"Peony" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the full-blown British matron with her 'awful ponderosity of frame ... massive with solid beef and streaky tallow,' and apparently composed 'of steaks and sirloins.' He laments that the English violet should develop into such an overblown peony, and speculates upon the whimsical problem, whether a middle-aged husband should be considered as legally married to all the accretions which have overgrown the slenderness of his bride. Should ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... the baby to wander hither to me Like a wind-shadow wandering over the water, So that she can stand on my knee With her little bare feet in my hands, Cool like syringa buds, Firm and silken like pink young peony flowers. ...
— Amores - Poems • D. H. Lawrence
... in a hurry," he said, as he turned to George with the remark: "Well, my son, you're earning your salt!" George, blushing like a peony, felt a ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... folded leaves, and tender womanhood shielded by maidenly reserves, with which, somehow or other, our American girls often fail to adorn themselves during an appreciable moment. It is a pity that the English violet should grow into such an outrageously developed peony as I have attempted to describe. I wonder whether a middle-aged husband ought to be considered as legally married to all the accretions that have overgrown the slenderness of his bride, since he led her to the altar, and which make her so much more ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... not run, and the picket fence was half a block long, and Bob Worthington had an advantage over her. Of course it was Bob, and he did not scruple to run, and in a few seconds he was leaning over the fence in front of her. Now Cynthia was as red as a peony by this time, and she ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... there would be little chance that any would reach the female flower. Every one must have noticed the clouds of pollen produced by the Scotch Fir. When, on the contrary, the pollen is carried by insects, the quantity necessary is greatly reduced. Still it has been calculated that a Peony flower produces between 3,000,000 and 4,000,000 pollen grains; in the Dandelion, which is more specialised, the number is reduced to about 250,000; while in such a flower as the Dead-nettle it ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... green shoots. "I haven't taken a thing of yours but two shirts and one of your last summer seersucker coats. I'm going to mend the split up the back in it for the wash Monday. Aunt Amandy lent me two aprons and a sack and a petticoat for the peony bushes, and Aunt Viney gave me this shawl and three chemises that cover all the pinks. I've taken all the tablecloths for the early peas, and Stonie's shirts, each one of them, have covered a whole lot of the poet's narcissus. All the rest of the things are my own clothes, ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... The grounds were small, but they were large enough to teach me the joy of an intimate friendship with growing things. To-day, in my somewhat larger garden, I have more than one hundred and fifty rosebushes, and twenty or thirty peony clumps, and I know their names and their habits. The garden has become a part of the home. It is not yet the garden I dream of, nor even the garden which I think it will be next year; but it is the place where play divides the ground with beauty. What Bud doesn't require for a ...
— Making the House a Home • Edgar A. Guest
... bait off the hook without being caught. The largest, sometimes weighing 3lb. or more, were taken in a wickerwork trap, of the shape of a dice-box, some 3ft. long, with the willow withes pointing inwards at each end. This was baited with a peony, or any gay-coloured flower; attracted by which, the tench found their way inwards, but could not get out. Every pond in Kirkstead has its fish; fish doubtless of ancient lineage, the descendants of those on which monks and abbotts once fattened. In an early blackletter edition of Chaucer, there ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... chair to collect the gold and deposit it in a place of safety, when he was interrupted by a tap at the door. Hastily sweeping off the gold pieces, he cried, "Come in;" when who, to his surprise, should appear, in excellent condition and fresh as a peony, but the lost and almost forgotten Corporal Van Spitter, who, raising his hand to his forehead as usual, reported himself man-of-war fashion, "Vas come on board, Mynheer Vanslyperken." But as the corporal did not tell ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... "Oh, well," cried the Peony, shrugging her shoulders, "I saw all along that the Bee was a flirt; But the Rose has been always so praised and so petted, I thought a good lesson would do her no hurt." Just then came the sound of a love-song sung sweetly, I saw my proud Rose lifting up her ...
— The Kingdom of Love - and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... solemn promise, and she intended to keep it. As she slowly attired herself, however, she wondered very much why he was so set upon denuding her of her accustomed magnificence. Her mind was entirely unable to grasp his conception of beauty and of attractiveness. She thought all men preferred the peony to the violet. To-night it was very certain that she would be no peony, scarcely even a violet. Her new gown had been expensive, but it was terribly simple, and the skirt hung beautifully, but was surely most direfully sombre. Nevertheless, it rustled with a handsome sound, a melody of wealth, ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... The veins stood out on Farrington's forehead, and the pallor of Weathers' complexion changed to peony. Their hands and arms trembled under the stress. After a long struggle Weathers again brought his opponent's hand slowly on to the table. There was a murmur of applause from the spectators. The curate, who was standing beside the ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... like the godowns in Tientsin. They made their way through the silent compound into the women's compound in the rear. It was the same—ransacked, despoiled. But there were many compounds and many houses, so together they passed through moon gates, over elaborate terraces, beside peony mountains, and summer houses, across delicate rock bridges with marble balustrades. Silent, deserted, bearing the evidence ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... who lived on the main road could put on her riding-habit, go to the window up-stairs, shed a tear, wave her kerchief in the air, and in half an hour have the front lawn full of knights-errant tramping over the peony beds and castor-oil plants. ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye
... glittering curls hung to her knees. Her face, clear with that clearness which only a mountain wind can bring, was white as a seagull's breast, except where a dark, yet vivid pink melted into the blue veins on her temples and throat. Her round, fresh lips, smooth as a peony-leaf, were parted in a wide laugh, over teeth large and yellow-white, like the grains on an ear of corn. She wore a loose tunic of blue-gray stuff, which reached to the middle of her legs, covered with grass stains and patches of mould. ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... became as red as a peony at being addressed, as if the question were scarcely comme il faut, and replied by a little imbecile snigger, which seemed fully to satisfy M. Godefroy's curiosity about his ...
— The Lost Child - 1894 • Francois Edouard Joachim Coppee
... Admiral Flag and Lady Peony were detained much longer than they wished in settling a dispute that had nearly ended in a challenge between Captain Waterdock and Colonel Jasmine about the antiquities of their families, which had so seriously terrified Lady Azorian Jasmine that she would have fainted but for the tender ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... great dryness. He appeared to be little if at all disturbed by the interruption, but Bertha was blushing like a peony. ...
— Bulldog And Butterfly - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... talk about me, I'd like to know!' cried Bell, getting as red as a peony. 'I've never done anything that anyone can say ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... that, though she hasna a word to say to me—that am far mair deservin' o' confidence than that muckle peony faced hempie, Meg, that an ill Providence gied me for a sis ter. Her keep a secret?—the wind wad waft it oot o' ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... dresses, pulling down 'back hair,' hitching hoop skirts, and tumbling over blackberry vines—but each intent on increasing the distance from the mad cow. Ann Harriet was not so fortunate; her size prevented her running, and a fiery peony on her bosom attracted the animal's attention, so that, with a loud roar, the beast rushed directly upon her. Had Ann Harriet been—as she was a few weeks before—an unprotected female, the undertaker of Peonytown would have had a 'big job' that day; but luckily, he who had just sworn to love ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... They passed some cottages with pretty gardens in front; they stopped for a second to look at the old-fashioned columbine and monkshood, the none-so-pretty, the yellow and crimson wall-flower, the peony roses. Then always around them was this gracious silence, which seemed so strange after the roar of London; and if the day promised to become still hotter, at least they had this welcome breeze, that rustled the quick-glancing poplars, ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... of every feature in the landscape, the deeper and deepening tint of the glowing sky, the roseate hue of the mountain-peaks as they stood out against the cloudless orient, and the rich emerald shades of the woods sparkling with fruit. The fragrant rose and the chaste lily, the blushing peony and the gaudy tulip, and all the choicest flowers of that delicious clime, expanded into renewed loveliness to greet the sun: and the citron and the orange, the melon and the grape, the pomegranate and the date drank in the yellow light ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... coral, cassia, euphorbium, gum tragacanth, frankincense, styrax calamita, Celtic, nard, spignel, hartwort, mustard, saxifrage, dill, anise, each one dram; of xylaloes, rheum ponticum, alipta, moschata, castor, spikenard, galangals, opoponax, anacardium, mastich, brimstone, peony, eringo, pulp of dates, red and white hermodactyls, roses, thyme, acorns, pennyroyal, gentian, the bark of the root of mandrake, germander, valerian, bishop's-weed, bayberries, long and white pepper, xylobalsamum, carnabadium, macedonian, parsley seeds, lovage, the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... made to hold plants, not pots, but jewelled palaces. A special attendant was detailed to wait upon each flower and to wash its leaves with soft brushes made of rabbit hair. It has been written ["Pingtse", by Yuenchunlang] that the peony should be bathed by a handsome maiden in full costume, that a winter-plum should be watered by a pale, slender monk. In Japan, one of the most popular of the No-dances, the Hachinoki, composed during the Ashikaga period, is based upon ...
— The Book of Tea • Kakuzo Okakura
... and noisome vapours. And, as in divers plants and trees there are two sexes, male and female, which is perceptible in laurels, palms, cypresses, oaks, holms, the daffodil, mandrake, fern, the agaric, mushroom, birthwort, turpentine, pennyroyal, peony, rose of the mount, and many other such like, even so in this herb there is a male which beareth no flower at all, yet it is very copious of and abundant in seed. There is likewise in it a female, which hath great store ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... later a light step sounded on the stairs; we both sprang to our feet and removed our hats. Magdalen Brant appeared, fresh and sweet as a rose-peony on a dewy morning. ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... to the garden, have they?" he asked now, poking with his stick in the beds under the windows. "I suppose you girls know what these things are, coming up. There's a peony. I do know that. I remember this one. It's the old dark kind, not pink. I don't much care ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... little old house with a squeak in the stairs, And a porch that seems made for just two easy chairs; In the yard is a group of geraniums red, And a glorious old-fashioned peony bed. Petunias and pansies and larkspurs are there Proclaiming their love ...
— Just Folks • Edgar A. Guest
... to come out here in the early morning, my little Schwester and I, to see which rose had unfolded its petals overnight, or whether this great peony that had held its white head so high only yesterday, was humbled to the ground in a heap of ragged leaves. Oh, in the morning she loved it best. And so every summer I have made the garden bloom again, so that when she comes back she will see ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... stealing from me are retty to return to the post. Yah, Captain, dot iss deir choice. Gordon iss to be mine partner, anyvay. As for Captain Barry, I dond't know," he chuckled, regarding the skipper with eyes that twinkled and shot between Barry's face and Natalie just behind him. The girl colored like a peony, as if some unsuspected instinct within her told her whither his words were driving. "I haf better ships as the old Barang, Captain, unt in my launch alongside I haf some pags ouf goldt dust dot iss to be a wedding present for a leedle lady I know ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... great dignity in Grandfather's chair; and, being a portly old gentleman, he completely filled it from elbow to elbow. On the opposite side of the room, between her bridemaids, sat Miss Betsey. She was blushing with all her might, and looked like a full-blown peony, ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... more refined Improved the simple plan, made three legs four, Gave them a twisted form vermicular, And o'er the seat, with plenteous wadding stuffed, Induced a splendid cover green and blue, Yellow and red, of tapestry richly wrought And woven close, or needlework sublime. There might ye see the peony spread wide, The full-blown rose, the shepherd and his lass, Lapdog and lambkin with black staring eyes, And parrots with twin ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... crimson with her race upstairs, and when she opened the door of the spare bedroom the heat positively poured out; but a terrible load was lifted from her mind, for, mercifully, Tony's head was uncovered. He was the colour of a crimson peony, it is true, but at any rate he was not suffocated, unless—Kitty stepped quickly forward and touched his cheek. It almost made her sick with dread to do so; but the red cheek was very, very hot and lifelike to the touch, and at the same moment Tony opened a y pair of large sleepy eyes, and ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... cried Peggy, flashing indignant eyes upon him from the altitude of his highest waistcoat button. "Don't pink peony me, if you please! If it comes to a matter of taste, I prefer my own to yours. You have an interesting museum, sir, but, allow me to tell you, a most ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... In the verdant lawns flowers of different colors were all harmonized into an artistic unit in unique landscape gardening. Beautifully trained dwarf trees, centuries old, were brought from Japan for the special purpose of ornamenting the garden. There were also the drooping wisteria and gay peony, the ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... asking if any gentleman would volunteer a song, what was our amazement when the simple Colonel offered to sing himself. Poor Clive Newcome blushed as red as a peony, and I thought what my own sensations would have been if, in that place, my own uncle Major Pendennis had suddenly proposed to exert ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... her voice. "Alison! Dear child! And are you home at last? It's delicious in you. You seek us out first, do you not? My sweet girl!" Alison was engulfed. Conceive apple blossom in the embraces of a peony. ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... production of nature. But it has an old-fashioned love for the modest and unobtrusive virtues, and an abiding faith that they will win over the strained and strident displays of life. There is the violet: all efforts of cultivation fail to make it as big as the peony, and it would be no more dear to the heart if it were quadrupled in size. We do, indeed, know that satisfying beauty and refinement are apt to escape us when we strive too much and force nature into extraordinary ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... paleness of her complexion was not that of an anaemic girl. It had a transparent vitality and at that particular moment the faintest possible rosy tinge, the merest suspicion of colour; an equivalent, I suppose, in any other girl to blushing like a peony while she told me that Captain Anthony had arranged to show her the ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... suddenly reddening to the resemblance of a peony with her mania of participation, she added, "Might I accept your invitation for another person? Do me the great pleasure to ask that young girl that sits there in the window at ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... sofa in her parlour, and a great peony-coloured face with coal-black eyes in it greeted Clement. She gave him her hand and bid her husband be gone. Then, when Gaffer had vanished, his wife turned to ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... another's pain. On, on, went the fugitive, until it came to a little garden so sweet and quiet that it rested from its flight and said, "Here, at least, I shall find peace; these gentle flowers will give me shelter." Then, with eager swiftness, it flew to a stately peony. "Oh, give me shelter, thou beautiful flower!" it murmured as it rested for a second upon its crimson head—a second only, for, with a jerk and an exclamation of disgust, the peony cast the butterfly to the ground. ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... drawing-room—that is to say, all but the party from Bandvale—and Mr Smith was laying down the law, or rather explaining it after his usual manner, when Sibylla, who had stood at the window, all of a sudden gave a slight scream, and flushed up to the eyes like a peony rose. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... picked up two little children on the road, and to one I gave a bright silk girdle for a skipping-rope, and to the other a doll dressed from the materials of a fine gauze hat, which I picked to pieces for the purpose. I was not going to be a peony flaunting among thrifty modest vetches. At first I was sorry for the destruction of my pretty things, but soon I grew to admire the demureness of my gray gown and little black apron. I learned to make pies and cakes, to sweep a room and set it to rights, to wash and get up ...
— The Late Miss Hollingford • Rosa Mulholland
... much dispute about this passage, the dispute turning on the question whether "Pioned" has reference to the Peony flower or not. The word by some is supposed to mean only "digged," and it doubtless often had this meaning,[211:1] though the word is now obsolete, and only survives with us in "pioneer," which, in Shakespeare's time, meant "digger" only, and not as now, "one who goes before to prepare ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... beloved heroines—you young vipers, when will you learn to be faultless, like other people? You have turned my face into a peony, blushing for you at ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... derived much of their knowledge directly from the Romans, and through them from the Greeks, but they also possessed a good deal of their own. The herbs they employed bespeak considerable acquaintance with botany and its application to medicine as understood at that day. The classic peony was administered as a remedy for insanity, and mugwort was regarded as useful in putting to flight what this Saxon book calls "devil sickness," that is, a mental malady arising from a demon. Here is a recipe ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... we're always talking about," replied Alice, rather crossly. "About Captain Bertram. Good gracious, Matty, it isn't at all becoming to you to flame up in that sudden way. Lor' ma, look at her, she's the color of a peony." ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... no ordinary person. His wife looked majestic as she swept through the parlors on the arm of one of his most distinguished fellow-citizens. Through the library door he could see Mr. Goulden leaning toward Laura and saying something that made even her pale face quite peony-like. Edith, exquisite as a moss- rose, was about to lead off in the German in the large front parlor. Zell was near him, the sparkling centre of a breezy, merry little throng that had gathered round her. It seemed that all that he loved and valued most was grouped around him in the guise most ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... God, and we should never be proud of it, even if we can cover thirty miles day after day (as I can), or bend a peony in one's hand as could Frocot, the driver in my piece—a man you never knew—or write bad verse very rapidly as can so many moderns. I say our energy also is from God, and we should never be proud of it as though it ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... began, peony-hued all over at her own boldness, "we will have one lil' hay-ride this night, and a fish-fry at ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar
... are shown as sovereign charms against rheumatism. Other amulets in the Washington exhibit," he added, "are the patella of a sheep and a ring made out of a coffin nail (dug out of a graveyard) for cramps and epilepsy, a peony root to be carried in the pocket against insanity, and rare and precious stones for all and sundry diseases." It had been Dr. Flint's intention, besides presenting an educational display on the history of the medical arts, to warn the public against the perils of quackery and ...
— History of the Division of Medical Sciences • Sami Khalaf Hamarneh
... soundly, and held her up as a model for my humble imitation. If she and her governess are to stir up strife between you and me, I shall heartily wish them a speedy passage to Halifax or heaven. Beyond all peradventure I shall get murderously jealous if you dare to give this sloe-eyed, peony-faced girl, my place in your dear old heart. She, of course, will fondle her guardian as much as she pleases, or as often as he sees fit to allow; but woe unto her if I catch her hands and lips about you, ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... eight they formed a strange little group. Ed Meyers, flushed and eager, his pink face glowing like a peony, talking, arguing, smoking, reasoning, coaxing, with the spur of a fat commission to urge him on; Abel Fromkin, with his peculiarly pallid skin made paler in contrast to the purplish-black line where the razor had passed, showing no hint of excitement except in the restless little black eyes and ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... square building, minus blinds, with a wide hall in the center opening in front upon a broad piazza, and opening back upon a stoop, the side entrance to the kitchen. There was a picket fence in front; but the yard was bare of ornament, if we except the lilac bushes under the parlor windows, the red peony in the corner, and the clumps of violets and daisies, which grew in what was intended for borders to the walk, from the front gate to the door. Sometimes the summer showed here a growth of marigolds, with sweet peas and china asters, for Andy was fond of flowers, ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... usual to loosen and remove the earth about the root, and then to tie it by means of a cord to a dog's tail, who was whipped to pull it up, and was then supposed to suffer for the impiety of the action. And even at this day bits of dried root of Peony are rubbed smooth, and strung, and sold under the name of Anodyne necklaces, and tied round the necks of children, to facilitate the growth of their teeth! add to this, that in Price's History of Cornwall, a book published about ten years ago, the Virga Divinatoria, ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... Stafford, who, according to Charles's version of the affair, a few hours later, is as "red as a peony." "You will stay here, Penthony,"—murmuring his name with a grace and a sweet hesitation quite irresistible,—"while I go and ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... name signifies the delicacy of beauty. The simile of the botan (the tree peony) can be fully appreciated only by one who is ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... Glutton wilt thou essay? 'What hast thou,' quoth he, 'any hot spices?' I have pepper and peony and a pound of garlic, A farthing-worth of fennel seed for fasting days" [Footnote: Text C, passus ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney
... pupils were dispersed, and Colonel Burton, tired of Richmond, resolved to make again for the continent. As tutor for his boys he hired an ox-like man "with a head the shape of a pear, smaller end uppermost"—the Rev. H. R. Du Pre afterwards rector of Shellingford; and Maria was put in charge of a peony-faced lady named Miss Ruxton. The boys hurrahed vociferously when they left what they called wretched little England; but subsequently Richard held that his having been educated abroad was an incalculable loss to him. He said the more English boys are, "even to the cut of their hair," ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... some may choose, as gaudy shows, Those saucy sprigs of pride The peony, the red, red rose; But give to me the flower that ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... supported by gilded dragons' heads with crimson throats. In the interior of the gateway there are side-niches painted white, which are lined with gracefully designed arabesques founded on the botan or peony. A piazza, whose outer walls of twenty-one compartments are enriched with magnificent carvings of birds, flowers, and trees, runs right and left, and encloses on three of its sides another court, the fourth ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... of the peony, Pliny ("Nat. Hist.," Book XXVIII, Chap. LX) says it has "a stem two cubits in length, accompanied by two or three others, and of a reddish colour, with a bark like that of the laurel ... the seed is enclosed in capsules, some being red ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... the run between Syracuse and Rochester. He was fourteen minutes behind time, and the throttle was wide open. In consequence, when he swung around the curve at the flower-bed, a wheel of his cart destroyed a peony. Number 36 slowed down at once and looked guiltily at his father, who was mowing the lawn. The doctor had his back to this accident, and he continued to pace slowly to ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... in between them; the last two should be taken up each fall as they are not hardy in all sections. The lilies will require resetting every few years, as they travel around in their new growth, and may invade the peony roots. These will flower above the peony foliage. Fall is the best time to plant ...
— Making a Garden of Perennials • W. C. Egan
... water the flowers in her garden, and I was doing it. She kept telling me how to do it, and what to water, and I tried as hard as I could to please her; but I was so frightened lest I should do something wrong, that I trod on a peony, and broke it down. She was very angry, and immediately told me to go back to my room, and stay there another week. O, if you only knew how I dreaded that room! If you only knew how gloomy and sad I am when shut up there! If you could only feel how ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... in spring bring the mother once more, an' she lives in the midsummer rose. She smiles in the peony clump at the door, an' sings when the four o'clocks close. She loved every blossom God gave us to own, an' daily she gave it her care. So never I walk in the garden alone, for I feel that ...
— The Path to Home • Edgar A. Guest
... hawker), and he has left a word picture of the white brood mares at Shansi, which may be set beside Chao Meng-fu's brush picture of the 'Eight Horses in the Park of Kublai Khan'.[24] He knew, too, perhaps Chao Meng-fu's wife, the Lady Kuan, who painted most exquisitely the graceful bamboo and the peony, so loved by Chinese artists, and of whom it is related that 'she would watch the moving shadows of the sprays thrown by the moon on the paper windows, and transfer the fugitive outlines to paper with a few strokes of her supple brush, so that every smallest scrap of her work was mounted in ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... Florrie timidly exposed the envelope, on which Hilda plainly saw, in a coarse, scrawling masculine hand, the words "Miss Florrie Bagster." Florrie's face was a burning peony. ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... I want flowers," Lydia was saying to her landscape-gardener, as she persisted in calling Jim Dodge. "Hollyhocks and foxgloves and pinies—I shall never say peony in Brookville—and pansies, sweet williams, lads' love, iris and sweetbrier. Mrs. Daggett has promised to give ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... parlour, whose array Of faded portraits in carved mouldings shone. Warriors and ladies, armoured, ruffed, peruked. Van Dykes with long, slim fingers; Holbeins, stout And heavy-featured; and one Rubens dame, A peony just burst out, With flaunting, crimson flesh. Eunice rebuked Her thoughts of gentler blood, when these had duked It with the best, and scorned to change ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... rising trout, and there was enough of you visible at least to send the waterfowl scuttering from the reeds. Beyond that again, you could descry the pale ribbon of the footpath, and guess at the exuberant masses of the peony bushes, their heavy flowers, when they were white, still smouldering with the last of the sunset's fire. But once in the woods you had to feel your way, and the silence of it all, like the darkness, was thick, had a quality which you discovered only by the soft close touch of ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... band turned her head at the exclamation. She was a fine and handsome girl—not handsomer than some others, possibly—but her mobile peony mouth and large innocent eyes added eloquence to colour and shape. She wore a red ribbon in her hair, and was the only one of the white company who could boast of such a pronounced adornment. As she ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... my Lady, making a playful gesture with her fan at the peony-coloured cheek. "I meant this wounded knight to have converted you, but he must amuse you otherwise. What, my Lord I thought you knew I never meant to dance again. Cannot you open the dance without me? I, who ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... words to convey ideas at times! If you could have obtained one glance of Rose and Jeff at that moment, reader, words would not be required. No peony ever blushed like that Rose—to say nothing of the blank amazement in those wide blue eyes. Jeff, still seated ...
— Jeff Benson, or the Young Coastguardsman • R.M. Ballantyne
... her hand, and was proceeding to imprint a kiss upon it; and Mrs. Crump, who had taken the omnibus at a quarter-past twelve instead of that at twelve, had just opened the drawing-room door and was walking in, when Morgiana, turning as red as a peony, and unable to disengage her left hand, which the musician held, raised up her right hand, and, with all her might and main, gave her lover such a tremendous slap in the face as caused him abruptly to release the hand which he held, and would have laid him prostrate on the carpet but ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... stood in the doorway a rubicund-nosed gentleman, in a green coat and huge wonderfully gay coloured cravat, leather breeches, and top-boots, with a hunting-whip under his arm, a peony in his buttonhole, and a white hat which he flourished in his right hand, while he kept scraping with his feet, making his ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... whom, because she was of a tender and modest disposition, and was thought to be very beautiful, her parents, and other people who were familiar with her, used to call Violet. But her brother was known by the style and title of Peony, on account of the ruddiness of his broad and round little phiz, which made everybody think of sunshine and great scarlet flowers. The father of these two children, a certain Mr. Lindsey, it is important to say, was an excellent but exceedingly matter-of-fact sort of man, a dealer in hardware, ...
— The Snow Image • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... I was going to be born to be bashful. Therefore she gave me a caul. Had this been respected as it should have been, I could have blossomed out into my full luxuriance as a cauliflower whereas now I am an ever-blooming peony. ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... navvy declining to pay the exorbitant price asked, the landlady, with a face like a peony, angrily told him he must either pay for the gin or instantly ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... fall, but remain always green;—these are trees of firm heart, trees of solid character. But you say that they are stiff and formal; and you hate the sight of them, and never pay them a visit. Only to the cherry-tree, and the kaido [15], and the peony, and the yellow rose you go: those you like because they have showy flowers, and you try only to please them. Such conduct, let me assure you, is very unbecoming. Those trees certainly have handsome flowers; but hunger-satisfying fruits they have not; and they are grateful ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn
... himself, she was but in the bloom of young womanhood. Her face was certainly striking, though rather by its imperiousness than its beauty; and the beating of the wind and rain and spray had inflamed her cheeks to peony hues. ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... bell sounded and Nancy reluctantly went off to a music-lesson. Judith gathered up some bits of paper under a peony bush and with a sigh of relief saw Miss Meredith hurry away. Now was her chance. She waylaid Miss ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... suggested that "lilied" was peculiarly appropriate to form "cold nymphs chaste crowns," from its imputed power as a preserver of chastity: and in MR. HALLIWELL'S folio, several examples are quoted from old poets of "peony" spelt "piony;" and of both peony and lily as "defending from unchaste thoughts." Surely, then, the reading of the first folio is a mere typographical error, and peonied and lilied the most ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 209, October 29 1853 • Various
... talked in a grand manner of what she intended to do in her future. There was Mamie Smythe, "chock-full of fun," the girls said, and was never afraid, teachers or no teachers, rules or no rules, of carrying it out. There was Lilly White, red as a peony, large as a travelling giantess, with hands that had to have gloves made specially to fit them, and feet that couldn't hide themselves even in a number ten boot. She was as good-natured as she was uncouth, and never happier than when she was being made a butt of. These were ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... houses the tomb of the second shogun. This tomb is the largest example of gold lacquer in the world, and parts of it are inlaid with enamel and crystal. Scenes from Liao-Ling, China, and Lake Biwa, Japan, adorn the upper half, while the lower half bears elaborate decoration of the lion and the peony. The base of the tomb is a solid block of stone in the shape of the lotus. The hall is supported by eight pillars covered with gilded copper, and the walls are covered with gilded lacquer. The enormous amount of money expended on these shrines will amaze any foreign visitor, ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... noise of a violent altercation could be heard distinctly. M. de Tregars started up stairs, and on the second-story landing he found Maxence holding on obstinately to the railing, whilst Mme. Zelie Cadelle, redder than a peony, was trying to induce him to let her pass, treating him at the same time to some of the choicest epithets of her well-stocked repertory. ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... repeated. "I see nothing to find fault with. Yes, Christina can bear anything and wear anything. It saves a great deal of trouble. When I was a girl I had a different complexion. I wasn't a peony, but I was a rose—not a white rose; and anything shading on red I could not wear; not purple, nor claret, nor even ashes of roses. It was a regular perplexity, to get variety enough with the small number of shades at my disposal; for orange did not become ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... Tom made his appearance with a decided color in his cheeks; and Miss Katy—well, Miss Katy's face was the color of a peony, ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... tender in her condolences—"Cheer up, my Ferdinand," said she, "for your sake, I have discarded Lord Rufus Pumilion!" "Adorable condescension!" cried our hero;—"but Lord Rufus Pumilion is only four feet two, and has hair like a peony." ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 340, Supplementary Number (1828) • Various
... spying upon me, you mean thing?" cried Dorothy Glenn, blushing as fiery red as the crimson heart of a peony, and stamping angrily the tiniest of little feet; and she flung her companion's arm from her as ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey |
