"Thistle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to conceive how precious these hours ought to be to him, a small vantage on the side of God after his flock have been exposed for six days together to the full weight of the world's temptation, and he has been forced to watch the thorn and the thistle springing in their hearts, and to see what wheat had been scattered there snatched from the wayside by this wild bird and the other, and at last, when breathless and weary with the week's labor they ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... the conductor had been in that car, so he could have seen Miss Flyaway trying to prop her mother's head against her own morsel of a shoulder—about as secure a resting-place as a piece of thistle-down. ...
— Dotty Dimple at Play • Sophie May
... The small bird exists only in the present; there is no past, nor future, nor knowledge of death. Its every action is the result of a stimulus from outside; its "bravery" is but that of a dead leaf or ball of thistle-down carried away by the blast. Is there no escape, then, from this intolerable sadness—from the thought of springs that have been, the beautiful multitudinous life that has vanished? Our maker and mother mocks at our efforts—at our philosophic ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... beyond my hopes. I returned home well satisfied. The sun that was still labouring pale and wan through the sky, obscured by thick mists, seemed an emblem of the good cause; and the cold, dank drops of dew that hung half melted on the beard of the thistle had something genial and refreshing in them; for there was a spirit of hope and youth in all nature that ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... was some coarse grass which was in full seed, and therefore very nourishing for the horses; also abundance of anise and sow- thistle, of which they are extravagantly fond, so we turned them loose and prepared to camp. Everything was soaking wet and we were half-perished with cold; indeed we were very uncomfortable. There was brushwood about, but we could get no fire till we had shaved off the wet outside of some dead ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... learned her enough English to say "yes," for she took possession of our camp and begun to order me around. First thing she lugged our Navajo blankets to the creek, washed 'em, then spread 'em over some bushes and beat 'em with a stick until they were as clean and soft as thistle-down. I'll admit she made a pleasant picture against the bright colors of them blankets, and I couldn't altogether blame Mike for losin' his head. He'd lost it, all right. Every time she looked at him out of them big black eyes ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... said the Doctor, with a sigh, "for God's sake, and your own, do study Euclid if you can! Don't you see that your mind is always sky-rocketing and chasing thistle-down ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... bitter cold. Dust, too, was stirred up, and swept along so thickly that the day became as dark as night. Then the rain burst upon them like a waterspout, and, mingling with the flying dust overhead, came down in the form of mud, mixed with flying sticks and stones, and grass, and prickly thistle-heads. ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... pile of rock; — it well deserves its name of Hurtado, or separated. The mountain is steep, extremely rugged, and broken, and so entirely destitute of trees, and even bushes, that we actually could not make a skewer to stretch out our meat over the fire of thistle- stalks. [1] The strange aspect of this mountain is contrasted by the sea-like plain, which not only abuts against its steep sides, but likewise separates the parallel ranges. The uniformity of the colouring gives ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... his harp, And turned his face to the naked sky, Where, blown before the wastrel wind, The thistle-down she ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... old lord about London in those days,—or, rather, one who was an old Liberal but a young lord,—one Lord Mount Thistle, who had sat in the Cabinet, and had lately been made a peer when his place in the Cabinet was wanted. He was a pompous, would-be important, silly old man, well acquainted with all the traditions of his party, and perhaps, on that account, useful,—but a bore, and very apt to meddle when he was not ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... elegant; some of our most ancient patterns were scriptural or mathematical; the age ruled the prevailing taste and fashion, and everything in and out of Nature has had its turn and its day. Then, again, nationality goes for something: the Frenchman is fond of his lis and the Scot of his thistle. ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... gentleness, the fidelity and devotedness of woman! How strangely, how wonderfully formed is the heart of man, which, disdaining the terrors of the rope of the executioner, breaks and succumbs at the touch of the thistle-down of a woman's love! This creature, sir, gave me my fortune, made me what I am, left for me her country and her friends, adhered to me through good and evil report—and I prepared for her a cruel death! ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... she had said anything of the kind; and though she still held her nose rather high when Paul was near, she would have answered for his honesty as readily as for that of her own brothers. But hers had not been the charity that thinketh no evil, and her idle words had been like thistle-down, lightly sent forth, but when they had lighted, ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... emerges upon an open space so full of sunshine that the strawberries are already ripening; near them are stacked the tender young trees, ready for spacing, and the billets of wood piled up and half covered with thistle and burdock leaves; and a little farther away, half hidden by tall weeds, teeming with insects, rises the peaked top of the woodsman's hut. Here one walks beside deep, grassy trenches, which appear to continue without end, along the forest level; farther, ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... have I jeopardised my life in your good cause, and I fear no charge of cowardice more than I fear thistle-down." ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... herself in the ball with her young, which moreover would be daily increasing in bulk. This wonderful procreant cradle, an elegant instance of the efforts of instinct, was found in a wheat-field suspended in the head of a thistle. ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... certainly it does her the greatest credit, and it is a great satisfaction to us all to have these things to show. I am sure nobody would ever think that ass was made of crape, and how naturally it seems to be eating the beautiful chenille thistle! I declare, I think the ass is as like an ass as ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... its progress. It is searching the consciences; it is exercising the reason; it is appealing to the noblest characteristics of intelligent Virginians. It is no foreign influence. From every abandoned plantation where the profitless fern and thistle have sprung up under the heel of slavery; from every falling mansion of the master, through whose windows the fox may look out securely, and over whose hearth-stone the thin grass is creeping, a warning voice is sinking deeply into all hearts not ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... The poet-priest appeared to be a director of the intellectual amusements of the day. But although they delighted the multitude, and he afterwards immortalised the marriage of his royal master, by his exquisite poem of "The Thistle and the Rose," he was doomed to experience that genius could neither procure the patronage of kings nor church preferment; and, in truth, it was small preferment with which Dunbar would have been satisfied, for, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... and Norman was summoned to help them to trace out the old lines of encampment, ditch, rampart, and gates— happy work on those slopes of fresh turf, embroidered with every minute blossom of the moor—thyme, birdsfoot, eyebright, and dwarf purple thistle, buzzed and hummed over by busy, black-tailed, yellow- banded dumbledores, the breezy wind blowing softly in their faces, and the expanse of country—wooded hill, verdant pasture, amber harvest-field, winding river, smoke-canopied town, and brown moor, melting ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... a greengage. I returned home loaded with this undescribed genus: I found likewise a fine Buddleia, and Menispermum, with some rare Compositae, among which was an arborescent Eupatorium and a gigantic thistle, a Prunus in flower and fruit, and a neat Liparis, Calamus, Tree- fern, Tupistra, Pandanus, were likewise observed, and a beautiful Viburnum, Corol sterilibus, 4 phyllis, foliis niveis carneo venosis: petal fertil calyptratis, deciduis, intus caeruleo tinctis: staminibus ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... one short moment their eyes also. It was only a glance, but for the first and last time the woman's intuition cast a light for itself into the dark places of a strong man's soul. She gave a little gasp, and her other hand rested for an instant, as white and as light as thistle-down, upon his shoulder. ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... otherwise. It takes the bloom off the freshness of young writers if they are determined to exhibit the last new words that are in, or out of season. New words have a doubtful position at first. They float here and there like thistle-down, and their future depends upon where they settle. But until they are established and accepted they are out of place for children's use. They are contrary to the perfect manner for children. We ask ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... "Because it appears to me horrible, to see a poor girl lost and buried in some ugly and selfish man, and become, as they say seriously, the better half of the monster—yes! a fresh and blooming rose to become part of a frightful thistle!—Come, my dear count; confess there is something odious in this conjugal metempsychosis," added Adrienne, ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... nuthatches, titmice, woodpeckers, and brown creepers find larvae, grubs, borers, and insects' eggs in the crannies of the bark and other nooks and niches; the goldfinches find something to their taste in the buds of the trees and also make many a meal of thistle and sunflower seeds; the juncos and tree sparrows, forming a joint stock company in winter, rifle all kinds of weeds of their seedy treasures; the blue jays lunch on acorns and berries when they cannot find enough ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... it that I am to eat my meal standing, the same as a crane in a shallow, or moving from tuft to thistle like you'd see a jennet ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... dangers, and then back again to see a horse rolling on the ground, the gaunt man standing and slashing over it at a rent and fluttering mass of grey that streamed and wrapped about them both. And thick and fast as thistle-down on waste land on a windy day in July the ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... with a platinum spatula, and place over calcium chloride in a desiccator for some days. Reweigh. The loss equals moisture. This is generally very small. Or Handy's method may be used. The dried sample is then transferred to a small thistle-headed funnel which has been cut off from its stem, and the opening plugged with a little glass wool, and round the top rim of which a piece of fine platinum wire has been fastened, in order that it may afterwards be easily removed from the Soxhlet tube. The weight of this funnel and the glass ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford
... your money," said Berrow slowly; "the Thistle can't hold a candle to the Good Intent, and you know it. Many a time that little schooner o' mine has kept up with ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... the pasture's rude embrace, All o'errun with tangled vines, Where the thistle claims its place, And the straggling hedge confines, Bearing still the sweet impress 5 Of unfettered loveliness, In the field and by the wall, ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... said MacIan, and stared steadily at the heavy hilt of his standing sword, which in the slight wind swayed on its tempered steel like some huge thistle on its stalk. ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... Light as thistle-down were his feet, but no sooner had the Giant felt their tread than he gave a great start, and lifting his hand struck himself a tremendous blow upon his forehead. Pease-Blossom would have been crushed to death had he not ...
— The Story-teller • Maud Lindsay
... towards the evening; and as they walked on, having left the town, the sun poured his last beams on a group of persons that appeared hastily collecting and gathering round a spot, well known in the neighborhood of Knaresborough, called Thistle Hill. ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to pieces with the fingers. v. ad loc. et Junius, voce Tease. Hence teasing for carding wool with teasels, a specics of thistle or instrument. ...
— The Forme of Cury • Samuel Pegge
... mossy passes, Saucy grasshoppers Leapt about the grasses And the thistle-burs; And the whispered chuckle Of the katydid Shook the honeysuckle Blossoms where ...
— Riley Child-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley
... the grace of young girls, daintily costumed, in robes with long fluttering sleeves... And old Japanese proverb declares that even a devil is pretty at eighteen: Oni mo jiu-hachi azami no hana: "Even a devil at eighteen, flower-of-the-thistle." ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn
... however, coming from the lips of prophetical men. The first is that of Jotham: "The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them; and they said unto the olive-tree, Reign thou over us," etc. Judg. 9:8-15. The second is that of Jehoash: "The thistle that was in Lebanon sent to the cedar that was in Lebanon, saying, Give thy daughter to my son to wife: and there passed by a wild beast that was in Lebanon, and trode down the thistle." ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... surveyed and explored the mountain. There are a lot of strawberries planted there, which do very well, but there were not many ripe. The common weeds and plants of the top were very like English ones, such as buttercups, sow-thistle, plantain, wormwood, chickweed, charlock, St. John's wort, violets and many others, all closely allied to our common plants of those names, but of distinct species. There was also a honey-suckle, and a tall and very pretty kind of cowslip. None of these are found in the low tropical ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... vegetable kingdom. Every living plant has life-producing seed, or some method of reproducing itself. The thistle: who can count the number of plants that one thistle can produce in a year? One hundred strawberry plants can be made in ten years to produce more than a thousand ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... arms and legs, I sank back to the grid-floor; and in a moment I was able to stand upright with so slight a feeling of weight that I could have been a bit of thistle ready to blow ...
— Wandl the Invader • Raymond King Cummings
... quite so ridiculous,' said Miss Delacour; 'but as those silly children are going to dress, I suppose I had better put on the gown which I call my thistle gown. The thistle is the emblem of Scotland. I suppose you know ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... criticisms. His perception is so fine and his taste so exquisite that points of failure which a generous mind would overlook he discerns and speaks of with unfailing fidelity. He would at any time rather rub his nose against a thistle ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... Cobweb, good Mounsier get your weapons in your hand, & kill me a red hipt humble-Bee, on the top of a thistle; and good Mounsieur bring mee the hony bag. Doe not fret your selfe too much in the action, Mounsieur; and good mounsieur haue a care the hony bag breake not, I would be loth to haue you ouerflowne with a hony-bag signiour. Where's ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... think it necessary to show any difference between the foliage of an elm and an oak; and the gift-books of Christmas have every page surrounded with laboriously engraved garlands of rose, shamrock, thistle, and forget-me-not, without its being thought proper by the draughtsman, or desirable by the public, even in the case of those uncommon flowers, to observe the real shape of the petals of ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... The thistle-birds have changed their dun, For yellow coats, to match the sun; And in the same array of ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... which the hills fall with a series of the most lovely sweeping curves, known as "the Giant's Stairs." They are not a bit like stairs, but I never saw anything like them anywhere else, with their short green turf, and tender bluebells, and gossamer and thistle-down gleaming in the sun and the sheep-paths running along ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... summer weather, Come hither, for my darling loved ye well;— Here floats the thistle down for you to gather, And bearded grasses ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... simple words of the prophet Elisha on his death-bed would bring him victory. Yet so much greater was his force than that of Judah, that when Amaziah sent him a challenge, he replied by the insulting parable of the thistle and the cedar. Jeroboam II., his son, was likewise prosperous; but neither blessings nor warnings would induce these kings to forsake their golden calves. Amos, the herdsman-prophet of Tekoa, was warned to say nothing against the king's chapel at Bethel; and Hosea in vain declared that Ephraim ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... grazing-grounds, and by the brink of the dull-green, serried hop-rows, talking at rare intervals about the value of the crops, the drainage of the estate, the village schools, the Primrose League, and the iniquities of Mr. Gladstone, while Oke of Okehurst carefully cut down every tall thistle that caught his eye—I sometimes felt, I say, an intense and impotent desire to enlighten this man about his wife's character. I seemed to understand it so well, and to understand it well seemed to imply such a comfortable ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... to the great Alps, which await him at the close of the day. It is about Mulhausen that he begins to feel a change in the landscape. The fields broaden into rolling downs, watered by clear and running streams; the green Swiss thistle grows by riverside and cowshed; pines begin to tuft the slopes of gently rising hills; and now the sun has set, the stars come out, first Hesper, then the troop of lesser lights; and he feels—yes, indeed, there is now no mistake—the well-known, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... mean to keep it, Jane Sidney Vance," retorted Dotty, as fierce as a thistle; and finished undressing at the top ...
— Dotty Dimple's Flyaway • Sophie May
... I was in admiration of a plant, whose stem was about two feet high, and which had a round, shining, pale purple, beautiful flower, the waggoner, with a look of extreme scorn, exclaimed, 'Help thee, lad, does not thee know 'tis a common thistle? Didst thee not know that a thistle would prick thee?' continued he, laughing at the face I made when I touched the prickly leaves; 'why my horse Dobbin has more sense by half! he is not like an ass ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... properties. Gathering in groups, they appeared to consult whether such a peculiar substance could be converted into use, or whether the glove should be drawn by main force, and precipitated to the sow-thistle below. Unlike any large assemblage of men that I have ever seen, they wasted no time in long speeches, but speedily came to a decision; and approaching the thumb of my glove, some thirty or forty stalwart artificers took hold of the seam that passes inside, and pulled stoutly. The glove moved. This ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... dip here; The blow-ball of the thistle slip, And no wind breathing—but my lip Next to your anxious cheek and ear, To tell you I am near, my love, To tell you I ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein
... bee, just pausing ere he daubs his thigh With pollen from a hollyhock near by, Declares he never heard in terms so just The labor problem thoughtfully discussed! The browsing ass looks up and clears his whistle To say: "A monologue upon the thistle!" Meanwhile the lark, descending, folds his wing And innocently asks: "What!—did ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... either," cried Kirkpatrick, once more looking boldly up, and shaking his broad claymore: "My thistle has a point to sting all to death who would pass between this arm and ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... thyme, blue harebells and pale bents of quiver-grass edged the path, and thistledown, drifting from the chalk uplands, lay like snow in the hollows, or danced like living things on the path before her. A brood of goldfinches, with merry twitter and flashing wings, flitted round a tall milk thistle with variegated leaves and a little farther on, just at the opening of a glade from the path, she beheld a huge dragon-fly, banded with green, black, and gold, poised on wings invisible in their ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... with his tiny hand as he spoke and looked so brave and warlike that he seemed at least an inch taller than he had before. Toinette admired him very much; and Peascod slunk away with an abashed giggle muttering that Thistle needn't be so ready ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... his "other legs" and gave him, then led Balaam away from the late thistle blooms he was browsing. Hallam mounted, crossed his crutches before him, and lifted his cap. Amy tossed him a kiss and turned millward, while he ascended the hill road. But no sooner was she out of sight than ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... Betty, "it's but little I drame, anyway. Jist keep an 'asy conscience and a plenty of the stuff in ye, and ye'll sleep like an infant. The last drame I had was when the boys put the thistle tops in the blankets, and then I was thinking that Captain Jack's man was currying me down, for the matter of Roanoke, but it's no trifle I mind either ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... burrowing owl from the late slant light of the mesa. If the fine vibrations which are the golden-violet glow of spring twilights were to tremble into sound, it would be just that mellow double note breaking along the blossom-tops. While the glow holds one sees the thistle-down flights and pouncings after prey, and on into the dark hears their soft pus-ssh! clearing out of the trail ahead. Maybe the pinpoint shriek of field mouse or kangaroo rat that pricks the wakeful pauses of the night is extorted by these mellow-voiced ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... progenitors, David and Solomon; and he let him know, that if he would not be so wise as to do what he commanded him, he must fight for his dominion. To which message Joash returned this answer in writing: "King Joash to king Amaziah. There was a vastly tall cypress tree in Mount Lebanon, as also a thistle; this thistle sent to the cypress tree to give the cypress tree's daughter in marriage to the thistle's son; but as the thistle was saying this, there came a wild beast, and trod down the thistle: and this may be a lesson to thee, not to be so ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... Angora came down the walk to meet her, her tail like a great plume, her soft coat as fluffy as thistle down. Proudly she walked as if ...
— Princess Polly's Gay Winter • Amy Brooks
... very great numbers, like the field-poppy, so that some of them are sure to survive. The winds carry other seeds to great distances, because they have beautiful feathery down attached to them, which causes them to be easily blown about—such as thistle ...
— Woodside - or, Look, Listen, and Learn. • Caroline Hadley
... The thistle on the summer air Hath shed its iris glory, And thrice the willows weeping there ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... said the fierce young Norman, and, breaking off the conversation, switched savagely at the head of a thistle close at ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... form of predigested food, that it usually does not stop to consider whether the material was worth collecting in the first place. Gleaner after gleaner has worked in the field of English literature, sorting and sifting, until almost the last grain, husk, straw and thistle have been gathered and stored with their kind. But instead of making an anthology, we have gone on the assumption that something more than accidental identity of subject-matter holds together the apparently desultory remarks of poets on the subject of the poet's eyebrows, ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... passed. Then, one day, there had been a great chattering about the warm cup of milkweed fiber and thistle-down in the elder-bush, husky cheeping from the nest mingling with the joyous chirps of the mother-bird as she tilted and danced on its edge or fluttered ecstatically above it; and from the end of a swaying twig close by had swelled the proud ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... that Mr. Alexander should attend, instead of his brother; and as the said Mr. Alexander was deservedly celebrated for possessing all the pertinacity of a bankruptcy-court attorney, combined with the obstinacy of that useful animal which browses on the thistle, he required but little tuition. He was especially enjoined to make himself as disagreeable as possible; and, above all, to black-ball the Tauntons at ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... opportunity of writing a few lines to you, my dear uncle, as I have a chance of sending it ashore by the revenue cutter Thistle, which is lying alongside of us. Between us, we have just captured a rascally smuggling lugger, with a cargo of lace, silk, and spirits. You will, I am sure, be surprised and grieved to hear that among ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... just one tiny nap, because he had had so little sleep of late; and then he would be fresh for her, fresh for youth and beauty, coming towards him across the sunlit lawn—lady in grey! And settling back in his chair he closed his eyes. Some thistle-down came on what little air there was, and pitched on his moustache more white than itself. He did not know; but his breathing stirred it, caught there. A ray of sunlight struck through and lodged on his boot. A bumble-bee alighted and strolled on the crown of his Panama hat. And the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... is even without God in the world. He converses only with the spirits of the departed, with the motionless and silent clouds. The cold moonlight sheds its faint lustre on his head, the fox peeps out of the ruined tower, the thistle waves its beard to the wandering gale, and the strings of his harp seem as the hand of age, as the tale of other times passes over them, to sigh and rustle like the dry reeds in the winter's wind! If it were indeed possible to shew that this writer was nothing, it would only be another ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, November 1875 • Various
... was the prime adventurer of the party, now got ready to settle at Portland Bay. He chartered a small schooner, "The Thistle", loading her with stores and live stock, and with selections of seed, fruit trees, vegetables, etc., part of them bought from Fawkner, who had then a market garden on Windmill Hill, near Launceston, besides keeping the Cornwall Hotel there; and with ...
— Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne & Victoria • William Westgarth
... had instructed the House how to discover the emblems on the new Treasury Note—the rose, the thistle, the shamrock and the daffodil (this last for Wales). On the Treasury Bench the daffodil is rarely to be descried; but the thistle is in full ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 21st, 1917 • Various
... situation. I laughed, danced, drank, through the night; I drank deep of a dozen rosy ways to forgetfulness, till my mind was a great confusion, full of flitting pictures of loveliness, till life itself was an illusive pantomime, and my will but thistle-down on the folly of the moment. I drank with those gentle roisterers all through their starlit night, and if we stopped when morning came it was more from weariness than virtue. Then the yellow-robed slaves gave us the wine of recovery—alas! my faithful An was not amongst ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... case of plants, the power of increase is even greater and its effects more distinctly visible. Hundreds of square miles of the plains of La Plata are now covered with two or three species of European thistle, often to the exclusion of almost every other plant; but in the native countries of these thistles they occupy, except in cultivated or waste ground, a very subordinate part in the vegetation. Some American ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... Langham exchanged a few commonplaces till the others joined them, and then for a while the attention of everybody in the group was held by the squire's sister. She was very small, as thin and light as thistle-down, ill-dressed, and as communicative as a babbling child. The face and all the features were extraordinarily minute, and moreover, blanched and etherealised by age. She had the elfish look of a little withered ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... farmhouse; for you remember that Abraham Lincoln's literary models were "Aesop's Fables," "The Pilgrim's Progress" and the Bible. Perhaps he read the fable of the Fig Tree, Olive, Vine, and Bramble from the ninth chapter of Judges, or that of the Thistle and Cedar from the fourteenth chapter of II Kings and noted that teaching by story-telling was still well in vogue six ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... shot out instantly to the full length of the trail-rope—a heavy "pluck" sounded in my ears, and the next instant I saw my horse part from the tree, and scour off over the prairie, as if there had been a thistle under his tail. I had knotted the rope negligently upon the bit-ring, and the knot ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... to curse Hamilton, too, but didn't have the time. He seemed to be hurtling to one side of the ring and then the other, yet effortlessly, as lightly as thistle-down. Couldn't stop for anything—Holliday insisted on fighting right along. He couldn't remember it was so long since he had laid ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... ma Coronet Is comin' off, but not juist yet; Aw'm haudin' oot for somethin' smarter, For choice the Thistle or the Garter; Whichever ribbon is the broader A'll tak wi' joy," ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, June 10, 1914 • Various
... dish essentially Provencal, carde. The carde is a giant thistle that grows to a height of five or six feet, and is so luxuriantly magnificent both in leaf and in flower that it deserves a place among ornamental plants. The edible portion is the stem—blanched like celery, ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... heel and toe, — I will blow a thunder note From my brazen bugle's throat Till the sand and thistle know The leveled walls of Jerico, Jerico, Jerico, Jerico. ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... Faylinn, held a great banquet and assembly of the lords and princes of the Wee Folk. And all their captains and men of war came thither, to show their feats before the King, among whom was the strong man, namely Glowar, whose might was such that with his battle-axe he could hew down a thistle at one stroke. Thither also came the King's heir-apparent. Tiny, son of Tot, and the Queen Bebo with her maidens; and there were also the King's harpers and singing-men, and the chief poet of the court, who ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston
... my Lord of Glandine, Thistle-eaters the stoutest gave way, Outdone in their own special line By the ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... kingdom with civil war and confusion. The queen conferred titles upon those who appeared to have influence in the nation [118] [See note Y, at the end of this Vol.] and attachment to her government, and revived the order of the thistle, which ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... down by the early train, Whirl down with shriek and whistle, And feel the bluff North blow again, And mark the sprouting thistle Set up on waste patch of the lane Its ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... Varying the sea-green wave; while the young moon, Scarce visible amid the warmer tints Of western splendours, slowly lifts her brow Modest and icy-lustred! O'er the plain The light dews rise, sprinkling the thistle's head, And hanging its clear drops on the wild waste Of broomy fragrance. Season of delight! Thou soul-expanding pow'r, whose wondrous glow Can bid all nature smile! Ah! why to me Come unregarded, undelighting still ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... matter about how she came to die. She reached the Union early Sunday morning, and died in the afternoon—that's clear enough.' Then I asked what she'd been doing lately, and Mr. Boldwood turned round to me then, and left off spitting a thistle with the end of his stick. He told me about her having lived by seampstering in Melchester, as I mentioned to you, and that she walked therefrom at the end of last week, passing near here Saturday night in the dusk. They then said I had better just name a hint of her death to you, and away they ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... say what there was about my partner—a whimsical humor, a slight mocking sound in his voice, which pleased me; he took nothing seriously; everything he said was as light as a thistle-down; he reminded me of the wit of grandmamma and the Marquis; we got ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... of the almost incredible power of multiplication of an animal or plant when taken into a new environment, removed from conditions which held it in check, as the introduction of the mongoose into Jamaica, the rabbit into Australia, the thistle into New South Wales and the ...
— Disease and Its Causes • William Thomas Councilman
... teach the bloodhounds a lesson. I never entered the filthy place but once. There were two sons and a daughter. Oh, how immortally beautiful that girl was! Such velvet darkness in the eye, such statuesque lines, such rose-leaf color, such hair—'hair like the thistle-down tinted with gold,' as John Mills, the Scotch poet-player, sang. The old man Raynier worshipped her, perhaps as a wild beast loves its whelp. But he had all sorts of fanciful names for her, Heart's-ease and Heart's Delight, and Violet and Rose ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
... vividness and intensity beyond that of other places. I see it in the yellows of hawkweed, rock-rose, and birds'-foot-trefoil, in the innumerable specks of brilliant colour—blue and white and rose—of milk-wort and squinancy-wort, and in the large flowers of the dwarf thistle, glowing purple in its green setting; and I hear it in every bird-sound, in the trivial songs of yellow-hammer and corn-bunting, and of ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... infatuation peculiar to a man in love, he look a pleasure in being near one so closely connected with Lucy, although that one was the very person who had deprived him of all he valued on earth. So it fell out that Sir Hugh Horsingham and Ned Meredith were supping at the Rose and Thistle in close alliance, the table adjoining them being occupied by those staunch Hanoverians, Colonel Bludyer ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... it were, a Plant growing out of a Plant, or somewhat like the hairs of Animals) as there is to be found amongst small shrubs that compose bushes; but for the most part, they consist of small transparent parts, some of which grow in the shape of small Needles or Bodkins, as on the Thistle, Cowag-ecod and Nettle; others in the form of Cat's claws, as in Cliders, the beards of Barley, the edges of several sorts of Grass and Reeds, &c. in other, as Coltsfoot, Rose-campion, Aps, Poplar, Willow, and almost all other downy Plants, they grow in ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... kindness have been of untold benefit to millions of people. You remember he said, "When they lay me away let it be said of me that as I traveled along life's road I have always endeavored to pull up a thistle and plant a rose in ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter
... of a thistle (Cersium virginianium, or Carduus virginianus), which are about the ordinary size of carrots, are also eaten by them. They are sweet and well flavored, but require a long preparation to fit ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... scarlet cicadas crouched in ranks: Slack the thistle-head piled its down-silk grey: Scarce the stony lizard sucked hollows in his flanks: Thick on spots of umbrage our drowsed flocks lay. Sudden bowed the chestnuts beneath a wind unheard, Lengthened ran the grasses, the sky grew slate: Then amid a swift flight of winged seed white ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Scotsmen are a pertinacious brood; Fitly you wear the thistle in your cap, As in your grim theology. O we're not all so fierce! God knows you'll find, Well-combed and smooth-licked gentlemen enough, Who will rejoice with you To sneer at Calvin's close-wedged ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... here to this tea-meetin' an stravagin' yonder to some bit choir practise, an' here awa, there awa, until Ah dinna ken what's to be the end o' it! Aye, an' the next thing they've gotten intill their bit heids is that they must get a bit o' an idolatrous music boax for the kirk! Yon bit thistle heid o' a schoolmaister cam' till me aboot the thing the day; what d'ye ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... then, a wish, (I mind its pow'r), A wish that to my latest hour Shall strongly heave my breast, That I for poor auld Scotland's sake Some usefu' plan or book could make, Or sing a sang at least. The rough burr-thistle, spreading wide Amang the bearded bear, I turn'd the weeder-clips aside, An' spar'd the symbol dear: No nation, no station, My envy e'er could raise; A Scot still, but blot still, I ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... wait long for company. For one by one, the Lovely Ladies, wild with the joy of the mazy dance, the soft rush of the wind and the laughing and clapping of the little leaves, loose their hold, and drift to earth light as thistle-down, and that is the end of their dancing for that year. Where do they go to while the year goes by? I have never found out, but I think it most likely that they go to the ...
— Piccaninnies • Isabel Maud Peacocke
... waste grasses on my spear, I ride forever seeking after God. My hair grows whiter than my thistle plume And all my limbs are loose; but in my eyes The star of an unconquerable praise; For in my soul one hope forever sings, That at the next white corner of the road My eyes may ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... me fairly away!' she said, jumping up and floating off to the mill door like any thistle down, on the tips of ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... like a ton of hay. But the next day!—my Lord alive, you remember the next day, don't you, Mrs. Lathrop, 'n' it must have been arsenic as them four had put in his bottle, for I was up in the garret makin' a thistle-down pillow 'n' there come Ed tearin' up on his bicycle to tell me as I must stick in ten dollars more on a margin. 'On a what?' I hollered from the window. 'On a margin,' he hollered from under the porch. Well, really, Mrs. Lathrop, I do ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Neighbors' Affairs • Anne Warner
... as the brutal law of the land went. But the road-menders, with better hearts, from that day to this have always kept up the mound. However beautiful the day, however beautiful the beech trees and the ashes that stand apart, there is always a melancholy feeling in passing the place. This thistle-grown mound saddens the whole; it is impossible to forget it; it lies, as it were, under everything, under the beeches, the sunlit sward and fern. The mark of death is there. The dogs and the driven cattle tread the spot; a human being has passed into dust. The circumstance ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... what she put in his button-hole; a thistle, thorns and all, would have been precious to him if her hands had touched it, and he would have torn his fingers against the prickles with an exquisite sense ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... and rolled into hollows rich in mulcted earth; parachutes, buoyed on thistle silk, sailed from distant jungle plants; every swirl of breeze brought spores of lichens and moss, and even the retreating water unwittingly aided, having transported hither and dropped a cargo of living things, from tiniest plant to seeds of mightiest mora. Though in the ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... the mead There swelled a sob of minstrelsy, Faint sackbuts and the dreamy reed, And plaintive lips of maids thereby, And songs blown out like thistle seed. ...
— Gloucester Moors and Other Poems • William Vaughn Moody
... put his acorn helmet on; It was plumed of the silk of the thistle down; The corslet plate that guarded his breast Was once the wild bee's golden vest; His cloak, of a thousand mingled dyes, Was formed of the wings of butterflies; His shield was the shell of a lady-bug green, ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various
... to lack a knowledge of the chemical properties of the food we eat, and the suitability of it to our organism. Yet the latter bears direct and intimate relation to man's physical, mental, and moral well-being, while the former is but a 'sapless, heartless thistle for pedantic chaffinches,' ...
— No Animal Food - and Nutrition and Diet with Vegetable Recipes • Rupert H. Wheldon
... if it were the wind, and they, the sand and pebbles, of our illustration; or, on the other hand, as if the intelligence of a gardener had been operative in cutting the weaker organisms down. The thistle, which has spread over the Pampas, to the destruction of native plants, has been more effectually "selected" by the unconscious operation of natural conditions than if a thousand agriculturists had spent ...
— Criticisms on "The Origin of Species" - From 'The Natural History Review', 1864 • Thomas H. Huxley
... in foreign lands. The Devonshire shepherd will weep over the recollections which a little daisy will bring back to him of the old country of his childhood, when standing beneath an Australian gum tree. I have seen a Scotchman in America cherish a thistle, as if it were the rarest of plants, from its native associations; and I know of a potted shamrock which was brought all the way across the ocean in an emigrant ship, by an Irish miner, and which now adorns the window of a veranda-fronted cottage ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... and the verification of it are of so recent a date, that we cannot resist giving it a place in our pages. In the account of the late Captain Flinder's voyage of discovery, is the melancholy relation of the loss of the master, Mr. Thistle, with seven others, in a boat, on the inhospitable shores of Terra Australia. To this narrative, the following note is subjoined, which we shall here quote in Captain Flinder's own words: "This evening, Mr. Fowler, the lieutenant, ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... gardens, with bells large and clear; crimson pinks; the Michaelmas daisy; a plant with a thin, radiated yellow flower, of the character of an aster; a centaurea of a light purple, handsomer than any English one; a thistle in the dryest places, resembling an eryngo, with a thick, bushy top; mulleins, yellow and white; the wild mignonnette, and the white convolvulus; and clematis festooning the bushes, recalled the flowery fields and lanes of England, and yet told us that we were not there. The meadows ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... is what is intended for a mock shield of Scotland. The shield is perforated with holes for eyes and a mouth so as to represent a mask, and it is charged with a crowned thistle; the supporters are an ass's head, plaided and wearing a Scotch bonnet, and a peacock. Motto, "Impudent, Rebellious, Lazy ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... work, and forgotten work, this peopled, clothed, articulate-speaking, high-towered, wide-acred world. For the thistle a blade of grass, later a drop of nourishing milk, later a nobler man. Man perfects himself as well as the ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... it is with plants; cases could be given of introduced plants which have become common throughout whole islands in a period of less than ten years. Several of the plants, such as the cardoon and a tall thistle, which are now the commonest over the wide plains of La Plata, clothing square leagues of surface almost to the exclusion of every other plant, have been introduced from Europe; and there are plants which now range in India, as I hear from Dr. ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... the thistle burrs off my trousers, "let us sit down for a spell, shall we?" To my surprise, they consented. We went round to the stoop and I took a big rocker. For a moment they stared, as though considering me in the new light of ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... heart of gold, Bravely defying winter's cold, When dreary north winds shrilly whistle Over the desolate fields of thistle; Thou comest to bless in beauty's ways, With memories of summer days, When at the touch of gentle showers, Decked were the fields in myriad flowers; Yet more than all I praise to-day This blossom bright, Since on her breast it lay Only ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... darkened by dust. The greater part of the place is in deep shadow, and the walls are stained and tinted by time and weather. A marble figure of Mary is stretched upon the tomb, round which is an iron railing, much corroded, bearing her national emblem—the thistle. I was weary with wandering, and sat down to rest myself at the monument, revolving in my mind the chequered and disastrous story of ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various
... fellow prowled about promiscuously a while, assailing one and another in French, to about as much purpose as one might have tried to storm the walls with discharges of thistle down; all smoked and drank as before. But as several other visitors arrived, and it became evident that if we did not come to see the castle, it was not likely we came for any thing else, a man was fished up from some depths unknown, with a promising bunch of keys. He ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... em the correlation of the body with the ether, and by thinking of it as light as thistle-down, will come the power ...
— The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali • Charles Johnston
... First published in the Contemporary Review for April, 1885; and now included in Volume XXII of the "Thistle Edition": Charles Scribner's Sons. ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... [Carlina. l. 7. Carline Thistle. Of the class Confederate Males. The seeds of this and of many other plants of the same class are furnished with a plume, by which admirable mechanism they perform long aerial journeys, crossing lakes and deserts, and are thus disseminated far from the ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... these words, all the deities that were present, having first filled the court with murmurs, answered in this manner: 'Great goddess, be pleased to reflect a little on the animosities such a choice may create among the rival flowers; even the worthless Thistle will pretend to deserve the crown, and if denied, will perhaps grow factious, and disturb your peaceful reign.' 'Your fears are groundless,' replied the goddess; 'I apprehend no such consequence; my resolution ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... House. Then, when the first meeting of the Cabinet was summoned after his return, it became known that he also had resigned his office. There was nothing said about his resignation in the House. He had resigned on the score of ill-health, and that very worthy peer, Lord Mount Thistle, formerly Sir Marmaduke Morecombe, came back to the Duchy of Lancaster in his place. A Prime Minister sometimes finds great relief in the possession of a serviceable stick who can be made to go in and out as occasion may require; only it generally happens that the stick will expect some ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... velvet, was relieved by ornaments in silver and a radiated oval of white satin with golden rays. The back was fluted in white satin, enriched with the Royal Arms in burnished gold. The State chair was covered with crimson velvet with the Royal Arms and Crown, with the rose, thistle and ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... and was silent. So, too, was the actress, for some moments; then, softened almost to tears, half closing her eyes, and letting her fancy float away like thistle-down over town and country, upland, valley, and moor, she said softly,—"Dear Burleigh Grange, how lovely it must be now! What a verdurous twilight reigns under the old elms of the avenue!—in what a passion ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... boundaries are no barriers against contagion. Rivers and mountains are easily crossed by corrupting example. Ardent spirits, like all other fluids, perpetually seek their level. In vain does the farmer eradicate from his fields the last vestige of the noisome thistle, while the neighboring grounds are given up to its dominion, and every wind scatters the seed where it listeth. The effort against intemperance, to be effective, ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... Simon went to look If plums grew on a thistle; He pricked his fingers very much, Which ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... the Wrath of God And the curse of thistle and thorn— But Tubal got him a pointed rod, And scrabbled the earth for corn. Old—old as that early mould, Young as the sprouting grain— Yearly green is the strife ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... blessed." Gen 22, 18. It is inconsistent for a Christian to curse even his most bitter enemy and an evil-doer; for he is commanded to bear upon his lips the Gospel. The dove did not bring to Noah in the ark a poisonous branch or a thistle sprig; she brought an olive-leaf in her mouth. Gen 8, 11. The Gospel likewise is simply a gracious, blessed, glad and healing word. It brings only blessing and grace to the whole world. No curse, but pure blessing, goes with the Gospel. ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... of the wall a perfectly gorgeous fringe of Epilobium obcordatum with flowers an inch wide, crowded together in lavish profusion, and colored as royal a purple as ever was worn by any high-bred plant of the tropics; and best of all, and greatest of all, a noble thistle in full bloom, standing erect, head and shoulders above his companions, and thrusting out his lances in sturdy vigor as if growing on a Scottish brae. All this brave warm bloom among the raw stones, right in the face of ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... aversion, and the very strangeness of the experience was not without attraction for his eager and dominant temperament. What a queer little oddity she was, he thought as he glanced up at the grave old house before turning rapidly away—as light and sensitive as thistle-down, as vivid as flame. He tried to recall her delicately distinguished figure and profound dark eyes, but her charming smile seemed to come between him and her features, and her face was obscured for him in a mysterious radiance. Her features taken in themselves were plain, he supposed, ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... project—but the cost! The Montyon prize of 2000 francs has been awarded to M. Mosson, for his method of drying and preserving vegetables for long sea voyages, as published a few months ago. M. Naudin states, that a certain kind of furze or thistle, of which cattle are very fond, may be made to grow without thorns—an important consideration, seeing that at present, before it can be used as food, it has to undergo a laborious beating, to crush and break the prickles with which it is covered. As the plant thrives best on poor soils, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various
... That she had a burly millionaire husband who still was under her spell and watched her jealously only made her more interesting, and they pitied her for being tied to a man twice her age and bulky as a bale of cotton. She who could dance like a sylph and was light on her little feet as a thistle down. Though wise ones sometimes said that Opal had her young eyes wide open when she married Ed Verrons, and she had him right under her little pink well manicured thumb. And some said she was not nearly ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... the foolish clown, 'kill me the red humble bee on the top of that thistle yonder; and, good Mr. Cobweb, bring me the honey-bag. Do not fret yourself too much in the action, Mr. Cobweb, and take care the honey-bag break not; I should be sorry to have you overflown with a honey-bag. Where ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... once or twice tried the experiment of leaving Paul with his grand-parents and calling for him in the late afternoon; but one day, on re-entering the Malibran, he was met by a small abashed figure clad in a kaleidoscopic tartan and a green velvet cap with a silver thistle. After this experience of the "surprises" of which Gran'ma was capable when she had a chance to take Paul shopping Ralph did not again venture to leave his son, and their subsequent Saturdays were passed ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... among the feelings that drew me homeward. At my departure their tomb had been hidden in the morning mist. Beholding it in the sunshine now, I felt a sensation through my frame as if a breeze had thrown the coolness of September over me, though not a leaf was stirred, nor did the thistle- down take flight. Was I to roam no more through this beautiful world, but only to the other end of the village? Then let me lie down near my parents, but not with them, because I love a green ...
— Fragments From The Journal of a Solitary Man - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... cutting the outline of a thistle on a spruce staff he was carving for the boy. Donald watched him in silence as he worked in the fading light. The sun had set behind the chain of near hills, and the plateau where they were camping was gray with shadows. Through the dusk they could see the flock lazily browsing ...
— The Story of Wool • Sara Ware Bassett
... and flower, grain and grass, root, stem, and branch, all are composed or made up of these same dozen elements. If I ask you what bread is made of, you say it is composed of the dozen elements aforesaid. If I ask what wheat-straw is made of, you answer, the dozen. If I ask what a thistle is made of, you say the dozen. There are a good many milk-weeds in my strawberry patch, and I am glad to know that the milk-weed and the strawberry are both composed of the same dozen elements. Manure is the food of plants, and the food of plants is composed of the above dozen elements, and ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris
... could double that in an hour. I just jotted that down as I came up the valley from Paw-paw in the Chattanooga Limited. Why, just lookin' out of the cyah windo' would give me notions. I saw a thistle. Down she went on the list, an' down went whistle next her, suggested by our locomotive. Thistle. Whistle. Look at those disgraces. Look at the dead wood in 'em. Are not they just congested all up with pitfalls for the young? Once we get to work at Arkansopolis, ...
— How Doth the Simple Spelling Bee • Owen Wister
... innumerable grew on this plain, mixed with grass of a tawny brown-green. There were cactuses, red and yellow, scarlet and white gillias, tall spikes of yucca in full bloom, and masses of a superb white poppy with an orange-brown centre, whose blue-green foliage was prickly like that of the thistle. Here and there on the higher uplands appeared strange rock shapes of red and pink and pale yellow, which looked like castles with towers and pinnacles, or like primitive fortifications. Clover thought it all strangely beautiful, ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge
... His feet refused to move, his hands hung powerless at his side, his tongue refused to utter a word. The bow and arrow fell from his hand, and his spear lay powerless. A little child, not so high as the fourth leaf of the thistle, came and spat on him, and a company of the spirits danced around him singing a taunting song. When they had thus finished their task of preparatory torture, a thousand little spirits drew their bows, and a thousand arrows pierced his heart. In a moment innumerable mattocks were employed ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends: North American Indian • Anonymous
... out of veins. In the receptacle formed where the bases of the upper leaves grow together, rain and dew are found collected - a certain cure for warts, country people say. Venus' Cup, Bath, or Basin, and Water Thistle, are a few of the teasel's folk names earned by its curious little tank. In it many small insects are drowned, and these are supposed to contribute nourishment to the plant; for Mr. Francis Darwin has noted that protoplasmic filaments reach out ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... woodman, and could fell and saw With lusty arm. You know that huge round beam Which props the hanging wall of the old chapel? Beneath that tree, while yet it was a tree He found a baby wrapt in mosses, lined With thistle-beards, and such small locks of wool As hang on brambles. Well, he brought him home, And reared him at the then Lord Velez' cost. And so the babe grew up a pretty boy, A pretty boy, but most unteachable— And never learnt a prayer, nor told a bead, ...
— Lyrical Ballads 1798 • Wordsworth and Coleridge |
