"Lilac" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rapidly over our river-voyage, interesting as it was. The banks were, in numerous places, exceedingly beautiful, from the profusion of scarlet and lilac coloured flowers of the convolvulus kind which covered the trees and bushes, some growing on them, others the produce of the numberless creepers which hang to the boughs. In some places we saw the wild cotton-tree hanging over the banks of the river, with pods full of cotton ripe ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston
... lilac bends its fresh, fragrant clusters over the dead man's head; the swallow again flies past; "quivit! quivit!" Now the men come with nails and hammer; the lid is placed over the corpse, whose head ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen
... the distance, and were driving through the crowded streets with their babel of voices, Nea's courage and spirits revived; and presently she was tripping about Maurice's shabby rooms, re-arranging the bowls of jonquils and lilac, with which the landlady had made some show of festivity, unlooping the stiff folds of the muslin curtains, and peeping into the corner cupboards with the gleeful curiosity of a child, until, at her young husband's gentle remonstrance, her seriousness returned, ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... through the lilac and myrtle boughs that rustled close to the study-window glinted over the pure, pale face of the orphan, and showed a calm mournfulness in the eyes which looked out at the quiet parsonage garden, and far away to the waving lines ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... in solitary grandeur at the bending summit of the hill. And while they were yet walking the few steps which remained of the intervening distance, Mary herself came out to the gate, and, leaning one arm lightly across it, watched them approaching. She wore a pale lilac print gown, high to the neck and tidily finished off by a plain little muslin collar fastened with a coquettish knot of black velvet,—her head was uncovered, and the fitful gleams of the sinking sun shed a russet glow on her shining hair and reddened the pale clear transparency of her skin. ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... go on to the loggia overlooking the Grand Canal. He had noticed as they passed that some high screens of lilac-bushes had been placed in front of the wide arched openings. No fear of prying eyes from opposite houses now! And yet they were not too high to prevent those in the loggia from seeing the moon and the sky. Their feast was preparing evidently, ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... north of the climbing rose bush was a wide hedge of tall lilac bushes. So I threw up an arbor between them, and the crimson rambler now mounts eight feet in the air. It is a glory of color to-day, and my pride. But didn't I ...
— A Hilltop on the Marne • Mildred Aldrich
... in light green and lilac. The skirt trimmed with four rows of fringe of green and lilac silk intermingled. The corsage low and plain, with a pelerine which passes along the back and shoulders, and is brought down to the front of the waist in a point. This ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... hath not a trace of sweetness It thrills one through and through, With promises of Joy in all completeness What time the skies are blue. When robins from the apple-trees are flinging Out on the air their silver shower of song,— In lilac days, when children run a-singing, No single thought shall do thy ...
— The Miracle and Other Poems • Virna Sheard
... Sneem, Darrynane, to Cahirciveen, and thence towards Killorglin, is harrowing and startling. The whole potato crop is literally destroyed, while over a very wide surface the oat crop presents an unnatural lilac tinge to the eye; at the same time, in too many instances, the head is found flaccid to the touch, and possessing no substance. The barley crop, too, in many places, exhibits the effect of a powerful blight. In some places, also, where ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... father. "Hector is dead, sir," said I; and I did not then stay to hear any further. But since that we have talked a great deal about love and forgiveness; and I find I must love Ben Hunt, even though I now see poor Hector's tomb in the garden. For John went to fetch him, and we buried him under the lilac-tree, on the right hand side, just by the large sun-flower. And we cried a great deal, and made a card tomb-stone over his grave; and father gave us an old hatband and we cut it into pieces and we went as mourners. His coffin was carried by Tom Wood, the carpenter's son, whose ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... you out of mourning—well, in half-mourning, then. It ought to be pale grey, and there's a lilac ribbon in Bonaday's shop at this moment. You needn't pretend you don't care about these ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... appearance, and their light pinnate leaves, with the long brown legumes hanging from their branches, told they were the famous "mezquite" trees—the American acacia. The red mulberry could be seen in the creek bottoms, and here and there the beautiful wild-china-tree with its pretty lilac flowers. The whole surface both of hill and valley was clad in a rich mantle of short buffalo grass, which gave it the aspect of a meadow lately mown, and springing into fresh verdure. It was a lovely landscape, and no wonder the wild bulls of the prairies ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... nutmegs in the sack or bin containing the flour, the odour of which is insupportable to mites; and they will quickly be removed, without the meal acquiring any unpleasant flavour. Thick branches of the lilac, or the elder tree, peeled and put into the flour, will have the same effect. Quantities of the largest sized ants, scattered about cheese-rooms and granaries, would presently devour all the mites, without ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... of the Old Family would take a Garden Rake and pattern all this hateful Currency into a neat Mound, after which a milk-fed Secretary would iron it out and disinfect it and sprinkle it with Lilac Water and tie it into artistic Packets using Old ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... Utnar Vehi. All day they came. And in the evening, just before the lights come out and colours change, they appeared before Bethmoora's copper gates. They carried staves, such as messengers bear in those lands, and seemed sombrely clad when the dancers all came round them with their green and lilac dresses. Those Europeans who were present and heard the message given were ignorant of the language, and only caught the name of Utnar Vehi. But it was brief, and passed rapidly from mouth to mouth, and ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... young corn's tender green. It had been a hard, inclement season. Many a time, since February onward, had the too-eagerly pushing buds of trees and shrubs been nipped by cruel cold,—many a biting east wind had withered the first pale green leaves of the lilac and the hawthorn,—and the stormy caprices of a chill northern. Spring had played havoc with all the dainty woodland blossoms that should, according to the ancient 'Shepherd's Calendar' have been flowering fully with the daffodils and ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... with rich dark soil, such as one rarely sees around Moscow, laid out on the slope of a hill into four separate parts. In front of the house there was a flower garden, with straight gravel paths, groups of acacias and lilac, and round flower beds. To the left, past the stable yard, as far down as the barn, there was an orchard, thickly planted with apples, pears, plums, currants, and raspberries. Beyond the flower garden, in front of the house, there was a large square walk, thickly interlaced with lime trees. ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... is the walk to Saint-Jean, for there, about a hundred yards from the town is a little wood, or rather a little half-wild cluster of hornbeams, maples, limes and lilac bushes, a bouquet that murmurs in the breeze. The very first day I discovered it, I felt its charm. I determined to make love to it; I made up my mind to know it tree by tree, to search out its humblest plants, its vetches, its saxifrages, and to see whether there was no Solomon's seal to be found ...
— Marguerite - 1921 • Anatole France
... were slowly lifted up to look at somebody, according to her custom, seemed cold and distant as they were not at first. Clarissa visited several sick people and carried them nourishing things; but she looked calm disapproval when Maria proclaimed that Tilly had been all up Lilac Lane to look for a stray Sunday-School scholar. Mrs. Englefield laughed and ...
— What She Could • Susan Warner
... about four feet long and some ten inches in breadth, covered with a flower equally remarkable in form and colour, the former being that of a hollow cylindrical bell, about two inches in diameter; the latter a bluish lilac, the nearest approach to azure I have seen in Mars—the whole ground one sheet of flowers. On this, holding in a half-insensible state to the outward-sloping rock above her, Eveena clung, her veil and head-dress fallen, her face expressing utter bewilderment as well as terror. I saw, though ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... Lightly he laugh'd, as one that read my thought, And on we went; but ere an hour had pass'd, We reach'd a meadow slanting to the North; Down which a well-worn pathway courted us To one green wicket in a privet hedge; This, yielding, gave into a grassy walk Thro' crowded lilac-ambush trimly pruned; And one warm gust, full-fed with perfume, blew Beyond us, as we enter'd in the cool. The garden stretches southward. In the midst A cedar spread his dark-green layers of shade. The garden-glasses shone, and momently The ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... breathed deeply in relief. "I knew you wouldn't fail me. Look at that field, Phares—oh, this is a perfect day! There should be a superlative form of perfect for a day like this! Those fields have as many colors as the shades reflected on a copper plate: lilac, tan, purple, rose, ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... is a pretty little Ericaceous plant, nearly allied to Menziesia, and with a plentiful supply of dark-green leaves. The flowers, which are borne in crowded clusters at the points of the shoots, are bell-shaped, and of a pleasing reddish-lilac colour. It wants a cool, moist peaty soil, and is perfectly hardy. When in a flowering stage the Bryanthus is one of the brightest occupants of the peat bed, and is a very suitable companion for such dwarf plants as the Heaths, ...
— Hardy Ornamental Flowering Trees and Shrubs • A. D. Webster
... amusement ruled the entire court; it was the period when ladies would seriously interrogate their ruder companions as to their opinions upon a foot more or less captivating, according to whether it wore a pink or lilac silk stocking—for it was the period when Charles II. had declared that there was no hope of safety for a woman who wore green silk stockings, because Miss Lucy Stewart wore them of that color. While ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... from the great clusters of yellow daffodils and violets floated up from the flower sellers' baskets below; the fresh, warm air seemed to bring him poignant memories of crocus-starred lawns, of trim beds of hyacinths, of the song of birds, of the perfume of drooping lilac. Grim and motionless, as a figure of fate, Wingrave looked down from his window, with cold, yet discerning eyes. He was still an alien, a denizen in another world from that which flowed so smoothly and pleasantly below. It was ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... so much pleasant expectancy that my first walk down this street of dirty, ugly houses had brought me into a querulous frame of mind, and I wondered irritably why the women should all wear lilac-coloured bonnets, when a choice of colour is not difficult as far as calico is concerned. Those women who were in mourning had dyed theirs black, and these assorted well with the colour of the stone of ...
— Yorkshire—Coast & Moorland Scenes • Gordon Home
... standing by the bed in a pretty lilac silk wrapper, her hair tucked away under a little lace cap. Joanna wore her dressing-gown of turkey-red flannel, and her hair hung down her back in two great rough plaits. For a moment she stared disapprovingly at her ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... so calmly, sleeping well after a life's work nobly done, I went many times, lingering long over many a mound that bore the names of those whom I had been familiar with in life, thinking of what they had been, and what I had known of them. Over some I planted shrubs and flowers, little lilac trees, obtained with no small trouble, and flowering evergreens, which looked quite gay and pretty ere I left, and may in time become great trees, and witness strange scenes, or be cut down as fuel for another besieging army—who can tell? And from many graves I picked up ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... even a bit of twine, and see how rapidly it will then climb, and clasp, and throw out longer and stronger shoots, and overspread your wall with its large bell-shaped flowers, so brilliant with every tint of white, lilac, pink, and rose colour, and so exquisitely delicate in their texture, expanding at earliest dawn, and closing, never to reopen, when the fervid rays of the noonday sun fall on them! But I must not attempt ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 454 - Volume 18, New Series, September 11, 1852 • Various
... gate of his old home now, against which two large lilac bushes grew, and, now in full blossom, scented ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... are the poor man's gold. See that dark, unpointed house, with its lilac shrubbery. As it stands, undivided from the road to which the green bank slopes down from the door, is not the effect of that enamel ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... a handful of BUDDING LILAC-LEAVES, and crushing them slightly between his hoofs, so as to bring out their peculiar fragrance, fastened them to the end of a long pole and held them towards the creature. Its expression changed in an instant,—it ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... felt the cold in our faces; my nose, especially, which, having lost a coat of skin, was very fresh and tender, requiring unusual care At three o'clock, when we reached Kuckula, the first station, the northern sky was one broad flush of the purest violet, melting into lilac at the zenith, where it met the fiery ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... deciduous trees, and another grower, 6 ft. x 12 ft. apart in rows and two rows, 12 ft. apart. For Scotch pine one grower advocates eight feet. In some cases a mixture of many kinds of trees is recommended, and then again only one kind. One very solid windbreak is made up of a lilac hedge, four rows of jack pine, four rows of Norway poplar and one row of willow. Another is one row willow, one of evergreen, one of willow ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... sure to me you bring; Lilac blooming perennial, and drooping star in the west, And thought ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... beautiful woman; tall, supple, erect; with a positive splendor of health and color. Her dress was that of the Fife fisher-girl; a blue flannel jacket, a very short white and yellow petticoat, and a white cap drawn over her hair, and tied down with a lilac kerchief knotted under the chin. This kerchief outlined the superb oval of her face; and made more remarkable the large gray eyes, the red curved mouth, and the wide white brow. She was barefooted, and she tapped one foot restlessly upon the wet sands, to relieve, by physical motion, ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... dumb thrush brooding in her lilac hedge; The wild hawk towering in his proudest flight; A silver fountain splashed o'er mossy ledge; The sunrise flaming on an ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... much paler purple than the others, and I was at no loss to explain this peculiarity. The plants with the deep violet petals and dark crimson eye had single blossoms, whereas those whose petals were lilac, and whose eye was of a paler red colour, were double. Cultivation had increased the number of petals, but it had diminished the richness of the colouring. This is an interesting example of the impartial balancing of nature. No object possesses every endowment. ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... Gerzson, however, the romantic spectacle of sunrise on the puszta produced no romantic impression whatsoever. He neither observed the golden clouds in the sky, nor the dappled shadows flitting across the dewy fields, nor the lilac-coloured nebulous horizon. He saw none of these things, I say, but he saw something else which did not please him ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... better go with Una and take up Household Science too," she thought, as she stood by her window and looked down through a delicate emerald tangle of young vines on Rainbow Valley, lying in a wonderful lilac light of sunset. There did not seem anything very attractive just then about Household Science, but, with a whole new world waiting to be built, a girl ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... incident at the foot of the stair. A softer light was in her eyes when they came to the bow of the ship, and Alan fancied he heard a strange little cry on her lips as she looked about her upon the paradise of Taiya Inlet. Straight ahead, like a lilac ribbon, ran the narrow waterway to Skagway's door, while on both sides rose high mountains, covered with green forests to the snowy crests that gleamed like white blankets near the clouds. In this melting season there came to them above the ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... baby Winnie's sack—the precious little tyke! Ma wore this gown to visit me (they drove the whole way then). And little Edson wore this waist. He never came again. This lavender par'matta was your Great-aunt Jane's—poor dear! Mine was a sprig, with the lilac ground; see, in the corner here. Such goods were high in war times. Ah, that scrap of army blue; Your bright eyes spied it! Yes, dear child, that has its memories, too. They sent him home on furlough once—our soldier brother Ned; But somewhere, now, the dear boy sleeps among the unknown ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... flowers, their light dresses fluttering around them as they tripped along. They smiled upon me as if they knew me; and well they might, for when they were nothing but carved ivory I had sat before them day after day, with my opal pen and lilac paper, trying to draw them. Then, too, they had seen my tears when I so longed for home. How different it was from that silent time, to have my own dear mother beside me, and all the beautiful, cold statues ...
— The Magician's Show Box and Other Stories • Lydia Maria Child
... garden. In all the country-side there was no garden so lovely as his. Sweet-william grew there, and Gilly-flowers, and Shepherds'-purses, and Fair-maids of France. There were damask Roses, and yellow Roses, lilac Crocuses and gold, purple Violets and white. Columbine and Ladysmock, Marjoram and Wild Basil, the Cowslip and the Flower-de-luce, the Daffodil and the Clove-Pink bloomed or blossomed in their proper ...
— The Happy Prince and Other Tales • Oscar Wilde
... the streets, seemed to glitter with the trees and the buildings. The white in the women's dresses; the short black gowns and square caps of the undergraduates; the gay colours in the children's frocks; the overhanging masses of hawthorn and lilac that here and there thrust themselves, effervescent and rebellious, through and over college walls:—everything shimmered and shone in the May sunlight. The air too was tonic and gay, a rare thing for Oxford; and Connie, refreshed by sleep, walked with such a buoyant and swinging ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... extraordinary visage—the visage of a satyr-saint, a "ragamuffin angel," a tatterdemalion scholar, an inspired derelict, a scaramouch god,—and I recollect how, in its marble whiteness, the thing leered and peered at me with a look that seemed to have about it all the fragrance of all the lilac-blossoms in the world, mixed with all the piety of all our race's children and the wantonness of all old heathen dreams. It is like Socrates, that head; and like a gargoyle on the ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... over the waste from Kabardinka to Ghilendzhik, with all manner of beauty and interest along the way. I left the road and cut across country, following the telegraph poles. In front of me fat blue lizards scuttled away, looking like little lilac-coloured dachshunds; silent brown snakes shot out of reach at the sight of my shadow; and every now and then, poking and grubbing like a hedgehog, behold a large tortoise out for prey like his brother ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... forehead and his throbbing temples, so calm and cool but a moment before. He stood trembling, his damp elf-locks dangling over his brow. Through the half-open door a little breath of wind threaded in and made the lamp-blaze jump; it rustled outside through the lilac-bushes like the passing of ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... yon lilac fair, Wi' purple blossoms to the spring; And I a bird to shelter there, When ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... days when Anna Prince was young and had lately come to live in the doctor's square house, with the three peaked windows in the roof, and the tall box borders and lilac bushes in its neat front yard, Oldfields was just beginning to wake from a fifty years' architectural sleep, and rub its eyes, and see what was thought about a smart little house with a sharp gabled roof, and much scalloping of its edges, which a new store-keeper had seen fit to ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... said "Bill Summers," "I was up to your folkeses house jist two or three days ago. No, there ain't many changes to speak of. The lilac bush by the kitchen window is over a foot higher, and the elm in the front yard died and had to be cut down. And yet it don't seem the same place ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... starting from the house with his bundle in his hand, the sound of a gay laugh came through the distant shrubbery. It was Diana and Bill returning from the husking. Hastily he concealed himself behind a clump of old lilac bushes till they emerged into the moonlight and passed into the house. Diana was in one of those paroxysms of young girl frolic which are the effervescence of young, healthy blood, as natural as the gyrations of a bobolink on a clover head. James was thinking ...
— Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and The First Christmas - of New England • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... April day, the air is keen and sweet here in the heart of the old-fashioned garden, full of the odor of budding leaves and freshly-turned earth, mingled with the perfume of the great lilac-trees, which are one ...
— Only an Irish Girl • Mrs. Hungerford
... of the officers glowed in the light, rich and scarlet, faced with silver and gold. The gowns of their partners were brocade and velvet, purple and crimson, lilac and pearl. Then from the balcony, high up, unseen, the rhythm changed again like a flash, and with ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... with manzanita are flowery fragrant and altogether delightful shrubs, growing in glorious abundance, not only in the Valley, but high up in the forest on sunny or half-shaded ground. In the sugar-pine woods the most beautiful species is C. integerrimus, often called Californian lilac, or deer brush. It is five or six feet high with slender branches, glossy foliage, and abundance of blue flowers in close, showy panicles. Two species, C. prostrates and C. procumbens, spread smooth, blue-flowered mats and rugs beneath the pines, and offer fine beds to tired mountaineers. The ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir
... clothes in a large wooden tub set on a bench nailed between the two china-berry trees in the yard. Peter loved those china-berry trees, covered with masses of sweet-smelling lilac-colored blossoms in the spring, and with clusters of hard green berries in the summer. The beautiful feathery foliage made a pleasant shade for Emma Campbell's wash-tubs. Peter loved to watch her, she looked so important and so cheerful. While ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... beautiful, of course,—the way the town piles itself up against the hillside, the pink and yellow and lilac blondeur of the houses, the olive gardens, the radiant sky overhead,—it is all very picturesque and beautiful. But I am not hungry for beauty—at least, for this beauty. If you were here with me,—ah, then indeed! ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... frame house also turned out to be deserted, but evidently only for the day, for the lilac bushes in the front yard were hung with men's flannel shirts drying in the sun. A buck goat came bleating toward me, with many a flourish of his horns, from which it was plain to be seen why the family wash was not spread upon the grass. From here I followed ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... Wild lilac and big sage bushes, flowering lupins and gilias, bordered the road, for spring was abroad in San Lorenzo county. A ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... the doorway came the Reverend Mother, walking with her head held high, and sunlight in her eyes, as I have ofttimes seen her walk in the garden in Springtime, when the birds are singing, and a scent of lilac ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... and the white cockatoo, the beautiful lilac-headed paroquet, and the bald-headed mocking bird of Port Jackson, were seen here; but there were not any marks of resident ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... on, we passed a line of small bright-looking houses, which strongly caught my fancy. Each had its gay little garden, its shrubbery of lilac, holly, or laurustinus, and its creeper-covered porch. They looked so compact and cosy, so easy to keep tidy, so snug and sunny, that one fancied the people who lived in them must be happy, ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... smoky city. My apple tree still grew at the east end of the house. There was a willow tree mother had planted, which now swept the ground with its long, graceful branches. There were quantities of rose and lilac bushes, a walled spring of delicious water in the cellar, and a whole world of wealth; but the potato lot looked up in despair—a patch of yellow clay. Mother put a twelve years' accumulation of coal ashes ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... full of fine trees. On one side a magnificent cedar; on the other a great copper beech. Here and there among the tombs and headstones many beautiful blossoming trees rose from the long green grass. The laburnum glowed in the June afternoon sunlight; the lilac, the hawthorn and the clustering meadowsweet which fringed the edge of the lazy stream mingled their heavy sweetness in sleepy fragrance. The yellow-grey crumbling walls were green in places with ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... gate, and of course cheerfully acceded to this request. A heavy trunk was lifted out, and placed just behind the lilac-bushes at the edge of the lawn. The driver jumped into his omnibus and hurried away with all speed, lest his two fares should pay themselves to a rival conveyance. Behind him, however, he had left the proprietress of the trunk,—a lady of about five-and-twenty, in whose countenance ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... from somewhere in Norfolk, the scene, I remember, of the 'Babes in the Wood,' and he wore the only smock-frock in the parish, where the ruling fashion was "thunder-and-lightning" sleeve-waistcoats. Susan's Sunday dress was a clean lilac print gown, made very short, so as to show white stockings and boots with cloth tops. Over the dress was pinned a little black shawl, and her bonnet was unusually large, of black velvet or silk, with a great white frill inside it. She was troubled at times ...
— Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome
... streets with double avenues of healthy trees. Berlin in spring seems to be set in a wood; it is so fresh and green. The flowering shrubs, on the other hand, are not to be compared with ours. Everyone rushes to see a few lilac bushes, and Gueldres roses trimmed to a stiff snowball of flowers, and everyone says Wie Herrlich! but you miss the profusion of lilac, hawthorn, and laburnum that runs riot all about London in every residential road and every garden. Above all, you miss the English lawns. In Berlin ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... mourning is indicated by black and white, purple and gray, or a combination of these colors. Crape is still retained in bonnet trimming, and crape flowers may be added. Light gray, white and black, and light shades of lilac, indicate a slight mourning. Black lace bonnet, with white or violet flowers, supercedes crape, and jet and gold jewelry ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... however, in the resurrection of the superlative beauties of spring, we forgot our human deficiencies. In the first week of lilacs, the Americanised flower of Persia, we aspired to the breadth and height and the heaven of our gardens. The generous lilac, like a great purple sea of loveliness, swept over us in the full tide of spring. It was the forerunner of joy; joy of fish in the brooks, of insects in the air, of cattle in the fields, of wings ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... day, only the great Tower of Talbot (who alas! never was in Falaise in his life) stood out against a faintly moonlit sky. And glancing over his right shoulder at the mantling west, Theo hurried Brigit past the Breach of Henri IV., with its crown of lilac trees, up the steep causeway to the Tower itself. "We must climb to see the sun, dearest," he said, "let us make haste. I am glad to be with you while you for the first time see it come up over the edge." He was very happy and looked ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... to visit you. I used to sit and sing Upon our purple lilac bush that smells so sweet in Spring; But when you thanked me for my song of course you never knew I soon should be a little girl and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 28, 1919. • Various
... doing?" asked Phillis, trying to peep between the lilac-bushes, but failing to discover more than the ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... country, with mountains which command respect, a section full of superb feed for the deer, feed of many sorts, for the deer have an attractive and varied bill of fare. Whole hillsides are found of scrub oak, their chief stand-by, and of wild lilac or "deer brush," the latter familiar to all readers of Muir as the Cleanothus, in those long periods of Miltonic sweep and dignity in which he summons the clans of the California herbs and shrubs; an ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... coupe—very conspicuous here for a civilian with such an old hat as I generally wear. In the evening I was, of course, on the islands, on a lively dark-brown horse, and drank tea there with a nice, old, white-haired Countess Stroganoff. The lilac, I must tell you, has flowered here as beautifully as in Frankfort, and the laburnum, too; and the nightingales warble so happily that it is hard to find a spot on the islands where one does not hear them. In the city, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... paused also, as though held by the power of his will. They were passing along the public garden that borders the road; scents of lilac and fresh leaf floated over the damp grass; the moonlight was growing in strength, and the majesty of the gorge, the roar of the leaping water all seemed to enter into the moral and human scene, to ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... public gardens of Poplar The bushes are bright with buds, For this is the season of Clear Weather. There blossom the quiet flowers of this country: The timid lilac, The unassuming hawthorn, The dignified chestnut, And the girlish laburnum; And the mandarin of them all ...
— Song Book of Quong Lee of Limehouse • Thomas Burke
... face to meet new things and new people. Nothing would be familiar to her in that strange world, not even tea-cups with blue rims like these she was washing up for the last time. Everything new, down to the two lilac prints, made longer than ever before, lying at the bottom of the new black box. It was wonderful to think of, and very confusing to the mind. There would even be a new baby to look after. But when Biddy reached this point she smiled securely, for she had no fears about ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... blossoms of the spring, which were lighting up every shabby corner and hillside garden. Through this pleasant confusion of past and present, of spring-time scattering blossoms upon the graves, of old ivy walks and iron bars imprisoning past memories, with fragrant fumes of lilac and of elder, one could picture to oneself, as in a waking dream, two figures advancing from the corner house with the ivy walls—distinct, sedate—passing under the old doorway. I could almost see the lady, carefully dressed in many fine muslin folds and frills ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... hot, and nights were chill; bird carols were infrequent; chrysanthemums were unfurling their buds. The vines that festooned the windows of the children's convalescent ward sent an occasional yellow-coated messenger to the lilac bushes below—a messenger that ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd
... lips: I felt rooted to the saddle—a sensation which, with me, was sufficiently rare. I looked round in helpless bewilderment, at the shimmering Serpentine, and the white houses in Park Lane gleaming out of a lilac haze, at the cocoa-coloured Row, and the flash of distant carriage-wheels in the sunlight: all looked as usual—and yet, there was I on the back of a horse which had just inquired 'whether ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... differently attired and freighted processions of servants made their appearance at the same time. Those intended for the princely table numbered two hundred,—two for each guest. They were the handsomest young men among the ten thousand serfs, clothed in loose white trousers and shirts of pink or lilac silk; their soft golden hair, parted in the middle, fell upon their shoulders, and a band of gold-thread about the brow prevented it from sweeping the dishes they carried. They entered the reception-room, bearing huge trays ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... an enchanted place, walled around with starlit darkness, visited by wisps of breezes shaking down from their wings the breath of lilac and syringa, flowering wild grapes, and plowed fields. Down at the foot of our sloping lawn the little river, still swollen by the melted snow from the mountains, plunged between its stony banks and shouted its brave song ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... became fairyland as I walked through it; or a tree poured out a scent that its blossoms never had before or after. I think now that those must have been moments when you too were in like contact with earth,—had your feet in grass which felt a faint ripple of wind, or stood under a lilac in a drench of fragrance that had ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... go now, Mr. Ryfe; my maid's coming back for me from the bonnet-shop. I can't be trusted, you see, over fifty yards of pavement and a crossing by myself. The maid is walking with me now behind these lilac-bushes, you know. Her name is Ryfe. She is very cross and silent; she wears a well-made coat, shiny boots, rather a good hat, and carries a nosegay as big as a chimney-sweep's—you can give it me if you like—I dare say ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... come—through the snow sometimes—are the snowdrops, single and double, crocuses—yellow, purple, lilac, and striped—and then the tiny bright blue squills; and a little later the yellow daffodil and white narcissus, hyacinths, and tulips of every kind. Then white, red, and purple anemones, ranunculi, and wax-like Stars of Bethlehem. In June there are wonderful irises and ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... she thought, and the regret was still in her mind when one of those miracles which in our ignorance we call accidents occurred. Out of the lilac-scented twilight, out of the wild, sweet spirit of spring, a voice said in her ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... around us seemed changed, and assumed a gloomy aspect. A wood of aspen trees which we were passing seemed to be all in a tremble, with its leaves showing white against the dark lilac background of the clouds, murmuring together in an agitated manner. The tops of the larger trees began to bend to and fro, and dried leaves and grass to whirl about in eddies over the road. Swallows and white-breasted ...
— Boyhood • Leo Tolstoy
... hoping nor yet fearing, Meekly bore she all her pain. Till the red leaves of the autumn Withered from the woods again; Till the bird had hushed its singing In the silvery sycamore, And the nest was left unsheltered In the lilac by the door; Saying, still, that she was happy— None so much as she was blest— None, of all the many maidens In ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... & R. Sporangium globose, stipitate; the wall a thin lilac-tinted membrane, with a dense closely adherent layer of granules of lime, dark purple or wine-colored. Stipe long, erect, dark purple to purplish black, tapering upward and entering the sporangium as a slight obtuse columella. ...
— The Myxomycetes of the Miami Valley, Ohio • A. P. Morgan
... of de garden behin' de row of lilac bushes wuz de two back houses, one for de mens an' one for de ladies. Mis' Roby went down to dis house one day, an' when she opened de door, dare lay er Yankee sojer on de floor. His head wuz tied up wid er bloody rag an' he look like he ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... scarce but remarkably handsome perennial, producing lilac-purple flowers with yellow stamens in July and August. It will grow in ordinary soil, and may be increased by division. ...
— Gardening for the Million • Alfred Pink
... close application at his desk in the village school was an unheard-of consequence; and, having repeatedly smarted under the schoolmaster's ferule, not to mention his good mother's switches plucked from the big lilac bush by her door, he decided to run away to the great harbor, and ship upon some vessel bound for ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... get into much mischief during the remainder of the day, except chewing up the dish-rags which were hung on the lilac bush to dry, and all the flowers ...
— Billy Whiskers - The Autobiography of a Goat • Frances Trego Montgomery
... the war tells me that on the occasion of his first audience she was dressed in black and received him in a room where yellow flowers were massed. On the second occasion she was in grey and the flowers were pink. At the third audience her dress was purple and the flowers were of lilac and white. ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... on the safe side of civilization, outside the gate. The house stood bare from the road, approached by a straight garden path, along which at spring the daffodils were thick in green and yellow. At the sides of the house were bushes of lilac and guelder-rose and privet, entirely hiding the farm ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... the lilac bushes, planted in a circle on the slope, and I was congratulating myself that my elbows were free again, two gentlemen approached us from the direction of ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... the peas in the garden. It was a beautiful green garden, and lovers could have walked very happily down the lilac-bordered paths. ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... a single bird was heard; all had found shelter, and were silent; only rarely the mocking voice of the bluebird sang out like a little steel bell. Before stopping in this birch forest I passed with my dog through a poplar grove. I confess I am not very fond of the poplar tree with its pale lilac-colored trunk and its grayish-green, metallic leaves, which it lifts high and spreads in the air like a trembling fan—I do not like the constant shaking of its round, untidy leaves, which are so awkwardly attached to long stems. The poplar is pretty only ...
— The Rendezvous - 1907 • Ivan Turgenev
... when men had built well because they had time, before they built, to stop and think and remember. The arrested dignity of the past seemed to the young man to hover above the old mansion within its setting of box hedges and leafless lilac shrubs and snow-laden magnolia trees. He saw the house contrasted against the crude surroundings of the improved and disfigured Square, and against the house, attended by all its stately traditions, he saw ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... almost to stalk. They are without odor, and when chewed in the mouth, have a mild and not unpleasant astringency, but no other perceptible flavor. A leaf of any familiar domestic plant, such as the lilac, the plantain, or the apple, has a stronger individuality to the sense of taste, than this green leaf of ...
— Tea Leaves • Francis Leggett & Co.
... spectacle which the capricious weather had formed for him. The rain had increased as the night passed, and had frozen upon the chilled trees and house roofs. The linden on the Fletcher lawn was coated with fairy lace work, and the denuded lilac bush across the way shone black through its glassy covering. The long expanse of dark, cement walk which flanked each side of the snowy road was coated with ice and made walking for pedestrians a matter of some danger. As he jerked his tie into position, Perry Alford shot past on his skates, ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... reared to them their merited poetic monument, unless, indeed, Whitman has done this service for the hermit thrush in his "President Lincoln's Burial Hymn." Here the threnody is blent of three chords, the blossoming lilac, the evening star, and the hermit thrush, the latter playing the most prominent part throughout the composition. It is the exalting and spiritual utterance of the "solitary singer" that calms and consoles the poet when the powerful shock of the President's assassination comes upon him, ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... was sent for. She entered with a sweeping courtesy. She still wore her black taffeta dress, the color of which was rapidly turning to rust and lilac, to say nothing of the dingy bonnet. She seemed in a good temper. ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... the police-station, and found ourselves in one of the narrow streets fringing Covent Garden. The air was fragrant here with the perfume of white and purple lilac, great baskets full of which were piled up in the gutter. The girl half closed ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... blackly in the borders making my heart each moment cease to beat. The echoes of my own footsteps seemed to redouble and assume the sounds of unknown pursuers following fast upon my track. The boughs of lilac-bushes and syringas, that here and there stretched partly across the walk, seemed to have been furnished suddenly with hooked hands that sought to grasp me as I flew by, and each moment I expected to behold some awful and impassable ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various |
