"Primrose" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... founded in 1883 in memory of Lord Beaconsfield, and so called because the primrose was popularly reported to be his favourite flower. It includes a large membership, nearly a million, comprising women as well as men; is divided into district habitations; confers honours and badges in ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... silent, and her eyes in the shadow of a momentary gravity were the eyes of a woman and not of a child. She raised them to look out at the evening sky, indigo blue against the lamplit interior, or faintly primrose in the west, and wondered for the thousandth time why it was still such an effort to Val to refer to his brief military experience. Soft country noises came in, peaceful and soothing: the short shrill shriek of a bat, the rustle of a branch of rose-leaves moving ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... enjoyed itself with its pretty little delicate wings, like the most minute flower—enjoyed itself in the warm air, which was so fragrant with the sweet perfumes of the clover-fields, of the wild roses in the hedges, and of the elder-flower, not to speak of the woodbine, the primrose, and the wild mint. The scent was so strong that the ephemeron was almost intoxicated by it. The day was long and pleasant, full of gladness and sweet perceptions; and when the sun set, the little insect felt a sort of pleasing languor creeping over it after all its enjoyments. Its wings would ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... happier still, the evening hour would bring To the round table its expected ring, And while the punch-bowl's sounding depths were stirred,— Its silver cherubs smiling as they heard,— Our hearts would open, as at evening's hour The close-sealed primrose frees ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Guildford, who had been familiarised to rustic scenes from his earliest infancy, he could see no beauty in the various objects that each instant delighted the little Londoners' eyes and ears; for, like the hero of Wordsworth's verse, "the primrose by the river's brim" was but a primrose and nothing ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... no gloom, And the primrose pants in its heedless push, Though the myrtle asks if it's worth the fight This year with frost and rime To venture one more time On delicate leaves and buttons of white From the selfsame bough as at last year's prime, And never to ruminate on or remember ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... towards sunset, and the sky, primrose-green overhead, deepened to a clear tawny orange above the horizon, with a sanguine line or two at the edge, and beneath that lay the deep evening violet of the city, blotted here and there by the black of cypresses and cut by the thin leafless ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... no malice to work out against mankind, and nothing to seek of enjoyment save a cannie hour and a quiet grave,—what use could the fellowship of fiends, and the communion of evil spirits, be to her? I know Jenny Primrose puts rowan-tree above the door-head when she sees old Mary coming; I know the good wife of Kittlenaket wears rowan-berry leaves in the headband of her blue kirtle, and all for the sake of averting the unsonsie glance of Mary's right ee; and I know that the ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... sensational fiction and the reports of criminal cases in the weekly newspapers, looked at the man from New Scotland Yard with a feeling of surprise. He knew Detective-Sergeant Starmidge well enough by name and reputation. He was the man who had unravelled the mysteries of the Primrose Hill murder—a particularly exciting and underground affair. It was he who had been intimately associated with the bringing to justice of the Camden Town Gang—a group of daring and successful criminals which had baffled the London police for two years. Neale had read all about Starmidge's activities ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... particular plant Crinum capense is much more fertile when crossed by a distinct species than when fertilised by its proper pollen! On the other hand, the famous Gaertner, though he took the greatest pains to cross the Primrose and the Cowslip, succeeded only once or twice in several years; and yet it is a well-established fact that the Primrose and the Cowslip are only varieties of the same kind of plant. Again, such cases as the following are well established. The female of species ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... embitter it all, but it could never prevent him from the outward act. He threw his tie over a chair and took off his coat with unnecessary emphasis in the movement. Ten minutes later he was treading the primrose path of dalliance with an ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... would have preferred the primrose path of dalliance to the steep heights of duty; but Lord Arthur was too conscientious to set pleasure above principle. There was more than mere passion in his love; and Sybil was to him a symbol of all that is good ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... variegate the eternal universe; 160 Death is a gate of dreariness and gloom, That leads to azure isles and beaming skies And happy regions of eternal hope. Therefore, O Spirit! fearlessly bear on: Though storms may break the primrose on its stalk, 165 Though frosts may blight the freshness of its bloom, Yet Spring's awakening breath will woo the earth, To feed with kindliest dews its favourite flower, That blooms in mossy banks and darksome ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... artificial, in songs which, under an English aspect and dress, are yet so manifestly the product of other skies. They affect us like translations; the very fauna and flora are alien, remote; the dog's-tooth violet is but an ill substitute for the rathe primrose, nor can we ever believe that the wood-robin sings as sweetly in April as the ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... into the nest, and, after some persuasion, took one of the smooth eggs into his hand; and from that moment he could not endure it out of his sight, but had it placed morning and evening beside his sofa or bed, near his other treasure, the Picture of the King, on the other side of which stood the primrose, planted in one of Mrs. ...
— Wikkey - A Scrap • YAM
... cosmopolitan; I hate and despise a shrewish suspicion of foreigners and foreign ways; a man who can look me in the face, laugh with me, speak truth and deal fairly, is my brother though his skin is as black as ink or as yellow as an evening primrose. But I have to recognise the facts of the case. In spite of all my large liberality, I find it less irritating to be ruled by people of my own language and race and tradition, and I perceive that for the mass of people alien rule ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... knoll Sheba looked down upon the top of the stage three hundred yards below her, and while she stood there the promise of the new day was blazoned on the sky. It came with amazing beauty of green and primrose and amethyst, while the stars flickered out and the heavens took on the blue of sunrise. In a crotch between two peaks a faint golden glow heralded the sun. A circle of ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... single moment having lived for pleasure. I did it to the full, as one should do everything that one does. There was no pleasure I did not experience. I threw the pearl of my soul into a cup of wine. I went down the primrose path to the sound of flutes. I lived on honeycomb. But to have continued the same life would have been wrong because it would have been limiting. I had to pass on. The other half of the garden had its ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde
... you the truth, Mr. Narkom, I came within an ace of doing the very thing you speak of," replied Cleek. "It's full moon, for one thing, and it's primrose time for another. Happily for your desire to catch me, however, I—er—got interested in the evening paper and that ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... the meadows! I'll show you where Primrose and violet blow, And the hawthorn spreads its blossoms fair, White as the driven snow. I'll show you where the daisies dot With silver stars the lea, The orchis, and forget-me-not, ...
— Enthusiasm and Other Poems • Susanna Moodie
... three had been out on some such expedition; the country side still looked gray and bare, though the leaves were showing on the willow and blackthorn and sloe, and by the tinkling runnels, making hidden music along the copse side, the pale delicate primrose buds were showing amid their fresh, green, crinkled leaves. The larks had been singing all the afternoon, but were now dropping down into their nests in the pasture fields; the air had just the sharpness ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... in me that loves the soft, gray weather— The little mists that trail along like bits of wind-flung foam, The primrose and the violet—all wet and sweet together, And the sound of water calling, as it used ...
— Fires of Driftwood • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... I will ask primrose and violet to spend for you Their smell and hue, And the bold, trembling anemone awhile to spare Her flowers starry fair; Or the flushed wild apple and yet sweeter thorn Their sweetness to keep Longer than any fire-bosomed flower born ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... it, and least—heaven knows—deserve it, makes any final opinion upon the stuff of this world vain and false; and any condemnation of the opinions of others foolish and empty. It destroys our assurances as it alleviates our miseries, and in some unspeakable way, like a primrose growing on the edge of a sepulchre, it flings forth upon the heavy night, a fleeting signal, "Bon ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys
... be purged. On the morning of December 6, Colonel Pride and Colonel Rich, with troops, surrounded the House of Commons; and, as the members were going into the house, the most obnoxious were seized and sent to prison, among whom were Primrose, who had lost his ears in his contest against the crown, Waller, Harley, Walker, and various other men, who had distinguished themselves as advocates of constitutional liberty. None now remained in the House of Commons but some forty Independents, who were the tools of the army, ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... a painter is that he can't paint every detail of things as they are in nature. A primrose, when you first see it, is just a little yellow spot. When you hold it in your hand you find it made up of petals round a tiny centre with little things in it. If you take a magnifying glass you can see all its details ...
— The Book of Art for Young People • Agnes Conway
... theology. He does not take so exalted or so pitiless an attitude as the classic seventeenth-century moralist. Pascal scourges the mass of humanity down a steep place into the sea; Vauvenargues takes each wanderer by the hand, and leads him along the primrose path. ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... in his bower door, Wi' a primrose in his hand, And by there cam' a leal maiden, As jimp as ...
— Ballad Book • Katherine Lee Bates (ed.)
... pride or ambition, and the various shades of yellow denote intellect or intellectual gratification, dull yellow ochre implying the direction of such faculty to selfish purposes, while clear gamboge shows a distinctly higher type, and pale luminous primrose yellow is a sign of the highest and most unselfish use of intellectual power, the pure reason directed to spiritual ends. The different shades of blue all indicate religious feeling, and range through all hues ...
— Thought-Forms • Annie Besant
... gate of old Florentine scrolled iron opened suddenly upon a blaze of yellow in all the shades from the orange velvet of the wallflower through the shaded saffron of azalias and a dozen tints of tulip to the palest primrose and jonquil. ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... a wood-nymph, who her dwelling hath Among the leaves, and far beyond the path, With myrtle and with jasmin roofed across, Enlaced with vine, and carpeted with moss, Whose only threshold is a plaited brook, Whereby the primrose at herself may look; While birds of song melodious make the air— But oh! I must not ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... battle of Culloden in 1746. She enabled the prince to escape to Skye. For this she was arrested and thrown into the Tower of London. On receiving her liberty, in 1747, she stayed for a time in the house of Lady Primrose, where she was visited by many persons of distinction. Before leaving London she was presented with L1500. On her return to Scotland she was entertained at Monkstadt in Skye, at a banquet, to which the principal families were invited. November 6, 1750, she married ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... yet, late lingerer in the twilight's glory: Gay are the hills with song: earth's faery children leave More dim abodes to roam the primrose-hearted eve, Opening their glimmering lips to breathe some wondrous story. Hush, not a whisper! Let your heart alone go dreaming. Dream unto dream may pass: deep in the heart alone Murmurs the Mighty One his solemn undertone. Canst ...
— The Nuts of Knowledge - Lyrical Poems New and Old • George William Russell
... in the face Of Heaven, Earth, and Hell. We quiver 'neath, and mock, God's rod; We feel, and mock, His wrath; We mock our own blood on the thorns That rim the "Primrose Path." ...
— Dreams and Dust • Don Marquis
... "Please call me Primrose in your letters. Rose is called Periwinkle. Papa bought her an image of Uncle Tom and Eva, sitting on a bank, and Uncle Tom is reading the Bible. Eva has on a plaid apron, and has yellow cheeks, and is not very pretty. Uncle Tom is not either. ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... such thoughts from him—he had made his choice long ago, and it was not the primrose-path. Perhaps he was over-sensitive, acutely aware of himself as a strange creature with no cuffs, and with hardly any soles to his shoes. And all the time of these women was taken up by the arrival of packages of gowns and millinery; their conversation was of diamonds ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... brightened, though still with a curious pallor that was more glare than sunlight, and both girls put on cool muslin dresses, or as cool as the long full skirts would allow of their being. Vassie was in blue, Phoebe in pink, Judy in primrose, while Blanche was white even to her shady hat. Girls never look as well as when there are several of them together, just as men never look so ill as in a crowd. What brings out all the ungainliness of men's attire emphasises the butterfly nature ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... So sunny a nature as his might have been expected to make light of a minor trouble, more especially the minor trouble of another. He was unusually thoughtful. Some event of the morning had, it would appear, given him pause on his primrose path. He glanced more than once over his shoulder towards the window, which stood open. He ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... Esau, contemptuously, "not much o' mountains. Why, that one over yonder don't look much bigger than Primrose Hill." ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... I shall begin to think you have yourself an eye on the girl. You have promised me your assistance, and when you came down into the country, were as hot on the scheme as myself: but, since you have been two or three times with me at Primrose's, you have fallen off strangely. No encroachments, Jack, on my little rose-bud—if you have a mind to beat up game in this quarter, there's ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... same time waving his wand over the fire. Immediately the flames rose towards the sky, the snow began to melt and the trees and shrubs to bud; the grass became green, and from between its blades peeped the pale primrose. It was Spring, and the ...
— Fairy Tales of the Slav Peasants and Herdsmen • Alexander Chodsko
... wife: 'She could read any English book without much spelling.' That her ignorance was not the consequence of incapacity is proved by the evidence which follows of her intelligence in other matters. Had Mrs. Primrose been educated she might have continued less lovable than the vicar, but she would probably have been wiser. The vicar must always have been conscious of her defects, but had never apparently thought of a remedy, nor does he dream of ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... about half-way between Butkhak and Kabul, I was met by Sir Donald Stewart and my Chief of the Staff,[5] who brought me the astounding news of the total defeat by Ayub Khan of Brigadier-General Burrows's brigade at Maiwand, and of Lieutenant-General Primrose,[6] with the remainder of his force, being besieged ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... the wild tulip, the primrose, the lupine, the eardrop, the larkspur, and creeping hollyhock, and a beautiful flower resembling the blossom of the beech tree, but in bunches as large as a small sugar loaf, and of every variety of shade, ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... man, started with a fixed idea that a regatta differed from a Primrose Fete, if at all, then only in being non-political. He could not get it out of his head that public speeches were of the essence of the festivity; and when, with all the tact at my command, I insisted on aquatics, ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... come to another meadow followed by another grove, where scarcely any trees but hemlocks are to be seen. Here also we see great beds of the California primrose which grows with a straight upright stem crowned with blood-red or deep scarlet flowers above a rich duster of leaves. These flowers generally can be found blooming quite late in the season, following the snowline as the summer's sun makes it climb higher each day. When the ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... poets had begun to keep an eye on the Bourse, and artists dabbled in finance. The new volume of song in the sordid age was a November primrose, and not unlike the flower of Spring. There was a singular freshness and hopefulness in the verse, a wonderful "certitude dans l'expression lyrique," as Sainte-Beuve said. The mastery of musical speech and of various forms of song was already to be recognised ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... under fore and main standing lugs and a small jib, deeply loaded as she was, was doing a knot less than ourselves, and we soon passed and slid ahead of her; while away down in the north-eastern board, broad on our starboard quarter, the topsails and upper canvas of the barque shone primrose-yellow above the ridges of the swell as she stood away from us, heading about nor'-north-east, close-hauled on the ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... of two men. There was a man of action, who was as modest as a primrose and as punctual as a clock; who went his small round of duties and never dreamed of altering it. There was also a man of reflection, who was much simpler but much stronger, who could not easily be stopped; whose thought was always (in the only ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... you, sweet? A posy prankt with every April hue: The cloud-white daisy, violet sky-blue, Shot with the primrose sunshine through and through? ...
— Songs, Merry and Sad • John Charles McNeill
... bookseller, figures pleasantly in the "Vicar of Wakefield;" always in haste to be gone, he was ever on business of the utmost importance, and was at that time actually compiling materials for the history of one Thomas Trip. "The friend of all mankind," Dr. Primrose calls him. "The honestest man in the nation," as Goldsmith said of him in a doggerel riddle which he wrote. Newbery's nephew printed the "Vicar of Wakefield" for Goldsmith, and the elder Newbery published the "Traveller," the corner-stone of Goldsmith's ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... Through primrose tufts, in that sweet bower, The periwinkle trail'd its wreathes; And 'tis my faith that every flower Enjoys ...
— Lyrical Ballads, With Other Poems, 1800, Vol. I. • William Wordsworth
... every other German town, there are a vast number of literary characters, of whom our young friend quickly became the chief. They set up a literary journal, which appeared once a week, upon light-blue or primrose paper, and which, in compliment to the lovely Ottilia's maternal name, was called the Kartoffelnkranz. Here are a couple of her ballads extracted from the Kranz, and by far the most cheerful specimen of her style. For in her songs she never would willingly let off the heroines without a suicide ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Lombardy, through whose passes mediaeval emperors led their forces, over whose summits Napoleon brought his men, through whose bowels this generation has burrowed its tunnels, stand the same, and smile the same amid their snows, at the transient creatures that have crawled across them. The primrose on the rock blooms in the same place year after year, and nature and it are faithful to their covenant, but the poet's eyes that fell upon them are sealed with dust. Generations have gone, the transient flower remains. 'One generation ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... only a line to remind you that you lunch with me at the Primrose Club on Monday at one o'clock. I have asked two or three friends to meet you, all good fellows. With regard to that matter on which you were asking my advice, I think that the wisest course at present is (to use the phrase, now a little stale, which ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 7, 1917. • Various
... to this primrose too; Good morrow to each maid; That will with flowers the tomb bestrew Wherein my ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... over their own graceful quivering images. Profound quiet brooded in the warm, hazy air, burdened with balsamic odors; but once a pine burr full of rich nutty mast crashed down through dead twigs, bruising the satin petals of a primrose; and ever and anon the oboe notes of that shy, deep throated hermit of ravines—the russet, speckled-breasted lark—thrilled through the woods, like antiphonal echoes in some vast, ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... said the Colonel. "Your Uncle Daniel sent it, as he promised. And when you go upstairs, if Easter has done as I told her, you will see a primrose dress with blue coin-flowers on your bed. Daniel thought you might like that, too, for a keepsake. Dorothy Manners wore it in London, when ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... delightful little property adjoining Fontainebleau forest. "Come and see for yourself," they wrote, "we are sure that you will be charmed with our purchase!" A little later I journeyed to Bourron, half an hour from Moret on the Bourbonnais line, on arriving hardly less disconcerted than Mrs. Primrose by the gross of green spectacles. No trim, green verandahed villa, no inviting vine-trellised walk, no luxuriant vegetable garden or brilliant flower beds greeted my eyes; instead, dilapidated walls, abutting on ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... kindliest of Jews—with the tragedy of his race pictured on his furrowed face, a face like an ancient weather-worn statue on whose countenance grief has petrified—has summed up the character of Disraeli as no other man ever has or can. I will not rob the reader by quoting from "The Primrose Sphinx"—that gem of letters must ever stand together without subtraction of a word. It belongs to the realm of the lapidary, and its facets can not be transferred. Yet when Mr. Zangwill refers to the Mephistophelian curl of Lord Beaconsfield's lip, the word is used ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... where the mild whispers use Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing brooks, On whose fresh lap the swart-star sparely looks, Throw hither all your quaint enamelled eyes, That on the green turf suck the honeyed showers, And purple all the ground with vernal flowers. Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies, The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine, The white pink, and the pansy freaked with jet, The glowing violet, The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine, With cowslips wan that hang the pensive ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... popular primrose there are two types, the Chinese primrose (Primula Sinensis) and Primula obconica. Both are favorites, because of their simple beauty and the remarkable freedom and constancy with which they bloom. Another advantage is that they do not require direct sunlight. Primroses ...
— Gardening Indoors and Under Glass • F. F. Rockwell
... out in the lanes, Flurry and I, to gather the spring flowers that Miss Ruth so dearly loved. We made a primrose basket once for her room, and many a cowslip ball for Dot, and then there were dainty little bunches of violets for mother and Carrie, only Carrie took hers to a dying girl in ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... I come! ye have called me long; I come o'er the mountains, with light and song; Ye may trace my step o'er the waking earth By the winds which tell of the violet's birth, By the primrose stars in the shadowy grass, By the green leaves opening ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... Laureate's post to fill? Ay! if Parnassus were but Primrose Hill. The Penny Vote puts lion below monkey. 'Tis "Tuppence more, Gents, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 19, 1892 • Various
... mother, and of the dear deanery among its meadows, floating fragments of the poetry her father had loved, of the prayers her mother had taught her in childhood, hovered in her mind. She seemed to see the primrose woods where she had wandered, and to hear the sound of brooks and birds in Spring. A vague smile was on her lips. She thought of Sir Hugh as of a radiance lighting all. She ...
— Amabel Channice • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... have to do, never knew the thorns with which the path of letters is apt to be strewn. A mistress of the great art of pleasing made knowledge from the first a primrose path to him. Sparkling all over with intelligence, she impregnated her boy with it. She made herself his favorite companion; she would not keep her distance. She stole and coaxed knowledge and goodness into his heart and mind with ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... prided himself on distinct English—"you s'pose brother Tip's got a garden like this at the new place? Oh, the pretty little primroses! Who'll watch them pop open to-night? How you and me have sat on the primrose bed and watched the t-e-e-nty buds swell and swell till finally—pop! they smack their lips and burst ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... Here the mother and father elements are found in the same flower. At the base of the flower, packed in a delicate casket, which is called the ovary, lie a number of small white objects no larger than butterfly-eggs. These are the eggs or ova of the primrose. Into this casket, by a secret opening, filmy tubes thrown out by the pollen grains—now enticed from their hiding-place on the stamens and clustered on the stigma—enter and pour a fertilizing fluid, called "spermatozoa," through a microscopic gateway, which opens in the wall of the ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... show their buds; the long withy ends of the branches to turn green; when the wild strawberry, and other herbage of the sheltered woodlands, put forth their tender and tinted leaves, and the daisy and the primrose peep from under the hedges. At this time there is a general bustle among the feathered tribes; an incessant fluttering about, and a cheerful chirping, indicative, like the germination of the vegetable world, of the reviving life ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... this first of the Primrose Dames, Abigail Masham, quarrelled with her cousin Harley about the share which this lady of High Church principles was to receive out of the profits of the ...
— Newfoundland and the Jingoes - An Appeal to England's Honor • John Fretwell
... Reassured, I fixed my eyes upon the open window of Marie's bed-chamber, which was immediately over the back door, in the hope that those dear, tender, dark eyes, were surveying me from behind the curtains. I flourished my little cane, loitered to pick a primrose, and sang one of our devil-may-care choruses in order to insult this English beast, and to show my love how little I cared for danger when it stood between her and me. The creature was abashed by my fearlessness, and so, pushing open the back door, I was able to enter ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of her chin towards the primrose wreath which Mrs White had added at the last moment to ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... impressionistic tales and pictures - that voluntary aversion of the eye from all speciously strong and beautiful effects - that disinterested love of dulness which has set so many Peter Bells to paint the river- side primrose. It was then chosen for its proximity to Paris. And for the same cause, and by the force of tradition, the painter of to-day continues to inhabit and to paint it. There is in France scenery incomparable ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... them, and larger than any of them, a silhouette of Mr Grey, with the eyelash wonderfully like, and the wart upon his nose not to be mistaken. Then there was Charles the First taking leave of his family; and, on either side of this, an evening primrose in water-colours, by Mary, and a head of Terror, with a square mouth and starting eyes, in crayon, by Fanny. Mrs Grey produced some gay border which the paper-hanger had left over when the attics were last ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... old-fashioned cook, on the subject of a few new dishes, and I helped to entertain some of those strange aboriginal creatures called "the county." But the announcement one afternoon, that we were to spend the next in driving ten miles to attend a Primrose League Fete in the private grounds of a local magnate, proved too much for me. Shall you be surprised to hear that on the following morning I received an urgent telegram recalling me to town? My hostess was, or affected to be, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 9, 1890. • Various
... the Vale from a Farmers' Ordinary, where one had been exposing Lord Beaconsfield's nonsense about the "Three Profits" of agricultural land, to a turbulent meeting in a chapel or a barn (for the use of the schoolroom was denied to the Liberal candidate). As we drove through the primrose-studded lanes, or past the village green, the bell was ringing from the grey tower of the Parish Church, and summoning the villagers to the daily Evensong of Holy Week. The contrast was too violent to be ignored; and yet, for a citizen who ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... the Prince had been hurt somewhat seriously in a carriage accident, frequent in travelling through such wild lands as Ireland and the south of Scotland. People averred that he would find himself safer on the Mall or climbing the slopes of Primrose Hill. ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... It's the 'primrose path,' you see, and they're afraid of the 'everlasting bonfire.' I'm not; you're not. You're not afraid ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... black thunder-cloud, down Scafell's side To rush and disappear. But soon broke forth (So willed the Muse) a less impetuous stream, That flowed awhile with unabating strength, 10 Then stopped for years; not audible again Before last primrose-time, [C] Beloved Friend! The assurance which then cheered some heavy thoughts On thy departure to a foreign land [D] Has failed; too slowly moves the promised work. 15 Through the whole summer have I been at rest, [E] Partly from voluntary holiday, And part through outward hindrance. ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... harbingers and banneret bearers of the Primrose League are numerous, who have leant all their weight in the scale to maintain the Protestant ascendancy in Ireland, have been ever ready when occasion arose to appeal to the religious loyalty of the Irish members to support their interests. Their position has not been ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... set blossoms swaying, the jet from the fountain basin swerved, and a mellow raining sound of drops swept the still pool. The lilac twilight deepened to mauve; upon the surface of the pool a primrose tint grew duller. Then the first bat zig-zagged across the sky; and every clove-pink border became misty with the wings ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... their two natures together. Just now she is all given up to another; but when he no longer calls upon her daily thoughts and cares, I warn you not to be surprised, if this bud of friendship open like the evening primrose, with a sound as of a sudden stolen kiss, and lo! the flower of full-blown love ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... that the particular plant 'Crinum capense' is much more fertile when crossed by a distinct species than when fertilised by its proper pollen! On the other hand, the famous Gaertner, though he took the greatest pains to cross the primrose and the cowslip, succeeded only once or twice in several years; and yet it is a well-established fact that the primrose and the cowslip are only varieties of the same kind of plant. Again, such cases as the following are well established. The female of species A, if crossed with the male of ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... Elizabetha is frequently addressed as Ah-te-basile! Doctor Thomas Lodge, author of "Rosalinde; or Euphues, his Golden Legacy," (which Shakspeare dramatized into "As you like it,") has anagrammatized his own name into Golde,—and that of Dering into Ringde. The author of "Dolarney's Primrose" was a Doctor Raynolde. John Hind, in his "Eliosto Libidinoso," transmutes his own name into Dinchin Matthew Roydon becomes Donroy. And Shakspeare, even, does not scruple to alchemize the Resolute John, or John Florio, into ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... you come with me into a marvellous land wherein is music, where heads are covered with primrose hair and bodies are white as snow? There is no "mine" or "thine" there; white are teeth, and black are eyebrows, and cheeks are the hue of the foxglove, and eyes the hue of blackbirds' eggs.... We see everything on every side, yet no man seeth us. Though pleasant the plains of Ireland, yet are ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... grandees of Europe. He is fond of asking Count Reineck to dinner, and Grafinn Laura will condescend to look kindly upon a gentleman who has millions of dollars. Here comes a pair of New Yorkers. Behold their elegant curling beards, their velvet coats, their delicate primrose gloves and cambric handkerchiefs, and the aristocratic beauty of their boots. Why, if you had sixteen quarterings, you could not have smaller feet than those; and if you were descended from a line of kings you could not smoke better ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... fairies. I dream them. There is no fairy can hide from me; I keep on dreaming till I find him: There you are, Primrose! I ...
— Poems By a Little Girl • Hilda Conkling
... and wild, Each plant, or flower, the mountain's child; Here eglantine embalmed the air, Hawthorn and hazel mingled there; The primrose pale, and violet flower, Found in each cleft a narrow bower; Foxglove and night-shade, side by side Emblems of punishment and pride, Grouped their dark hues with every stain The weather-beaten crags retain; With boughs that quaked at every breath, Gray-birch and aspen wept ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... looks after the cows is a very valuable friend. He may even let you try to milk, which only specially gifted children ever succeed in doing at all well; and he will teach you the cows' names (in some farms these are painted up over each stall—Primrose, Lightfoot, Sweetlips, Clover, and so on); and perhaps he will give you the task of fetching them from the meadow ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... O feel-of-primrose hands, O feet That want the yield of plushy sward, But you shall walk the golden street And you ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... the elder daughter of the vicar of Wakefield. She was a sort of a Heb[^e] in beauty, open, sprightly, and commanding. Olivia Primrose "wished for many lovers," and eloped with Squire Thornhill. Her father went in search of her, and on his return homeward, stopped at a roadside inn, called the Harrow, and there found her turned out of the house by the landlady. It was ultimately discovered that she was ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... the form and face. A five years' wife, and not yet fair? Blame let the man, not Nature, bear! For, as the sun, warming a bank Where last year's grass droops gray and dank, Evokes the violet, bids disclose In yellow crowds the fresh primrose, And foxglove hang her flushing head, So vernal love, where all seems dead, Makes beauty abound. Then was that nought, That trance of joy beyond all thought, The vision, in one, of womanhood? Nay, for all women holding good, Should marriage ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore
... at the chimney-corner; so is Goldsmith: who does not wish Dr Primrose to call in the evening, and Olivia to preside at the urn? Elia affirms, that there is no such thing as reading or writing, but by a candle; he is confident that Milton composed the morning hymn of Eden with a clear fire burning in the room; ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 433 - Volume 17, New Series, April 17, 1852 • Various
... what brought the talk back from these primrose paths to that question of American society forms, but presently some one said he believed the church-sociable was the thing in most towns beyond the apple-bee and sugar-party stage, and this opened the inquiry as to ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... stocks, and lilies of the vale, Her honey-blossoms that you hear the bees at, Her pansies, daffodils, and primrose pale, ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... shallow brooks that stand, The modest violet, and primrose pale, (Like youth just bursting into life,) expand, And cast their perfumes down the dewy vale, Till laden seems each bland, yet searching gale That fans the cheek with odours of the Spring. All living nature rushes to inhale: As if this universal ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 476, Saturday, February 12, 1831 • Various
... far away from church history, which we were supposed to be learning. The misplaced botanist reverted, by a natural impulse, to his much-loved science; and I have seen him shed tears of tender emotion, in his Professor's chair, as he spoke to us of the God who made the primrose of the spring, and concealed the violet under the hedge by the wayside. Therefore is the recollection of that old man not only living in my memory, but also dear to my heart. Still he was a savant, an enthusiastic naturalist; and, in the broad light of the ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... fine oatmeal. One-half quart of new clean bran. Two-fifths pound powdered orris root. Two-fifths pound almond meal. One-fourth pound white castile soap, dried and powdered. One ounce primrose sachet powder. ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... its full. There was a flat with the reddest of new carpets, tasselled portieres and six steins with pewter lids arranged on a ledge above the wainscoting of the dining-room. The wonder of it was yet upon them. Neither of them had ever seen a yellow primrose by the river's brim; but if such a sight had met their eyes at that time it would have seemed like—well, whatever the poet expected the right kind of people to see in it ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... four years between the acts, the author takes high ground;—we are presented with the summit of Primrose-hill, St. Paul's in the distance, and a gentleman with black clothes, and literary habits, reading in the foreground. This turns out to be "The Laird Lawson," Barbara's favoured lover and benevolent duellist. Though on the top of Cockney Mount, he is suffering under a deep depression ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... But we, whose best clothes are exhibited only in parlours, what are we to do? How can we lay bare the souls of Duchesses, explain the heart-throbs of peers of the realm? Some of my friends who, being Conservative, attend Primrose "tourneys" (or is it "Courts of love"? I speak as an outsider. Something mediaeval, I know it is) do, it is true, occasionally converse with titled ladies. But the period for conversation is always limited owing to the impatience of the man behind; and I doubt ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... said the boy. "I only wished I had been as good a player on the flute as poor George Primrose in 'The Vicar of Wakefield.' If I had his art, I should like nothing better than to tramp like him from cottage to cottage ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... now we do not read. Far more than that, my son would be brought to a realization that everything in the world is full of interest for the man who has the knowledge to appreciate its significance. "A primrose by a river's brim" should be no more suggestive, even to a lake-poet, than a Persian rug or a rubber shoe. Instead of the rug he will have a vision of the patient Afghan in his mountain village working for years with unrequited industry; instead of the shoe ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... was a pretty little thing; yet there was something wrong with her prettiness. One saw at once that her cheeks should have been pink and white like the daisy, and that her hair, which was yellow as the primrose, should have tumbled in wavelets about them. There ought to have been sunshine in the blue eyes, and laughter on the red lips, and merry lilt in the soft voice. But the pink had faded from the girl's cheek; the shadow had chased the sunshine from her ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... scented air. By the ruined, moss-clothed barn the owl will build her nest, and the twilight will tread a measure with the night. And the rustic maidens will gather the shell-pink honeysuckle with their lovers, and the amorous clouds will slumber above the exquisite plough-boy with his primrose locks, as he wanders, whistling, on his way. Nature, inartistic, monotonous Nature, will renew the sap of her youth, and the dewy freshness of her first pale springtime, but the sap of your youth will have run dry for ever, ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... What shall I say except that I am accursed of men? Yes; I have loved something—her mother. Not wisely but too well. I loved her beyond anything in heaven or on earth—to idolatry. God is a jealous God, and He turned upon me relentlessly. I had consecrated my life to His Work; and I took the primrose path." ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath |
