"Oak" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you let me know any news you have ferreted out, and especially who you think will be the next consuls. However, I am not very curious; for I have determined not to think about politics. I have examined Terentia's woodlands. What need I say? If there was only a Dodonean oak in them, I should imagine myself to be in possession of Epirus. About the 1st of the month I shall be either at Formiae or Pompeii.[191] If I am not at Formiae, pray, an you love me, come to Pompeii. It will be a great pleasure to me ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... shirt, loose at the throat, showed a neck that resembled the spreading base of an oak tree, and his crossed limbs and half-recumbent pose formed a curious opposition to the look ...
— A Little Norsk; Or, Ol' Pap's Flaxen • Hamlin Garland
... the sea, of boundless expanse and freedom. Much more had they that beauty eight hundred years ago, when they were still, for the most part, as God had made them, or rather was making them even then. The low rolling uplands were clothed in primeval forest: oak and ash, beech and elm, with here and there, perhaps, a group of ancient pines, ragged and decayed, and fast dying out in England even then; though lingering still in the forests ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... curious circumstance connected with Mitchell House, McClintock had been quite forgotten of Vesper and Abingdon. The great house was much in demand as a summer residence; those old oak-walled rooms were spacious and comfortable, if not artistic; the house was admirably kept up. It was in the most desirable neighborhood; there was fishing and boating; the situation was "sightly." We borrow the last word from the hill folk, the presentee landlords; ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... if the bird had poised suddenly with wings outstretched, hovering. Then it came again against the oak: "Tap—tap." ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... You women are always so sharp at finding oracles in oak leaves, that one don't wonder Apollo makes choice of your sex for his priests. But listen to me, girl, seriously," and here Diagoras with a great effort raised himself on his elbow, and lowering his voice, spoke with evident earnestness. "Pausanias has life ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... brute knoweth somewhat of the place and its customs, seeing that he hath always lived here, and still it irks me to see a salvage giving lessons to his white masters. He saith too that corn is to be planted when the oak leaves are as large as a ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... suddenly aware of his bigness of soul which made him capable of an infinite tenderness and capacity to serve. His devotion to Aunt Elspeth spread an encircling care around her as a great oak throws the arms of its shade, till her comfort was his constant thought, her happiness his ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... who came nearer and examined it more closely was revealed its barrenness. When, therefore, I had come to this tree that I might pluck the fruit thereof, I discovered that it was indeed the fig tree which Our Lord cursed (Matthew xxi, 19; Mark xi, 13), or that ancient oak to which Lucan likened ...
— Historia Calamitatum • Peter Abelard
... Gordon had surrounded himself at Hope. The promoter had spoken of his modest living-quarters—in reality they consisted of a handsome twenty-room house, furnished with the elegance of a Newport cottage. The rugs were thick and richly colored; the furniture was of cathedral oak and mahogany. In the library were deep leather chairs and bookcases, filled mainly with the works of French and German authors of decadent type. The man's taste in art was revealed by certain pictures, undeniably clever, but a little too daring. ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... since that day has had his secret communion-place with God. Perhaps it was in the woods on a mossy knoll, under an oak, on a grassy spot on the bank of a stream, or under a shade-tree that grew by the brook in the meadow. To these places of solemn silence they would retreat when the shades of night were falling or when the light of the morning was streaking the sky, and there from the fulness of their ...
— How to Live a Holy Life • C. E. Orr
... the party and brought them on to this water. We have passed a few stringy-bark trees. In the bed of the river there is growing some very large and tall timber, having a dark-coloured bark, the leaf jointed the same as the shea-oak, but has not the acid taste: the horses eat it. There are also some very fine melaleuca-trees, which here seem to displace the gums in the river. We have also passed some more new trees and shrubs. Frew, in looking about the banks, found a large creeper with a yellow blossom, ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... accept. Won't it be ripping? The Teesdales have a lovely old place—oak-paneled, ghost-haunted, and all that sort of thing. We've been there twice. The Teesdales' shooting-parties are famed for their ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... change came when a new dining-car on the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad suddenly appeared. It was an artistically treated Flemish-oak-panelled car with longitudinal beams and cross-beams, giving the impression of a ceiling-beamed room. Between the "beams" was a quiet tone of deep yellow. The sides of the car were wainscoting of plain surface done in a Flemish stain rubbed ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... strengthened by wrought-iron bars; the Purbeck marble shafts were in places renewed; the groining of the vault was stripped of the whitewash which concealed its material; the lath and plaster work of the vault between the groins was removed, and replaced by oak boarding; the bosses were gilded, and picked out ...
— The Cathedral Church of York - Bell's Cathedrals: A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief - History of the Archi-Episcopal See • A. Clutton-Brock
... the master-player, was sitting with his back against an oak, placidly munching the last of the cheese, when Nick began to sing. He started, straightening up as if some one had called him suddenly out of a sound sleep, and, turning his head, ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... a small, comfortable room wainscotted with oak; I was seated on one side of a fireplace, close by a table on which were wine and fruit; on the other side of the fire sat a man in a plain suit of brown, with the hair combed back from the somewhat high forehead; he had a pipe in his mouth, which for some time he smoked gravely ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... from the ditch, and James reappeared, carrying a small box and trailing something behind him. He held it out to the short man with gold oak leaves round his ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... and the idea of saving in any thing, it is certain, never entered into his head. The time, indeed, was slowly but surely coming when the park should know no more not only its wild-cattle, but many a rich copse and shadowy glade. Not a stately oak nor far-spreading beech but was doomed, sooner or later, to be cut down, to prop for a moment the falling fortunes of their spendthrift owner; but at the time of which we speak there was no visible sign of the coming ruin. It is recorded of a brother ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... navy, sir, are more used to oak than to leather, and we set him such a pace that twelve miles back he could no longer sit his saddle, and we left him leading his horse, thinking this information could not ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... that was hastily called included Bladud, who was sent for, being asleep in his own booth when the party arrived. The council chamber was under an old oak tree. ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... you don't silence me, notwithstanding. The spell of your dedication hasn't fastened me up in an oak for ever. Your book is very clever; your characters very incisively given; princess and patriots admirably cut out (and up!); half truths everywhere, to which one says 'How true!' But one might as well (and better) say 'How false!' seeing that, dear Mr. Chorley, it does really take ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... man, and the staff, Sir Victor, you would not be surprised," Lord Talbot said. "He stands some six feet four, and has shoulders that might rival Samson's. As to his quarterstaff, I marked it. It was of oak, and full two inches across; and a blow with it, from such arms, would crack an iron casque, to say nothing of ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... Somewhere she had learned that the living room of a modern household was no longer called the "parlor," by those who knew, but the "drawing-room," and with the same unerring instinct she had discovered the ignominy of this early Victorian heritage. She did not loathe the shiny "quartered oak" dining-room pieces—her father's venture in an opulent moment—nor the dingy pine bedroom sets, nor even the worn "ingrain" carpets, as she did these precious relics ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... mistress saw the ravages which the terrible night he had passed through had caused. Yesterday, the banker was rosy, firm, and upright as an oak, now he was bent, and withered like an old man. His hair had become gray about the temples, as if scorched by his burning thoughts. He was only ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... be able to go with you everywhere. When you are enjoying a "Bird Chat;" "Buying the Mirror;" learning when "We must not Believe our Eyes;" visiting "A City under the Ground;" hearing of "The Coachman's" troubles; sitting under "The Oak-tree;" finding out wonderful things "About Glass;" watching what happens when "School's Out;" or following the fortunes of "Carl," your guide will be a lady, and I think that you will all agree that she knows very well where she ought to go, and how to get there. ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... hero was lodged was spacious, and panelled with oak. It was furnished with clothes-presses, and mighty chests of drawers, well waxed, and glittering with brass ornaments. These contained ample stock of family linen; for the Dutch housewives had always a laudable pride ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... these trees, overspreading and softening the bank on which the parent stems are growing, these latter being intermingled with coarse grass. Observe the pathway; it is strewn over with little bits of dry twigs and decayed branches, and the sear and brown oak-leaves of last year, that have been moistened by snow and rain, and whirled about by harsh and gentle winds, since their verdure has departed. The needle-like leaves of the pine that are never noticed in falling—that fall, yet never leave ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... stood in the porch, outside the great oak door, and heard the sound of singing stealing out, fog-softened, and smelt the smell of incense (it was the festal service of some saint) that pierced the thick air with its ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... after all they were game; and perhaps more in his line than swift flying quail, or the bounding deer. But every time he thus decided, the squirrel seemed to guess his hostile intentions; for it vanished from sight, running up the other side of the live oak, and losing itself amid ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... patches, powder red sulphuret of arsenic and take it up with oak gum, as much as it will bear. Put on a rag and apply, having soaped the place well first. I have mixed the above with a foam of nitre, and ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw
... on in yet another bay, this time on the eastern shore of the lake. An oak wood grew down almost to the water's edge, and the branches overhung a sandy beach, more golden than any sea-strand. The whole party collected dead wood and broken twigs for the fire. Then, while the girls unpacked the baskets and secured the kettle ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... bat-like, it had clung, these tapers served but ill to light up the gloomy hangings, and seemed to throw yet darker shadows into the hollows of the deep-wrought cornice. All the further portions of the room lay shrouded in a mystery whose deepest folds were gathered around the dark oak cabinet which I now approached with a strange mingling of reverence and curiosity. Perhaps, like a geologist, I was about to turn up to the light some of the buried strata of the human world, with its fossil remains charred by passion and petrified by tears. Perhaps I was to learn how my ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... dreadful place. I see it now. In the floor of the temple was a trap-door, which, when lifted, revealed a flight of steps. At the foot of these steps was another massive door of oak, bolted and barred. It was opened and closed behind me, who found myself in a darksome den built of rough stone, to which air came only through an opening in the roof, so small that not even a child could pass it. In the far corner of this hole, bound to the wall by an iron chain ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard
... lotion to be applied to her head, so as to lose no time before the doctor came. We applied the lotion, but we could not get her to take the mixture. Sir Percival undertook to send for the doctor. He despatched a groom, on horseback, for the nearest medical man, Mr. Dawson, of Oak Lodge. ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... acacias of many kinds; Cassia fistula the wood apple (Feronia elephantum), and the mustard tree of Scripture (Salvadora Persica), which extends from Ceylon to the Holy Land. The margosa (Azadirachta Indica), the satin wood, the Ceylon oak, and the tamarind and ebony, are examples of the larger trees; and in the extreme north and west the Palmyra palm takes the place of the coco-nut, and not only lines the shore, but fills the landscape on every side with its ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... informed them that the walking party was going to take the short cut across the meadows, and would still be in front of them. They saw the party at last, just beyond the short cut; but Mr. Peterkin was explaining the character of the oak-tree to his children as they ...
— The Peterkin Papers • Lucretia P Hale
... half hidden behind trees and shrubs in a corner of the Close, three people sat at breakfast one fine May morning. The room in which they sat was in keeping with the old house and its surroundings—a long, low-ceilinged room, with oak panelling around its walls, and oak beams across its roof—a room of old furniture, and, old pictures, and old books, its antique atmosphere relieved by great masses of flowers, set here and there in ...
— The Paradise Mystery • J. S. Fletcher
... at this remark, but they had not gone much farther along the road before they spied the Vernon automobile waiting under a great oak tree. When the tardy car came up, both parties began to shout, some asking where the delinquents had been, and the unfortunates to demand why folks wouldn't look behind ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... and plane, oak, walnut, apricot, Vine, cypress, poplar, myrtle, bowering in The city where she dwells. She past me here Three years ago when I was flying from My Tetrarchy to Rome. I almost touch'd her— A maiden slowly moving on to music Among her maidens to this Temple—O Gods! She is my fate—else ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... be quiet, For every pelting petty officer Would use his heaven for thunder: nothing but thunder.— Merciful Heaven! Thou rather, with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt, Splits the unwedgeable and gnarled oak Than the soft myrtle; but man, proud man! Dress'd in a little brief authority,— Most ignorant of what he's most assured, His glassy essence,—like an angry ape, Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven ...
— Measure for Measure • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... violent passion for him; yet, owing to modesty or natural timidity, it was plain that she carefully sought to hide her secret. One fine night she and two young persons of her own age were seated under a large oak-tree in the grounds of Saint Germain. The Marquis de Wringhen, seeing them in the moonlight, said to the King, who was walking with him, "Let us turn aside, Sire, in this direction; yonder there are three solitary nymphs, who seem waiting for fairies ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... moved, as it were, in an ether superior to our mortal atmosphere, and a new region of high resolves and noble possibilities spread itself before his eyes. He slammed his heavy outside door (called an "oak") to prevent anyone entering and flung himself into the window-seat. Here he sat for a long time, the sash thrown up and his head outside, for he was excited and feverish. His mental exaltation was so great and his thoughts of so absorbing an interest ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... response to an able, dignified, and true womanly appeal, it was accepted, and by the convention incorporated into the platform of the party. It may seem to be a small plank, but it has strength and durability. It is the live oak of a living principle, that will remain sound while other planks of greater bulk around it will have served their ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... Alexander's Bank (where he was employed for forty years) with a large pile of banknotes to be renumbered. The poet sat perched on a high stool watching young Loder and his superior do the work. And at noon Mr. Barton sent out to the Royal Oak Tavern near by for a basket of buns and a jug of stout to refresh printer and devil at ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... dire consequences of their awful work, who counseled restraint. But they were as chips in a torrent. Down into the creek bottom rolled the seething tide, with a momentum that carried it up the far side and crashing into the heavily barred oak doors of the great mills. A crushing hail of bullets fell upon them, and their leaders went down; but the mass wavered not. Those within the buildings knew that they would become carrion in the maws of ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... country bumpkin Who observed a great big pumpkin To a slender stem attached; While upon an oak tree nourished, Little acorns grew and flourished. "Bah!" said he. "That's ...
— Fables in Rhyme for Little Folks - From the French of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... harlots; the East, cut off from Europe by the intervening weakness of the Greek. These starving troops of the Black forests and White seas, themselves half wolf, half drift-wood, (as we once called ourselves Lion-hearts, and Oak-hearts, so they), merciless as the herded hound, enduring as the wild birch-tree and pine. You will hear of few beside them for five centuries yet to come: Visigoths, west of Vistula;—Ostrogoths, east of Vistula; radiant round little Holy Island (Heligoland), our own Saxons, and Hamlet ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... OLD OAK TREE—THE LANDSLIP.—This is one of the many specimens of fantastic growth to be found in the Landslip, and is a great contrast to the tall and stately beech trees that grow in the Cloisters nearer to the upper cliff. It resembles very much the serpent-tree which was painted by Turner. This part ...
— Pictures in Colour of the Isle of Wight • Various
... on the last day of the voyage played up nobly. The maples along its banks had turned—blood red and splendid as the banners of lost youth. Even the oak is not more of a national tree than the maple, and the sight of its welcome made the folks aboard still more happy. A dry wind brought along all the clean smell of their Continent-mixed odours of sawn lumber, virgin earth, and wood-smoke; and they snuffed it, and their eyes ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... tatters on her naked shoulders, she sprang across the chapel to the crypt door, shook it, tore at it, seized chair after chair and shattered them to splinters against the solid panels of oak and iron. ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... hog is devouring the contents of his house, saying to himself, no doubt, 'I wish it may choke you, you great, grunting brute, that I do. There go my poor acorns, a dozen at a mouthfull. Twelve long journeys I had to take to the foot of the old oak, where I picked them up—such a hard day's work, that I could hardly get a wink of sleep, my bones ached so. And now that great glutton gobbles them all up at once, and makes nothing of it! What I shall do in the winter, I'm sure I don't know. There goes my corn, too, which I brought, a little ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... the gigantic bodies of the captives, most remarkable. But the most grateful and most rare spectacle of all was the general himself, carrying the arms of the barbarian king to the god to whom he had vowed them. He had taken a tall and straight stock of an oak, and had lopped and formed it to a trophy. Upon this he fastened and hung round about the arms of the king, arranging all the pieces in their suitable places. The procession advancing solemnly, he, carrying this trophy, ascended the chariot; and thus, himself the fairest and most glorious triumphant ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... address, and to break the speed of my journey. I cannot conceive aught that could give a traveller juster cause to halt in sign of reverence; no altar crowned with flowers, no grotto shadowed with foliage,[35] no oak bedecked with horns, no beech garlanded with the skins of beasts, no mound whose engirdling hedge proclaims its sanctity, no tree-trunk hewn into the semblance of a god, no turf still wet with libations, no stone astream with precious unguents. For these are but small things, and though ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... at Kreisau he built a little mausoleum, situated on a beautiful eminence, embowered in foliage. This little chapel, constructed of red brick and sandstone, was lined inside with black and white marble, and in front of the altar was placed the simple oak coffin in which the remains of his wife reposed, covered at all seasons of the year with wreaths. Sculptured in the apse was a finely carved figure of our Lord in an attitude of blessing, copied from Thorwaldsen. Above were ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... ill-advised appearance of a lean bull-terrier, were a sufficient safety-valve to the popular excitement during the remaining quarter of an hour; at the end of which the chaise was seen approaching along the Whitlow road, with oak boughs ornamenting the horses' heads; and, to quote the account of this interesting scene which was sent to the Rotherby Guardian, 'loud cheers immediately testified to the sympathy of the honest fellows collected there, ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... rambles, my thoughts were chiefly occupied with the intimacy which had taken place between my mother and Lord de Versely. On the third morning after my arrival I had been strolling for more than two hours, when I came to a very retired sort of Gothic cell, formed of the distended limbs of an old oak, intermixed with stones and grass. It faced towards the park, and was built up on the green lawn amidst clumps of laurel and other evergreens. I threw myself on the benches. It was just the place for a man to select for a rendezvous: just ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... together on a small knoll under the low-spreading branches of a live oak. We watched the man who we thought had observed our antics bobbing off down the road, as if ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... the old trunk was tough, was solid as stump of oak Untouched at the core by a thousand years: much less had its seventy broke One whipcord nerve in the muscly mass from neck to shoulder-blade Of the mountainous man, whereon his child's rash hand like ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... back in her chair and looked around the tastefully furnished room with quiet enjoyment. This library in the Bradford house was a never-ending delight to her. It was finished in dark oak and the walls were hung with a rich brown paper. The floor was polished and covered with oriental rugs, whose patterns she loved to trace. At one end of the room was a big fireplace and on each side of it a cozy seat, piled with tapestry covered cushions. ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... to be restored," said Mary, "with a beautiful organ in a carved case and a lovely alabaster altar and one of those perpetual lamps of silver—the French call them 'veilleuses', don't they?—and the Stations of the Cross in carved oak, and ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... gray. But thou shouldst see him now; when, to use his own words, he feels that 'the messenger has come.' All his thoughts have tended to, and reached this point. The only question with him now is of a few more days. Though prostrate in body, his mind is like a sturdy old oak, that don't care which way the wind blows. As I sat by his bedside, last evening, I thought I never had seen so beautiful a close to a good ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... the Seventy-third Street apartment, Mr. Vandeford was stripped for the fray—to his silk pajamas—and he lay stretched upon his fumed-oak bed, with both reading-lights turned on full blaze. In his hands was the manuscript of "The Purple Slipper," which Mazie Villines had literally torn from under the hands of Grant Howard to deliver to Mr. Vandeford on Saturday afternoon, just a day ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... the death he had meted? Where was that splendid and terrible daring of the gunman? Queen's love of life dragged him on and on, hour by hour, through the pine groves and spruce woods, through the oak swales and aspen glades, up and down the rocky gorges, around the windfalls and over the ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... was used as a smoking-room. Under the surveillance of the concierge and the valet he was allowed to visit the whole apartments. He admired the drawing-room, filled to overflowing with costly trifles; the dining-room, furnished in old oak; the luxurious bed-room with its bed mounted upon a platform, as if it were a throne, and the library filled with richly bound volumes. Everything was beautiful, sumptuous and magnificent, and Chupin admired, though he did not envy, this luxury. He said to himself that, if ever he became rich, ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... seas; (44) while the cold and Lastly, the cold bleak plains shivering plains which stretch stretching towards Archangel and towards Archangel and the shores towards the shores of the White of the White Sea are (48) covered Sea, and covered with immense with immense forests of fir and forests of oak and fir, furnish oak, furnishing at once (54)[40] materials for shipbuilding and inexhaustible materials for supplies of fuel that will for shipbuilding and supplies of fuel. many generations supersede ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott
... house. We may easily hear too much of rural influences. The cool disengaged air of natural objects makes them enviable to us, chafed and irritable creatures with red faces, and we think we shall be as grand as they if we camp out and eat roots; but let us be men instead of woodchucks and the oak and the elm shall gladly serve us, though we sit in chairs of ivory on carpets ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... 1851 there was exhibited a set of oak tables and cabinet of Stanton oak, combined with glass and ormolu, etc., made and carved by three deaf and dumb persons; the castings ...
— Anecdotes & Incidents of the Deaf and Dumb • W. R. Roe
... piece of furniture in ancient carved oak, and it stood against the wall which ran parallel with the hall of the house. Excepting the space occupied in the upper corner of the room by the second door, which opened into the hall, the book-case filled the whole length ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... implication had stunned him like a buffet. In his own room, he sat down on a big oak chest; and, as he thought, his wrath slowly gathered. Semple knew that gay young English officers were coming and going about his house, and he had not told him until he feared they would interfere with his own plans ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... the river, extending mainly Northward and Southward. Market Street, the centre and main thoroughfare of the city, wide and beautiful, begins at the river front and gradually climbs a hill Eastward, so persistently straight, that the first rays of a Summer's morning sun kiss the profusion of oak and cedar trees that border it; and the evening sun seems to linger in the Western heavens, loath to bid adieu to that ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... through the door and walked down the passage. A few steps brought her to the foot of a polished oak staircase, lit by a large window in coloured glass, on either side of which there were statues. The staircase sloped slowly to an imposing landing set out with columns and blue vases and embroidered curtains. The girl ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... stout oak cudgels I had cut; and if we're lucky, my lad, we shall have as nice and pleasant a fight as ever we two ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn
... Honor Oak Golf Club," says a contemporary, "are arranging to play their rounds to the music of grunting pigs, cackling fowls and bleating lambs." With a little practice these intelligent animals should soon be able to convey their appreciation of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 18, 1917 • Various
... because they were found near a rabbit-warren at a suspicious hour in the evening; and an old fellow, whom they called Horny Owl, was so severely beaten on the head by one of the Baronet's men, that he only lived two days afterwards. Old Horny was concealed in the trunk of a hollow oak, and was found there with no less than three young partridges in his possession, which he pleaded he was about to take home for his little ones' supper. But Sir Vane could never catch the rascals ...
— Comical People • Unknown
... of this kind of one bough of every common tree—oak, ash, elm, birch, beech, &c.; in fact, if you are good, and industrious, you will make one such study carefully at least three times a week, until you have examples of every sort of tree and shrub you can get branches of. You are to make two studies ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... from heaven! I plant the short acorns in the valley! I plant the long acorns in the valley! I sprout, I, the black-oak acorn, ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... Dimentions following (that is to say) The Oblong Square fifty three feet by forty, the opposite Angles Twenty four feet and Twenty-Two In Height Twenty four and a half feet as by the Plan annexed Appears, The Thickness of the Walls which are made of Oak Logs regularly Diminished from sixteen Inches to Six, it contains three floors and there may be discharged from each floor at one and the same time about one hundred Musketts the same is beautifully scituated in the fork of Fourth Creek a Branch ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... Cudjo went to work upon a large oak which he had felled and cut into lengths of about four feet each, at the beginning of our operations. It was now somewhat dry, so as to split easily; and with his axe and a set of wedges he attacked it. By sunset, he had a pile of clap-boards ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... officers in the British uniform were seated in the barge with him. The freebooters, a formidable array of French, Italians, Portuguese and West Indians, with here and there a sunburned American, stared with bold and threatening eyes at the intruders as they passed through the whispering chenaie (oak grove) to the house, to unfold their mission to the "Great Chief," and to ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... surrounded an open court. All of the buildings were timbered, the diagonal beams of oak so old they were black in the sun, and the snowy whiteness of fresh plaster made them seem blacker still. The gabled roofs were of varying tones and tints; some were red, some mossy green, some as gray as the skin ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... We have oak trees and green grass at our house, what many children in crowded cities do not get. Three little girls love to play in the green grass, with some pet chickens, and a white, pink-eyed rabbit for companions. Now, you must know that I am quite as fond of the oaks ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... scenic prologue. The scene is the village of Dom Remi; on the left is the Druid oak—on the right, the image of the Virgin in a small chapel. Thibaut d'Arc enters with his three daughters, Margaret, Louison, and Johanna, together with their three suitors, Etienne, Claude Marie, and Raimond. Thibaut deplores the state of his fatherland. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... said, contentedly. He crossed the river and regained the road beyond. The slope rose under his feet; a little farther on he passed the Morning Star mine, smoking and thundering. McTeague pushed steadily on. The road rose with the rise of the mountain, turned at a sharp angle where a great live-oak grew, and held level for nearly a quarter of a mile. Twice again the dentist left the road and took to the trail that cut through deserted hydraulic pits. He knew exactly where to look for these trails; not ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... were sacred to Bacchus, the cypress to Pluto, the cedar to the Furies, the ash to Mars, the oak to Jove, the laurel to Apollo, the myrtle to Venus, the olive to Minerva, the poplar to Hercules, the pine to Cybele, ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... windlass was kept going, and gradually the whole of the throat was raised high enough for a hole to be cut through its mass, into which the strap of the second cutting tackle was inserted and secured by passing a huge toggle of oak through its eye. The second tackle was then hove taut, and the jaw, with a large piece of blubber attached, was cut off from the body with a boarding-knife, a tool not unlike a cutlass blade set into a three-foot-long ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... a favourite in the nursery now as he was in our younger days? We are afraid not. Our Robin was a mysterious sort of personage, something between an outlaw and an earl,—a kind of Judge Lynch, who distributed arbitrary justice beneath the shade of an enormous oak-tree, and who was perpetually confiscating the moveables of abbots for the exclusive benefit of the poor. Maid Marian we could never distinctly realise. Sometimes she appeared to us as a soft flaxen-haired beauty, not unlike a lay-figure, once ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... of San Francisco Bay a line of bluffs terminates in a promontory, at whose base, formed by the crumbling debris of the cliff above, there is a narrow stretch of beach, salt meadow, and scrub oak. The abrupt wall of rock behind it seems to isolate it as completely from the mainland as the sea before it separates it from the opposite shore. In spite of its contiguity to San Francisco,—opposite also, but hidden by the sharp re-entering ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... born in 1670, at Bardsey, in the neighbourhood of Leeds. His father, a younger son of a very ancient Staffordshire family, had distinguished himself among the cavaliers in the civil war, was set down after the Restoration for the Order of the Royal Oak, and subsequently settled in Ireland, under the patronage of the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... had observed there for ship-building, and which might be procured in any quantity or of any size. The carpenter of the Britannia, an ingenious man, and master of his profession, compared it to English oak for durability and strength. ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... Somehow a Nemean lion, fulvous, torrid-eyed, dry-nursed in broad-howling sand-wildernesses of a sufficiently rare spirit-Libya (it may be supposed) has got whelped among the sheep. Already he stands wild-glaring, with feet clutching the ground as with oak-roots, gathering for a Remus-spring over the walls of thy little fold. In Heaven's name, go not near him with that flybite crook of thine! In good time, thou painful preacher, thou wilt go to the appointed place of departed Artillery-Election Sermons, ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... 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, in those titanic ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... was nine years old. All around the motto are flying birds penned in pure Spencerian. The motto is this: "Then said Joab, I may not tarry long with thee. And he took three darts in his hand and thrust them through the heart of Absalom while he was yet alive in the midst of the oak. And ten young men of Joab's smote Absalom and slew him." This was before the art of working mottoes with worsted in ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... it might have been mine," she said, sitting with him under an old, hollow, withered sloping stump of an oak, which still, however, had sufficient of a head growing from one edge of the trunk to give them the shade they wanted; "and if you wish me to ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... four o'clock, accompanied by our hospitable hosts for some leagues, all their own princely property, through great pasture-fields, woods of fir and oak, hills clothed with trees, and fine clear streams. We also passed a valuable stone-quarry; and were shown a hill belonging to the Indians, presented to them by a former proprietor. We formed a long train, and I pitied the mistress of El Pilar, our next halting-place, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... crops: 0% other: 100% (mostly rock with sparse scrub oak, few trees, some commercial salt ponds) ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... also, in no small degree, to the greater variety that exists in their winter than their summer colouring. This variety is such, and so harmoniously preserved, that it leaves little cause of regret when the splendour of autumn is passed away. The oak-coppices, upon the sides of the mountains, retain russet leaves; the birch stands conspicuous with its silver stem and puce-coloured twigs; the hollies, with green leaves and scarlet berries, have come forth to view ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... Syria, and inevitably Egypt. By the Dardanelles, she would be wholly inaccessible; for no fleet could pass, if the batteries on shore were well manned. The Black Sea would be simply her wet-dock, in which she might build ships while there was oak or iron in the north, and build them in complete security from all disturbance; for all the fleets of Europe could not reach them through the Bosphorus, even if they had forced the Dardanelles—that must be the operation of an army in the field. On the north, Russia is almost wholly invulnerable. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... hundred pounds. It was of circular form, incased in iron, with the ends of several small magnets sticking through the floor. A pulley and belt, connected to a circular saw larger than the motor, permitted large logs of oak timber to be sawed with ease with the use of two small cells of battery. Edison's friend, General Lefferts, had become excited and was determined to invest a large sum of money in the motor company, but knowing Edison's intimate familiarity with all electrical ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... lying among the booms, that they had often been the subject of conversation between the mates and myself, neither of the former being able to tell their uses. These sticks were of no great length, some fifteen feet at the most, of sound English oak. Two or three pairs were alike, for they were in pairs, each pair having one of the sides of a shape resembling different parts of the ship's bottom, with the exception that they were chiefly concave, while the bottom of a vessel is mainly convex. At one extremity ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... broad woods and the emerald meadows of Council Grove, a scene of striking luxuriance and beauty. It seemed like a new sensation as we rode beneath the resounding archs of these noble woods. The trees were ash, oak, elm, maple, and hickory, their mighty limbs deeply overshadowing the path, while enormous grape vines were entwined among them, purple with fruit. The shouts of our scattered party, and now and then a report of ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... demonstrations were still going on in London and in various parts of England with as much energy as ever. Green boughs and oak apples were worn, and even flaunted, about the streets, by groups of persons on May 29th, the anniversary of Charles the Second's restoration. We read of the riots in London, of Whigs of the "Loyal Society" going about with little warming-pans ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... an avenue, a pool—no, not a pool (the word is incorrect), nor yet a pond—but a fountain hollowed out by the removal of a giant oak. Since the death of this monarch the birches which its branches kept apart have never closed together, and the fountain forms the centre of a little clearing where the moss is thick at all seasons and starred in August with wild pinks. The ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... me tell you that in all that concerns calculation of size and proportion, and drawing plans of sections of circles, you'll find I'm your man. And then in choosing your wood you may rely fully upon me. Staves of the holm oak felled in winter, without worm-holes, without either red or white streaks, and without blemish, that's what we must look for; you may trust my eyes. I will stand by you with all the help I can, in both deed and counsel; and my own masterpiece will be none the worse for it." "But ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... Frank, trembling, and his honest eyes filling with tears, "a silver statue to Our Lady!" He was going to rattle at the great iron knocker on the oak gate; but Esmond stopped his kinsman's hand. He had his own fears, his own hopes, his own despairs and griefs, too; but he spoke not a word of these to his companion, or showed ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... arrived on Saturday and is now on exhibition on our third floor. The showing is unsurpassed. Here you will find something to suit you, whether you wish oak, mahogany, walnut or birch. We invite you to ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... were, David had set up a little furnace with a copper pan, ostensibly to save the cost of fuel over the recasting of his rollers, though the moulds had not been used twice, and hung there rusting upon the wall. Nor was this all; a solid oak door had been put in by his orders, and the walls were lined with sheet-iron; he even replaced the dirty window sash by panes of ribbed glass, so that no one without could ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... greet me on my way? How much his hooting is in harmony With such a scene as this! I like it well. Oft when a boy, at the still twilight hour, I've leant my back against some knotted oak, And loudly mimicked him, till to my call He answer would return, and through the gloom We friendly converse held. Between me and the star-bespangled sky, Those aged oaks their crossing branches wave, And through them looks ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... borne his letter of the morning. Generals Ord, McPherson, Logan and A. J. Smith, and several officers of my staff, accompanied me. Our place of meeting was on a hillside within a few hundred feet of the rebel lines. Near by stood a stunted oak-tree, which was made historical by the event. It was but a short time before the last vestige of its body, root and limb had disappeared, the fragments taken as trophies. Since then the same tree has furnished as many cords of wood, in the shape of trophies, ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... Zhiok, or the mossy stone Of Solfar Kapper"—will bear comparison with any in Milton for fullness of circumstance and lofty-pacedness of Versification. Southey's similes, tho' many of 'em are capital, are all inferior. In one of his books the simile of the Oak in the Storm occurs I think four times! To return, the light in which you view the heathen deities is accurate and beautiful. Southey's personifications in this book are so many fine and faultless pictures. I was ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... trust you, dear. Take the children at once to the meeting-place under the great oak, and wait there until Miss Good appears." Annie suddenly sprang forward, and threw her arms round Miss ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... large golden oak table at which sat this delver into the occult, deeply engrossed in a study of this painting; while with a little brush he figured and calculated, in a queer sort of Chinese characters, which he drew ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... the upper vestry, for I don't think I can get it down that staircase myself.' Between them the lectionary was safely brought down, and deposited, not in the apartment, which we may now call the school-room, but in the chamber of Titus, on a massy oak desk or lectern, which turned upon its pedestal, and which they brought out from the patriarch's ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... in wasting our time here," said Solomon Owl to his small cousin, Simon Screecher. "It's a fine night. The Mice will all be out sooner or later. Let's go over and sit in that old oak on ...
— The Tale of Master Meadow Mouse • Arthur Scott Bailey
... saw her coming in out of breath, he would cross-examine her. Which path had she taken? Had she wandered among the trees, or had she gone round the meadow side? Had she seen any nests? Had she sat down behind a bush of sweetbriar, or under an oak, or in the shade of a clump of poplars? But when she answered him and tried to describe the garden to him, he would put his hand to ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... liquid and so dazzling. Then he resolved to test his faculty for discovery, by seeing whether he could find his way to the breakfast-room without a guide. In this he would have succeeded without much difficulty, for it opened from the main-entrance hall, to which the huge square-turned oak staircase, by which he had ascended, led; had it not been for the somewhat intricate nature of the passages leading from the wing in which his rooms were (evidently an older and more retired portion of the ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... the sides. The floor is of oak, consisting of 2376 small square pieces, and is not only curious for its being inlaid, without a nail or a peg to fasten the parts, but is very neat in the workmanship, and beautiful in its appearance. The principal things pointed out to a stranger, are several carved stone pillars, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... while Stephen, mounting his horse, rode away for Langton, and Roger himself, accompanied by Master Holden, hunted through the big lumber-room at the top of the house, with the hopes of finding a chest in which his property might be stowed. He soon found one of oak, clamped with iron, which, though larger and heavier than was desirable, might, he thought, serve the purpose required. Their next business was to collect the treasures, including a few well-thumbed books, which Roger wished to take with him, and which he ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... looked so delightful to Mrs. Curtis as now that the fields were dressed in their gay, autumn attire. Their road lay through rich woods of maple, birch and oak, brilliant in their red and ...
— Bertie and the Gardeners - or, The Way to be Happy • Madeline Leslie
... early transmitters was a rough model of the human ear, carved in oak, and provided with a drum which actuated a bent and pivoted lever of platinum, making it open and close a springy contact of platinum foil in the metallic circuit of the current. He devised some ten or twelve different forms, each an improvement on its predecessors, ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... beautiful. Just beyond our cottage the river ran its silent, lazy course to the sea. With the exception of several farmhouses, its banks were then unsullied by human habitation of any sort, and on either side beyond the low green banks lay fields of wheat and corn, and dense groves of pine and oak and chestnut trees. Between us and the ocean were more waving fields of corn, broken by little clumps of trees, and beyond these damp Nile-green pasture meadows, and then salty marshes that led to the glistening, white sand-dunes, and the great silver semi-circle of foaming breakers, ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... animals do, had picked up a comfortable way of canterin' hard by Four Turnin's and stoppin' short, slap in the middle of her stride, close by th' hedge, so 's her master 'd roll over it into the plantation there, where the ditch is full of oak-leaves. There he'd lie, peaceful as a suckin' child; and there, every Sabbath mornin' in the small hours, one o' the farm hands 'd be sent to gather 'em in wi' the new-laid eggs. So it went on till one day the County Council, busy as usual, ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... Navy. Under its salutary sanction stores of ship timber have been procured and are in process of seasoning and preservation for the future uses of the Navy. Arrangements have been made for the preservation of the live oak timber growing on the lands of the United States, and for its reproduction, to supply at future and distant days the waste of that most valuable material for ship building by the great consumption of it yearly for the commercial as well as for ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John Quincy Adams • John Quincy Adams
... ever so high and some higher yet, and therefore I was not so very much surprised, after all. But in Illinois I first saw the wonderful forest. Oh, the virgin forest! Never had I seen such grand, beautiful trees, oak and hickory, ash and sycamore, maple, elm, and many more giant trees, unknown to me, and peopled by a multitude of wild birds of the brightest plumage. There were birds and squirrels everywhere! I actually saw a sky-blue bird with a topknot, and another of a bright scarlet color, and gorgeous ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... was so large that the great family looked far smaller than it had in the open field; there was a thick growth of dark pines and firs with an occasional maple or oak that gave a gleam of color like a bright window in the great roof. On three sides we could see the water, shining behind the tree-trunks, and feel the cool salt breeze that began to come up with ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett
... walked down the drive in the August sun, the open door of the Red House revealed a delightfully inviting hall, of which even the mere sight was cooling. It was a big low-roofed, oak-beamed place, with cream-washed walls and diamond-paned windows, blue-curtained. On the right and left were doors leading into other living-rooms, but on the side which faced you as you came in were windows again, looking on to a small grass court, and from open windows to open ...
— The Red House Mystery • A. A. Milne
... there are seven wolves in hostageship at the sidewall in his house, and behind this a further security, even Maclocc, and 'tis he that pleads for them in Conaire's house. In Conaire's reign are the three crowns on Erin, namely, crown of corn-ears, and crown of flowers, and crown of oak mast. In his reign, too, each man deems the other's voice as melodious as the strings of lutes, because of the excellence of the law and the peace and the goodwill prevailing throughout Erin. May ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... Ashby-de-la-Zouche presented a brilliant and romantic scene. On the verge of a wood was an extensive meadow, of the finest and most beautiful green turf, surrounded on one side by the forest, and fringed on the other by straggling oak-trees. The ground, as if fashioned on purpose for the martial display which was intended, sloped gradually down on all sides to a level bottom, which was enclosed for the lists with strong palisades. At each end of the enclosure two heralds were ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... party of returning picnickers. The mother, the father, a young man, and a young girl, and three children. The two older people held empty lunch baskets in their laps, while the bands of the children's hats were stuck full of oak leaves. The girl carried a huge bunch of wilting poppies and ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... it was bursting, at which I fainted, and knew no more until I found myself in bed." A gamekeeper tells the sequel, relating that he observed the balloon, which was descending with great velocity, strike and break the head of an oak tree, after which it also struck the ground. Hurrying up, he found the girl insensible, and Mr. Harris already dead, with his breast bone and several ribs broken. The explanation of the accident given by Mr. Edward Spencer is alike convincing and instructive. This eminently practical authority points ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... point where the ground fell away more abruptly and the character of the timber changed, as well. Instead of the stately pines, this more abrupt declivity was covered with hickory and oak. The sparse brush sprang out ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... thou gavest shall grow and expand Into an empire huge, unwritten yet On hist'ry's page, and shall surpass the dreams Of warriors bold in times of old, and like The creepers that, entwined around the oak, Luxuriant grow, safe from the storms that blow, And flow'rs give forth to beautify the scene, Her sons shall everlasting peace enjoy, And blessings, hitherto unknown to man— The grandest scene for God to ever cast His loving eyes upon, and for the world Of man to wonder at, and there ...
— Tales of Ind - And Other Poems • T. Ramakrishna
... walked through the timber tract, Max pointing out trees which he thought could be sacrificed with a real gain to the timber to be left standing. Josephine listened and agreed, finding genuine interest in the long vistas of oak and chestnut pillars stretching away to what seemed an infinite distance, for dense undergrowth at the back of the wood prevented the appearance of an ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond |
