"Acorn" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... transepts was in urgent need of repair, if not actually in ruins, and, probably in order to save trouble and expense, the small Early English pilasters supporting the window tracery were remorselessly cut off, and an acorn was substituted in every case. These pilasters have since been restored again under Mr. Pearson's supervision. As we walk along the green to the north front, we see the whole north side of the {15} nave, but before leaving the west end we may ...
— Westminster Abbey • Mrs. A. Murray Smith
... life of men will nourish us, body, soul, and spirit, with that everlasting life of His, even as our bodies are nourished by that bread and wine. And if you ask me how? When you can tell me why a wheat grain cannot produce an oak, or an acorn a wheat plant; when you can tell me why our bodies are, each of them, the very same bodies which they were ten years ago, though every atom of flesh, and blood, and bone in them has been changed; when, in short, you, or any ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... the other proudly; "why not Cromwell? Is the oak to be despised because it was once an acorn? Remember what he suffers for his state; if, like the stars above us, he is much venerated, even like them he ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... Devonshire, was not a man of superior abilities, but was a man strictly faithful to his word. If, for instance, he had promised you an acorn, and none had grown that year in his woods, he would not have contented himself with that excuse: he would have sent to Denmark for it, so unconditional was he in keeping his word—so high as to ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... what proof Of patient trial serves for thrifty bees;- Such are my themes. O universal lights Most glorious! ye that lead the gliding year Along the sky, Liber and Ceres mild, If by your bounty holpen earth once changed Chaonian acorn for the plump wheat-ear, And mingled with the grape, your new-found gift, The draughts of Achelous; and ye Fauns To rustics ever kind, come foot it, Fauns And Dryad-maids together; your gifts I sing. And thou, for whose delight the war-horse first Sprang from earth's womb ...
— The Georgics • Virgil
... mushroom's head Our table we do spread; A corn of rye or wheat Is manchet which we eat, Pearly drops of dew we drink In acorn ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... and the trees shed in noisy water-drops the moisture they had collected from the thick air, an acorn occasionally falling from its cup to the ground, in company with the drippings. In the meads, sheets of spiders'-web, almost opaque with wet, hung in folds over the fences, and the falling leaves appeared in every variety of brown, ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... hole is over by Gardnerville. In that hole Indians can always find plenty of wild-grub—wild-wheat, wild potato, wild acorn—plenty there. Snow very deep. No difference. Always plenty wild grub there. I see that ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... holds out his hand to Spiegelberg). Spiegelberg, thou art a great man! or else a blind hog has by chance found an acorn. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... queen of sprites there happened, at this time, a sad disagreement; they never met by moonlight in the shady walks of this pleasant wood, but they were quarrelling, till all their fairy elves would creep into acorn-cups and hide ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... education of boys has met with tolerable success, hitherto,—but only tolerable it must be confessed,—in developing them into men, there are those who would make girls grow into women by the same process. Because a gardener has nursed an acorn till it grew into an oak, they would have him cradle a grape in the same soil and way, and make it a vine. Identical education, or identical co-education, of the sexes defrauds one sex or the other, or perhaps both. It defies the Roman maxim, ...
— Sex in Education - or, A Fair Chance for Girls • Edward H. Clarke
... under the branches of the mangrove tree, and pulled some of the long fruit or seed. This singular seed is about fifteen or sixteen inches long, and in its greatest diameter not more than an inch. It is round, heavy, and pointed at both ends. When ripe, it detaches itself from a sort of acorn, to which the smaller end has been firmly joined, and falls with sufficient force to implant itself deeply in the mud. After a few days, it begins to shoot, and soon becomes a tall mangrove. This tree has many strings to its ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... Lane; leaving which as soon as she reached it she dipped down a hill by a transverse lane into the small town or village of Evershead, being now about halfway over the distance. She made a halt here, and breakfasted a second time, heartily enough—not at the Sow-and-Acorn, for she avoided inns, but at a ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... "Lo! on each SEED within its slender rind Life's golden threads in endless circles wind; Maze within maze the lucid webs are roll'd, And, as they burst, the living flame unfold. 385 The pulpy acorn, ere it swells, contains The Oak's vast branches in its milky veins; Each ravel'd bud, fine film, and fibre-line Traced with nice pencil on the small design. The young Narcissus, in it's bulb compress'd, 390 Cradles a second nestling ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... display was centered around a tapered brass tube—perhaps one of the barrels of an antique pair of fieldglasses. Wrapping it was a spiny brown tendril from which grew two sucker-like organs, shaped like acorn tops. One was firmly attached to the metal. The other had been pulled free, its original position on the barrel marked by a circular area of corrosion. The face of the detached sucker was also shown—a honeycomb structure of waxy vegetable tissue, detailed with thousands of tiny ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... grown out of a petty feudal organism, like an oak from an acorn in a crevice, gnarled and distorted, though wide-spreading and vigorous. It seemed perilous to deal radically with such a polity, and an almost timid conservatism on the part of its guardians in such an age ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... tell when you do an act Just what the result will be; But with every deed you are sowing a seed, Though its harvest you may not see. Each kindly act is an acorn dropped In God's productive soil; Though you may not know, yet the tree shall grow And shelter ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... animal kingdom, securing the same homologous structures in all classes and orders; so these fundamental ideas in human nature constitute its sameness and unity, under all the varying conditions of life and society. The acorn must produce an oak, and nothing else. The grain of wheat must always produce its kind. The offspring of man must always bear his image, and always exhibit the same fundamental characteristics, not only in his corporeal nature, but ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... designed for the paths. The rows and the proper distances for the plants are designated by a "marker," an implement consisting of several wheels fastened to a frame and drawn by hand. On the rim of these wheels are two knobs shaped like an acorn. Each wheel marks a continuous line on the soft earth, and with each revolution the knobs make two slight but distinct depressions twelve inches apart; or, if the variety to be planted is a vigorous grower, he uses another set of wheels ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... us away from Pindus; no longer for laurel May we be eager—the homely acorn alone must content us; Yet he himself his more-than-epic crusade is conducting High on Golgotha's summit, that foreign gods he may honour! Yet, on what hill he prefers, let him gather the angels together, Suffer deserted disciples to weep o'er ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... sweet-pea on her doll's head for a bonnet, and Rose finished arranging an acorn cup full of tiny green grapes for apples, before ...
— Dew Drops, Vol. 37, No. 34, August 23, 1914 • Various
... of "Yardley Oak" there are some beautiful mythological allusions. The former of the two following is to the fable of Castor and Pollux; the latter is more appropriate to our present subject. Addressing the acorn ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... down. At seven o'clock in the morning I drink tea in bed—for some reason it must be in bed; at half-past seven a German by way of a masseur comes and rubs me all over with water, and this seems not at all bad. Then I have to lie still a little, get up at eight o'clock, drink acorn cocoa and eat an immense quantity of butter. At ten o'clock, oatmeal porridge, extremely nice to taste and to smell, not like our Russian. Fresh air and sunshine. Reading the newspaper. At one o'clock, dinner, at which ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... scurried along, and now he took pains to always keep in sight. Happy Jack followed, hiding behind the trees. Pretty soon Striped Chipmunk picked up a plump acorn and put it in the pocket of his right cheek. Then he picked up another and put that in the pocket in his left cheek. Then he crowded another into each; and his face was swelled so that you would hardly have guessed that it was Striped Chipmunk if you had ...
— Happy Jack • Thornton Burgess
... as the acorn, cocoanut and chestnut, are very rich in starch, and these should be classified as starchy foods. Very few foods contain as high per cent of starch as the dry chestnut. In southern Europe chestnuts are made into flour, and this ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... there the wooden-chuck doth tread, And from the oak-tree's top The red, red squirrels on thy head The frequent acorn drop. ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... of his wit and his reason, Sat him under an oak in a hot summer season. On the oak grew an acorn or two, it is said: On the ground grew a pumpkin as big ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park
... teaching of all nature shows that it must be to the end of improvement and upward growth, the increase in real virtue, in knowledge, and in wisdom. Nature is a silent preacher which holds forth upon week-days as on Sabbaths. We see the acorn grow into the oak, the egg into the bird, the maggot into the butterfly. Shall we doubt, then, that the human soul, the most precious of all things, is also upon the upward path? And how can the soul progress save ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the Beggar Girl The Good Son The Sick Mother Cornelia's Prayer Forgiveness The Guilty Conscience Acorn Hollow Industry ...
— No and Other Stories Compiled by Uncle Humphrey • Various
... Only death Can silence it, or hinder. While there's breath Or sense of feeling, it will spurn the sod, And lift itself to glory, and to God. The acorn sprouted—weeds nor flowers can choke The certain growth of th' ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... once more and for the last time," said the fairy, "but beware of what is little and gray." Stooping she picked from the grass beside her a fallen acorn cup and handed it to him. "Take this with you," she said, "for it may ...
— The Counterpane Fairy • Katharine Pyle
... away all their joy in a foolish quarrel. They never met without saying disagreeable things to each other, and scolded each other so dreadfully that all their little fairy followers, for fear, would creep into acorn cups ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... days will be; and setting all the faculties of heart and imagination on little things, so as to be able to make anything out of them he chooses. Confined to a little garden, he does not imagine himself somewhere else, but makes a great garden out of that; possessed of an acorn-cup, he will not despise it and throw it away, and covet a golden one in its stead: it is the adult who does so. The child keeps his acorn-cup as a treasure, and makes a golden one out of it in his mind; so that the wondering grown-up person standing beside him is always tempted ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... burning ebbed away, About that ruin, cold and lone, The cricket shrills from stone to stone; And scattering o'er its darkened green, Bands of the fairies may be seen, Chattering like grasshoppers, their feet Dancing a thistledown dance round it: While the great gold of the mild moon Tinges their tiny acorn shoon. ...
— Peacock Pie, A Book of Rhymes • Walter de la Mare
... position of slavery was impregnable. In spite of the proverb, great effects do not follow from small causes,—that is, disproportionately small,—but from adequate causes acting under certain required conditions. To contrast the size of the oak with that of the parent acorn, as if the poor seed had paid all costs from its slender strong-box, may serve for a child's wonder; but the real miracle lies in that divine league which bound all the forces of nature to the service of the tiny germ in fulfilling its destiny. Everything has been at work for the past ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... own forgetfulness, began to afflict himself; when the cat told him not to be so sorrowful, since she would not only provide him with a little dog, but also with a wooden horse which should convey him safely in less than twelve hours. "Look here," said she, showing him an acorn, "this contains what you desire." The prince put the acorn to his ear, and heard the barking of a little dog. Transported with joy, he thanked the cat a thousand times, and the next day, bidding her tenderly adieu, he set out ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... an oak tree as a specimen of the plant world, I should find that it originated in an acorn, which, too, commenced in a cell; the acorn is placed in the ground, and it very speedily begins to absorb the inorganic matters I have named, adds enormously to its bulk, and we can see it, year after year, extending itself upward and downward, attracting and appropriating to itself inorganic materials, ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... branches; and I dislike it because its smell is offensive to me and its berries the least pleasant of all wild fruits to my taste. I can eat ivy-berries in March, and yew in its season, poison or not; and hips and haws and holly-berries and harsh acorn, and the rowan, which some think acrid; but the ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... the last two hundred years. The third room (a view of which we engrave) is a boudoir, containing the large antique German stove, built up with ornamental tiles cast in relief, with stories from bible history of saints, and arabesque. Beside it is a bronze receptacle for water, shaped like a huge acorn, the tap having a grotesque head, and the spigot being a small seated figure; this was gently turned when wanted, and a thin stream of water trickled over the hands into the basin beneath; an embroidered napkin ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... trees, where the bees make it. The wax is worth sixteen or twenty reals an arroba, and a jar of honey one real. I saw a tree which had many honeycombs hanging on the branches. The mountains are fuller of wild boars than are the commons of Espana of swine and cattle in acorn time. One of those swine, if it is fat, is worth two reals, but only one if not fat; and a deer is worth the same sum. There are almost no fruits of Espana. There are melons, cucumbers, pumpkins, and radishes of the country, and quantities of cabbages ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXII, 1625-29 • Various
... not until the sun had already run nearly half his course, for he never dared to leave his timber observatory before, le pauvre diable dropped down from his perch like an acorn—and, marching off with weary steps, and scarcely a hope that ere another night fell he should gain the shelter of some cottage, he dragged himself along. On he rolled from side to side, torn with the thorns and bitten by the gnats that swarmed around him, sometimes calling upon his ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... and put together as well as I could in a public place. The persons of the drama are, Pip, the last gentleman that has been made so at cards; Trimmer, a person half undone at them, and is now between a cheat and a gentleman; Acorn, an honest Englishman, of good plain sense and meaning; and Mr. Friendly, a reasonable ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... was I who dragged him into the ground a couple of years ago. He was joined on to a leaf and stalk and I ate up both the leaf and the stalk, but I couldn't manage this chap. That wasn't so odd either, for he was an acorn. Now he has sprouted, he's a ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald
... she led the animals! Fairy Fluffikins was a sad tease; she would creep into the nests where the fat baby dormice were asleep in bed while Mamma dormouse nodded over her knitting and Papa smoked his little acorn pipe; and she would tickle the babies till they screamed with laughter and nearly rolled out of bed, and Mamma scolded, and Papa said in a gruff voice—"What a plague you are, you little dors; go to sleep this minute or I will fetch ...
— The Grey Brethren and Other Fragments in Prose and Verse • Michael Fairless
... the pheasants, I gets them mostly about acorn-time; they comes out of the plantations then. I keeps clear of the plantations, because, besides the men a-watching, they have got dogs chained up, and alarm-guns as goes off if you steps on the spring; and some have got a string ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... spring from acorn beginnings. Helen smiled, and Troy fell. Roast pork, and I doubt not then and there the apple sauce, became a national institution because a small ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... a squirrel dropped a nut or a fir-cone. Why, it's just the same noise as you hear in the country at home when they drop an acorn." ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... smiled, And cried: "How sweet, how smart a child!" He kept his wings close hid, yet I Remembered him from days gone by, And, stepping up, I whispered this: "My boy, compound for me a kiss." His face grew thoughtful, then the rogue Lisped out: "Well, this is most in vogue: An acorn-cup of sugar first, Sprinkle quite well with bubbles burst, Then add a pinch of down that lies All over June's brown butterflies. Mix well, and take, to stir it up, The stem of one long buttercup. But, sir, you ne'er can taste a mite Until ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... reader, who could not find in the Service-book the place for churching women, but was fain to change books with the clerke: and then a stranger preached, a seeming able man; but said in his pulpit that God did a greater work in raising of an oake-tree from an acorn, than a man's body raising it at the last day from his dust (showing the Possibility of the Resurrection): which was, methought, a strange saying. Harris do so commend my wife's picture of Mr. Hales's, that I shall have him draw Harris's head; and he hath also persuaded me to have ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... combined; ever coming and going with loud bluster, screaming as if each had a lump of melting sludge in his throat, and taking good care to improve every opportunity afforded by the darkness and confusion of the storm to steal from the acorn stores of the woodpeckers. One of the golden eagles made an impressive picture as he stood bolt upright on the top of a tall pine-stump, braving the storm, with his back to the wind and a tuft of snow piled on his broad shoulders, a monument of passive endurance. ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir
... thoughts he wishes to suggest. In the sculpture of an oak-tree, introduced above an Adoration of the Magi on the tomb of the Doge Marco Dolfino (fourteenth century), the sculptor has been content with a few leaves, a single acorn, and a bird; while, on the other hand, Millais' willow-tree with the robin, in the background of his "Ophelia," or the foreground of Hunt's "Two Gentlemen of Verona," carries the appeal to the imagination into particulars so multiplied and minute, that the work nearly reaches ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... singing down to that old oak, and kissed the place where I had carved our names with many vows. Tell me, you little witch, who were you thinking of all that time?' 'All the while of you,' she sighed. 'And do you, oh, do you remember that you fell asleep under the oak, and that a little acorn fell into your bosom and you tossed it out in a pet? Ah, Olive dear, I found that acorn, and kissed it twice, and kissed it thrice for thee! And do you know that it has grown into a fine young oak?' 'I know it,' she answered softly and sadly, 'I often ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission
... church standing among trees where the road bends, its tower and spire looking much like the one just left behind. The interior is interesting. The pews are all of old panelled oak, unstained, and with acorn knobs at the ends; the floor is entirely covered with glazed red tiles. The late Norman chancel, the plain circular font of the same period, and the massive altar-slab in the chapel, enclosed by wooden screens on the north side, are the most notable features. Going ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... gathered nearer. The spell was broken. That strange and mysterious look vanished from Lady Sue's face; she turned away from the speakers and idly plucked a few bunches of acorn ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... would have been spoiled if he hadn't had a stroke of good fortune. Since he was no longer leading the nutting party he wanted to prevent his friends from following Noisy Jake to the place where the oak trees grew, to have an acorn hunt. ...
— The Tale of Jasper Jay - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... Bright coloured landscapes far below us lay, Blue mists and fields of yellow corn and hay, In rows like soldiers, now the tired eyes see, And poplars guard the distant dim roadway, Whilst near the wind sighs thro' the acorn-tree, Till one feels hushed, ...
— Over the Top With the Third Australian Division • G. P. Cuttriss
... He perceives effects, and he perceives the means by which they are produced. He has learned what to do; and, in part, he has learned how to do it. His after-progress will depend on the amount of force which his nature possesses; but all this is as natural as the growth of an acorn. You do not preach to the acorn that it is its duty to become a large tree; you do not preach to the art-pupil that it is his duty to become a Holbein. You plant your acorn in favorable soil, where it can have light and air, and be sheltered from ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... "All high Poetry is infinite; it is as the first acorn, which contained all oaks potentially. Veil after veil may be undrawn, and the inmost naked beauty of the meaning never exposed. A great poem is a fountain forever overflowing with the ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... eyes grew dim. "I know," she said, brokenly, "for I had it all once, long ago. People used to say that marriage changes love, but, with us, it only grew and strengthened. The beginning was no more the fulness of love than an acorn is the oak tree which springs from it. We had our trials, our differences, and our various difficulties, ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... pick up most of their subsistence in the forest. The "mast" of the beech-tree, the nut of the hickory, the fruit of the Chinquapin oak, the acorn, and many other seeds and berries, furnish them with food. Many roots besides, and grasses, contribute to sustain them, and they make an occasional meal off a snake whenever they can get hold of one. Indeed it may be safely asserted, that no other cause ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... other birds, following these their most courageous foragers. In a day the Indian camp would have taken on the character of the forest; in a month, an ancient ruin, it would have fitted as accurately with its surroundings as an acorn in ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... an acorn on the tree top, Then was I an eagle cock; Now that you are a withered old block, Still am I an ...
— In The Seven Woods - Being Poems Chiefly of the Irish Heroic Age • William Butler (W.B.) Yeats
... let down and shoot a cow," he said. "I was looking in the freeze-locker and the fresh meat's getting a little low. Or a wild pig, if we find a good stand of oak trees. I could enjoy what you'd do with some acorn-fed pork." ...
— The Return • H. Beam Piper and John J. McGuire
... of times the gourd vine grows so strong that she doesn't realize she is supporting her family by her own strength long after the oak has faded away in her coils and sprouted up from an acorn in some other locality," said Jessie, as she, too, puffed a ring of smoke in ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... in itself the germ of death, But death hath in itself the germ of birth. It is the falling acorn buds the tree, The falling rain that bears the greenery, The fern-plants moulder when the ferns arise. For there is nothing lives but something dies, And there is nothing dies but ...
— Mysticism in English Literature • Caroline F. E. Spurgeon
... for the market in the upper portions of the State, is found scattered through the timbered mountains of Southern California. It was used as a laxative, and on account of the constipating effect of an acorn diet, was doubtless in active demand. So highly was it esteemed by the followers of the Cross that it was christened Cascara Sagrada, or Sacred Bark. The third, Grindelia robusta, was used in the treatment of pulmonary troubles, and externally in poisoning from Rhus toxicodendron, or Poison Oak, ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James
... walls are transparent to the sunrise flame and through which the glory enters in. What has he to do with that far-away, opaque, limited environment into which he was born? No more than has the giant oak, tossing its branches under the stars, to do with the acorn cup out of which it sprang. Let one realize, ever so faintly, even, the miracle of possibilities that may unfold, and his life is uplifted into a richness and a peace, and a serene confidence that carries with it the essential essence of all that is ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... 'tis an acorn year," said Uncle Solon, reflectively. "I dunno, but ye all know how bitter a red-oak acorn is. I shouldn't wonder a mite ef your cows had taken to eatin' them oak acorns. Critters will, sometimes. Mine did, once. Fust one will take it up, then the ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... any other tree, and is valuable on that account. The acorns, or fruit, are good food for hogs, which are observed to grow very fat when turned into the forests at the season when they are ripe. The tree is raised from the acorn, which grows very readily. ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury
... gnomes of the mine, Or water-fairies, such as you know how To spin, till Willy's eyes forget to wink, And good Aunt Mary, busy as she is, Lays down her knitting. Uncle John.—Listen to me, then. 'Twas in the olden time, long, long ago, And long before the great oak at our door Was yet an acorn, on a mountain's side Lived, with his wife, a cottager. They dwelt Beside a glen and near a clashing brook, A pleasant spot in spring, where first the wren Was heard to chatter, and, among the grass, Flowers opened earliest; but when winter came, That little brook was fringed with other flowers,— ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... a tapered, ringed body, an S-shaped handle with a plain boss at the end, a scroll thumb-piece, a flat molded drop ornament on the handle, and a domed cover with an acorn finial. On the body beneath the Derby coat of arms, is monogrammed "E H D" for Elias Hasket Derby (fig. 3). Elias Hasket Derby achieved wealth and fame as a Salem merchant prince ...
— Presentation Pieces in the Museum of History and Technology • Margaret Brown Klapthor
... then we had a rather nondescript and poor pack of hounds; and the fact discouraged me. I wanted to hunt the bad cinnamons and the grizzly sheep-killers, with which this rim-rock country was infested. I had nothing against the acorn-eating brown or black bears. And with this pack of hounds I doubted that we could hold one of the vicious fighting species. But there was now nothing to do but try. No one could tell. We might kill a big grizzly. And the fact that the chances were against us perhaps made for more determined ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... fire, to warn me off from a Missouri-currant whose honey he was sipping. And many a time he has driven me out of a flower-bed. This summer, by the way, a pair of these winged emeralds fastened their mossy acorn-cup upon a bough of the same elm which the orioles had enlivened the year before. We watched all their proceedings from the window through an opera-glass, and saw their two nestlings grow from black needles with a tuft of down at the lower end, till they whirled away on their ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell
... "We never find fault with the rose because it does not bear an ear of corn or a stalk of grain. And yet so great a thing as an oak tree is content to bear a small acorn." ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... acorns, but nuts and apples.[673] The mythic trees of Elysium had the same varied fruitage, and the reason in both cases is perhaps the fact that when the cultivated apple took the place of acorns and nuts as a food staple, words signifying "nut" or "acorn" were transferred to the apple. A myth of trees on which all these fruits grew might then easily arise. Another Irish bile was a yew described in a poem as "a firm strong god," while such phrases in this poem as "word-pure man," "judgment of origin," ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... their way into the scrap heap of the old-metal dealer. Some of the racks intended for the storage of pipes and not for baking them were exceedingly decorative, the ornamental sides terminating with acorn ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... be almost oppressive, but later on sweeter than music. It was at early morning and nightfall that this silence was most intense. On a still night one could almost hear the earth move, and fancy that the stars diffused a gentle crackling noise as of rushing flame. The fall of an acorn in a pine wood startled the ear like an explosion. The river also was discerned as having a definite rhythm of its own. It ran up and down a perpetual scale, like a bird singing. What had seemed a heavy confused sound of falling water resolved itself ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... Spallanzani showed long ago, these parts not only grow again, but the redintegrated limb is formed on the same type as those which were lost. The new jaw, or leg, is a newt's, and never by any accident more like that of a frog. What is true of the newt is true of every animal and of every plant; the acorn tends to build itself up again into a woodland giant such as that from whose twig it fell; the spore of the humblest lichen reproduces the green or brown incrustation which gave it birth; and at the other end of the scale of life, the child that resembled neither the paternal nor ...
— The Origin of Species - From 'The Westminster Review', April 1860 • Thomas H. Huxley
... acorn helmet on; It was plumed of the silk of the thistle down; The corslet plate that guarded his breast Was once the wild bee's golden vest; His cloak, of a thousand mingled dyes, Was formed of the wings of butterflies; His shield was the shell of a lady-bug green, Studs of gold on a ground ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various
... spring, the rich shade in summer, the rustle of the dry leaves in autumn, I suppose an old woman may enjoy all these, my dears, as well as you. But I think I could make 'fairy jam' of hips and haws in acorn cups now, if any child would be condescending enough to play with me. "This ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... an acorn plumped down on my head, and as I looked up, there sat, on a limb not ten feet above me, an impudent rogue of a gray squirrel, half as big as a rabbit, erect upon his haunches, working away at the twin brother of the acorn he had dropped upon my hat to break my reverie, ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... progressive change, or evolution, has characterized the history of life upon the planet. The evolution of the organic kingdom from its primitive germinal forms to the complex and highly organized fauna-flora of to-day may be compared to the growth of some noble oak as it rises from the acorn, spreading loftier and more widely extended branches as ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... tamed, and becomes very fond of its master. It will obey his voice, come at a call or a whistle, sit up and beg, take a nut or an acorn out of his hand, run up a stick, nestle in his bosom, and become quite familiar. My uncle had a tame chitmunk that was much attached to him; it lived in his pocket or bosom; it was his companion by day and ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill
... acorn, Just thrusting out its shoot, Ye giants of the forest, That strike the deepest root? Will ye despise the streamlets Upon the mountain side; Ye broad and mighty rivers, On ...
— The Liberty Minstrel • George W. Clark
... -o; trouzi; malbonuzi. abyss : abismo, profundegajxo. accent : akcent'i, -o; supersigno. accept : akcepti, alpreni. accident : malfelicxajxo, okazo. account : kalkulo; rakonto; konto. "on—of," pro. accuse : kulpigi, akuzi. ace : aso. ache : dolor'o, -i. acknowledge : konfesi. acorn : glano. acquaint : sciigi. acquainted, become—with : konatigxi kun. acquire : akiri, atingi. acquit : senkulpigi. acrid : akra, morda, pika. act : ag'i, -o; far'i, -o; legxo; akto. action : agado; ("law") proceso. active : agema, aktiva. actor : aktoro. actual : nuna, efektiva. ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... Philosophy. The true philosopher is the man who says "All right," and goes to sleep in his arm-chair. One's attitude towards Life's Little Difficulties should be that of the gentleman in the fable, who sat down on an acorn one day, and happened to doze. The warmth of his body caused the acorn to germinate, and it grew so rapidly that, when he awoke, he found himself sitting in the fork of an oak, sixty feet from the ground. ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... crawled forth upon the first-formed earth, the mute and dirty herd fought with their nails and fists for their acorn and caves, afterward with clubs, and finally with arms which experience had forged: till they found out words and names, by which they ascertained their language and sensations: thenceforward they began to abstain ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... friend in America. What did I ever do but write when they told me to write? I suppose my grandfather who drove a spavined horse through lonely country lanes sat in the shade of crisp-leaved oaks to refresh himself with a bit of black bread; and an acorn falling beside him, in the immense stillness, shook his heart with the echo, and left him wondering. I suppose my father stole away from the synagogue one long festival day, and stretched himself out in the sun-warmed grass, and lost himself in dreams that made the world of men unreal when he returned ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... poignantly, when the flame of responsibility on some high subject is blazing at your heart, and the young Elihu, even if he would, cannot keep silence? Is it not a wrong to find pearls unprized, because many a modern, like his Celtic progenitors, (for I must not say like swine,) would sooner crush an acorn? to know your estimation among men ebbs and flows according to the accident of success, rather than the quality of merit? to be despised as an animal who must necessarily be living on his wits in some purlieu, answering to that ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... States Commissioner having, from the evidence adduced, remanded Sims to the keeping of his claimant, authority was given to take him back to Savannah. As an assault was feared from the abolitionists and colored people in Boston, the brig Acorn was chartered to proceed to Savannah, and Sims taken on board, in custody of the United States Deputy Marshal and several police officers. A large number of persons offered their services in case any attack should be made. A large crowd collected on the wharf as the party embarked, and a clergyman ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... considerable discussion at Battalion Headquarters, and Brigade finally decided that Col. Trimble should take over the line with two companies of the 4th Lincolnshires in front in the outpost line, two of our Companies in "Acorn" and "Adjunct," and one Company of ours under the slag-heap. We were all well dug in, and consequently did not lose very heavily when the following day, the 2nd of July, we were shelled continuously ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... the curtain carefully. All the trees Stand in the dark like drowsy sentinels. The oak is talkative to-night; he tells The little bushes crowding at his knees That formidable, hard, voluminous History of growth from acorn into age. They titter like school-children; they arouse Their comrades, who exclaim: 'He is very sage.' Look how the moon is staring through that cloud, Laying and lifting idle streaks of light. O hark! was that the monstrous wind, so loud And sudden, prowling ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... practicing in his Court suit before the chiwal-glass! And that good fellow, the carpenter, Crickledon, who has lived with the sea fronting him all his life, and has never been in a boat, and he confesses he has only once gone inland, and has never seen an acorn!" ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... wild: But she perforce withholds the loved boy, Crowns him with flowers, and makes him all her joy: And now they never meet in grove or green, By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen, But they do square; that all their elves for fear Creep into acorn ...
— A Midsummer Night's Dream • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... all of them on the ground floor. The parlor was elegantly furnished with a braided carpet, of striped grass, a piano, whose black and white keys were put on with coal and chalk, not to mention other articles of luxury. The table was spread with acorn-cups and poppy teapots, the little housekeepers being advised not to make use of their china dishes for ...
— Little Prudy's Dotty Dimple • Sophie May
... the chicks were much stronger on their feet. They no longer had to go around an acorn; they could even scramble over pine-cones, and on the little tags that marked the places for their wings, were now to be seen blue rows of ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... G—," said Halliday; "and he that refuses it, we'll have him to the guard-house, and teach him to ride the colt foaled of an acorn, with a brace of carabines at each foot to ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... be bad logic to infer, because the embryo could not, from want of materials within its experience, ascertain the how, the when, the where, and the what, of the life awaiting it, that there was no other life reserved for it. An acorn buried and sprouting in the dark mould, if endowed with intelligent consciousness, could not know any definite particulars of its maturer life yet to be in the upper light and air, with ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... 'grown' as has an oak tree; and probably there is no more likeness between the Bible as we know it to-day and its earliest beginning, than we find between the mighty tree, and the acorn from which ...
— The Bible in its Making - The most Wonderful Book in the World • Mildred Duff
... young, but in the adult state attached to rocks or some floating substance. They are protected by a multivalve shell, and have long ciliated curled tentacles, whence their name (curl-footed). The barnacles (Lepas) and the acorn-shells ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... me, do," begged Phronsie, who was busy in putting the little acorn cups and saucers in fine array on the big, flat stone that served them ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... or the twist of a clamp. You found an assortment of big and little sizes of solid wood bodies with guttered blades turning up in front with a sharp point, or perhaps curling over above the toe. In this case they sometimes ended in an acorn; if this acorn was of brass, it transfigured the boy who wore that skate; he might have been otherwise all rags and patches, but the brass acorn made him splendid from head to foot. When you had bought your skates, you took them ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... young man, and Lizzy still a little girl,—when long talks banished turkeys and apples and sliding,—when new books or sleigh-rides crowded out the old games,—when the two days of John's yearly visit were half-spent in the leafless, sunny woods, gathering mosses and acorn-cups, delicate fern leaves, and clusters of fire-moss, and red winter-green berries, for the pretty frames and baskets Lizzy's skilful fingers fabricated,—when he shook hands at coming and going, instead of kissing her;—but it seemed just the same, somehow. Dear me! those days were all ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various |
