroo rat that pricks the wakeful pauses of the night is extorted by these mellow-voiced plunderers, ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... these are all mashed to pieces by the great weight long before they get so far, or else come to a place where perhaps they float. But I dare say a cannon sometimes comes careering solemnly down, and circling about like a dead leaf or thistle-down; and then the ragged fellows go and play about the cannon and tell themselves all kinds of stories about the fish higher up and their iron houses, and perhaps go inside and sleep, and perhaps dream of it all like ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... enviable being! No storms, no clouds, in thy blue sky foreseeing, Play on, play on, My elfin John! Toss the light ball—bestride the stick— (I knew so many cakes would make him sick!) With fancies, buoyant as the thistle-down, Prompting the face grotesque, and antic brisk, With many a lamb-like frisk, (He's got the scissors, snipping at ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... all work, and forgotten work, this peopled, clothed, articulate-speaking, high-towered, wide-acred world. For the thistle a blade of grass, later a drop of nourishing milk, later a nobler man. Man perfects himself as well ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... recovered from his degradation on that day: and in June 1562, the Magistrates directed the portraiture of the Saint, which had served as their emblem, to be cut out of the city standard, as an idol, and a Thistle to be inserted, "emblematical (as a recent writer remarks) of rude reform, but leaving the Hind which accompanied St. Giles, as one of the heraldic supporters of the city arms."—(Caledonia, ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... the song of red war; for your chief must go To drown his grief in the blood of the foe! I shall fall. Raise my mound on the sacred hill. Let my warriors the wish of their chief fulfill; For my fathers sleep in the sacred ground. The Autumn blasts o'er Wakwa's mound Shall chase the hair of the thistle's head, And the bare armed oak o'er the silent dead. When the whirling snows from the north descend, Shall wail and moan in the midnight wind. In the famine of winter the wolf shall prowl, And scratch the snow ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... forty grubs an hour, an average exceeding three thousand in the course of a week. Moreover, even in the autumn he does not confine himself to grain, but feeds on various seeds, such as the dandelion, the sow-thistle, and the groundsel; all of which plants are classed as weeds. It has been known, also, to chase and devour the common white butterfly, whose caterpillars make havoc among ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [December, 1897], Vol 2. No 6. • Various
... the stubble shows in lines of pale yellow on the brown earth among patches of almost colourless green and other patches black with burning which change the value of the olives, pistachios, carubas and aloes; here and there is a shrivelled thistle, here and there a lone pine; sometimes we see a string of mules winding in and out on its way home, losing and finding itself among the undulations like a little fleet of fishing boats that rise and fall with the swell, and I think Schubert must have passed this way when he felt stirring ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... the faith of seraphs, will go into the representation. The sole condition is that he shall select his subject from native, spontaneous choice,—that is, leave his genius to make its own elections. Let one, whose genius so invites him, paint but a thistle, and paint it as faithfully as Nature grows it; yet, if the Ten Commandments are meantime uttering themselves in his thought, he will make the thistle-top ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... melancholy carle: Thin in the waist, with bushy head of hair, As hath the seeded thistle, when a parle It holds with Zephyr, ere it sendeth fair Its light balloons into the summer air; Thereto his beard had not begun to bloom. No brush had touched his cheek, or razor sheer; No care had touched his cheek with mortal doom, But new he was and bright, ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... brownish buff color. They are quite common in their summer range in the United States, nesting at a low elevation in bushes and low trees. The two eggs are white, .50 x .35. Data.—Brownsville, Texas, May 5, 1892. Nest of fine bark-like fibre on the outside, lined with lint from thistle plant; located on limb of small hackberry. Collector, ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... short to everyone. She was a wisp of a woman with little hands as dry and yellow as parchment. Her voice had a quavering falsetto break in it and her laugh, when there was occasion, was dry and withery and short-lived like a piece of thistle-down. ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... Pretty little lettuce-leaves, Pretty pebbles, Red and brown, Pretty floating thistle-down. Pretty baby, Curly head, Standing in a pansy-bed, Pretty clouds All white and curled— O the great, big ...
— The Peter Patter Book of Nursery Rhymes • Leroy F. Jackson
... passes, Saucy grasshoppers Leapt about the grasses And the thistle-burs; And the whispered chuckle Of the katydid Shook the honeysuckle Blossoms ...
— Riley Child-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley
... published in the Contemporary Review for April, 1885; and now included in Volume XXII of the "Thistle ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... eyes, long dimm'd with weeping, In the silent dust are sleeping; When above my lowly bed The breeze shall wave the thistle's head, Thou ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... with weeds and then pull them up again in secure trust that no lurking burdocks and Canada thistle shall remain? Dear model mothers and prudent papas, be not afraid of wholesome fiction, as such, duly labelled and left uncorked. It will be far better to administer plenty of "Robinson Crusoe" and "Sinbad" and "Arabian Nights," good ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... yeomanly; the Black Knight approaches the postern with his huge ax; the thundering blows which he deals, you may hear them above all the din and shouts of the battle; stones and beams are hailed down on the brave champion; he regards them no more than if they were thistle down and feathers." ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... he found himself riveted to the ground. His feet refused to move, his hands hung powerless at his side, his tongue refused to utter a word. The bow and arrow fell from his hand, and his spear lay powerless. A little child, not so high as the fourth leaf of the thistle, came and spat on him, and a company of the spirits danced around him singing a taunting song. When they had thus finished their task of preparatory torture, a thousand little spirits drew their ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends: North American Indian • Anonymous
... down the walk to meet her, her tail like a great plume, her soft coat as fluffy as thistle down. Proudly she walked as if she knew ...
— Princess Polly's Gay Winter • Amy Brooks
... I hate that sober, afternoon air, that hangs like an invisible presence over it all. You can see it in the sunshine on those white walls, you can hear it in the hum of the bee from the bending thistle here. ...
— The Bride of Fort Edward • Delia Bacon
... (Cuscutaceae); the beautiful group of convolvuluses (Convolvulaceae); the gentians (Gentianaceae); the primrose group (Primulaceae); the heaths (Ericaceae); the graceful hair-bell and its allies (Campanulaceae); the very large group to which belong the daisy, dandelion, and thistle (Compositae); the honeysuckle order (Caprifoliaceae); the ivy (Araliaceae); the large order containing the fennel, hemlock, and a multitude of other forms which, though mostly ranking as herbs, attain gigantic dimensions in some species found ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... Edmund, Alban, George, Andrew, Louis, Martin, Patrick and Gereon. There are besides in the head of the window devices of the corps of Royal Engineers; the badges of the grenade and crown; the national emblems of the rose, thistle, shamrock and leek; emblematic subjects, such as the Helmet of Salvation and the Breastplate of Righteousness; and armed angels. The arrangement of the window is well seen in our view of the nave looking west. It is in memory of the officers ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Rochester - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • G. H. Palmer
... without seeing an aeroplane flying overhead. When there is action, you will see many. A faint pur comes out of the heavens and two planes are seen circling as they exchange bullets from their machine guns. Another plane is turning to the right and left and ducking to avoid the thistle blows of smoke which burst from the shrapnel shells fired ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... Pantagruel would not give consent, but commanded him to depart thence speedily and begone as he had told him, and to that effect gave him a boxful of euphorbium, together with some grains of the black chameleon thistle, steeped into aqua vitae, and made up into the condiment of a wet sucket, commanding him to carry it to his king, and to say unto him, that if he were able to eat one ounce of that without drinking after it, he might then ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... leaving Paul with his grand-parents and calling for him in the late afternoon; but one day, on re-entering the Malibran, he was met by a small abashed figure clad in a kaleidoscopic tartan and a green velvet cap with a silver thistle. After this experience of the "surprises" of which Gran'ma was capable when she had a chance to take Paul shopping Ralph did not again venture to leave his son, and their subsequent Saturdays were passed ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... knight?" repeated Fitzurse, looking after him; "like a fool, I should say, or like a child, who will leave the most serious and needful occupation, to chase the down of the thistle that drives past him.—But it is with such tools that I must work;—and for whose advantage?—For that of a Prince as unwise as he is profligate, and as likely to be an ungrateful master as he has already proved a rebellious son and an unnatural brother.—But ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... that was so brave and so comely, and that could overtake a deer at its greatest speed, and see a thistle thorn on the darkest night, the wife he took was Eibhir of the plaited yellow hair, that was the foreign sweetheart of the High ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... stripped of blade and tassel, the stalks and hooded ears looked in the coming dusk a little like monks at prayer. In the sunlight across the river the corn stood thin and frail. Over there a drought was on it; and when drifting thistle-plumes marked the noontide of the year, each yellow stalk had withered blades and an empty sheath. Everywhere a look of vague trouble lay upon the face of the mountains, and when the wind blew, the silver of the leaves showed ashen. Autumn was ...
— A Cumberland Vendetta • John Fox, Jr.
... past by his garden, and saw the wild bryar The thorn and the thistle grow broader and higher: The clothes that hang on him are turning to rags; And his money still wasts, still he starves, or ...
— Divine Songs • Isaac Watts
... they came into a great plain, acres and acres of green rag-weed where the wheat had grown, all so flat one thought of an enormous billiard table, and now, where the railroad crossed the country roads, they saw the staunch brown thistle, sometimes the sumach, and always the graceful iron-weed, slender, tall, proud, bowing a purple-turbaned head, or shaking in an agony of fright when it stood too close to the train. The fields, like great, flat ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... ruin at his feet, The lowliest home where human hearts have beat? Its hearth-stone, shaded with the bistre stain, A century's showery torrents wash in vain; Its starving orchard where the thistle blows, And mossy trunks still mark the broken rows; Its chimney-loving poplar, oftenest seen Next an old roof, or where a roof has been; Its knot-grass, plantain,—all the social weeds, Man's mute companions following where he leads; Its ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... they cooked and ate. Raw they ate thistle tops, pigweed, and crowfoot, with great relish. Their game they cooked as follows. Kangaroo were first singed, cleaned out, and filled with hot stones, then put on the top of a burnt-down fire, hot ashes heaped all over them. The blacks like ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker
... party at Pottsville,—and at the parish sociable in Northfield? Then you are sure of the benefits which will crown your lives if you obey these three precepts; and you will, with unfaltering step, move quickly over the kettle-de-benders of this broken essay, and from the thistle, danger, will pluck the three more flowers which I have promised. I ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... foolish clown, 'kill me the red humble bee on the top of that thistle yonder; and, good Mr. Cobweb, bring me the honey-bag. Do not fret yourself too much in the action, Mr. Cobweb, and take care the honey-bag break not; I should be sorry to have you overflown with a honey-bag. Where ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... and the verification of it are of so recent a date, that we cannot resist giving it a place in our pages. In the account of the late Captain Flinder's voyage of discovery, is the melancholy relation of the loss of the master, Mr. Thistle, with seven others, in a boat, on the inhospitable shores of Terra Australia. To this narrative, the following note is subjoined, which we shall here quote in Captain Flinder's own words: "This evening, ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... called Thistle Island, south 79 east, to east 14 52' north, besides numberless islands, in thick clusters, extending as far as the eye could reach, in the north-east and east quarters. In the afternoon a boat went inside Thistle Island, ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... blossoms that are here called Mazza di San Giuseppe, or St Joseph's nosegay, and a very gaudy rank bouquet they make. But in spring-time the oleander can but display long greyish leaves and pods of snowy fluff, which is blown hither and thither like thistle-down on the air; and it is only in flaming summer that these regions are brightened by St Joseph's flower, or by the still more gorgeous masses of the mesembryanthemum, which clambers on all sides over the lava rock and hangs in crimson festoons from tufa cliffs, making impossibly splendid ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... instructed the House how to discover the emblems on the new Treasury Note—the rose, the thistle, the shamrock and the daffodil (this last for Wales). On the Treasury Bench the daffodil is rarely to be descried; but the thistle is in full bloom ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 21st, 1917 • Various
... to the view. The immortal shield from Neptune she received, 780 When first her head above the waters heaved; Loose floated o'er her limbs an azure vest, A figured 'scutcheon glitter'd on her breast; There from one parent soil for ever young, The blooming rose and hardy thistle sprung: Around her head an oaken wreath was seen, Inwove with laurels of unfading green. Such was the sculptured prow; from van to rear The artillery frown'd, a black tremendous tier! Embalm'd with orient gum, above the wave 790 ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... mathematical; the age ruled the prevailing taste and fashion, and everything in and out of Nature has had its turn and its day. Then, again, nationality goes for something: the Frenchman is fond of his lis and the Scot of his thistle. ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... as thistle-down compared with the need of finding Marigny. He and Dale began to hunt London for the Frenchman. But they had to deal with a wary bird, who would not break covert till it suited his own convenience. And then, the sublime cheek of the man! On the Friday morning, when Medenham rose ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... tissue freight The snowflakes are—in sparkle pure As the rich parure A lovely queen were proud to wear; As volatile, as fine and rare As thistle-down dispersed in air, Or bits of filmy lace; Like nature's tear-drops strewn around That beautify and warm the ground, But ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... the lofty blue are blown Light vapors white, like thistle-down, That from their softened silver heaps opaque Scatter delicate flake by flake, Upon the wide loom of the heavens weaving Forms of fancies past believing, And, with fantastic show of mute despair, As for some sweet hope hurt ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... in 1862 he was given a silver pitcher and a silver tray.[19] The pitcher (13 inches high and 7-1/2 inches in diameter) has a tall, slender neck with a decided downturn to the pouring lip and a hinged lid with a thistle flower as a knob. The neck is engraved on each side with a design of grape leaves and grapes. The bowl of the pitcher has eight panels embossed with scrolls of vines and flowers. Both the tray and the pitcher are marked "Allen and Hayes." One ...
— Presentation Pieces in the Museum of History and Technology • Margaret Brown Klapthor
... intoxicating. There was a stirring rhythm in the movement of the steeds; noiselessly their hoofs beat upon the soft earth and tender mosses. The rains which elsewhere had flooded the lowlands here but enlivened the vernal freshness of the scene. The air was full of floating thistle-down; a cloud of insects dancing in the light, parted to let ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... On a bun and glass of sherry), If we've nothing in particular to do, We may make a Proclamation, Or receive a Deputation - Then we possibly create a Peer or two. Then we help a fellow-creature on his path With the Garter or the Thistle or the Bath: Or we dress and toddle off in semi-State To a festival, a function, or a FETE. Then we go and stand as sentry At the Palace (private entry), Marching hither, marching thither, up and down and to and ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... hat he had for his crown; His jacket was woven of thistle-down. His shirt was a web by spiders spun; His breeches of softest feathers were done. His stockings of red-apple rind were tyne With an eyelash plucked from his mother's eyne. His shoes were made of a mouse's skin, Tanned with the ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... warmest angle of the wall a perfectly gorgeous fringe of Epilobium obcordatum with flowers an inch wide, crowded together in lavish profusion, and colored as royal a purple as ever was worn by any high-bred plant of the tropics; and best of all, and greatest of all, a noble thistle in full bloom, standing erect, head and shoulders above his companions, and thrusting out his lances in sturdy vigor as if growing on a Scottish brae. All this brave warm bloom among the raw stones, right in the ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... very little what she put in his button-hole; a thistle, thorns and all, would have been precious to him if her hands had touched it, and he would have torn his fingers against the prickles with an exquisite sense ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... first walked on sorrowfully; but soon the gay spirits of Goldilocks rebounded, and she waltzed hither and thither, like a morsel of thistle-down. ...
— Fairy Book • Sophie May
... to live luxuriously on the wages of his own dishonour. The foul stain which they had brought on the honour of the Banda Oriental could only be washed away with their blood. Pointing to the advancing troops, he said that when those miserable hirelings were scattered like thistle-down before the wind, the entire country would be with him, and the Banda Oriental, after half a century of degradation, free at last and for ever from ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... structure of stone, inconvenient and gloomy, with narrow windows and an uninviting door. The pine forest touched it on one side, a brawling stream twisted itself like a live snake half round it on the other. A plot of green grass, ill kept and deformed, with noxious weeds, dock, fennel, thistle, and foul stramonium, was surrounded by a rough wall of loose stones, forming the lawn, such as it was, where, under a tree, seated in an armchair, was a solitary woman, whom Fanchon recognized as her aunt, Marie ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... "disproportionately slender columns, when contrasted with the massive shafts beneath them." Here, too, the entire frieze, with its emblematical embellishments of the British crown, surrounded with laurel, and alternate leaves of the rose, the thistle and shamrock, is sure to attract the eye of the spectator: the character and effect of the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 278, Supplementary Number (1828) • Various |
