"Birch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of one hundred and fifty feet, as nearly as I could estimate. They were formed by stumps of trees and poles, set upright on the ground, and these were linked together by horizontal poles, and against the latter were reared birch poles and branches of trees, varying from six to ten feet in height, without the slightest attempt at neatness, the whole being as rude as well could be; but withal, this inclosure was sufficiently secure to answer the purpose of its builders. On the south ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... made Bishop of Myra and died in the year 343. It was once the custom to send a man around to personate St. Nicholas on St. Nicholas Eve, and to inquire how the children had behaved through the year, who were deserving of gifts, and who needed a touch of the birch rods that he carried with him into every home. St. Nicholas still goes about in some parts of the country, and in the bazaars and shops are sold little bunches of rods, real or made of candy, such as St. Nicholas is supposed to deal ...
— Yule-Tide in Many Lands • Mary P. Pringle and Clara A. Urann
... cedar trees and chestnut trees and birch trees of three kinds; and there were white pine trees and pitch pine trees, and the pitch pine trees were ...
— The Doers • William John Hopkins
... to Hurstbourne Tarrant, another charming "highland" village, and the road, sloping down the entire distance, struck me as one of the best to be on I had travelled in Hampshire, running along a narrow green valley, with oak and birch and bramble and thorn in their late autumn colours growing on the slopes on either hand. Probably the beauty of the scene, or the swift succession of beautiful scenes, with the low sun flaming on the "coloured shades," served to keep out of my mind something that should ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... the draw. His ornery three kings was no good. But he just knew there was another king coming—that was his hunch—and he got it. And I tell you-all I got a hunch. There's a big strike coming on the Yukon, and it's just about due. I don't mean no ornery Moosehide, Birch-Creek kind of a strike. I mean a real rip-snorter hair-raiser. I tell you-all she's in the air and hell-bent for election. Nothing can stop her, and she'll come up river. There's where you-all track my moccasins in the near future if you-all want ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... Bellfont, happy Bellfont, still blest with Sylvia's presence! permit me, oh permit me into those sacred shades, where I have been so often (too innocently) blest! Let me survey again the dear character of Sylvia on the smooth birch; oh when shall I sit beneath those boughs, gazing on the young goddess of the grove, hearing her sigh for love, touching her glowing small white hands, beholding her killing eyes languish, and her charming bosom rise and ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... hand clutching the butt of the revolver in his coat pocket. Where the trail twisted abruptly into the north he found the charred remains of a camp-fire in a small open, and just beyond it a number of birch toggles, which had undoubtedly been used in place of tent-stakes. With the toe of his boot he kicked among the ashes and half-burned bits of wood. There was no sign of smoke, not a living spark to give evidence that human presence had been ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... from the sitting-room windows, I saw another canoe cross the pathway of uncertain light upon the water, and disappear at once into the impenetrable gloom that lay beyond. This time I saw more distinctly than before. It was like the former canoe, a big birch-bark, with high-crested bows and stern and broad beam. It was paddled by two Indians, of whom the one in the stern—the steerer—appeared to be a very large man. I could see this very plainly; and though the second canoe was much nearer the island than the first, I judged that they were both ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... to Cheemaun this summer and had asked her lawyer to sell all this property. And now it would appear that old Sandy's farm was for sale, too. For Sandy had no deed of his property; in fact, had merely worked it for Mr. Jarvis, who, Sandy declared, had told him that all south of the Birch Creek belonged to him. But it wasn't in writing, and lawyers did not believe anything ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... me as to my friends in London, and said, "You have seen something of the aristocracy, I would like you to see some of the business people." So he invited me to a dinner at the Reform Club, to meet a few friends. Among these was a Mr. Birch, son of the celebrated Alderman Birch. He had directed the dinner, being a famous gourmet, and Soyer had cooked it. That dinner cost my host far more than he had made out of me. We had six kinds of choicest ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... the house a few trees were growing. Some were cherry trees, and one was a birch, with long, slender branches which swayed in the wind, and with every breeze its leaves touched the dilapidated moss-covered straw thatch of the roof; when the stronger gusts of wind bent its boughs to the wall, and pressed its twigs and ...
— Sielanka: An Idyll • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... think of another way to accomplish his purpose. None presented itself; so with glowing words he appealed to their nobler selves, telling them all the great need of the travelers who were obliged to pass that way. First he appealed to a fine birch which bordered the forest. ...
— Allegories of Life • Mrs. J. S. Adams
... The birch which grows here is the sweet-scented birch (Betula odorata, Bechst.), not the dwarf birch (Betula nana, L.), which is found as far north as Ice Fjord in Spitzbergen (78 degree 7' N.L.), though there it only rises a ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... from the scarlet fever. Hippocrates, Hygeia, King Bladud, and a wreath of serpents surmount the cup to this day; which was executed in their finest manner, by Messrs. Abednego, of Milsom-street; and the inscription was by Mr. Birch tutor ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Iberian Shoar, To rob the Natives of their fatal Stoar. I smil'd to hear my young Logician Thus reason like a Politician; Who ne're by Father's Pains and Earning Had got at Mother Cambridge Learning; Where Lubber youth just free from birch Most stoutly drink to prop the Church; Nor with (u) Grey Groat had taken Pains To purge his Head and Cleanse his Reines: And in obedience to the Colledge, Had pleas'd himself with carnal knowledge: And tho' I lik'd the youngster's Wit, I judg'd the Truth ...
— The Sot-weed Factor: or, A Voyage to Maryland • Ebenezer Cook
... flapped his elbows up toward his face, as if they were wings, and contrived to beat away a few of the mosquitoes with them; Mrs. Sewell, in silent exasperation, fought them from her with the bough which she had torn from an overhanging birch-tree. ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... to do with myself. The dog was continually dancing around me with friendly advances, the sunlight was spread out cheerfully over the fields, and the green birch-trees shone brightly. I had a feeling as if I had something to do requiring haste. Accordingly, I caught the little dog, tied him fast in the room, and took the cage, with the bird in it, under my arm. The dog cringed and whined over this unusual treatment; ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... breakfast and gone out of the cottage to escape his mother's pleadings and reproofs. "I'm glad she isn't near me. If she was here, I could not keep my tongue from her. She should hear the truth for once, if she never heard it again. They should be words as sharp as the birch rod she ought to have had, when she first began her nonsense, and her ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... this time by constant submergence in the water and in the unusually moist soil above it to betray without any serious question the nature of the materials used and the mode of their employment. One of the corner-posts was a black birch and the bark on it is in a good state of preservation at and below the surface of ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various
... things which lay strewed about here, were a spearshaft, eight feet in length, recently made and ochred; parts of old canoes, fragments of their skin-dresses, &c. For some distance around, the trunks of many of the birch, and of that species of spruce pine called here the Var (Pinus balsamifera) had been rinded; these people using the inner part of the bark of that kind of tree for food. Some of the cuts in the trees with the axe, were evidently made the preceding year. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 387, August 28, 1829 • Various
... white blossom should not be painted, because they make no picture, just as birches with their foliage are unfit for the foreground of a picture, because the delicate foliage does not adequately balance the white trunk. Said Goethe, "Ruysdael never placed a foliaged birch in the foreground, but only broken birch stems, without leaves. Such a trunk suits the foreground admirably, for its bright form stands out ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... the mouth of the Saguenay, under the shadow of savage and inaccessible rocks, feathered with pines, firs, and birch-trees, they built a cluster of wooden huts and store-houses. Here they left sixteen men to gather the expected harvest of furs. Before the winter was over, several of them were dead, and the rest scattered through the woods, living on the ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... call it, which, when a boy makes it in the street is no formidable thing, but when made by a multitude is a most hideous shriek, almost as terrible as an Indian yell; the people crying, "Kill them, kill them. Knock them over," heaving snowballs, oyster shells, clubs, white-birch sticks three inches and a half in diameter; consider yourselves in this situation, and then judge whether a reasonable man in the soldiers' situation would not have concluded they were going to kill him. I believe if I were to reverse the scene, I should bring it home to our own bosoms. Suppose ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... o'clock, a man from Clapp and Beazley's with some patterns of socks and underwear. Disposed of him, dressed, and by a quarter-to-eleven I was in the Park. Strolled up and down with Lady Ventnor and Sir Hill Birch and saw everybody there was to be seen. I nevah make a single note; my memory's marvellous. Left the Park at twelve and took a taxi to inquire after Lord Harrogate, Charlie Sievewright, and old Lady Dorcas Newnham. I'm ...
— The Big Drum - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... mine! I'll kill any other man that touches you!" Barney got up, and his face was flaming; he started off with a great stride, and then he stopped short and flung an arm around the slender trunk of a white-birch tree, and pulled it against him and leaned against it as if it were Charlotte, and laid his cheek on the cool white bark and sobbed again like a girl. "Oh, Charlotte, Charlotte!" he moaned, and his voice was drowned out by the manifold ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... which was almost as soft as a load of hay, they drove back to the barn, and alighted. Mr. Preston now appeared, and led the horse into the orchard, where, with the aid of the boys, he scattered the birch twigs around the young trees, so as to protect their roots from the fierce heat of the sun. There was not enough for all the trees, but he told them they need not get any more at ...
— Oscar - The Boy Who Had His Own Way • Walter Aimwell
... either side stand tall shovel and tongs, like sentries, mounted in brass. The tongs, like the two-handed sword of Bruce, cannot be wielded by puny people. We burn in it hickory wood, cut long. We like the smell of this aromatic forest timber, and its clear flame. The birch is also a sweet wood for the hearth, with a sort of spiritual flame and an even temper,—no snappishness. Some prefer the elm, which holds fire so well; and I have a neighbor who uses nothing but apple-tree wood,—a solid, family sort of wood, fragrant ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... pictures on a motley screen. Whence arises the harmony that strikes us in the wildest natural landscapes,—in the relative shapes of rocks, the harmony of colours in the heaths, ferns, and lichens, the leaves of the beech and the oak, the stems and rich brown branches of the birch and other mountain trees, varying from verging autumn to returning spring,—compared with the visual effect from the greater number of artificial plantations?—From this, that the natural landscape is effected, as it were, by a single energy modified ab intra ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... them all, perhaps, are the canoes of the North American Indians. These are built of thin laths and ribs of wood, and are covered with the bark of the birch-tree. The sheets of bark are not a quarter of an inch thick. Several sheets are used in the covering of one canoe. They are sewed together with the long pliant roots of the pine, and the seams are rendered tight with gum procured from the same tree. So light are these canoes, that ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne
... of the White River, pleasant springs on a hillside, bubbling forth among the first trees we had seen since we left the Laramie. Then we descended into a fine shady valley: all our old friends were there in thickets—the box-elder, willow, birch and cottonwood, the alder, osier and wild cherry, currant, gooseberry, buffalo-berry and clematis. As we went on, brushing through the thick foliage, the hills on either side became higher, and grew into bastions, castles, donjon-keeps and fantastic clustered chimneys, like Scott's ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... it down to lowliness and rest, Betwixt wet walls of darkness, darker yet With pine trees lining all their sides like hair, Or as their own straight needles clothe their boughs; Until at length in broader light it ran, With more articulate sounds amid the stones, In the slight shadow of the maiden birch, And the stream-loving willow; and ere long Great blossoming trees dropt flowers upon its breast; Chiefly the crimson-spotted, cream-white flowers, Heaped up in cones amid cone-drooping leaves; Green hanging leaf-cones, towering white flower-cones ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... four or five. Some of them who had finished their houses earlier than the rest, had already commenced gathering their provisions for the winter. These consisted of the leaves and soft twigs of several species of trees—such as willow, birch, and mulberry—and we saw collections of these floating in the water in front of several of ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... the devil, The peasants make ready To sleep by the roadside. They light a large fire, And collecting some farthings 110 Send two of their number To buy them some vodka, The rest cutting cups From the bark of a birch-tree. The vodka's provided, Black bread, too, besides, And they all begin feasting: Each munches some bread And drinks three cups of vodka— But then comes the question 120 Of who can, in Russia, Be ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... the meaning of his words, would ask him to repeat them, but Platon could never recall what he had said a moment before, just as he never could repeat to Pierre the words of his favorite song: native and birch tree and my heart is sick occurred in it, but when spoken and not sung, no meaning could be got out of it. He did not, and could not, understand the meaning of words apart from their context. Every word and action of his was the manifestation of an activity unknown to him, ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... excited by the unswathing of an Egyptian mummy at the residence of Lord Londesborough, at which Mr. Birch of the British Museum, describing the embalming process, and following in this the narrative of Herodotus, said the subject had evidently suffered from the use of bitumen and the application of heat, as the bones were charred and the muscles calcined. DR. CORMACK has published ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... rights, wrestled lovingly with their errors, mediated in their quarrels, and was idolized by them as was no other of his race. Pokanoket, Massasoit and Canonicus were his hosts and guardians during the winter and spring; and in summer he descended the river in a birch-bark canoe to the site of the present city of Providence, so named by him in recognition of the Divine mercies; and there he pitched his tent beside the spring, hoping to make the place "a shelter for persons distressed ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... neighboring the Great Lakes, whereby you see, as through a magic glass, the boats, loaded on the shoulders when navigation was no longer possible, and the journey made over the watershed till a stream was followed far enough to float the birch-bark canoe once more. Prairie is another word full of interest. Pampas is a word, Peruvian in origin, designating the prairies of South America; while prairie is a French word, meaning meadow. Pampas is the Peruvian ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... Penningham, and author of the celebrated song of the Hills of Galloway"—with which I confess myself unacquainted. Broadfoot had facetiously signed his communication Clashbottom,—"a professional appellation derived," says Mr. Train, "from the use of the birch, and by which he was usually addressed among his companions,—who assembled, not at the Wallace Inn of Gandercleuch, but at the sign of the Shoulder of Mutton in Newton-Stewart." Scott received these ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... evening; but to his astonishment a mountain stream was now foaming down it, leaping from rock to rock, and filling the glen with babbling murmurs. He, however, made shift to scramble up its sides, working his toilsome way through thickets of birch, sassafras, and witch-hazel; and sometimes tripped up or entangled by the wild grape vines that twisted their coils and tendrils from tree to tree, and spread a kind of network in ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... tight till he is satisfied; The wet of woods through the early hours, Two sleepers at night lying close together as they sleep, one with an arm slanting down across and below the waist of the other, The smell of apples, aromas from crush'd sage-plant, mint, birch-bark, The boy's longings, the glow and pressure as he confides to me what he was dreaming, The dead leaf whirling its spiral whirl and falling still and content to the ground, The no-form'd stings that sights, people, objects, sting me with, The hubb'd sting of myself, stinging me as much as it ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... creatures, a boy and a girl, who stared on Petrea with astonishment. She quickly made herself acquainted with them, and they promised to conduct her to the cottage, which lay at a little distance. On their way they gave Petrea bilberries out of their full birch-wood measure, and related to her that the reason of their being out so late was, that they had been looking for the cow which was lost in the wood; that they should have driven her home, but had ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... were full of birch, exclaimed against this weak, and, as he said he would venture to call it, wicked lenity. To remit the punishment of such crimes was, he said, to encourage them. He enlarged much on the correction of children, and quoted many texts ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... a letter to Dr. Birch, mentions this as one of the very few inaccuracies in this admirable address, the laurel not being barren in any sense, but bearing fruits and flowers. Boswell's Life, vol. i. p. 160. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... first along the edge of the forest, then along a broad forest clearing; they caught glimpses of old pines and a young birch copse, and tall, gnarled young oak trees standing singly in the clearings where the wood had lately been cut; but soon it was all merged in the clouds of snow. The coachman said he could see the forest; the examining magistrate could see nothing ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... shooting rapids in their birch-bark canoes? And perhaps you have yourself sailed a toy boat on a stream, and made a dam of clay, and waited with more or less patience till the water rose nearly to the top, and then broken a bit of your dam out and made a waterfall and let your boat drift over the edge of it. You ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit
... for original incidents. But the Lancelot in its original form was held by so competent an authority as the late M. Gaston Paris to have been one of the earliest, if not the very earliest, of French prose texts. (Cf. M. Paris's review of Suchier and Birch-Hirschfield's Geschichte der Franz. Litt.) The adventure in question is a 'Gawain' adventure; we do not know whence it was derived, and it may well have been included in an early version of the romance. Apart from the purely literary question, from the strictly critical ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... conception of an "impossible" as little as with the actual visible facts of his ragged shirt-sleeves and faded, earth-stained overalls. They toiled upwards in silence for some moments, the man still chewing on his birch-twig. He noticed her sidelong half-satirical glance at it. "Don't you want one?" he asked, and gravely cut a long, slim rod from one of the saplings in the green wall shutting them into the road. As he gave it to her he explained, "It's the kind they make birch ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... a crown of white birch bark and her braid of hair, twined with running ever-green, fell to her waist. Patty was wreathed with columbines and decked with some turkey feathers that she had put in her basket as too pretty to throw away. Waitstill looked rather conscious in her ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... his reel, the rush of a brown mountain stream with its fringe of silver birch and stunted alder, the white side of a leaping salmon, and the gasp of that noble fish towed deftly into the shallows at last, afforded him a natural and unmixed pleasure. He loved the heather dearly, the wild hillside, the keen pure air, the steady setters, ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... necessary, particularly for logging up new fallows. Yet notwithstanding their usefulness, I do not know a worse treated set of animals than Canadian oxen. Their weight, when fat, varies from seven to eight hundred weight. A yoke and bows, made of birch or soft maple, is the only harness needed; and, in my opinion, for double draught, better, and certainly less troublesome than the collar ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... in the branches of the silver birch before the house a thrush was singing, while the swallows were already busy ...
— The Flamp, The Ameliorator, and The Schoolboy's Apprentice • E. V. Lucas
... really. And those country officers have threatened us before, you know. I suppose they are a little bit jealous that we girls and not their boys, are scattered over the landscape with yells and other appropriate noises. Sit down" (they had reached a birch bench), "I must tell you ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... eight feet of a plank in the wale were found to be so very rotten as to make it necessary to shift it. The carpenters were sent on shore in search of a tree large enough for the purpose: luckily they found a birch, which was the only one of sufficient size in the whole neighbourhood of the bay. The crews were employed in various necessary occupations: amongst which, four men were set apart to haul the seine for salmon, which were caught in great abundance, and of excellent ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... several important ambassadorial posts and at one time was Assistant Secretary of State in charge of American Republic Affairs. In recent years, Mr. Braden has given leadership to many patriotic organizations and efforts, such as For America and The John Birch Society; and, in testimony before various committees of Congress, he has given much valuable information about communist influences ...
— The Invisible Government • Dan Smoot
... crowned with flowers, BRITANNIA'S trident's wreathed with posies, And Fancy sees in Flora's showers Thistles and Shamrocks blent with Roses. The Indian Lotus let us twine With gorgeous bloom from Afric's jungles Canadian Birch with Austral Pine. Tape-bound Officialdom oft bungles; Some blow too hot, some breathe too cold, O'er-chill are some, and some o'er-gushing; But the same blood-stream, warm and bold, Through all our veins is ever rushing; ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 13, 1893 • Various
... kneeling before a shrine, who did not even turn round as we approached, but seemed in the self-surrender of devotion to have neither eyes nor ears for the outer world. There were many things new to me. For instance, hay-ricks in the trees, and here and there very beautiful masses of weeping birch, their white stems shining like silver through the ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... of Biblical Archaeology. This work, which is not yet (1883) complete, is entitled The Bronze Ornaments of the Gates of Balawat, Shalmaneser II. 859-825, edited, with an introduction, by Samuel BIRCH, with descriptions and translations by Theophilus G. PINCHES, folio, London. The three first parts are before us. The motive reproduced above belongs to the plate ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... the appendiculate sporidia are similar, and the conidia would also appear to partake of the character of Stilbospora. We may remark here that we have seen a brown mould, probably an undescribed species of Dematiei, growing in definite patches around the openings in birch bark caused by the crumpent ostiola of the perithecia of Melanconis stilbostoma, ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke
... between Ruerdean and High-Meadow, or even from Gloucester, if the Beacon, which formerly stood on the crest of Edge Hill, were included in the range. Such posts would be serviceable to the Parliamentary Colonel Birch, when engaged in the siege of Goodrich Castle, not more than four miles north of Ruerdean; for his supplies would be drawn chiefly from the Forest, as indeed appears from a letter dated 4th July, 1646, in which he says, "We ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls
... Captain Calver devised an arrangement not unlike that employed by the coral- fishers. He fastened half a dozen swabs, such as are used for drying decks, to the dredge. A swab is something like what a birch-broom would be if its twigs were made of long, coarse, hempen yarns. These dragged along after the dredge over the surface of the mud, and entangled the creatures living there—multitudes of which, twisted up in the strands of ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... all around, like giants, to "sentinel this enchanted land." On leaving the island, we saw the Goblin's Cave, in the side of Benvenue, called by the Gaels, "Coirnan-Uriskin." Near it is Beal-nam-bo, the pass of cattle, overhung with grey weeping birch trees. Here the boatmen stopped to let us hear the fine echo, and the names of "Rob Roy," and "Roderick Dhu," were sent back to us apparently as loud as they were given. The description of Scott ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... whispered, looking into the white sunlight. She was noting how it was flashed from the bark of the birch-trees near ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... around the fields of the homestead; on three sides Valleys and mountains and hills, but on the fourth side was the ocean. Birch-woods crowned the summits, but over the down-sloping hillsides Flourished the golden corn, and man-high was waving the rye- field." TEGNER, Frithiof Saga ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... have decided not to birch boys in the future, but to fine their parents. Several soft-hearted boys have already indicated that it will hurt ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, October 31, 1917 • Various
... To the right there are only a few single trees, between which the fiord is visible. In front is seen the corner of a boat-shed with a boat drawn up. Under the old trees on the left stands a table with a bench and one or two chairs, all made of thin birch-staves. It is a heavy, damp day, with driving ...
— Little Eyolf • Henrik Ibsen
... furniture in the old-fashioned snug parlor was so essential as we? How could the fragrant hickory and birch sticks have sent their cheering light and warmth over the faces of the happy family circles ...
— Who Spoke Next • Eliza Lee Follen
... flame. Song birds, the glory of the St. Lawrence valley, were no longer to be heard, but the waters literally swarmed with duck and the forests were alive with partridge. Where to-day nestle church spires and whitewashed hamlets were the birch wigwams and night camp fires of Indian hunters. Wherever Cartier went ashore, Indians rushed knee-deep to carry him from the river; and one old chief at Richelieu signified his pleasure by presenting the whites with two Indian children. Zigzagging leisurely, ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... celebrated as a summer festival. In Northern Germany house doors are wreathed with birch twigs, while young birch trees are placed upright on the wings of ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... and Rosen. Both go on Monday. I give them on Saturday (to-morrow) an evening party of literati, to which I have invited Wilson, Norris, Loftus, Birch, etc., etc. Mohl, as well as Rosen, would like to see you. Could not you by a stroke of genius fly here, rest yourself Sunday, and think on Monday if you really need go back again? Theodore is here, ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... how much swamp and sea must have existed there a thousand years ago. Yes, in these respects the same was to be seen there as is to be seen now. The rushes had the same height, the same sort of long leaves, and blue-brown, feather-like flowers that they bear now; the birch tree stood with its white bark, and delicate drooping leaves, as now; and, in regard to the living creatures, the flies had the same sort of crape clothing as they wear now; and the storks' bodies were white, with black and red stockings. Mankind, on the ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... five Miss Mohuns appeared in white frocks, new bonnets were plenty, the white tippets of the children, and the bright shawls of the mothers, made the village look gay; Wat Greenwood stuck a pink between his lips, and the green boughs of hazel and birch decked the dark oak carvings in ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... teller Hans Christian Andersen. Reader, will they strike you as pleasantly as they did me? I know not. Let us glance them over. They have at least the full flavor of the North, of the healthy land of frost and pines, of fragrant birch and of sweeter meadow-grass, and simpler, holier flowers than the rich South ever showed, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... we passed was very beautiful, commencing with dark-green ilex, glistening holly, and sombre brown oak, interspersed with groups of the dainty, graceful, white-stemmed birch, and wreathed with festoons of the scarlet Himalayan vine. As we mounted higher, trees became fewer and the foliage less luxuriant, till at length only oaks were to be seen, their branches twisted into all sorts of weird, fantastic ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... light tent, made with poles stuck into the ground, in a circle, fastened together at the top, and covered on the outside with skins of wild animals, or with birch bark. The Indians light a fire of sticks and logs on the ground, in the middle of the wigwam, and lie or sit all round it; the smoke goes up to the top and escapes. In the winter, they bank it up with snow, and it ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill
... Signore Tommaso de' Medici, the Chamberlain of the Court, and gave him instructions to set the boy at liberty, after administering the useful punishment of twenty strokes with a birch rod, and giving him a severe ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... down the lake came Half-breed Tom with russet sail a-flying, And the word he said was "War" again, so what was I to do? Oh the dogs they took to howling, and the missis took to crying, As I flung my silver foxes in the little birch canoe: Yes, the old girl stood a-blubbing till an island hid ...
— Rhymes of a Red Cross Man • Robert W. Service
... the New Forest over a slightly undulating stretch of velvety grass, bracken, heather and stunted oak-trees, which gave the place a park-like aspect, running right up to where the oaks were clustered thickly, with an occasional silvery or ruddy barked birch, and made dense ...
— The New Forest Spy • George Manville Fenn
... the woods, and in all my recent fire-making I have contented myself with the tinder used for ages by the red men: that is, cedar wood finely shredded between two stones. Some use the fringes that grow on birch, improving it by rubbing in ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... morning there passed a church, At ten there passed me by the sea, At twelve a town of smoke and smirch, At two a forest of oak and birch, And ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... held in the Council Chamber, a space between the birches and hazels on the bank of the Ownashee; a fair and green room, ceiled with tremulous leaves, encircled and made secret by high bracken, out of which rose the tarnished-silver stems of the birch trees and the multitudinous hazel-boughs, and furnished with boulders of limestone, planted deep in a green fleece of mingled moss and grass. On one side only was it open to the world, yet on that same side it was most effectively divided from it, by the swift brown stream, speeding ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... last we have got a beautiful day, quite warm and bright. Nothing can be more lovely than this Strath of the Dee, with its birch woods and pine-covered mountains. We went up a hill yesterday—the Coyle—and looked across the glen to the broad snow fields which still encircle the black cliffs of Lochnagar. To-day we are going up to Alt na Ghuissac, and shall lunch at the Queen's hut. H. M. ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... by the birch-tree's root In the heather. The hare was running with nimble foot O'er the heather. Was ever brighter a sunshine-day, Before, behind me, and every way, ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... curious features of the establishment at St.-Gobain is a subterranean lake. The fine forests around St.-Gobain and La Fere—forests of oak, beech, elm, ash, birch, maple, yoke-elm, aspen, wild cherry, linden, elder, and willow—flourish upon a tertiary formation. The surface of clay keeps the soil marshy and damp, but this checks the infiltration of the rainwater ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... tell. I believe I was never quite so bad after the time Effie gave me my Bible." And she gave Miss Gertrude the history of the miserable day with which our story commenced—of her trying to pray under the birch-tree by the brook, of Effie's coming home with the book-man, and of their walk to the kirk and the long ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... similes or not, there were we two together again at last. What a week of weeks we spent, pacing back and forth on the veranda of our log cabin, where we overlooked the pleasant sinuosities of the Sebois and gazed out together over golden beech and ghostly birch and blood-red maple banners to the far violet mountains of the Aroostook! And how we did take stock of the immediate past, chuckling to find that it had not been a quarter so bad as I had stupidly supposed. What gilded forest trails were those which we blazed into the glamorous land of to-morrow! ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... of chicken sat on and dried at the fire; and with lime juice against scurvy, extracted from the peel of his oranges and a little economised juice. He made a North Pole one morning from the whole of his bedclothes except the bolster, and reached it in a birch-bark canoe (in private life the fender), after a terrible encounter with a polar bear fashioned from the bolster and four skittles dressed up in "Da's" nightgown. After that, his father, seeking to steady his imagination, brought him Ivanboe, Bevis, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... ginger ales, and other soft drinks were triumphs of insipidity, and their birch beer sickened the thirstiest child. But the making and the marketing and even the drinking of them were matters of high emprise compared to the keeping ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... autograph letter of her sister, Miss Pinkerton, was an object of as deep veneration as would have been a letter from a sovereign. Only when her pupils quitted the establishment, or when they were about to be married, and once, when poor Miss Birch died of the scarlet fever, was Miss Pinkerton known to write personally to the parents of her pupils; and it was Jemima's opinion that if anything could console Mrs. Birch for her daughter's ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... fancied he saw, on the knee-shaped crag above, the slouched figure of a buccaneer silhouetted against the sky. It was not the bearded giant called Herriot, but another, Jeremy was sure. He had no time for conjectures, for they plunged into the thicket and birch limbs whipped him ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... andirons or claw-footed chair and table. Sometimes he glanced shyly at the mother, but getting no answering smile kept silence. Once or twice the girl whispered a word to him, as the logs fell and a sheet of flame from the hickory and the quick-burning birch set free the stored-up sunshine of many a summer day. A moment later, the girl caught ...
— Mr. Kris Kringle - A Christmas Tale • S. Weir Mitchell
... the party passed out of this inhospitable region, and, after passing a stream which they named Thompson's (now Birch) Creek, after one of their men, they were glad to make this entry ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... its babble for several hundred feet of the ascent. Some time ere we had reached the base of the hill we had lost sight of the summit, and there was before us only the broad steep bank, with its surface of alternate stone and heather, and a few birch-trees peeping timidly forth from crevices in the rock. After a considerable period of good hard climbing, accompanied by nothing worthy of note either in the variations of the scenery or in the incidents encountered, we ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... till they found That butt was out and heard the mournful sound." He praised a poacher, precious child of fun! Who shot the keeper with his own spring gun; Nor less the smuggler who th' exciseman tied, And left him hanging at the birch-wood side, There to expire;—but one who saw him hang Cut the good cord—a traitor of the gang. His own exploits with boastful glee he told, What ponds he emptied and what pikes he sold; And how, when blest with sight alert ...
— The Parish Register • George Crabbe
... of having been inhabited for some time. There was a cunningly contrived fireplace made of stones, against which pieces of birch bark were placed in such a position that not a ray of light could get out of the cavern. The bed of black coals between the stones still smoked; a quantity of parched corn lay on a little rocky shelf which jutted out from the wall; ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... Moscouie glasse.] We had diuers shewes of Study or Muscouy glasse shining not altogether vnlike to Christall. [Sidenote: A fruit like corinths.] We found an herbe growing vpon the rocks whose fruit was sweet, full of red iuice, and the ripe ones were like corinths. We found also birch and willow growing like shrubbes low to the ground. These people haue great store of furres as we iudge. They made shewes vnto vs the 30 of this present, which was the second time of our being with them, after they perceiued we would ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... says, represented 'hell' for him when Browning Hill stood for paradise. The instruction 'was wretched,' The fagging system was a 'horrid despotism.' The games were too much for his strength. His industry, however, enabled him to escape the birch, no small achievement in those days,[206] and he became distinguished in the studies such as they were. He learned the catechism by heart, and was good at Greek and Latin verses, which he manufactured for his companions as well as himself. He had also the ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... Lochness, and the road upon the side of it, shaded with birch trees, and the hills above it, pleased us much. The scene was as sequestered and agreeably wild as could be desired, and for a ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... silver Trent, The whispering birch by every zephyr bent, The woody island, and the naked mead, The lowly hut half hid in groves of reed, The rural wicket, and the rural stile, And frequent interspersed, the woodman's pile. Above, below, where'er I turn my eyes, Rocks, waters, woods, in grand succession rise. ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... rain had fallen the day before, and now wherever the ground was not paved the grass shone green. The birch trees in the gardens looked as if they were strewn with green fluff, the wild cherry and the poplars unrolled their long, balmy buds, and in shops and dwelling-houses the double window-frames were being removed ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... see, Fred told me about where he expected to break away and so of course I kept looking; and I saw that you'd turned out just about under that bunch of birch trees. Why, you left a plain track in the dust on the road. After that I used my eyes and my head, and kept pushing right along. I'm reckoned something of a scout in ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... westerly direction across a hill of some elevation: the remainder of it was over kheties and level ground. The plants evidently increase in interest as we advance in the interior, Compositae and Labiatae being most numerous. A large tree occurs not uncommonly, which is either a Birch or a Prunus, most probably from the venation of its leaves, the latter; the bark is exactly like that of a Birch. Close to Premsong's I gathered a Clematis, Valerian and a fine Botrychium, a Carex and ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... and sat down in the little rock chapel. There was a picnic at the Lovers' Leap, and I had that side of the island to myself. I was leaning back, half asleep, in the deep shadow, when the sound of voices roused me; a birch-bark canoe was passing close in shore, and two were in it,—Jeannette and our surgeon. I could not hear their words, but I noticed Rodney's expression as he leaned forward. Jeannette was paddling ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... judicial gentleman look more upish. In fact, nobody could deny that in clothes the Squire was all consequence; and when he loomed into 'Court,' all over the steel chain, believe it, there were bows and servilities without stint. Taking his seat on a high birch block, the plank table being set before him, on which to spread his inseparable law-book, the plaintiffs and defendants assembled, and took seats on a wooded bench in front. 'All persons whatsoever havin' any business whatever with this 'ere ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... the birch which Sister Gabrielle kept in the dormitory was put away in a cupboard, and in the refectory the salad was turned with two long wooden spoons. These were the only changes. We went into class from nine o'clock till twelve, and in the afternoon we cracked nuts, which were sold to ...
— Marie Claire • Marguerite Audoux
... who did not only refuse to give it, but having shook her as she lay in bed, sent her, accompanied with most fearful curses, to a higher tribunal." Such is the awful account of the scene by Francis Osborne. Dr. Birch says the words used by Elizabeth were, "God may forgive you, but I never can." It was the death-blow to the proud old queen, whose regret for the death of Essex could not be quenched by her pride and belief in his ingratitude. A confirmed melancholy settled upon her; she died ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... destroy the ferocious beast, lest she should escape through some unknown fissure of the rock. His neighbors strongly remonstrated against the perilous enterprise; but he, knowing that wild animals were intimidated by fire, and having provided several strips of birch-bark, the only combustible material he could obtain that would afford light in this deep and darksome cave, prepared for his descent. Having accordingly divested himself of his coat and waistcoat, and having a long rope fastened about his legs, by which he might be pulled back at a concerted ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober
... Yaupaae, where that river expands itself into a lake. The sides of the ravine, along its whole sweep upwards, was covered quite to the top with immense oaks and chestnuts, the growth of centuries, interspersed with ash trees, while in the colder and moister part in the centre, the smooth-barked birch threw out its gnarled branches. There was no undergrowth, and under and between the limbs of the trees, the eye caught a view towards the south of the widened Yaupaae and of the islands that dotted its surface, with hills sweeping round in a curve, and presenting an irregular ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... silk spotted with diamond stars and striped with black bands. On the other side of the river, in a wide, natural meadow, the moonlight rested quietly on the pastures, where it was spread out like a sheet. Some birch-trees scattered here and there over the savannas, sometimes blending, according to the caprice of the winds, with the background, seemed to surround themselves with a pale gauze—sometimes rising up again from their chalky foundations, hidden in the darkness, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... more than carry death and confusion into the ranks of the grey geese. They caused surprise and something like wild excitement in the hearts of a number of Eskimos who, in their kayaks, happened to be at that moment pushing up the Ukon River, pioneered by a birch-bark canoe, which was propelled by an Indian man ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... inhabitants. Higher up, on the uneven surface of the plateau, are scattered villages built on limestone foundations—tiny fortresses, like Rumigny and Champlat, the scene of hard-fought battles. Almost the entire surface is covered with forests of pine and oak and birch. These are the woods of Le Roi, Courton, Pourcy, and Reims, where hand-to-hand fighting went on for more than a fortnight, British, Italians, and French succeeding at first in checking the enemy and then in forcing him back, ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... anything approaching comfort? A second glance showed her how compactly and conveniently everything was arranged. The narrow cots, with their scarlet blankets and blue check pillows, stood on either side; between them was a table, with blotter of birch bark, and an inkstand made by hollowing out a quaintly shaped piece of wood and sinking in the hollow a small glass tumbler. Above the head of each bed hung a long shoe-bag with many pockets, while opposite the foot were rows of ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... the best. Too long poles, therefore, are not good, and care should be taken that the vines do not run beyond the poles, twisting off their tops will prevent it. The best kinds of wood for poles are alder, ash, birch, elm, chestnut, and cedar, their durability is directly the reverse of the order in which they stand; charring, or burning the end put into the ground, will preserve them. Hops should not be poled till the spring of the second year, and then not till they have been dressed. All that is necessary ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger
... old birch I came, Where I whittled my school-boy name: The nimble squirrel once more ran skippingly over the rail, The blackbirds down among The alders noisily sung, And under the blackberry-brier ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... service is an evil sad mass in English, they want nothing of the mass but the liftings." (Speech of King James VI, to the Central Assembly of the Church of Scotland, at Edinburgh, August 1590. Calderwood's Hist. of the Ch. of Scot. p. 206.) What is called the birch or "birk in Yule even'" was probably the Yule clog. On Christmas eve at no very remote period, the Yule clog, which was a large shapeless piece of wood, selected for the purpose, was dragged by a number of persons bearing ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... golden bodkin from her hair She drew, and from a green-tress'd birchen tree She pluck'd a strip of smooth white bark and fair, And many signs and woful graved she, A message of the evil things to be. Then deftly closed the birch-bark, fold on fold, And bound the tokens well and cunningly, Three times and four times, with a ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
... both to the bamboo and to the yellow cane, which grew plentifully both in the islands of the Greek Archipelago and in Southern Italy, as notably at Cannae in Apulia, where it gave a name to the scene of the great battle. The virga was also used, a rod commonly of birch, a tree the educational use of which had been already discovered. The walls of Pompeii indeed show that the practice of Eton is truly classical ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... Green, or Kennington Park, or Clapham Common, and sit on a bench, and watch the young folks enjoying their sports and diversions. He was better dressed now, and she had got into the way of calling him 'Sir.' He told her a great deal about Scotland, and the mountains, and the glens with the birch-trees and waterfalls; but he always got into a difficulty when he came to the sea, which she had never seen. She could ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... among them. He had seen their carriage at the gate. It was a lovely day, and the gaily-clad fashionable people, the Russian izbas with their carved woodwork, the paths gleaming with snow, and the old birch-trees, brilliant with icicles, combined to render the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... Northern trees by bark and leaf; how to know the shrubs new to me, like that strange plant whose root is like a human body and which the Chinese value at its weight in gold; and the aromatic root used in beer, and the bark of the sweet-birch whose twigs are golden-black. ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... work to be done was to make a fire to brew some ale, so they went off together to the forest to cut firewood. The giant carried a club in place of an axe, and when they came to a large birch-tree he asked Ashpot whether he would like to club the tree down or climb up and hold the top of it. The boy thought that the latter would suit him best, and he soon got up to the topmost branches ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Norway • A.F. Mockler-Ferryman
... important of these characteristics of race or species are those which are concerned with the relation of each to light, heat, and moisture. Thus, a river birch will die if it has only as much water as will suffice to keep a post oak in the best condition, and the warm climate in which the balsam fir would perish is just suited to the requirements of a long ...
— The Training of a Forester • Gifford Pinchot
... name. Vocation, school-teacher. Present avocation, getting lost in the snow. Age, yum-yum (the Persian for twenty). Take to the woods if you would describe Miss Adams. A willow for grace; a hickory for fibre; a birch for the clear whiteness of her skin; for eyes, the blue sky seen through treetops; the silk in cocoons for her hair; her voice, the murmur of the evening June wind in the leaves; her mouth, the berries of the wintergreen; fingers as light as ferns; her toe as small as a deer track. General impression ...
— Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry
... or Bhurjapatra is a species of birch, the bark of which resembles that of the tree common in Europe, in being separable into fine smooth layers; but these are of a fine chesnut colour. This bark is imported into the low country in considerable quantity, and is used both in the religious ceremonies of the Hindus, and ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... tone, reveal quiet content with the simple life and a thorough enjoyment of nature in its original wildness. In the summer they followed the tracks of the moose and deer through the primitive forests, and explored the streams and lakes in the light birch canoe, with a woodsman or savage for their guide. In the winter they made long journeys over land and water on snowshoes or on skates, occasionally visiting the villages of the Indians, with whom the Lesderniers were ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens |
