"Sprig" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... quiet old gentleman, of whom I have spoken as sitting opposite to me, is no exception to the rule. She brought down some mignonette one morning, which she had grown in her chamber. She gave a sprig to her little neighbor, and one to the landlady, and sent another by the hand of Bridget ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... at times prompted it to attack the eagle), was observed to direct its flight towards the senate-house, consecrated by Pompey, whilst a crowd of other birds were seen to hang upon its flight in close pursuit. What might be the object of the chase, whether the little king himself, or a sprig of laurel which he bore in his mouth, could not be determined. The whole train, pursuers and pursued, continued their flight towards Pompey's hall. Flight and pursuit were there alike arrested; the little king was overtaken by his enemies, who fell upon him as so many ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 570, October 13, 1832 • Various
... said Cuchulainn. 'If a flock of birds graze upon Mag Murthemne, you shall have a duck with half of another; if fish come to the estuaries, you shall have a salmon with half of another. You shall have the three sprigs, the sprig of watercress, and the sprig of marshwort, and the sprig of seaweed. You shall have a man in the ford in your place.' [Note: This and the following speech are apparently forms of greeting. Cuchulainn offers Lugaid such hospitality as lies ...
— The Cattle-Raid of Cualnge (Tain Bo Cualnge) • Unknown
... with the king, and is treated with all possible deference and respect. He has a palatial stable; and being a king, he lives like one. His servants and attendants are all priests. But he is not a pleasant sprig of royalty, and the visitors were warned not to go ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... the art of crushing the mint leaves with a bit of sugar, in each glass. Into this, at the proper moment was added the crushed ice to the brim and, as a jigger or two of liquor flowed over the ingredients, the glasses frosted and were topped with a sprig of mint. The pleasantness of the drink was not deemed its single virtue, for there was a very sincere belief in the efficacy of this refreshment in the promotion of good health and, particularly, in warding off the current fevers that plagued ...
— Domestic Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century - Jamestown 350th Anniversary Historical Booklet Number 17 • Annie Lash Jester
... 'Charlie's come hame'. And Tam Crichtoun o' the Bourhopehead got a sough o' it one simmers' morning, and the last we heard o' Tam he was fechting like a deil among the Frenchmen. Once I heard a tinkler play a sprig of it on the pipes, and a' the lads were wud to follow him. Gang your ways for I am near ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... throne, and the story of his dangers and his escape was made known throughout the kingdom, thousands of visitors came to look upon the faithful tree which had thus afforded his majesty its unconscious but effectual protection. Every one took away a leaf or a sprig for a souvenir, and when, at last, the proprietor found that there was danger that the whole tree would be carried away unless he interposed, he fenced it in and tilled the ground around it, to defend it from further mutilation. ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott
... opening in the wall. In this box I found my dinner which I proceeded to enjoy in solitude. The food was more varied than in the hospital. Some was liquid and some gelatinous, and some firm like bread or biscuit. But of natural food products there was nothing save a dish of mushrooms and a single sprig of green no longer than my finger, and which, like a feather in a boy's cap, was inserted conspicuously in the top of a synthetic pudding. There was one food that puzzled me, for it was sausage-like in form and sausage-like in flavour, and I was sure contained some real substance of animal ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... a moment, plucked a small sprig from a lilac-bush, smelled it and threw it away. "I am not very sure ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... that do wound the spirit, For such a pensive hour of soothing silence. Kind Nature, shuffling in her loose undress, Lays bare her shady bosom; I can feel With all around me;—I can hail the flowers That sprig earth's mantle,—and yon quiet bird, That rides the stream, is to me as a brother. The vulgar know not all the hidden pockets, Where Nature stows away her loveliness. But this unnatural posture of my legs Cramps my extended ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... dwell in that bright orb, where, as has been fondly imagined, "the wretched may have rest."—"And here," replied Philemon, "we do nothing but fret and fume if our fancied merits are not instantly rewarded, or if another wear a sprig of laurel more verdant than ourselves; I could mention, within my own recollection, a hundred instances of this degrading prostitution of talent—aye, a thousand."—"Gently reprimand your fellow creatures," resumed Lysander, "lest you commit an error as great as any of those which ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... up to Captain Frere's house with a return from Troke, and coming back through the garden had plucked a flower. Dawes had asked him for this flower, offering two days' rations for it. Hankey, who is not a bad-hearted man, gave him the sprig. "There were tears in his eyes as he took ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... the name, and then noticed for the first time that both father and son wore in their velvet caps a short dry sprig of the broom-plant. He sprang to the ground and came forward on foot, bareheaded, and stood ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... both the sprig and the remains of the tree were exhibited in his time. The tragedians, Lucretius and others, adopted a different fable to account for the stoppage at Aulis, and seem to have found the sacrifice of Iphigena better suited to form the subject of a tragedy. Compare Dryden's ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... kind of dissipation or expansion, especially a quick one, particularly if there be an r, as if it were from spargo or separo: for example, spread, spring, sprig, sprout, sprinkle, split, splinter, spill, spit, ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... find it very difficult by themselves to drag the heavy mass that comes after. Their assistant, the anal finger, is remarkably strong. With no support, the larva turns over, head downwards, and remains suspended when shifting from one sprig to another. This Jack-in-the-bowl is a rope-dancer, a consummate acrobat, performing its evolutions amid the slender sprigs without ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... sunny hours Ardita's idea of the episode as incidental, madcap, a sprig of romance in a desert of reality, gradually left her. She dreaded the time when he would strike off southward; she dreaded all the eventualities that presented themselves to her; thoughts were suddenly troublesome ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... crowded city was so new and strange and dismal. How the mother longed amid its dust and smoke for the sweet air of Hawthorn, for a sprig of lilac, or a June rose from the garden. Once in a rare while she succeeded in getting to church. It was a difficult thing to bring about, though; when nothing happened to prevent, the carriage was driven there, but apparently in that family there were more hindrances ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... the news that night, but it was not necessary; she had seen Ralph and Cicely coming through the garden gate without a leaf of lettuce or a single sprig of parsley. ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... walked off, with a sprig of mint in his mouth. He was not a bad man, as men go. He was simply a man who wanted to please himself, and to be comfortable and easy. In his eyes the whole fabric of the universe revolved round Matthew ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... not, and on this point there can be little real doubt. The German theory that Baldr could only be killed by his own sword, which was therefore disguised by enchantment and used against him, and that the Icelandic writers misunderstood this to mean a mistletoe sprig, is far-fetched and romantic, and crumbles at a touch. For if, as it is claimed, the Icelanders had no mistletoe, why should they introduce it into a story to which it did not belong? They might preserve it by tradition, but they would ...
— The Edda, Vol. 1 - The Divine Mythology of the North, Popular Studies in Mythology, - Romance, and Folklore, No. 12 • Winifred Faraday
... a little out of the regular performance, last evening; no less than the caning of a New York sprig of fashion, who made himself rather more agreeable to a certain married lady who dashes about here in a queenly way than was agreeable to her husband. The affair was hushed up. This morning I missed the lady from her usual place at the breakfast-table. Later in the day I learned that her husband ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... person, which was such certainly as to deserve his care. On this occasion he was more than usually particular. He did not scruple to discard the white cravat. For this he substituted a handkerchief which had the prettiest sprig of lilac, on a ground of the most delicato lemon color. He consulted complexions, and his mirror determined him in favor of this pattern. Brother Stevens would not have worn it had he been summoned, in his new vocation, to preach or pray ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... that sermon," said a young sprig of divinity, "in half an hour, and preached it at once, and thought nothing of it." "In that," said an older minister, "your hearers are at one with you, for they also ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... continued until all the flowers were gone. One had been taken by a carter, another by a donkey-driver, another by a muleteer, another by a man on a camel, and finally the last little sprig was eaten by a chicken. The servant was soundly berated each time and cautioned to be more careful, which she always promised but never performed, and was finally dismissed in disgrace without either a recommendation, or the wages she had ...
— The Chinese Boy and Girl • Isaac Taylor Headland
... in time to hear the whole story before he breathed his last. He put his arms round my neck and kissed me farewell. Then he died—bravely and without complaining, like a little hero. When his crushed wings had given their last quiver, I laid an oak leaf over his body and went to look for a sprig of forget-me-nots to put upon his grave. 'Sleep well, my little brother,' I cried, and flew off in the quiet of the evening. I flew toward the two red suns, the one in the sky and the one in the lake. No one has ever felt as sad and solemn ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels
... that sprig of red geranium from Glanyravon was placed in his coat by his little niece, and in spite of his better resolutions, when he went home, it was transferred to a glass, and treasured as long as imagination could fancy ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... Marlborough, and his grandfather's triumphal car are to close the procession. What would his grandame, if she were alive, say to this pageant? If the war lasts, I think well enough of him to believe he will earn a sprig; but I have no passion for trying on a crown of laurel, before I had acquired it. The French are said to be embarked at Dunkirk—lest I should seem to know more than any minister, I will not pretend ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... surface is placid the depths are turbulent. If Dublin is simmering, Belfast is boiling. The breed is different. The Northerner is not demonstrative, is slow to anger, but being moved is not easily appeased. The typical Irishman, with his cutaway coat, his pipe stuck in his conical caubeen, his "sprig of shillelagh," or bludgeon the Donnybrook Fair hero who "shpinds half a-crown, Mates wid a frind An' (for love) knocks him down" is totally unknown in these regions. The men who by their ability and industry have lifted Ireland out of the slough, given her prosperity and comparative affluence, ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... Herbert and the Young Lady Staying With Us. Jeremiah used to come in to that fireside very much as the Parson does to ours. The Parson, to be sure, never prophesies, but he grumbles, and is the chorus in the play that sings the everlasting ai ai of "I told you so!" Yet we like the Parson. He is the sprig of bitter herb that makes the pottage wholesome. I should rather, ten times over, dispense with the flatterers and the smooth-sayers than the grumblers. But the grumblers are of two sorts,—the healthful-toned and the whiners. There are ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... close the explanation of the emblems upon the solemn thought of death, which, without revelation, is dark and gloomy; but we are suddenly revived by the ever-green and ever-living Sprig of Faith which strengthens us, with confidence and composure, to look forward to a blessed immortality; and we doubt not that, on the glorious morn of the Resurrection, our bodies will rise and become as incorruptible ...
— Masonic Monitor of the Degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft and Master Mason • George Thornburgh
... dreams of home, of warmth and comfort. Something sharp, cold, and fragrant was scratching her eyes. She opened them. Glenn stood over her, pushing a sprig of cedar into ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... suspecting his approach, but soon apparently satisfied, she resumed her light chatter with her companion. Atma heard his own name, and gathered that they sought him. He made himself known, and the elder, who was Nama, the Maharanee's trusted servant, related how her mistress greatly desiring a sprig of White Ak, a tree of great virtue in incantations, had commissioned her to obtain it in the forest near by. She had also been charged, she said, to meet Atma Singh, and bring her illustrious ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer
... shoulder, and I see a back view of a little doll, the finishing touches to whose toilette are being put in the solitary street; a last maternal glance is given the enormous bows of the sash, the folds at the waist. Her dress is of pearl-gray silk, her obi (sash) of mauve satin; a sprig of silver flowers trembles in her black hair; a parting ray of sunlight touches the little figure; five or six persons accompany her. Yes! it is undoubtedly Mademoiselle Jasmin; they are ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... self-luminous, crystalline body placed in my hand by a hand which did not belong to any person in the room. In the light, I have seen a luminous cloud hover over a heliotrope on a side-table, break a sprig off, and carry it to a lady; and on some occasions I have seen a similar luminous cloud condense to the form of a hand and carry small objects about. During a seance in full light, a beautifully formed small hand rose up from ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... I picked a sprig of honeysuckle as I spoke and gave it to her, which she received kindly. This emboldened me. Perhaps after all I was not so hateful ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... "every thing that is a plant. Every different kind of sprig, or little weed, that you can find—mosses, ...
— Rollo in Rome • Jacob Abbott
... abroad— If wrong, I smiled; if right, I kiss'd the rod. Pains, reading, study, are their just pretence, And all they want is spirit, taste, and sense. 160 Commas and points they set exactly right, And 'twere a sin to rob them of their mite. Yet ne'er one sprig of laurel graced these ribalds, From slashing Bentley down to piddling Tibbalds: Each wight, who reads not, and but scans and spells, Each word-catcher, that lives on syllables, Even such small critics some regard may claim, Preserved ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... her repentant eyes in early days; he was affected with them—he felt that the latter part of his speech had hurt her—that she was not the fashionable belle, but still the good girl he must love and admire.—"Then," cried he, eagerly, "you will not marry that sprig of a ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland
... upon the plain of Murthemne, thou shalt have a wild goose with half the other. Should fish come to the falls or to the bays, thou shalt have a salmon with as much again. Thou shalt have the three sprigs, even a sprig of cresses, a sprig of laver, and a sprig of sea-grass; there will be a man to take thy place at the ford." "This welcome is truly meant," replied Lugaid; "the choice of people for the youth whom I desire!" "Splendid are your hosts," said Cuchulain. "It will be no misfortune," said Lugaid, ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... of veal, weighing about a pound and one-half, into a soup kettle, with a quart of water, one small onion, a sprig of parsley, a bay leaf, and the liquor drained from the clams, and simmer gradually for an hour and a half, skimming from time to time; strain the soup and again place it in the kettle; rub a couple of tablespoonfuls of butter with an equal amount of flour ...
— Good Things to Eat as Suggested by Rufus • Rufus Estes
... another form to the next comer who chances to know how to amuse them better." Are such garlands worth the sacrifice of artistic honor? If it were possible for the critic to withhold them and offer instead a modest sprig of enduring bay, would not the ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... point is this. I have been informed from undoubted authority, people who were about him at the time, and knew, that the reason he quarrelled with that nephew of his, who died two years ago, was the young man's having accepted a baronetage: and at that time old Palmer swore, that no sprig of quality—those were the very words—should ever inherit a shilling of his money. Such a ridiculous whim! But these London merchants, who make great fortunes from nothing, are apt to have their little eccentricities; and then, they have so much pride in their own way, and so ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... Catharine were some degrees less fair, that she might not catch that dangerous sort of admiration, or somewhat less holy, that she might sit down like an honest woman, contented with stout Henry Smith, who could protect his wife against every sprig of chivalry ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... them, and despises you. I cannot see you lowered thus, Jack. It has not been in my power to make a great man of you, but I have educated you to be an honest man. I have taken care of the tree, while young, and now it is grown up, one branch decays after the other. And if it must be so, that no green sprig shall henceforth flourish, then I will turn my eyes from it, visit it no more, nor live on the spot where the withered stem, that I am so fond of, ...
— The Lawyers, A Drama in Five Acts • Augustus William Iffland
... Scotty bent and plucked a sprig of mint from the patch next to the house and chewed it absently. "But we'll be able to show motive and method once they're in jail and Tyler can talk. And with Captain Killian's evidence, that will clear Tyler anyway. Why should we worry whether the Kelsos ...
— Smugglers' Reef • John Blaine
... very characteristic of its mistress. At Tallyn Henry Marsham had worked his will; here, in this house taken since his death, it was the will and taste of his widow which had prevailed. A gray paper with a small gold sprig upon it, sofas and chairs not too luxurious, a Brussels carpet, dark and unobtrusive, and chintz curtains; on the walls, drawings by David Cox, Copley Fielding, and De Wint; a few books with Mudie labels; costly photographs of friends and relations, especially of the relations' babies; on one ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Japanese garden is not a flower garden; neither is it made for the purpose of cultivating plants. In nine cases out of ten there is nothing in it resembling a flower-bed. Some gardens may contain scarcely a sprig of green; some have nothing green at all, and consist entirely of rocks and pebbles and sand, although these are exceptional. [1] As a rule, a Japanese garden is a landscape garden, yet its existence does not depend upon any fixed allowances of space. It may cover one acre or many acres. ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... sulphur, is well known. "Otherwise the perfume made of the gall of a black dog, and his bloode besmeared on the posts and walls of a house, driveth out of the doores, both devils and witches." A sprig of witch-elm sewn in the collar of the doublet, was celebrated amongst our great grandmothers as a specific against the malignant ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 355., Saturday, February 7, 1829 • Various
... of the snowy shroud were gathered about the throat, and upon it were crossed the slender hands, in which rested a fading sprig of white violets, placed there by some friend, as a fit emblem of the sleeper. Her sunny curls were smoothly bound back beneath the cap, and its border of transparent lace, threw a slight shadow upon the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... from that of the broom plant (Latin planta genesta), a sprig of which Henry's father used to wear in his hat. The family is also called Angevin, because Henry on his father's side descended from the counts ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... with the hand that had ruined her son's career. Much more important, it seemed clear enough to West that the boy had only been weak, and had been tempted into misbehavior by his older and more wilful comrade. West had never liked young Jones. He was a rawboned, unkempt sprig of the masses, who had not been included in any of the student suppers at the president's house. Jones's refusal to speak out fully on all the details of the affair pointed strongly, so West argued, to consciousness of damning guilt. The path of administrative duty appeared ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... the Netherlands, where he was deserted by his king and crushed by the superior genius of the Prince of Orange. Although he vindicated his martial skill at Gemblours, the victory was fruitless. It was but the solitary sprig of the tiger from his jungle, and after that striking conflict his life was ended in darkness and obscurity. Possessing military genius of a high order, with extraordinary personal bravery, he was the last of the paladins and the crusaders. His accomplishments ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... to the garden, and the pot was put in its place, again. And a week or two after, as grandmother was just going to make room in the earth for a new plant, she saw growing there a little green sprig, which was not a weed. She listened a moment, and heard the child's ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... when every sprig and leaf was glistening in the brilliant sunshine with its frosty dew, Preuss led Van away up the ravine to picket him on a little patch of grass he had discovered the day before and as he passed the ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... I have sewn a sprig of witch's elm in the neck of un's doublet, ever since that foul thief has begun his practices on man and ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... bouquet, or fagot, of sweet herbs, so often called for in foreign cooking, is made as follows: wash three or four sprigs of parsley, lay in their midst one sprig of thyme, and two bay leaves; fold the parsley over the thyme and bay leaves, tie it in a cork-shaped roll, about three inches long and one inch thick. The bouquet is used for seasoning soups, sauces, stews, and ...
— The Cooking Manual of Practical Directions for Economical Every-Day Cookery • Juliet Corson
... it light on a sprig too slight The feathery freight to bear, Yet, conscious of wings, tosses fearless, and sings, ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... the first landing, a bright and cheerful room papered with a rather cheap flower and sprig patterned paper, spring-like for all its cheapness, and just the background for children's heads when they wake ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... brigandine of chain-mail and his dinted steel cap showed that he was no holiday soldier, but one who was even now fresh from the wars. A white surcoat with the lion of St. George in red upon the centre covered his broad breast, while a sprig of new-plucked broom at the side of his head-gear gave a touch of gayety and grace to his grim, ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... such a boatman. This determination was hastened when she saw that instead of the three-decker steamer of her native land, the ferry at Wittisham was just like an ordinary row-boat; that one rang a bell hanging from a picturesque tower; that a nice young man with a sprig of wallflower in his cap rowed one across, and that each passenger handed out a penny to him on ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... really my poor are improving so wonderfully. If you could see my cottages, Miss Fermor!" (she did not say, "their cottages.") "I give a prize for the cleanest floors and windows, an illuminated ticket for the neatest garden-beds. I don't suppose you could get a sprig of groundsel for love or money in Arden village. I have actually to cultivate it in a corner of the kitchen-garden for my canaries. I give another prize at Christmas for the most economical household management, accorded to the family which has dined oftenest without meat in ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... matter as if it was the first thing to be done; her little orderly methods. She kept her mother's room neat, she put the books back in their places; there was a cluster of autumn leaves in a vase, or a sprig of spruce or cedar that for a long while would put forth new leaves. She was very glad now that she had taken so much pains. Was she rather unpolished when they had first come from Laconia. But her circle there was ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... country birth. There was an indefinable atmosphere of goodness about her; I felt as if I were breathing sincerity and frank innocence. It was refreshing to my lungs. Poor innocent child, she had faith in something; there was a crucifix and a sprig or two of green box above her poor little painted wooden bedstead; I felt touched, or somewhat inclined that way. I felt ready to offer to charge no more than twelve per cent, and so give something towards establishing her in a ...
— Gobseck • Honore de Balzac
... soft temperature. It was not dark, for two little stars, a pale sun and a red moon, alternately illumined all parts. King Loc descended into the well and found Nur in his laboratory. Nur looked like a kind little old man, and he wore a sprig of wild thyme in his hood. In spite of his learning he had the innocence and candour characteristic of ...
— Honey-Bee - 1911 • Anatole France
... your eye before it does your palate. When I ordered fried eggs, they were brought on a snow-white napkin, which was artistically folded upon a piece of ornamented tissue-paper that covered a china plate; if I asked for cold ham, it came in flakes, arrayed like great rose-leaves, with a green sprig or two of parsley dropped upon it, and surrounded by a border of calfs'-foot jelly, like a setting of crystals. The bread revealed new qualities in the wheat, it was so sweet and nutty; and the fried potatoes, with which your beefsteak comes snowed ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... his followers, who were just quitting the lists, which they also were in the habit of visiting nearly every day. As the two parties passed one another, the Earl spoke to a gentleman walking beside him and in a voice loud enough to be clearly overheard by the others: "Yonder is the young sprig of Falworth," said he. "His father, my Lords, is not content with forfeiting his own life for his treason, but must, forsooth, throw away his son's also. I have faced and overthrown many a ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... of mind—perhaps in a more literal absence of mind than is usually understood by the phrase—had smelt so hard at a sprig in his hand as to be on the verge of the offence in question. He smiled, said, 'I ask your pardon, my dear,' and threw it ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... handful of parsley, a sprig of thyme, a small bay leaf, and six green onions, tied securely ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 355, October 16, 1886 • Various
... his daughter Katrina and what would come with her in the shape of fat farm-lands and well-stocked barns, aroused Ichabod's affections to the boiling point. He had a rival, however, "Brom Bones," a young black-headed sprig, who watched Ichabod's advances uneasily. After the party Ichabod mounted his old horse, Gunpowder, as bony as he, but no sooner was he well under way than he heard hoof beats on the road behind him and saw, glimmering ...
— The Greatest Highway in the World • Anonymous
... under the pines, beside Lewis Mavor; and the miners threw sprigs of evergreen into the open grave. When Slavin, sobbing bitterly, brought his sprig, no one stopped him, though all ...
— Black Rock • Ralph Connor
... the pew, winkless as a demon hearing a new candidate suspected of shakiness on a "a card'nal p'int," and mortified almost to death poor old Mrs. Pringle, who, compassionating his years, had handed him a sprig of her "meetin'-seed" over the back of the seat, by saying, in a loud and stern voice: "I don't eat things ...
— A Brace Of Boys - 1867, From "Little Brother" • Fitz Hugh Ludlow
... lbs. lean beef. 1 small onion. A sprig of parsley. 1 qt. cold water. 1 stalk celery, or 1/2 tsp. celery seed. ...
— Public School Domestic Science • Mrs. J. Hoodless
... 24 C S.—18 c s, unite on twelfth. D c round this loop twenty-two times. S c up remaining c s for stalk. Fasten off, leaving an end to sew the sprig on the mat. Turn wrong side up. Commence on fifth stitch from stalk on the right-hand side of the flower, * 10 c s, unite in same stitch. Turn again. Into this circle work 18 d c stitches *. Turn wrong side up. S c up to top of ring formed by 18 c s; ...
— The Lady's Album of Fancy Work for 1850 • Unknown
... partiality; 'for indeed the fruits of a puffed-up heart is to deal in this manner with Christians' (1 Cor 4:6, 7). Now this branch of pride floweth from ignorance of the vanity of the creature, and of the worth of a gracious heart; wherefore get more of the knowledge of these two, and this sprig will be nipped in the head, and you will learn to condescend to men of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Set them on to us, you blasted young sprig! Look 'ee here—I've a knife to your ribs, and you can't use your gun. Stand still while my boy slips across, or I'll cut your white ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... shrub of juniper close by, and she felt under its sharp branches. "Do you like honeysuckle?" She held up a fresh sprig fragrant with its pale horns, which she had tracked to covert by its scent. Lawrence was not given to wearing buttonholes, but he understood the friendly and apologetic intention and inclined his broad shoulder for Miss Stafford to pass the stem through the lapel of his coat. ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... with salt, pepper, some grated green ginger and curry-powder. Place in a baking-pan with 1 sliced onion, 2 chopped green peppers and 1 sprig of parsley. Pour over some water and hot melted butter; sprinkle with flour and bake until done. Garnish with ...
— 365 Foreign Dishes • Unknown
... mouse. Mrs. Louderer cut up her big plum pudding and put it into a dozen small bags. These Gavotte carefully covered with green paper. Then we tore up the holly wreath that Aunt Mary sent me, and put a sprig in the top of each green bag of pudding. I never had so much fun in my life as I had preparing ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... Guelemer, the second was a nail; Guelemer, that is to say, crime; a nail, that is to say, liberty. Brujon, of whom it is high time that the reader should have a complete idea, was, with an appearance of delicate health and a profoundly premeditated languor, a polished, intelligent sprig, and a thief, who had a caressing glance, and an atrocious smile. His glance resulted from his will, and his smile from his nature. His first studies in his art had been directed to roofs. He had made great progress in the industry of the men who tear off lead, who plunder ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... it seem'd to rest, And now to court the Violet's breast, From Flow'r to Flow'r incessant flying, Inviting still, and still denying. Beneath his Hand, beneath his Hat, He often thought he had it pat; The Violet-bed, the Myrtle-sprig, Had made his little Heart grow big. At last, with Joy he saw it venture Within a Tulip's Bell to enter, And snatch'd it with ecstatic rapture. But what, alas! was all his Capture? A lifeless Insect, like a Worm, Without one Grace in ...
— The Sugar-Plumb - or, Golden Fairing • Margery Two-Shoes
... untiring observation I had but two glimpses to record. On one occasion a chat alighted on the top sprig of the fateful shrub, as if going to the nest, but almost on the instant vanished. The same day, a little later, one of these birds flitted into my view, without a sound. So perfectly silent were his movements that I should not have seen him if he had not come ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... here to pick up a nut, or there to examine a tree which she would tell Eunice might better be felled. As she walked she became uneasy, feeling that she had really imposed an unpleasant, possibly perilous, task upon the girl she scolded so freely yet already loved so dearly. Gathering a sprig of wintergreen she chewed it thoughtfully, and scarcely knew when she turned back to retrace her own steps to the cottage and learn what had befallen Katharine, who surely should have been ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... per aliquam propaginem, 'by a sprig of right,' derived from the primitive power of our English kings, under whose jurisdiction most of the French provinces were ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 69, February 22, 1851 • Various
... mallards. And here, these are blue-bill. They come to a decoy almost too easy. This is a teal—fly like thunder and are about as big as a grasshopper. We'll make our flock mostly of these. Those widgeon, there, wouldn't do us much good. Might put in a few sprig. They're a handsome duck, Bobby; but the most beautiful thing in feathers is the wood-duck. Probably won't get any of them ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... late Boreas had seen the destruction of numerous forests, and had even assisted in laying waste the country. But one night an avalanche had buried a hamlet from which only one living soul had escaped, and that was a young child—a mere sprig of a girl, with hair like the flax and eyes like its flowers, a little, timid, crying child—whom B.B. had actually taken in his arms and carried all the way out of the woods, over the mountains, and finally into Frozen Nose's own ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... service making fun of the communion service: "Double-bass was a big fellow, with a black mustache, to whom life was all a joke, which he expressed by a comical smile, and Viola was a young Hercules, so full of beer that he dreamed himself in heaven, and Oboe was a young sprig, just out from Munich, with a complexion of milk and roses, like a girl's, and miraculously bright spectacles on his pale blue eyes, and there they sat — Oboe and Viola and Double-bass — and ogled each other, and raised their brows, and snickered ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... and my vanity thus disburthened, I left the divine man, and hastened to Bruton-street, to defend subscription with ten fold vigor. My young laurels were ripening apace: they were already in bud, and were suddenly to bloom. Every new sprig of success burst forth in new arguments, new tropes, and new denunciations. My margin was loaded with the names of High Church heroes, and my manuscript began to ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... languor of complexion, inherited from his father's house, was corrected in him by the vivacity of the Donnaz blood. This now sparkled in his grey eye, and gave a glow to his cheek, as he stepped across the threshold, treading on a sprig of cherry-blossom that had dropped unnoticed ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... a word with you, young sprig of a Bostonnais," said de Mezy, his florid face now ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... tobacco in various forms, leaving them to choose their favorite mode of using it. Sambo is never more contented than when he burns the weed in a cob pipe, and draws the delicious smoke through an elder sprig or mullen stem. But the maid is happiest of all when with her lover she sits face to face, and they 'dip' together from the ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... suet fine, cut salt pork into dice, potatoes and onions small, rub a sprig of dried sage up fine; mix with some pepper, and place in the corner of a square piece of paste; turn over the other corner, pinch up the sides, and bake in a quick oven. If any bones, &c., remain from the meat, season with pepper and sage, place them with ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... Hebrew grammar in the other. A propos! Mr. Hammond told me to say that he would not expect you to-day, but would meet you to-night at Mrs. Inge's. You need not trouble yourself to decline, for I shall arrange matters with Mrs. Murray. In honor of my birthday will you not give me a sprig of something sweet from ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... more closely to such imagination as the majority of the spectators possessed. They had regarded the other marvels they had seen merely as bewilderingly clever examples of legerdemain: but for a man to make a single sprig of rose grow into a tree bearing both red and white roses without even touching it meant something quite unbelievable—until they had seen it. Instinctively the circle narrowed, and ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... heartily," said she, in her low, musical voice, which caused the youthful sprig of Uncle Sam's department to leave incomplete the angle of forty-five degrees, which he had been in the habit of considering as of no little importance in the perfecting of his duties, as ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... heart-shaped leaves of rich green, With many a pointed blossom rising delicate, with the perfume strong I love, With every leaf a miracle;—and from this bush in the door-yard, With delicate-colored blossoms and heart-shaped leaves of rich green, A sprig with ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... child with a flute. The costume of the four vintagers consists of colored or check shirts, breeches, long hose, low shoes, knee and shoe buckles, single-breasted vest of bright colors, left open, handkerchief tied carelessly about the neck, and low felt hat with a sprig of grape leaves in front, the face colored slightly with red. The lady's costume consists of a red dress, blue waist, open in front, and laced across with pink ribbon, and a small straw hat trimmed with green ribbon on the head. The boy's costume consists of a velvet jacket, ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... a huge white calico flag, on which were painted roughly the figure of a sailor and an Eskimo sitting on an iceberg, with a kettle of soup between them. On one side were a pair of hands clasped together; on the other a sprig of heath, the only shrub that could be ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... apes the Egyptian Mason, knows nothing in reality of Hiram, his master; who knows nothing of the starry Solomon or his mystic temple in the heavens, which Hiram built; and who misconceives the import of the three villains, or assassins; and who, further, knows nothing of that wonderful sprig of myrtle:—in short, a Free Mason, speaking generally, is a man who delights in ideals, social equality, secret fraternity, and plays at mysticism; who parades on the Masonic stage and enacts a role ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... view. A friend of ours, whom the author never saw or heard of, was at once recognized by his own family as the original of Mr. Bennet, and we do not know if he has yet got rid of the nickname. A Mr. Collins, too, a formal, conceited, yet servile young sprig of divinity, is drawn with the same force and precision. The story of the piece consists chiefly in the fates of the second sister, to whom a man of high birth, large fortune, but haughty and reserved manners, becomes ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... Spotless senmakula. Spouse edzo—ino. Spout sxpruci. Sprain elartikigi. Sprawl sterni. Spray (sprinkle) surversxi, sxprucigi sur. Spread (news) disvastigi. Spread (extend) etendi. Sprig vergeto, brancxeto. Sprightly sprita, viva. Sprightliness viveco. Spring salti. Spring (season) printempo. Spring (of watch, etc.) risorto. Springy elasta. Sprinkle sxprucigi sur. Sprinkler sxprucigilo. Sprite feino, koboldo. Sprout (bud) elkreski. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... had sprung. The knowledge of her disadvantages in life, the contrast between their respective positions, all tended to emphasise the irony of fate; and she often found herself wondering how this sprig of true aristocracy would conduct himself if he discovered that, after all, ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... Anthems and Gregorian Chants, now soaring up to the Clouds, as 'twere, and then dying off as though some wide echoing Space lay betweene us. I usuallie find Time to tie on my Hoode and slip away to the Herb-market for a Bunch of fresh Radishes or Cresses, a Sprig of Parsley, or at the leaste a Posy, to lay on his Plate. A good wheaten Loaf, fresh Butter and Eggs, and a large Jug of Milk, compose our simple Breakfast; for he likes not, as my Father, to see Boys hacking a huge Piece of Beef, nor cares for heavie feeding, ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... town through a great arch that has been opened in the castle wall. The tubular bridge across the Conway has been built in a style that accords with the old architecture, and I observed that one little sprig of ivy had rooted itself in the ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... relations and chief mourners are in a chamber apart, with their more intimate friends; and the rest of the guests are dispersed in several rooms about the house. When they are ready to set out, they nail up the coffin, and a servant presents the company with sprigs of rosemary: Every one takes a sprig and carries it in his hand till the body is put into the grave, at which time they all throw their sprigs in after it. Before they set out, and after they return, it is usual to present the guests with something to ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... as usual at the last of August; and as the expected guests were late in making their appearance, Mr. Wyllys had undertaken in the mean time to beat his daughter at a game of chess. Elinor, mounted on a footstool, was intent on arranging a sprig of clematis to the best advantage, in the beautiful dark hair of her cousin Jane Graham, who was standing for that purpose before a mirror. A good-looking youth, whom we introduce without farther ceremony as Harry Hazlehurst, was watching ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... in the grate, the walls and ceiling are hung with living green, and all around are heaped up the choice provisions collected to make Christmas glad. The giant leads SCROOGE forth. They pass through streets and lanes, with every house bearing token of rejoicing by its roaring fire or its sprig of holly, till they come to the dwelling of poor BOB CRATCHIT, old SCROOGE'S clerk. And here ensues a picture worthy of ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... break that came when he had surprised Love in her eyes; and it wasn't the warmth of the Sun's fan-shaped shafts at all; it was the warmth of her lips in the face of the picture she had promised—the face above "the Warrior." When he awakened, a sprig of everlasting that he had stuck in the band of his Alpine hat had blown ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... Philadelphia, was an intimate and life-long friend of Dolly Madison. Major Nourse built the old stone house out on the road to Rockville and called it "The Highlands." Tradition says that a large box bush at "The Highlands" has grown from a tiny sprig of box which Mrs. Madison plucked from her bouquet at the inauguration of her husband and ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... was enchanted with the gorgeousness of her party of young people, and when Patty gave her a sprig of seaweed to tuck in her bodice, she felt as if she belonged to the ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... during the fight, that our wanderer found his best repose that day. Sitting down here on a mound in the graveyard, he looked off across Charles River towards the battle-ground, whose incipient monument, at that period, was hard to see, as a struggling sprig of corn in a chilly spring. Upon those heights, fifty years before, his now feeble hands had wielded both ends of the musket. There too he had received that slit upon the chest, which afterwards, in the affair with the Serapis, ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... The semi-transparent sprig of mistletoe, which Seraphine Dasher had mischievously suspended over the doorway, looked like a chaplet of pearls; the pointed stems of yew became frosted in silver; the variegated holly was transformed into branches ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... for their glory since they had last beheld it. At some unnatural hour of the morning the dairyman had caused the yawning chimney-corner to be whitened, and the brick hearth reddened, and a blazing yellow damask blower to be hung across the arch in place of the old grimy blue cotton one with a black sprig pattern which had formerly done duty there. This renovated aspect of what was the focus indeed of the room on a full winter morning threw a smiling demeanour over the ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... or sharp instrument. Achilleus dies by an arrow-wound in the heel; the thigh of Adonis is pierced by the boar's tusk, while Odysseus escapes with an ugly scar, which afterwards secures his recognition by his old servant, the dawn-nymph Eurykleia; Sigurd is slain by a thorn, and Balder by a sharp sprig of mistletoe; and in the myth of the Sleeping Beauty, the earth-goddess sinks into her long winter sleep when pricked by the point of the spindle. In her cosmic palace, all is locked in icy repose, naught thriving save the ivy which defies ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... Dele broke off a sprig for herself, and one for Hanny. The spaces were larger, the houses farther apart. On the west side was a tree-nursery and garden, and two quaint old frame-houses that hardly looked large enough for any one to live in; but ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... but masters of driving; driving was in fashion, and sprigs of nobility used to dress as coachmen and imitate the slang and behaviour of coachmen, from whom occasionally they would take lessons in driving as they sat beside them on the box, which post of honour any sprig of nobility who happened to take a place on a coach claimed as his unquestionable right; and then these sprigs would smoke cigars and drink sherry with the coachmen in bar-rooms, and on the road; and, when bidding them farewell, would give them ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... up to her, the ragged man laid upon the shelf of the wicket his precious bill—it was now wadded into a greenish-yellow wisp like a sprig of ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... holly. But if anybody had seen Fleda's face! while she seemed to be busied in cutting as large a quantity as possible of the rich shining leaves and bright berries. Her grandfather's kindness, and her effort to meet it had wrung her heart; she hardly knew what she was doing, as she cut off sprig after sprig, and threw them down at her feet; she was crying sadly, with even audible sobs. She made a long job of her bunch of holly. But when at last it must come to an end, she choked back her tears, ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... re-elected to Congress we had a glorious reception at our house in the country, and among others that came to it was a Mr. Sterling, the son of my father's college chum, and a promising young sprig of the law, father said. He came to stay a day or two in the house as a visitor before the reception, and was to leave the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... virtue dwells, From courts inclusive down to cells: What preachers talk, or sages write; These will I gather and unite, And represent them to mankind Collected in that infant's mind. This said, she plucks in Heaven's high bowers A sprig of amaranthine flowers. In nectar thrice infuses bays, Three times refined in Titan's rays; Then calls the Graces to her aid, And sprinkles thrice the newborn maid: From whence the tender skin assumes A sweetness above all perfumes: From whence a cleanliness remains, Incapable of outward stains: ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... overseer was 'straddle his big horse at three o'clock in the mornin', roustin' the hands off to the field. He got them all lined up and then come back to the house for breakfas'. The rows was a mile long and no matter how much grass was in them, if you leaves one sprig on your row they beats you nearly to death. Lots of times they weighed cotton by candlelight. All the hands took dinner to the field in buckets and the overseer give them fifteen minutes to git dinner. He'd ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... laboratory of the leaf, the place where certain inorganic, lifeless substances such as water, lime, sulphur, potash, and phosphorus are transformed and converted into living and organic vegetable matter, and from which this is sent forth to build up every part of the tree from deepest root to topmost sprig. It is in the leaves also that all the food of man and all other animals is prepared, for if any do not feed upon vegetable substances directly but upon flesh, that flesh nevertheless has been made only as vegetable food has been eaten to form it. It is, as the Bible says, "The ...
— Arbor Day Leaves • N.H. Egleston
... But what is that green plant up there? It looks as if the oak tree were all dead except that one sprig of green. Strange that it should keep only ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson
... Bloody dissectors, worse than ten Monroes, He hacks to teach, they mangle to expose: By blockhead's daring into madness stung, His heart by wanton, causeless malice wrung, His well-won ways—than life itself more dear— By miscreants torn who ne'er one sprig must wear; Foil'd, bleeding, tortur'd in th' unequal strife, The hapless Poet flounces on through life, Till, fled each hope that once his bosom fired, And fled each Muse that glorious once inspir'd, Low-sunk in squalid, unprotected age, ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... and his head was a mall; For his colour, my pains and your trouble I'll spare, For the creature was wholly denuded of hair, And, except for two things, as bare as my nail,— A tuft of a mane and a sprig of a tail. Now such as the beast was, even such was the rider, With head like a nutmeg, and legs like a spider; A voice like a cricket, a look like a rat, The brains of a goose, and the heart of a cat: But now with our horses, what sound and what rotten, Down ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne
... mixture. Being penniless, they will yet hang their black heads over the ascending steam, to gratify one sense if possible, seemingly no less pleased than those domestic animals—cats—when they purr over a new-found sprig of valerian. There is something more in these sympathies than philosophy ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... of the guests were younger than myself. But it was one of those cases where a refusal might be misconstrued, and so I went. We sat around the white tablecloth en masse, for dinner; and in the course of the passing of viands, Miss Sprig was asked to help herself to olives that happened ...
— How to Cook Husbands • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... portly, perhaps, but curving into magnificent outlines, which were half accentuated by the strange costume which she wore. Her hair, black but plentifully shot with grey, was brushed plainly back from her high forehead, and was gathered under a small round felt hat, like that of a man, with one sprig of feather in the band as a concession to her sex. A double-breasted jacket of some dark frieze-like material fitted closely to her figure, while her straight blue skirt, untrimmed and ungathered, was cut so short ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle
... riding-coat, calling itself a pet-en-l'air, made of a dark green (green I think it had been) brocade, with coloured and silver flowers, and lined with furs; boddice laced, a foul dimity petticoat sprig'd, velvet muffeteens on her arms, grey stockings and slippers. Her face less changed in twenty years than I could have imagined; I told her so, and she was not so tolerable twenty years ago that she needed to have taken it for flattery, but she did, and literally gave me a box on ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... new-made grave, on which the snow is lying. I know, I know! Drape thyself not in white like the others, but in mourning stole of crape; and instead of dance music, let there haunt around thee the service for the dead! I know that sprig of mistletoe, O Spirit in the midst! Under it I swung the girl I loved—girl no more now than I am a boy—and kissed her spite of blush and pretty shriek. And thee, too, with fragrant trencher in hand, over which blue tongues of flame ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... and went off the ride in the opposite direction—to tread the moss that had been crushed by Norah's footsteps, to push against the branches that had touched her shoulders, to see the dead flowers that had dropped from her hands. He found a shriveled sprig or two of her woodland posy, and carried them to the ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... and boy seeks an even-leaved sprig of ash; first of either sex that finds one calls out cyniver, and is answered by first of opposite sex that succeeds; and these two, if omen fails not, will ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... our bully opponent, "do you go into the crowd and take a few bets on my account, as I am in want of money, and after I've killed this young sprig of insolence, I intend to go on a spree. Take ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... several parts of the North of England, when a funeral takes place, a basin full of Sprigs of Box-wood is placed at the door of the house from which the Coffin is taken up, and each person who attends the funeral ordinarily takes a Sprig of this Box-wood, and throws it into the grave of the deceased.—W. ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... those of Seville. A straight sword by his side and a painted long-bow at his shoulder proclaimed him a bowman. A white surcoat with the red lion of St. George upon it covered his broad chest, while a sprig of new-plucked furze at the side of his steel cap gave a touch of gaiety to ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... sweet-looking old lady in her white cap and embroidered kerchief, and Miss Sherwin said her presence gave just the grandmotherly touch their party needed. Miss Moore decorated her with a sprig of holly, and every one tried to make her have a good time. The guests were all brought to her corner and introduced, and then, while the rest were busy trying to guess the menu, Mr. Clark came and sat beside her and talked of ...
— The Spectacle Man - A Story of the Missing Bridge • Mary F. Leonard
... lace—it would tear very soon; one would be afraid to run; and do you see I know how it is made—all that lace. I know how blind the eyes get over it, and how the hearts ache; I know how the old women starve, and the little children cry; I know that there is not a sprig of it that is not stitched with pain; the great ladies do not think, I dare say, because they have never worked at it or watched the others: but I have. And so, you see, I think if I wore it I should feel sad, and if a nail caught on it I should feel as ...
— Bebee • Ouida
... moralizing; spoke not to any man of his "sins," but gave something good to eat, a buoying [Footnote: Buoying: enlivening, cheering.] word, or trifling gift and a look. He appeared with ruddy face, clean dress, with a flower or a green sprig in the lapel of his coat. Crossing the fields in summer, he would gather a great bunch of dandelion blossoms, and red and while clover, to bring and scatter on the cots, as reminders of out-door ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... distance and wait for the morning to attack. The Royalist word for the night was, 'We are with you,' and their sign, that each man had a handkerchief tied round his right arm. The word for the other army was, 'Emmanuel, God with us,' and their signal, a sprig of furze in ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... Philomel, perched on an aspen sprig, Weeps all the night her lost virginity, And sings her sad tale to the merry twig, That dances at such joyful mysery. Never lets sweet rest invade her eye; But leaning on a thorn her dainty chest, For fear soft sleep should steal into her ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... to be offered to the memory of a chief of fairest fame. Humbly will I lay them on the grave of Iver." On a grave in the church-yard at Hay, or the Hay, as it is commonly spoken, flowers had evidently been planted, but only one solitary sprig of sweet-briar had taken root.] Indelibly impress'd, that tends, In more than language comprehends, To teach us, in our solemn hours, That we ourselves are ...
— The Banks of Wye • Robert Bloomfield
... woodland rubbish. There are two kinds of creeping green very common in all moist wooded lands at the North—the kind with leaves rising in whorls, and that with a stem covered with bristle-like spikes. This last variety has leaves, not very abundant,—which resemble a sprig of young fir, and is sometimes called "ground-fir." It is of a deep rich green color, but not so graceful for trimming as the other kind. Besides the creeping green, there are many varieties of what children call "tree-green," independent little plants rooted deep in ...
— Harper's Young People, December 23, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... these mountains, where to this day the people burn incense to their memory. Another legend states that the people of this district were first taught the use of tea as a beverage by a venerable man who suddenly appeared among them, holding a sprig in his hand, from which he proposed that they should make a decoction and drink it. On their doing so and approving the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... one of the last of the old school of polished gentlemen, being seated with a party of ladies in the stage-box of Drury-lane theatre, a sprig of modern fashion came in booted and spurred. At the end of the act, the duke rose, and made the young man a ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... at a corner of Old Market and sold little bundles of dried sage and sweet marjoram, and sassafras and cinnamon, and soup-bunches made of bits of vegetables tied together—a bit of parsley and a bit of celery and a bit of carrot and a sprig of summer savory, all for one cent. Then at Christmas-time he displayed wreaths, which he and his little mother made at home, and as the spring came on he brought wild flowers that ...
— Our Holidays - Their Meaning and Spirit; retold from St. Nicholas • Various
... with a little toss of her head, and he turned, too, breaking a sprig of southernwood. Dorcas was glad to treasure the last sight of him putting to his lips the fragrant herb she had bruised for his sake. It seemed to carry over into daylight the joy of the richer night; it was like seeing the silken thread on which her pearls were strung. ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... divination practised at the period of the harvest moon is thus described in an old chap-book. When you go to bed, place under your pillow a prayer-book open at the part of the matrimonial service 'with this ring I thee wed'; place on it a key, a ring, a flower, and a sprig of willow, a small heart-cake, a crust of bread, and the following cards:—the ten of clubs, nine of hearts, ace of spades, and the ace of diamonds. Wrap all these in a thin handkerchief of gauze or muslin, and on getting into bed, cross your hands, ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley |
