"Privet" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in a column some thirty-five feet before shooting out a canopy of branches and leaves. There are also a few Scotch firs, the trunks well covered with ivy, and a pretty specimen of the variegated sycamore. The undergrowth of laurel, laurustinus, briar, privet, holly, etc., is very luxuriant here, and the vacant ground is closely covered with the wood anemone (Anemone nemorosa), which must form a continuous mass of ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... was a square, ugly, brick house girt in by the wall that enclosed the whole grounds of the pottery itself. To be sure, a privet hedge partly masked the house and its ground from the pottery-yard and works: but only partly. Through the hedge could be seen the desolate yard, and the many-windowed, factory-like pottery, over the hedge could be seen the chimneys and ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... In nature this toxicity seems to be limited to plants with tap root systems such as tomato and alfalfa (Davis, 1923) and those with other types of deep root systems such as apple trees (Schneiderhan, 1927), rhododendrons (Pirone, 1938), and privet. This toxicity is exhibited only when there is a direct contact between the roots of the two plants involved. (Jones, 1903; Massey, 1925). That the wilting observed under walnuts is due to a toxic product from the bark of the walnut, ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Thirty-Fourth Annual Report 1943 • Various
... a small, isolated brick house in very bad condition, standing in an out-of-the-way road somewhere between Putney and Wimbledon. It stood, somewhat back from the road, in the midst of a little patch of ground abounding in privet and laurel bushes, and it was evident that its cheapness had been its chief attraction to the two men who had rented it, although, on entering, it was found to possess at the back a sort of extension, with top and side lights, which must have appealed to Van Nant's need of something in the nature ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... supposed there were 400 Rebels in the garden; numbers of them were posted upon a mount planted with old fir trees, which afforded considerable protection, and many lay concealed behind a privet hedge, from whence they could distinctly see every person who entered the garden, tho' they could not be seen themselves—Lieutenant Tyrrell at the head of a few picked men, rushed into the garden; and was received ...
— An Impartial Narrative of the Most Important Engagements Which Took Place Between His Majesty's Forces and the Rebels, During the Irish Rebellion, 1798. • John Jones
... beauty to come; at present, being far too tall for her age, she seemed unable to manage her long legs and arms, but her movements had the graceful ungainliness of a young animal. She was muffled in a dirty print pinafore, and above its faded blue her neck looked a delicate privet-white, and would have looked whiter still had it been cleaner. In the dusk her little pale head, the shape of it clearly defined by the way in which she wore her hair sticking stiffly out from her nape in two tiny plaits, took on a quality suggestive of a frescoed angel—a ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... the garden of my father's house at Cockermouth was a high terrace that commanded a fine view of the river Derwent and Cockermouth Castle. This was our favourite play-ground. The terrace wall, a low one, was covered with closely-clipt privet and roses, which gave an almost impervious shelter to birds who built their nests there. The latter of these stanzas [A] alludes ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... of the tail. The bloodstained urine without red globules results from specific diseases—Texas fever (Pl. XLVII, fig. 3), anthrax, spirillosis, and from eating irritant plants (broom, savin, mercury, hellebore, ranunculus, convolvulus, colchicum, oak shoots, ash privet, hazel, hornbeam, and other astringent, acrid, or resinous plants, etc.). The Maybug or Spanish fly taken with the feed or spread over a great extent of skin as a blister has a similar action. Frosted turnips ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... course, the consequence was that all the worms were starved. I only heard of the result of that experiment long after the death of the larvae; otherwise I should have suggested the use of another plant after the destruction of the foliage of the lilacs; the privet (Ligustrum vulgare) might have been tried, and success ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... feet by twenty, and it was bordered by a hedge of moth-eaten privet, but anyone who has ever attempted to induce a blade of grass to grow upon a sand dune will fully appreciate the deviltry of Mrs. Tunnygate's malignant mind. Already there was a horrid rent where Tunnygate had floundered through at her suggestion in order to save going ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... spirits led him: now pausing to watch her drop from her white fingers the precious seed into its prepared bed, anon darting after some fancied joy among the pyramidal yews, and dusky treillages, and cradle walks of holly and privet. For, as Sir Thomas Swaffham said, "Hyde garden looked just as if brought from Holland;" and especially so in the spring, when it was ablaze with gorgeous ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... listened patiently, and not without tears. After a short time the blackbird was taken in a net and boughs were cut to make a cage, in which to imprison her. Branches were cut, among others from the pliant privet, to serve for the small rods of the cage; and seeing herself to be the cause of the Blackbird's loss of liberty it rejoiced and spoke as follows: "O Blackbird, I am here, and not yet burnt by fire as you said. I shall see you in prison before you ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... good-night and walked up the Southdown Road, looking with its line of trees along the pavement like a little mock boulevard. Frank was particularly severe in his remarks on the trim privet hedges and the little bronze sphinxes standing before the portico of yellow glass; he declared that a man must be born to put up such things, and he clearly thought this sneer a very happy one, for he ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... steep terrace descended to a formally planted plot, now flowerless, enclosed by low privet hedges. There were walks of rolled bark, and, against a lower, denser barrier, a long, white bench. The ground still fell away beyond; and there was a sturdy orchard, cleared of underbrush, with crimson apples among the grey limbs. Beyond, across a low, tangled ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... containing, as it does, many which, in New England, are rare exotics. Here you will find in richest profusion the fine-lady elegance of the syringa; there, glorious white lilies, so pure and stately; the delicate yet robust beauty of the exquisite privet; irises of every hue and size; and, prettiest of all, a sweet snow-tinted flower, looking like immense clusters of seed-pearl, which the Spaniards call "libla." But the marvel of the group is an orange-colored blossom, of a most rare and singular fragrance, growing somewhat ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... pre-Beaufort usage, a synonym for "breeze" "ensign": starting rank in the British infantry until 1870 "prim hedge": probably the same as privet hedge, Ligustrum vulgare "Dr. Franklin": Benjamin Franklin received an honorary doctorate ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... talk, rolling strongly, vibrantly through the leaves, a lawless, insistent voice, and Dermott McDermott, with the reins loosened on his horse's neck, and his ardent eyes looking upward to heaven's blue, rode by the other side of the privet hedge: ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... Thorhaven towards the north was a little square house surrounded by a privet hedge. It had a green door under a sort of wooden canopy with two flat windows on either side, and seemed to stand there defying the rows and rows of terraces, avenues and meanish semi-detached villas which were creeping up to it. ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... front there's a privet hedge, clipped low enough for your pink garden to be seen over it; and separating you from the Clarks' is a row of tall, thick hydrangea bushes that are beauties as long as there are any leaves on them; and at the back there is osage orange to shut out that old dump; and on the other side is a row ...
— Ethel Morton's Enterprise • Mabell S.C. Smith
... not more interesting than many other caterpillars which can be hatched from eggs. The Privet Hawk Moth, for example, is very easily bred, and a very beautiful creature it is when in full plumage. But for information on this subject you must go ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... herself in love. They were spending a Saturday to Monday at a great place on Long Island. On Sunday night, her host, a man old enough to be her father, invited her to see his rose garden by moonlight. She accepted this invitation as a matter of course. Pacing down a path between tall privet hedges, her host, who for some minutes seemed to have lost the use of his tongue, made her a sudden impassioned declaration of love, seized her in his arms, and kissed her wherever he could with a kind ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... rheumy with moisture which dripped from every bent and twig. The hedges were full of the dead wood of the departed autumn, and on a decrepit creeper hung a few ragged wisps of Old Man's Beard. The only touch of colour in the landscape was the vinous purple of the twigs, and a few green leaves of privet from which rose spikes of berries black as crape. Not a living thing appeared, and the secret promises of spring were so remote as ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... at Aldington in the repose of a June evening was a place of fragrant joy from honeysuckle on poles and arches, and just as the light was fading the huge privet hawk-moths, with quivering wings and extended probosces, used to sip the honey from the long blossoms. I could catch them in a net, but these specimens were nearly all damaged from their energetic flight among the flowers, and perfect ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... Claude stopped to look at a grave that stood off by itself, under a privet hedge, with withered leaves and a little French flag on it. The old woman with whom they stayed had told them the story ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... of my favrit walk, larst Friday was a week, from Charing Cross round to my own privet residence in Queen street, when a yung lad tapped me on the sholder and said to me, "Please, Sir, are you the sillybrated Mr. ROBERT, the Citty Waiter?" In course I replied, "Yes, most suttenly;" when he said, "Then ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 1, 1890 • Various
... I opened the second door and found myself in a spacious plain set with tall date palms and watered by a running stream whose banks were shrubbed with rose and jasmine, while privet and eglantine, oxe-eye, violet and lily, narcissus, origane and the winter gilliflower carpeted the borders; and the breath of the breeze swept over ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... but only love, That only love were cause enough for praise". Lightly he laugh'd, as one that read my thought, And on we went; but ere an hour had pass'd, We reach'd a meadow slanting to the North; Down which a well-worn pathway courted us To one green wicket in a privet hedge; This, yielding, gave into a grassy walk Thro' crowded lilac-ambush trimly pruned; And one warm gust, full-fed with perfume, blew Beyond us, as we enter'd in the cool. The garden stretches southward. In the midst A cedar ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... sweet scents can do. Have you never noticed the delicious smell which comes from beds of mignonette, thyme, rosemary, mint, or sweet alyssum, from the small hidden bunches of laurustinus blossom, or from the tiny flowers of the privet? These plants have found another way of attracting the insects; they have no need of bright colours, for their scent is quite as true and certain a guide. You will be surprised if you once begin to count them up, how many white and dull or dark- looking flowers are sweet-scented, ...
— The Fairy-Land of Science • Arabella B. Buckley
... he had been down to scratch like a fowl among the dead leaves under the privet-hedge for grubs, who "kidded" themselves that they were going to be fine, flashing insects next summer. He also prospected a snail or two, and broke through their fortifications by hammering the same ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... finish it now, I think,' said she. 'You know about the bright- coloured flowers being against the privet-hedge, and where the new ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... reds And the sumac spreads Tall plumes o'er the purple privet, I beg a kiss Of the wind, tho I wis Right well he ...
— Nirvana Days • Cale Young Rice
... chair, supported by pillows cunningly set for him by the deft hands of Leduc, and took his ease and indulged his day-dreams in Lord Ostermore's garden. He sat within the cool, fragrant shade of a privet arbor, interlaced with flowering lilac and laburnum, and he looked out upon the long sweep of emerald lawn and the little patch of ornamental water where the water-lilies gaped their ivory chalices to the ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... spend my summers high in air; At least there are no privet-hedges there. But even then I have no doubt the smell From slopes celestial of asphodel Would fill the firmament and give me ...
— Punch, 1917.07.04, Vol. 153, Issue No. 1 • Various
... the winter. From top to bottom the wall of russet shines warm and bright. Its leaves are harmless in decay, for they contain an antiseptic oil, and no leaves of spring are more tenderly green or in more ceaseless motion at the lightest breeze. Privet makes the last and least esteemed of these "one-tree" hedges. Yet it is the most tractable of all hedge material, and was almost invariably used to form the intricate "mazes," once a favourite toy of the layers-out ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... person entrusted with the search for these eggs in the neighbourhood of Avignon did not bring much variety to his quest. I find these eggs not only on the mulberry-tree, but on the peach, the cherry, the willow, the Japanese privet, and other trees. But these are exceptions; what the Cigale really prefers is a slender twig of a thickness varying from that of a straw to that of a pencil. It should have a thin woody layer and ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... the spinney. Rookery full. Usual butterflies in unusual numbers. Toward twilight several sphinx moths visited the privet. No net at hand so did not identify any. Pheasants in bad shape. Nobody to keep them down. Must arrange ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... make a list of those I saw from our carriage windows as we rolled down lazily along the road to Fossombrone. Broom, and cytisus, and hawthorn mingled with roses, gladiolus, and sainfoin. There were orchises, and clematis, and privet, and wild-vine, vetches of all hues, red poppies, sky-blue cornflowers, and lilac pimpernel. In the rougher hedges, dogwood, honeysuckle, pyracanth, and acacia made a network of white bloom and blushes. Milk-worts of all bright and tender tints combined with borage, iris, hawkweeds, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... He walked slowly down the road toward the town. On the left was a smooth lawn, with great stately trees, a long gray stone house beyond. A privet hedge, broken by a drive, closed in the withdrawn orderly habitation. A young moon bathed the scene in a diffused silver light; low cultivated ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... round the corner of the convent buildings and turned up into a meadow beside a thick privet hedge that divided it from the garden, and as he moved along he heard a low humming noise ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... willows shrouded it from the sun in summer. They mourned and murmured of the past, when the breezes of morning and evening stirred their whispering leaves. Their bare limbs thrashed and pounded the tin roof when the storm winds tore down the lake. In front and to one side, Tessibel's new privet hedge shone a dark, dusky green, and the flower beds were beginning to show orderly life through the blackish mold. The shack itself was rather more pretentious than most of the squatter shanties. It had two rooms and was thoroughly ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... before each bow window, the same little red-tiled path from gate to front door, the same front door decorated with elaborate paneling and panes of colored glass, the same little machine-made iron gate, the same low red wall and iron railing and privet hedge; so indistinguishably, so maddeningly alike were all these diminutive houses. Each roof had the same purple slates, each roof tree the same red earthwork edging it like a lace; the same red ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... quietly, and most quietly on its outer, its northern, side where our lateral "swell" (rising effect) begins, or ends, according to the direction of your going, beginning with that modest but pretty bloomer the Ligustrum ibota, a perfectly hardy privet more graceful than the California (ovalifolium) species, which really has little business in icy New ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... be so easy to go! The back yard was hedged in (with part of the hedge growing right across the toes of the mountain), but there was a hole in the privet large enough to crawl through. And just beyond the hedge the mountainside awaited him, going up and up in one smooth sweep until the green and tawny faded into hazy heights of rock. It was waiting for him. "Come and climb," it ...
— David and the Phoenix • Edward Ormondroyd
... porte-cochere, being left open, allowed the passers in the street to see in the midst of the vast courtyard a flower-bed, the raised earth of which was held in place by a low privet hedge. A few monthly roses, pinkes, lilies, and Spanish broom filled this bed, around which in the summer season boxes of paurestinus, pomegranates, and myrtle were placed. Struck by the scrupulous cleanliness of the courtyard and its dependencies, a ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... Pale privet-petals white as milk Are blown into a snowy mass: The roses lie upon the grass Like little shreds of ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde
... along quietly. The road now ran between two interminable forests of brush, which covered the whole side of the mountain like a garment. This was the "Maquis," composed of scrub oak, juniper, arbutus, mastic, privet, gorse, laurel, myrtle and boxwood, intertwined with clematis, huge ferns, honeysuckle, cytisus, rosemary, lavender and brambles, which covered the sides of the mountain with ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... throughout, save in the dining-room, where there was the slenderest of old Hepplewhite. Wide piazzas flanked the house on every side, screened and awninged from the sun and wind and rain. A winding driveway between privet hedges, led up from the main road half a mile away, through a maze of giant forest trees amid which the ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott
... a low lichened wall, and on the right a bed of flowers bordering a trimly kept lawn, which faced the rustic porch. Dovelands Cottage was entirely screened from the view of anyone passing along Babylon Lane by a high and dense privet hedge, which carried on its unbroken barrier to the end of the tiny orchard and kitchen-garden flanking the ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... and the ripple on the sand-shelf will be witness of your track. O privet-white, you will paint the lintel of wet ...
— Sea Garden • Hilda Doolittle
... walnuts, approachable only by its rustic stairs, or dotted at neighborly distances along the straggling village, with its trim garden of lavender and wall flowers, seen through the wicket gate or over the privet hedge, the English cottage, above or below, near or in the distance, was alike the delight and envy of the traveler, the theme of the journalist and the poet. 'There is scarce a cottage,' says an American tourist just landed ...
— Woodward's Country Homes • George E. Woodward
... assented. Orde walked with him down the deep-shaded driveway with the clipped privet hedge on one side, to the iron gate that swung open when one drove over a projecting lever. ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... sort of island—mill, out-offices and garden. As the mill was on the very top of the ridge the garden which lay seawards was sheltered by the building from the west, and from the east by a thick hedge of thorn and privet, which quite hid it from the roadway. Stephen took the lower road. Finding no entrance save a locked wooden door she followed round to the western side, where the business side of the mill had been. It was all still now and silent, and that it had long fallen into disuse was shown ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... readily assume the shapes he chose to give them,—now, having been left so many years untilled and untrimmed, abandoned to the weeds and the grass, to the frost and the wind, the rain and the drought, it presented a very singular appearance indeed. The close green walls of privet, that had bordered the principal walk, were two-thirds withered away, and the rest grown beyond all reasonable bounds; the old boxwood swan, that sat beside the scraper, had lost its neck and half its body: the castellated towers of laurel ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... of a low tree, the Santalum Album, resembling the privet, and growing on the coast of Malabar, in the Indian Archipelago, etc. The hard yellow wood in the center of the old sandal tree is highly esteemed for its fragrant perfume and is much ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... made the least possible noise, for fear of awakening the farm-dogs; but these slept in an out-house of the great farmyard, which lay on the far side of the building. Here the moon shone into a diminutive garden with box-bordered flower-beds, and half a dozen bee-skips in row against a hedge of privet, and at the end of the gravelled walk a white ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... tree-surrounded knoll and looking down upon the grassy slope that formed the most beautiful "front yard" in the whole county, according to the proud and boastful denizens of Windomville. Along the bottom of the lawn ran a neatly trimmed privet hedge. There were lilac bushes in the lower corners of the extensive grounds, and the wide gravel walk up to the house was lined with flowers. Rose bushes guarded the base of the terrace that ran the full length of ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... say that I enjoyed leaving her behind me in the gathering dark, the wind blowing her about with no more reverence than if she had been a bush of privet. Nor was it with a light heart that I bore her repulse as I slowly climbed the hill to the house. However, a little personal mortification is wholesome—though I cannot say either that I derived much consolation from ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... and advancing, found ourselves amongst downs bounded by forests and purpled with thyme. This sort of prospect extending for several leagues, I walked on the turf, and inhaled with avidity the fresh gales that blew over its herbage, till I came to a steep slope overgrown with privet and a variety of luxuriant shrubs in blossom; there reposing beneath its shade, I gathered flowers, listened to the bees, observed their industry, and idled away a few minutes with great fascination. A cloudless sky and bright sunshine ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... fairly good although the wet after the frost has caused two falls in the cellar excavations, and we have had to put drain pipes to carry water out, though not much accumulated.... During the week some horses in the field have not only eaten off the tops of the privet hedge, but have torn up some dozens of the plants by the roots, by putting their heads over the 4-foot wire fence. I am therefore obliged in self-defence to raise the post a foot higher and put barbed wire along the top of it. Some cows ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... along Carriford village street were not so close but that on one side or other of the road was always a hedge of hawthorn or privet, over or through which could be seen gardens or orchards rich with produce. It was about the middle of the early apple-harvest, and the laden trees were shaken at intervals by the gatherers; the soft pattering ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... with marjoram and thyme, Which grows unset. The hedgerows do not want The cowslip, violet, primrose, nor a plant That freshly scents: as birch, both green and tall; Low sallows, on whose blooming bees do fall; Fair woodbines, which about the hedges twine; Smooth privet, and the sharp-sweet eglantine, With many moe whose leaves and blossoms fair The earth adorn ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)
... back much of the charm of the old-time gardens by a judicious use of trellis. It is suitable for every form of outdoor construction. A new garden can be subdivided and made livable in a few months with trellis screens, where hedges, even of the quick growing privet, would take years to grow. The entrance to the famous maze at Versailles, now, alas, utterly destroyed, was in trellis, and I have reproduced in our own garden at Villa Trianon, in Versailles, the ...
— The House in Good Taste • Elsie de Wolfe
... self-deceptions which the rule of man has begotten in women, she didn't try to conceal from herself the fact that she on her side was by no means without interest in the question how soon he would pay her his promised visit. As he appeared at the rustic gate in the privet hedge, Herminia looked out, and changed color with pleasure when she ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... Bernard, past Lord Bandon's beautiful old castle covered with exquisite ivy, out through a second gate, over the railway, a drive of twenty minutes in all, and so up to the gates of St. Brenda's. A private road of about half a mile long, hedged on either side by privet and hawthorn and golden furze, leads to the avenue proper, the entrance gate which is flanked by two handsome deodars. It takes a few minutes more to arrive at a large, square, ivy-clad house, and ere there is time to take in an idea of its gardens and surroundings, the great hall ...
— Mrs. Hungerford - Notable Women Authors of the Day • Helen C. Black
... aspect testified frankly of his breed and his sort. And at sight of him entering you could almost see the gorge of Deputy Commissioner Donohue's race antagonism rising inside of him. His gray hackles stiffened and his thick-set eyebrows bristled outward like bits of frosted privet. Again he began whetting his forefinger on the leather back of the closed docket book. It was generally a bad sign for somebody when Donohue whetted his forefinger like that, and La Farge would have delighted to note it. But La Farge's appraising eyes ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... something flashed over her, that made her more beautiful than she was in her silk dress going to town to help Lucy give a party, and her voice was sweet as the bubbling warbler on the garden fence when he was trying to coax a mate into the privet bush to nest. ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... and there I would often meet an old countryman, and talk to him about his work and about the woods, and once or twice a friend came with me to whom he would open his heart more readily than to me, He had spent all his life lopping away the witch elm and the hazel and the privet and the hornbeam from the paths, and had thought much about the natural and supernatural creatures of the wood. He has heard the hedgehog—"grainne oge," he calls him— "grunting like a Christian," and is certain that he steals apples by rolling about under an apple ...
— The Celtic Twilight • W. B. Yeats
... room, jerked open the curtains and stared out across the moon-bathed lawn, its prospect terminated by high privet hedges. One of the French windows was wide open. There was no one on the lawn; there was ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... went to her train. When they went downstairs Adam, Jr., had a horse hitched and Adam, 3d, drove her to her home, where, at the foot of the garden, they took one long survey of the landscape and hid the telescope behind the privet bush. Then Adam drove away quietly, Kate entered the dooryard from the garden, and soon afterward went to the wash room and ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... about Colchester, and then go back to my native town. My maternal grandmother was a little, round, old lady, with a ruddy, healthy tinge on her face. She lived in Queen Street in a house dated 1619 over the doorway. There was a pleasant garden at the back, and the scent of a privet hedge in it has never to this day left me. In one of the rooms was a spinet. The strings were struck with quills, and gave a thin, twangling, or rather twingling sound. In that house I was taught by ...
— The Early Life of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... down to 3000 ft. we have wild olive, species of rock-rose, wild privet, acacias and mimosas, barberry and Zizyphus; and in the eastern ramifications of the chain, Chamaerops humilis (which is applied to a variety of useful purposes), Bignonia or trumpet flower, sissu, Salvadora persica, verbena, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... all that, Tom?" asked Harding, when they were once more in the carriage and rolling along the privet-hedged lanes. ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... Navajo blanket. The well-kept grounds, with trailing vines around the balustrades, groups of marble statuary, a fountain of a marble Venus gracefully splashing water into a wide basin in which floated large, white lilies, privet hedges, artistically clipped to represent all kinds of fantastic figures, rattan lounging chairs, and tables with the leading papers and magazines—all suggested a home of culture and wealth. So close was the house to the edge of the declivity that ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... the young man a signal seen only by him and slipped out into the side-garden, where he found her when his purchases were made. She leaned over the privet-hedge to ...
— Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages • Rudyard Kipling, Ella D'Arcy, Arthur Morrison, Arthur Conan Doyle,
... that the dirty pair of sparrows who live opposite our window are really making love and going to build, notwithstanding all their twittering. But morning after morning rises fresh and gentle; there is no longer any voice in the air; we drop our over-coats; we rejoice in the green shoots which the privet hedge is making in the square garden, and hail the returning tender-pointed leaves of the plane-trees as friends; we go out of our way to walk through Covent Garden Market to see the ever-brightening show of flowers ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... various parts of the northern island, are found those extraordinary productions called vegetable caterpillars, the hotete of the natives. In appearance, the caterpillar differs but little from that of the common privet sphinx-moth, after it has descended to the ground, previously to its undergoing the change into the chrysalis state. But the most remarkable characteristic of the vegetable caterpillar is, that every one has a very ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 81, May 17, 1851 • Various
... smiling meads how sweet the brook's repose, To the rough ocean and red restless sands! Where are the woodland voices that increased Along the unseen path on festal days, When lay the dry and outcast arbutus On the fane step, and the first privet-flowers Threw their white light upon the vernal shrine?" Some heedless trip along with hasty step Whistling, and fix too soon on their abodes: Haply and one among them with his spear Measures the lintel, if so great its height As will receive him with his helm unlowered. ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor
... were unwearied afield, and oft would lie out a-nights, since they loved the lark's song better than the mouse's squeak; but as their kirtles shifted at neck and wrist, you might see their skins as white as privet-flower where they were wont ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... continued frequent up to within a short period of the present time. Once or twice a week he called in professionally; he would also occasionally drop in for an hour in the evening. Some people passing Chalk Cottage (that was what it was named) had contrived to stretch their necks over the high privet hedge which hid the lower part of the dwelling from the road, and were immensely gratified by the fact of seeing Dr. West in the parlour, seated at tea with the family. How the doctor was questioned, especially in the earlier period of their residence, he alone could tell. Who were ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... even more appalling than the reasoning of the biologist. But is there not a little flaw somewhere? We take a branch from a privet-hedge and shake it; some tiny eggs fall down. In time a large ugly caterpillar comes from each egg; but, according to the mathematical men, the caterpillar does not exist, since the egg has become naught. Good! The caterpillar wraps itself in a winding thread, and we have an egg-shaped lump ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... said Sancho, "for I feel as if I was speaking through my shoulders; let us mount and get away from this; I'll keep from braying, but not from saying that knights-errant fly and leave their good squires to be pounded like privet, or made meal of at ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... of Russell Square offered me, which privilege I shall most thankfully accept. Walking regularly is, of course, essential, and though I rather dread the idea of solitarily turning round and round that dreary emblem of eternity, a circular gravel-walk, over-gloomed with soot-blackened privet bushes, I am sure I ought, and I mean to do it every day for an hour. We do not dine till six, when I do not act, and when I do, I do not go to the theater till that hour; so that from ten in the morning, when breakfast is over, I get a tolerably long ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... from her, down into my garden, where the day grew hot and the flowers were beginning to droop. I stared upon them and could find no solution to the problem that worked in my heart. And then I glanced up, eastward, to the sun above the privet-hedge, and saw him coming across the flower beds, treading them down in wantonness. He came with a light step and a smile, and I waited for him, leaning ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... as the French rather contemptuously referred to this fine old English gentleman, said frankly of Chantilly: "All this has cost dear and produced a result far from pleasing." He would have been better pleased doubtless with a privet or box hedge and an imitation plaster rockery, things which have never agreed with French taste, but which were the rule in pretentious English gardens of the same period. Rigby must indeed have been a "grincheau," as the French called him, for this same up-country gentleman said ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... passing the end of the Doctor's wall, the elephant, now fully at liberty, found itself by the tall, well-clipped mingled hawthorn-and-privet hedge that enclosed the lawn-like, verdant cricket-field, at the far side of which there was a grand row of old elms which brought back to the escaped animal memories of Indian forests and pendant boughs covered with fresh green leaves that could be torn down and eaten; and, ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... they were passing the privet hedge which surrounded Miss Bassett's house and garden; and a sound caused both to glance around. The front door had just been opened; and a gentleman was descending the steps,—a young gentleman in neat clerical garb, his guileless ...
— A Fair Barbarian • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... in the proper season, these unshapely bushes might become things of beauty, and not only look better, but will do better, if given a severe trimming in the spring. Hedges of Privet, Purple Barberry, and Japan Quince, look much prettier along the walk than the old-fashioned fences, which are now being ...
— Your Plants - Plain and Practical Directions for the Treatment of Tender - and Hardy Plants in the House and in the Garden • James Sheehan
... him—she yielded to the liquid calling of a thrush in the thickening lilacs, and had gone out. There she stayed till it was dark, in a favourite place—a circular garden of her contriving, with a pond, and a golden privet hedge, so arranged as to throw yellow reflections in the water. Standing there, it grew perfectly dark—deeply and softly dark. The night had come down warm and wet, like manifold blue-black gauze. She heard his quick, light step. Her heart hammered, but she did not ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... the laurels outside the church windows, and the musty smell of red rep cushions along the pew where the hours were very slow in passing; the white clover in the field behind the garden, got at easily through a hole in the privet hedge. The play of light and shadow over the hills of home, the dusk at nightfall, and the homely cawing of rooks. All the delicious things that went with the smell of ripe strawberries under nets, where ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... horses, and it was late in the dark morning when he returned and we were able to resume our journey. In the middle of another night we came to a stop by an ancient, whitewashed cottage of two stories; a privet hedge surrounded it; the frosty moon shone blankly on the upper windows; but through those of the kitchen the firelight was seen glinting on the roof and reflected from the dishes on the wall. Here, after much hammering on the door, King managed to arouse ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the short down grass find the plants that love chalk-ground, like the little blue milkwort, which spreads like a film over the higher slopes of the ridge in summer. If the roadside is scented with flowers, so are the hedges. Guelder rose and dog rose and privet blossom side by side with elder and spindle wood; above holly and hazel and buckthorn stand up gnarled and wind-driven yews, bent over the road from the south-west. To the south, it is often only through the ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... flinging his bridle to his companion, and ordering him to ride off to a little distance, he followed Jack, who had quitted the main road, and struck into a narrow path opposite the cage. This path, bordered on each side by high privet hedges of the most beautiful green, soon brought them ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... thatched house fell upon the left of the highway, and in front of it a sign-post sprang into view, with a drinking-trough below. Directly opposite, the two blue roofs ranged themselves side by side, with long strips of garden and a thick privet hedge between them and the road. And behind, in the direction of the marsh, the poplars ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... at the neat, green-verandahed cottage, half-hidden by the cropped trees and a well kept privet hedge, and noted as they entered the gate that there was a cane armchair just outside the French window, sheltered by the broad veranda, and that there were many wheel-marks on the gravel, suggestive of perambulators and children; ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... point of the hills and made a very imposing vista from the driveway—an English house with long wings at either side, flanked by terraces, lawns and gardens, guarded from the intrusive eyes of the highway by a high privet hedge. The tennis courts seemed to be the center of interest and in a corner of the terrace which faced the bay were some people taking tea and watching a match of singles between Reggie Armistead and their hostess. The chauffeur took the suit case to the butler and Olga Tcherny led ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... cried the young lady. And breaking through the low privet hedge which separated the domains, she vanished beneath him with a low ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Osmani quinces and Omani[FN141] peaches, and cucumbers of Nile growth, and Egyptian limes and Sultani oranges and citrons; besides Aleppine jasmine, scented myrtle berries, Damascene nenuphars, flower of privet[FN142] and camomile, blood red anemones, violets, and pomegranate bloom, eglantine and narcissus, and set the whole in the Porter's crate, saying, "Up with it." So he lifted and followed her till she stopped at a butcher's booth and said, "Cut ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... building,—half on dry ground and half arched over the stream. The road here drew in its shoulders, and crept through between the landward extremity of the mill and a little garden enclosure, with a small house and a large signboard within its privet hedge. I was pleased to fancy this an inn, and drew little etchings in fancy of a sanded parlour, and three-cornered spittoons, and a society of parochial gossips seated within over their churchwardens; but as I drew near, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ornamental and hardy: Tricolor is considered one of the best light-coloured variegated plants grown. L. Coriaceum is a slow-growing, compact bush with very dark, shining green leaves, which are round, thick, and leathery. Privet will grow in any soil or situation, and is readily increased by cuttings planted in the ...
— Gardening for the Million • Alfred Pink
... adorned with beautiful evergreens, which sprang up spontaneously in every nook and crevice. I remarked many of our favourite garden shrubs among these wildings of nature: the fillagree, with its narrow, dark glossy-green leaves; the privet, with its modest white blossoms and purple berries; the lignum-vitae, with its strong resinous odour; the burnet-rose, and a ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... south of Kiutahya. Leaving at noon, we ascended the gorge behind the city, by delightfully embowered paths, at first under the eaves of superb walnut-trees, and then through wild thickets of willow, hazel, privet, and other shrubs, tangled together with the odorous white honeysuckle. Near the city, the mountain-sides were bare white masses of gypsum and other rock, in many places with the purest chrome-yellow hue; but as we advanced they were ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... school—a Duxbury of summer cottages, white and green along the shore, green and brown under the pines. Of these summer homes many are new: the Wright estate is one of the finest on the South Shore, and the pleasant, spacious dwelling distinguished by its handsome hedge of English privet formerly belonged to Fanny Davenport, the actress. Others are old houses, very tastefully, almost affectionately remodeled by those for whom the things of the past have a special lure. These remodeled cottages are, perhaps, the prettiest ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... at it years ago, when the building was in course of construction. The wooden fence that she had thought so stiff and ugly then was all weak and old, green and moss-covered, completely broken down in many places. Inside, the privet hedge had grown broad and thick; and this barrier, although any one could easily thrust himself through it, was evidently considered sufficient, since no trouble had been taken to repair the outer fence. Indeed, what protective barriers could be needed ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... smaller gate for pedestrians. The former, barring the way to a weed- and grass-grown drive, was hermetically sealed by rust; while the other was just as permanently fixed open by the accumulation of earth and gravel about its lower part. Two parallel rows of ragged, untrimmed privet designated the tortuous way of the drive to ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... birds, but a few white or blue butterflies are still left. Flowers are becoming rare—a few daisies in the fields, some blue or yellow chicories and colchicums, some wild geraniums growing among fragments of old walls, and the brown berries of the privet—this is all we were able to find. In the fields they are digging potatoes, beating down the nuts, and beginning the apple harvest. The leaves are thinning and changing color; I watch them turning red on the pear-trees, gray ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... resort ads in the Sunday edition; and it was some prize pick, believe me! 'A quiet, refined patronage of exclusive people,' the picture pamphlet puts it, and I says to Deary, 'Me for that, with three wardrobe trunks full of glad rags.' So you can tell your friend with the face privet that we got to the country after all. Did I miss my guess? Never a miss! Why, say, some of these swell parties lives on West End avenue and the Drive, and I can call half of 'em by their first names. Can't ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... insects were captured, among which was a very fine puss moth, whose downy appearance made it a great object of attraction to the boys, as was also one of those noble-looking insects, the privet hawk moth, which was also captured, with gold-tails, tigers, etc, etc; and at last, regularly tired out, the lads walked quietly along by the side of Mr Inglis, listening to the mellow evening notes of the cuckoo, the distant lowing of the cows, and the occasional "tink, tink" ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... and the privet pale Compared, and Tibur's whitest ivory fail; The Spartan swan, the Paphian doves deplore Their hue, and pearls on the ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... smiling on the dew that covers The tearful roses—lo, the little lovers— That kiss the buds and all the flutterings In jasmine bloom, and privet, of white wings That go and come, and fly, and peep, and hide With muffled music, murmured far and wide! Ah, Springtime, when we think of all the lays That dreamy lovers send to dreamy Mays, Of the proud hearts within a billet bound, Of all the soft silk paper that ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... the desolate suburbs of Brighton or Bexhill. In a commanding position upon the crest of a hill, it overlooked miles of undulating, wooded country southwards to the Downs, but behind it, to the north, thick banks of ilex, holly, and privet protected it from the cleaner and more stimulating winds. Hence, though highly placed, it was shut in. Three years had passed since I last set eyes upon, it, but the unsightly memory I had retained was justified by the reality. The place ...
— The Damned • Algernon Blackwood
... named the Ligustrum (our Privet) Primrose. Coles says concerning it (17th century): "This herbe is called Primrose; it is good to 'Potage.'" They also applied the epithet, ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... it all in, the privet-white panels, the lovely faded Persian rugs, the curtains of old rose damask. An armchair and a round table with a bowl of pink tulips on it stood in the centre of ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... and privet dark as night, I weave with hips and haws a cheerful show, And holly for a beauty and delight, And ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... well that they are not even marked. How we advance rapidly in discoveries, and in applying every thing to every thing! Here is another secret, that will better answer your purpose, and I hope mine too. They found out lately at the Duke of Argyle's, that any kind of ink may be made of privet: it becomes green ink by mixing salt of tartar. I don't know the process; but I am promised it by Campbell, who told me of it t'other day, when I carried him the true genealogy of the Bentleys, which ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... his first move, after taking a glance at the particular brand of cook-stove he'd got to wrestle with. Just to the left of the kitchen wing is a little plot shut in by privet bushes and a trellis, which is where he says the fine herbes are meant to grow. He tows us around there and exhibits it chesty. Mostly it's full of last year's weeds; but he explains how he will soon have it in shape. And for the next week the only way we ever got any meals cooked ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... even distinguished that one of them was marked with the name of 'Hyams,' who was Oldacre's tailor. I then worked the lawn very carefully for signs and traces, but this drought has made everything as hard as iron. Nothing was to be seen save that some body or bundle had been dragged through a low privet hedge which is in a line with the wood-pile. All that, of course, fits in with the official theory. I crawled about the lawn with an August sun on my back, but I got up at the end of an hour ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... 128. LIGUSTRUM vulgare. PRIVET.—A shrub of somewhat humble growth, very useful for forming hedges where shelter is wanted more than strength. It bears clipping, and forms a very ornamental fence. There is a variety of this with ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury
... through the long winters. In sheltered situations, there were even hardy roses, and a royal plenty of England's spring flowers sweetened many months of the year. A homely garden, where berries and roses grew together and privet hedges sheltered peas and lettuce, and tulips and wall-flowers did not disdain the proximity of ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... Sam, gently, as he puffed at a little brier which he had substituted for the adorable cob on account of the formality of Sue's dance, which we could hear going on comfortably without us, beyond the privet hedge whose buds were just beginning to give forth a delicious tang, "Peter is a great, queer kind of sensitive plant that it may be we will have to help cultivate. You know that for several years his poems have really got across in ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess
... are most suitable?" The answer to this question was given from the experiments of the essayist during the last forty years. The deciduous plants tried were the buckthorn, Osage orange, honey-locust, privet and barberry. The evergreens were the Norway spruce, ...
— The Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56, No. 2, January 12, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... by what rule do you measure the amount of my regard for Lady Stafford?" exclaims Sir Penthony, walking through an open space in the privet hedge that skirts this corner of the garden, where he has been spell-bound for the last two minutes. A short time, no doubt, though a great deal can be ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... branches of a white mulberry tree formed a canopy for the entire yard before Jefferson Henry's gray-painted cottage. Luxuriant hydrangeas in wooden tubs, August lilies in other containers on the old-fashioned flower steps, and a carefully pruned privet hedge gave the place an air of distinction in this shabby neighborhood, and it was not surprising to learn that a preacher, a man highly respected by ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... mauve, white, and yellow, glimmered along a dripping privet hedge which crowned the brick and granite wall bounding the domain of Seagrave. East, through the trees, they could see the roofs of electric cars speeding up and down Madison Avenue, and the houses facing that avenue. North and south were quiet streets; westward Fifth Avenue ran, a ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... hundred yards away. Plunging through more dykes I arrived at the trees, only to find that they were growing in a small garden and orchard which surrounded a large farm-house. As no one appeared to be stirring, and the discovery of an immediate hiding-place was essential, I commenced explorations. The privet hedge surrounding this oasis proved to be very thin and there were no convenient little bushes. I had just borrowed a good supply of apples from mine host, and had almost decided to seek shelter in an outhouse as a last resource, when I came upon a fair-sized heap of sticks, ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... "hoc ligustrum, a Primerose;" and in a Pictorial Vocabulary of the same date we have "hoc ligustrum, A{ce} a Prymrose;" and in the "Promptorium Parvulorum," "Prymerose, primula, calendula, ligustrum"—and this name for the Privet lasted with a slight alteration into Shakespeare's time. Turner in 1538 says, "ligustrum arbor est non herba ut literator[u] vulgus credit; nihil que minus est quam a Prymerose." In Tusser's "Husbandry" we have "set Privie or ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe |
