"Piece of ground" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... held in a large square piece of ground in one of the suburbs, set apart for that purpose; and on each of its four sides a long low building, or rather roof, supported on massy white columns, extended about six hundred yards in length, and was thirty yards wide. Immediately within this arcade were arranged the finer kinds ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... the walls of their cells; many of which being below the level of the water were in a constant state of humidity; from which issued a noxious vapour, which more than once extinguished the candles. Since the destruction of the building many subterraneous cells have been discovered under a piece of ground, which seemed only a bank of solid earth before the horrid secrets of this prison-house were disclosed. Some skeletons were found in these recesses with irons still fastened to their decayed bones." Letters from France, by ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... the earth as with other creatures that through continual labour grow faint and feeble-hearted, and therefore, if it be so far driven as to be out of breath, we may now by this law resort to a more lusty and proud piece of ground while the first gathers strength, which will be a means that the earth yearly shall be surcharged with burden of her own excess. And this did the former lawmakers overslip, tyeing the land once tilled to a perpetual bondage and servitude of being ...
— The Enclosures in England - An Economic Reconstruction • Harriett Bradley
... something or other, we forget what, Uncle Obed was observed, and the sheriff was sent in pursuit of him, in hot haste, mounted on a fine and very fast horse. After a hard run, Uncle Obed halted at the edge of a rough piece of ground, pulled off his coat, and pulled down about a rod of stone wall, then quietly went to work building it up again, as if that was ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... Highlanders moved from Tranent to Seaton was Robert Anderson, junior, of Whitburgh, a gentleman of property in East Lothian. He had been interrogated by the Lord George Murray concerning the possibility of crossing the uncouth and marshy piece of ground which divided the armies, and which he described as impracticable. When dismissed, he recollected that there was a circuitous path leading eastward through the marsh into the plain, by which the Highlanders might turn the flank of Sir John ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... outside, and the play continued as if no interruption had taken place. They were accustomed to such occurrences in Pine-tree Gulch, and the piece of ground at the top of the hill, that had been set aside as a burial place, was already dotted thickly with graves, filled in almost every instance by men who had died, in the local ...
— Tales of Daring and Danger • George Alfred Henty
... street from Peden's back door was a large vacant piece of ground, a wilderness of cans, bottles, packing boxes, broken barrels. On one corner, diagonally across from where Morgan stood, facing on the other street, a ragged, weathered tent was pitched. Out of this the sound of contending children came, the strident, ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... work himself. When all the people are gone from church, he is left sleeping in his seat alone. He enters bonds, and forfeits them by forgetting the day; and asks his neighbour when his own field was fallowed, whether the next piece of ground belong not to himself. His care is either none or too late. When winter is come, after some sharp visitations, he looks on his pile of wood, and asks how much was cropped the last spring. Necessity drives him to every ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... feet in the course of a couple of days in the rains; and, during the season when its waters are wanted for irrigation, they can nowhere be found within that [distance] of the surface; while a level piece of ground fit for irrigation is rarely to be met with within a mile ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... money to put in the bank; and how could they get that in the Highlands, where the land is so poor that a small piece is of no use, and they have not money to rent the large sheep-farms? It is very bad to have people go away—it is very hand on many of them—but what can they do? The piece of ground that was very good for the one family, that is expected to keep the daughters when they marry, and the sons when they marry, and then there are five or six families to live on it. And hard work—that will not do much with very bad land and the bad weather we have here. The people get downhearted ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... walking. But the object of their loving pursuit had now quickened her pace, and turned up a by- street before they could come up with her. Should they follow? Some impulse urged them forward. The side street led to a square or large open piece of ground, in the centre of which was erected a temporary theatre. The woman whom they were following was just about to enter this building, but turned about and looked back before doing so. Her eyes met those of Julia, and she at once recognised her with a ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... while those of the shepherds' dogs are no less conspicuous. The excellency of these animals renders sheep-pens in a great degree unnecessary. If a shepherd wishes to inspect his flock in a cursory way, he places himself in the middle of the field, or the piece of ground they are depasturing, and giving a whistle or a shout, the dogs and the sheep are equally obedient to the sound, and draw towards the shepherd, and are kept within reach by one or more dogs, until the business which required ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... inexplicable. She had resolved that the man to whom she gave her hand should wed her for herself—and for herself only. Her parents had died in the same month; and about a year after their death she sold the cottage and the piece of ground, and took her journey towards Edinburgh, where the report of her being a "great fortune," as her neighbours term her, might be unknown. But Tibby, although a sensitive girl, was also, in many respects, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... is, indeed, no more than a mere fallacy: which will evidently appear, when we distinguished Place as it relates to Plays, into Real and Imaginary. The Real place is that theatre or piece of ground, on which the Play is acted. The Imaginary, that house, town, or country, where the action of the Drama is supposed to be; or, more plainly, where the Scene ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... when we came into a village that was certainly full of them. It was about 11 o'clock and apparently their dinner hour, for they were all hurrying out of a door with cans full of appetizing stew in their hands. They took no notice of us and we walked on, but very soon came to a sandy piece of ground where a good many soldiers were entrenched and where others were busily putting up barbed-wire entanglements. They looked at us rather curiously but did not stop us, and we went on. Suddenly we came to a ...
— Field Hospital and Flying Column - Being the Journal of an English Nursing Sister in Belgium & Russia • Violetta Thurstan
... had a good piece of ground, right adjoining the Moon Petroleum tract—three wells down to the sand. I wondered how he ever ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... going on an amusing incident occurred. A Jew came up to a burgher who was lying behind a stone, on a piece of ground where boulders were scarce. ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... had said to him that he should visit his House no more, and it was part of the proof of the notion he entertained toward himself as a man done with the imaginative life, that he accepted it with no more fuss about it. He had in fact his mind's eye on a piece of ground which Lessing could buy for him, on the river, an hour from the city, where he could manage for Savilla at least, a generous substitute for dreams, and a situation for himself for which he began to discover more appetite than he would have believed. ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin
... begun to mend—and then he would have it out with Marion and his mother. But there was no hurry. The war would last a long time. And so it was that Graham Spencer joined the long line of those others who had bought a piece of ground, or five yoke of oxen, or had ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... of the hewn stones were 4 feet 7 inches by 2 feet 4 inches and 15 inches thick, and had been squared and Polished with some sort of an Edge Tool. On the East side was enclosed with a stone wall a piece of ground in form of a square, 360 feet by 354, in this was growing several Cypress trees and Plantains. Round about this Morie was several smaller ones all going to decay, and on the Beach between them and the Sea lay scatter'd up and down a great quantity of human bones. Not far from the Great Morie ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... their numbers, and it was generally an hour before their squabbling ceased and every one had found its own retreat. The people of the Sydney Cove had a strong example of perseverance in these birds. The tents were pitched close to a piece of ground full of their burrows, many of which were necessarily filled up from walking constantly over them; yet notwithstanding this interruption and the thousands of birds destroyed (for they constituted a great part of their food during more than ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... over, to run out, and, looking upwards, to bark violently. The people of Chili destroy and catch great numbers. Two methods are used: one is to place a carcase within an inclosure of sticks on a level piece of ground; and when the condors are gorged, to gallop up on horseback to the entrance, and thus inclose them; for when this bird has not space to run, it cannot give its body sufficient momentum to rise from the ground. The second method is to mark the trees in which, frequently to the number of five ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... applied exclusively to the agriculturist, and a squatter would be very much offended if you called him a sheep-farmer. The squatting class in Australia correspond to the landed gentry of England. The farmer is usually legally known as a 'selector,' because under the Land Act he selects a piece of ground perhaps in the middle of the squatter's leasehold and purchases it on credit for agriculture. A 'cockatoo' is a selector who works his piece of land out in two or three years, and having done nothing to improve it, decamps to select in a ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... great slaughter. Wishing to encourage the allies and to come more quickly to blows with the retreating enemy, he dismounted, and with great difficulty, encumbered by his heavy horseman's cuirass and accoutrements, pursued over a rough piece of ground full of water-courses and precipitous rocks. While struggling over these obstacles he was struck through both thighs by a javelin with a strap attached to it, a wound which was not dangerous, though the javelin struck him with such force ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... of party, utterly done with it, and the Liberals said that they hated it. Already three or four of them had taken Drone aside and explained that what was needed in the town was a straight, clean, non-partisan post-office, built on a piece of ground of a strictly non-partisan character, and constructed under contracts that were not tainted and smirched with party affiliation. Two or three men were willing to show to Drone just where a piece of ground of this character could be bought. They told him too that ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... see that block of buildings over there? I had the piece of ground on which it was built. I sold it for a hundred dollars, it was prairie then. It's worth many thousands now. And that piece where that big factory stands, that was mine. I let that go for under three hundred, and the present owners bought in the end for twenty and more times that ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... the legates in returning.] Then taking our iourney to returne, we trauailed all Winter long, lying in the deserts oftentimes vpon the snow, except with our feete wee made a piece of ground bare to lye vpon. For there were no trees, but the plaine champion [Footnote: Champagne (Fr.) Open] field. And oftentimes in the morning, we found our selues all couered with snow driuen ouer vs by the winde. [Sidenote: Bathy.] And so ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... gallant bravery and well-grounded contempt of their enemies, as if there were no small number of as great spirits among us, as his was, who when Rome was nigh besieged by Hannibal, being in the city, bought that piece of ground at no cheap rate, whereon Hannibal himself encamped ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton
... of the hills through which they strike, after starting from Ajaccio, are clothed with a thick brushwood of box, ilex, lentisk, arbutus, and laurustinus, which stretches down irregularly into vineyards, olive-gardens, and meadows. It is, indeed, the native growth of the island; for wherever a piece of ground is left untilled, the macchi grow up, and the scent of their multitudinous aromatic blossoms is so strong that it may be smelt miles out at sea. Napoleon, at S. Helena, referred to this fragrance when he said that he should know Corsica ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... was free. Free! Honey, did yo' hear that? Why we always had been free. He didn't know what he was talking 'bout. He kept telling us we was free and dat we oughtn't to work for no white folks 'less'n we got paid for it. Well Miss Nancy took care of us then. We got our cabin and a piece of ground for a garden and a share of de crops. Daddy worked in de mill. Miss Nancy saw to it that we ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: The Ohio Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... hold a piece of ground there under Messrs. Hay & Co., who are the lessees of Burra under Misses Scott ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... a piece of ground which had been dug up to be newly turfed, and which I had chosen on that account, as the traces of my spade were less likely to attract attention. The men who laid down the grass must have thought me mad. ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... ground very well. Man and boy he had known it for sixty years. As far as his mind went he thought it a very good thing that the piece of ground should be put to some useful purpose ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... like to see some large field, or open piece of ground, in every outskirt of London, exhibiting each Sunday evening on a larger scale, the scene of the little country meadow. I should like to see the time arrive, when a man's attendance to his religious duties might be left to that religious feeling which most men possess in a greater ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... feet below the surface, when digging for the foundation of a swing erected in a garden in the neighbourhood; but the carboniferous enthusiasts had been thrown into ecstacies, by the sexton having come upon a regular strata of undoubted cinders, in clearing out a piece of ground at the back of the parson's residence. Some evil-disposed persons had the malice to say that the spot had been formerly the site of a subsequently-filled-up dusthole; but the crustaceous party, depending as they did upon a single piece of bread—all ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 2, 1841 • Various
... christening parties, all well dressed, and the babies in the finest white muslin and embroidery. A very large proportion of the artisans here are Catholics, and as one instance among others of the liberality prevailing here, I mention that one of the latest donations of M. Dollfus is the piece of ground, close to the cite ouvriere, on which now stands the new, florid ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... I have made, I believe that it is the seedlings which suffer most from germinating in ground already thickly stocked with other plants. Seedlings, also, are destroyed in vast numbers by various enemies; for instance, on a piece of ground three feet long and two wide, dug and cleared, and where there could be no choking from other plants, I marked all the seedlings of our native weeds as they came up, and out of the 357 no less than 295 were destroyed, chiefly by slugs and insects. If turf which has long been mown, ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... armed with cord, stakes, a tape, and the plan of the bed, Myron started to mark it off for the plants. After tacking his plan up on the fence post he began the measuring. The piece of ground was 5-3/4 feet wide by 6 feet long. Beginning at one edge of the garden he measured in six inches along the width. The same thing was done from the opposite edge. Stakes were driven in at these two points and a cord stretched between. ...
— The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming. • Ellen Eddy Shaw
... nearly a mile in length, a small rivulet rising at each end. The stream at the north-western end often fails, but the other, known as the "Well-Head," is a fine spring, seldom influenced by drought. Wolmer Forest, near by, is famed for its timber. In the centre of the village, on a piece of ground commonly known as "The Plestor," there stood, until the fearful storm of 1703, a colossal oak tree, with a short body and enormous horizontally spreading arms. The stone steps, with seats above them, surrounding the tree, formed a favourite resort for both old and young ...
— What to See in England • Gordon Home
... doctrine of international law. Interesting was it, then, to see the Emperor, on his visit to the Sultan, knock the ground from under the feet of all this doctrine by securing for the Roman Catholic interest at Jerusalem what the French had never been able to obtain—the piece of ground at the Holy City, so long coveted by pious Catholics, whereon, according to tradition, once stood the lodging of the Virgin Mary. This the Emperor quietly obtained of the Sultan, and, after assisting at the dedication of a Lutheran church at Jerusalem, he telegraphed to the Pope and ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... omit here a small adventure which was very surprising to me on this journey; passing this plain country, we came to an open piece of ground where a neighbouring gentleman had at a great expense laid out a proper piece of land for a decoy, or duck-coy, as some call it. The works were but newly done, the planting young, the ponds very large and well made; but the proper places for shelter of the fowl not covered, the trees not ...
— From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe
... of that kind. They have placed forts next to the rows of houses or huts on the outskirts of each town, within a hundred yards of one another, and outside of this circle is another circle, and beyond that, on every high piece of ground, are still more of these little square forts, which are not much larger than the signal stations along the lines of our railroads and not unlike them in appearance. No one can cross the line of the forts without a pass, nor enter from the country beyond them without an order showing from what ...
— Cuba in War Time • Richard Harding Davis
... of block without a sheave, for a rope to reeve through; it is grooved for stropping. Also, the central mark of a target. Also, a hemispherical piece of ground glass of great thickness, inserted into small openings in the decks, port-lids, and scuttle-hatches, for the admission ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... and covered the entire barren area to the depth of a man's knees. These weeds had thin wiry stalks and small sickly leaves and flowers, and would die each summer long before their time. This barren piece of ground had a great attraction for me as a small boy, and I visited it daily and would roam about it among the miserable half-dead weeds with the sun-baked clay showing between the brown stalks, as if it delighted me as much as the alfalfa ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... for so kindly taking the trouble of writing to me, on naturalised plants. I did not know of, or had forgotten, the clover case. How I wish I knew what plants the clover took the place of; but that would require more accurate knowledge of any one piece of ground than I suppose any one has. In the case of trees being so long-lived, I should think it would be extremely difficult to distinguish between true and new spreading of a species, and a rotation of crop. With respect to your idea of plants travelling west, I was much struck by a remark of ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... America, as he found it in 1749, observes, accordingly, that he can with difficulty discover there the character of the English nation, so well skilled in all the different branches of agriculture. They make scarce any manure for their corn fields, he says; but when one piece of ground has been exhausted by continual cropping, they clear and cultivate another piece of fresh land; and when that is exhausted, proceed to a third. Their cattle are allowed to wander through the woods and other uncultivated grounds, ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... small upright tombstones, immediately adjoining the chapel, and a few flat slabs on the ground below, are the only sepulchural indications remaining here. On the southern side of the building there is a dull and dreary square piece of ground, railed round, which constituted a portion of the old burial- yard, and which now contains a few forsaken-looking tombstones. The new church cost between 3,000 and 4,000 pounds, and it is not entirely finished yet. At the front it has a one-sided irregular look; and this is ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... Southern Manitoba. When I was walking from the church to the farmhouse where I lodged, after morning service, one perfect day in June, I passed a man called Edward Hare, sitting at the edge of a little bluff, on a rising piece of ground. I had felt drawn toward this man. He was a Londoner, and, in his first two years, had had a tough fight. But he had won through, and now had just succeeded in adding a hundred and sixty acres to his little farm, which was one of the ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... oppressed by petty tyrants, and ground down by taxes,—while they have no motive to improve their condition, since every advance will only expose them to greater extortion,—the people of China are industrious and happy. In no part of the world has agriculture been carried to such perfection. Every piece of ground in the cultivated parts of the empire, except those portions devoted to ancestral monuments, is made to yield two or three crops annually, by the careful tillage bestowed on it. The ceremony of opening the soil at the beginning of the year, at which the emperor ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... soaring bird was a kind of irregular natural circle formed by a hedge of cacti, with their fleshy leaves and thorny points, with which were mingled the pale foliage of the bois de fer. At one end of this hedge was an elevated piece of ground two or three feet high, with a flat top, which overlooked it on all sides. All around this entrenchment, untouched by the hand of man, stretched arid plains or a succession of little hillocks which appeared like motionless waves in a ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... we get clear of the sand we find ourselves on a piece of ground cut up by cracks wide enough to put a foot in. There is just sufficient light to keep us from twisting our ankles if we walk along with our eyes glued to the ground, and so we get along somehow, till ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... on an open piece of ground on the left bank of the river, and, the rain abating a little, managed to make a fire and catch and broil some fish. We did not dare to wander about to search for game. At two o'clock we got off again, taking a supply of broiled fish with us, and shortly afterwards the rain came on harder ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... I felt inclined to cry, but the Mother Superior took me by the hand and, leading me to the Middle Wood, showed me where my garden would be. That was quite enough to distract my thoughts, for we found Pere Larcher there marking out my piece of ground in a corner of the wood. There was a young birch tree against the wall. The corner was formed by the joining of two walls, one of which bounded the railway line on the left bank of the river which cuts the Satory woods in two. The other wall was that of the cemetery. All the woods of the convent ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... possession of the hill, from whence they piqueered with the advanced posts of the English. In the meantime, the rest of the infantry were disembarked, and the enemy at night retired. As the light troops were not yet landed, general Bligh encamped that night at the village of Erville, on a piece of ground that did not extend above four hundred paces; so that the tents were pitched in a crowded and irregular manner. Next morning, the general having received intelligence that no parties of the enemy were seen moving on the hill, or in ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... now close upon them when the last of their land would be taken, leaving them nothing but the kitchen-garden—a piece of ground of about half an acre, the little terraced flower-garden to the south of the castle, and the croft tenanted by James Gracie. They applied to Lord Lick-my-loof to grant them a lease of the one field next the castle, which the laird ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... what they called the Black Hills, leaving the Platte to the north of us. The first night on this road we had the hardest rain I ever experienced, and the only one of any account on our journey. Our camp was on a level piece of ground on the bank of a dry creek, which soon became a very wet creek indeed, for by morning it was one hundred yards wide and absolutely impassible. It went down, however, as quickly as it rose, and by ten ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... as this or any of your ante-bellum Alabama houses for what I can get out of that little tract. What is that value? Merely the expression in terms of money of the power of excluding the rest of mankind from that little piece of ground. I make people give me the fruits of their labor, myself doing nothing. That's what builds this house and all these great houses, and breeds the luxury we are beginning to see around us; and the consciousness that this slavery exists, and ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... consequently a better opportunity of loading quickly, yet taught wariness by the fate of their companions, the two remaining savages would spring behind trees whenever he made a movement like turning towards them. Taking advantage of a more open piece of ground, he was enabled to fire on one of them who had sought protection behind a sapling too small to screen his body. The ball fractured his thigh, and produced death. The other, instead of pressing upon Wetsel, uttered a shrill yell, and exclaiming, "no catch him, gun always loaded," returned ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... with trees, chiefly fine horse-chestnuts, which were in full leaf and blossom when we came away, and which harmonize beautifully with the gray color and solid handsome style of the houses. They have a fine piece of ground, like a park, in one part of the town, which, together with the houses round it, reminded me a good deal of the Green Park and the walk at the back ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... would suggest a gentleman's garden if there was not in its middle a large hole, which grows larger with every rain-storm. Through the hole is visible, firstly, the iron gate that is intended to close it; secondly, a square piece of ground which, though not quite, mud, is at the same time not exactly grass; and finally, another wall, stone this time, which has a wooden door in the middle and two wooden-shuttered windows each side, and apparently forms the facade ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster
... enemy's shot and shell. A horse had been killed under him, but he had not received even a scratch; and now, mounted upon the horse of one of the officers, who was killed, he was returning from carrying an order across a very open piece of ground, at full gallop. Suddenly he came upon a sight which—hurried as he was, and exposed as was the position—caused him instantly to draw his rein, and come ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... land, but, unfortunately, could not succeed in their applications. The local authorities always replied to the petitioners that the land in question was not qualified for them as Israelites, that they should look out for some other piece of ground which the Government could dispose of to them. In consequence of these answers, the applicants petitioned for a list of all the land which might be accessible to Israelites, yet I regret to say that twenty-three years have since passed without any reply having been ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... requires only one special condition for its welfare, and that is a piece of ground prepared for it by honest digging. Rich ground it does not need, but the crop will certainly be the finer from a deep fertile sandy loam than from a poor soil of any kind. But the one great point is to trench the ground in autumn and lay it up rough ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... indicated horse-power in compressed air, and to acquire for the works sufficient land to permit of their dimensions being doubled when extension shall become necessary. The site which has been chosen is a piece of ground belonging to the Birmingham and Warwick Canal Company, and situated by the canal, and bounded on both sides by Sampson Road North and Henley Street. Here the promoters are putting down four air-compressing engines, driven ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... excursions for all kinds of purposes, of Indian games out of Fenimore Cooper, and of "Homeric battles." It was "part of Froebel's plan to have us work with spade and pick-axe," and every boy had his own piece of ground where he might do what he pleased. Ebers, being literary, constructed in his plot a bed of heather on which he lay and read or made verses. The boys built their own stage, painted their own scenery, and in winter once a week they acted ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... Parliament, which had been hurriedly passed, authorizing assessments for sanitary measures, there had been a Board for the superintendence of such measures appointed in Middlemarch, and much cleansing and preparation had been concurred in by Whigs and Tories. The question now was, whether a piece of ground outside the town should be secured as a burial-ground by means of assessment or by private subscription. The meeting was to be open, and almost everybody of importance in the town was ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... deluded, and by which they are induced to reject all proposals for peace, sends an embassy to Lacedaemon, and concludes a separate treaty for himself and his family. He then retires to the country, and, in spite of all assaults, encloses a piece of ground before his house, within which there is a peaceful market for the people of the neighbouring states, while the rest of the country is suffering from the calamities of war. The blessings of peace are represented ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... cultivation from Plataea to Thebes, but strangely alternating with wilderness. We were told that the people have plenty of spare land, and not caring to labour for its artificial improvement, till a piece of ground once, and then let it lie fallow for a season or two. The natural richness of the Boeotian soil thus supplies them with ample crops. But it is strange to think how impossible it is, even in these rich and favoured plains, to ...
— On The Structure of Greek Tribal Society: An Essay • Hugh E. Seebohm
... of a beaver hat in the time of Charles II.? I find that Giles Davis of London, merchant, offered Timothy Wade, Esq., "five pounds to buy a beaver hat," that he might he permitted to surrender a lease of a piece of ground in Aldermanbury. (Vide Judicial Decree, Fire of London, dated 13. Dec. 1668. Add. MS. 5085. ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 24. Saturday, April 13. 1850 • Various
... Nimble was frisking about on the bough of a birch-tree, not very far from his house in the hemlock, he saw a canoe land on the shore of the lake, and some Indians with an axe cut down some bushes, and having cleared a small piece of ground, begin to sharpen, the ends of some long poles. These they stuck into the ground close together in a circle; and having stripped some sheets of birch-bark from the birch-trees close by, they thatched the sides of the hut, and made a fire ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill
... a state of subdued activity, called the Solfatara; an extinct volcano having a large crater called Monte Barbaro; and Lake Avernus, also supposed to be an extinct volcanic crater. Between Monte Barbaro and the sea, there was formerly a fiat piece of ground bordering on the Lucrine Lake, which is separated from the Bay of Baiae by a narrow strip of shingle. On the 29th of September 1538, the flat piece of ground above mentioned became the scene of a ...
— Wonders of Creation • Anonymous
... present site would not be suitable, the said fifty rods were to be deeded to the hospital, in the vicinity, all which was legally arranged in the month of February, 1658. M. Gabriel Souart, superior of the Seminary, donated another piece of ground, upon which the convent stands today. Many other gifts of real estate became also the property of Sister Bourgeois, and were chiefly in the suburbs of the city, which was at last becoming extensive. As soon as the plan ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.
... formed for an extension of the work. An offer from Hongi of a site opposite to his own pa was accepted, and Marsden bought for four dozen axes a large piece of ground on the Kerikeri River, at the extreme north-west of the Bay. Here, in a sheltered vale and amid the sound of waterfalls, the new mission station was established. To it the fresh workers were assigned, Butler taking the chief place. ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... projected leg of the laborer like a mole hill, and nearly as high as the knee; he then draws out his foot, flattens the top of the hill by a dab with the flat part of the hoe, and advances forward to the next hill in the same manner, until the whole piece of ground is prepared. The center of these hills are in this manner guessed by the eye; and in most instances they approach near to lines of four feet one way, and three feet the other. The planter always endeavors to time ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... a great supper, and bade many: And sent his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come; for all things are now ready. And they all with one consent began to make excuse. The first said unto him, I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it: I pray thee have me excused. And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them: I pray thee have me excused. And another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come. So that servant came, and shewed his lord ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... is crushed, pulverised, and finally washed to get at the stones. Nowhere in the world does the hidden wealth of the soil and the element of chance in its discovery strike one so forcibly as here, where you are shown a piece of ground a few acres in extent, and are told, 'Out of this pit diamonds of the value of L12,000,000 have been taken.' Twenty-six years ago the ground might have ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... than this at Wilton," was the reply of the Abbess to his demand. During his period of indecision the Virgin appeared to him in a vision, and commanded him to build his new church in a place called Myr-field, or, as some accounts have it, Maer-field. He searched vainly for a piece of ground by that name, that he might obey the supernatural edict, until by chance he overheard a labourer (or a soldier, the legends vary,) talking of the Maer-field, and then having, as he thought, identified the place, which appears to have been within his own demesne, he commenced to plan ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White
... in Christiania, the most conspicuous object being the palace, which stands, like a manufactory, on the top of a rising piece of ground. It is an enormous pile of building, painted uniformly white; and I do not believe the interior is more commodious than the exterior is monotonous and void of architectural taste, since the late King, Bernadotte, once observed, when he entered it, ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... to travel farther, he was forced to lie down to rest, and selected for the purpose an unfenced overgrown piece of ground of considerable extent. Here, as he lay among the weeds, nothing was visible of him above their tops but his two ears, which might easily have been taken for two stakes, or the roots of an upturned stump. As he lay shivering in the damp grass, he felt anything ...
— Harper's Young People, May 11, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... had a piece of ground of the same size as ours, which the father worked as a garden. He was very skilful at gardening, and kept everything in such complete order that I would many times have gone in to admire his fruits and flowers, had it not been for the crisp reception ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... was no house near. But Nicholas, though not a millionaire, was a man of means; he obtained a small piece of ground on lease at the nearest spot to her home that it could be so obtained, which was on the opposite brink of the Froom, this river forming the boundary of the Froom-Everard manor; and here he built a cottage large enough for his wants. This took time, and when he got into ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... idea. They had brought him there and left him there. They and there—these two enigmas represented his doom. They were humankind. There was the universe. For him in all creation there was absolutely no other basis to rest on but the little piece of ground where he placed his heel, ground hard and cold to his naked feet. In the great twilight world, open on all sides, what was there for the ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... sufferings, some of the soldiers were left behind, who, seeing a piece of ground of a black appearance, from the snow having disappeared there, conjectured that it must have melted; and it had, in fact, melted in the spot from the effect of a fountain, which was sending up a vapor in a woody hollow close at hand. Turning aside thither, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... was to be in a very different style from the old one. The first thing was to burn the lime. It was found on the top of the hill, and brought down in carts to a piece of ground, the trees on which had just been cut down. These were now piled up in a large heap, and the limestone placed above. By the time the log heap was burned, the lime was made, but it took some time to clear it from the ashes. A wood of fine ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston
... left, 'C' and 'E' remained in the centre with 'B' on their right, while 'H' was held back at the corner of the wood. The latter was bounded on the far side by a stone wall, beyond which stretched an open piece of ground until, further up the hill, there was a second wall. At this point there was a sudden change in the slope of the ground, which rose almost precipitously to the crest. Immediately opposite the point where 'B' company issued from the wood a third wall ran up the hill, connecting the ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring
... though her old eyes did shine, and her appreciation was written all over her. That had always been a wet piece of ground, said Miss Eliza; she hadn't been so sure corn would do at all well there. She was a ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... nothing beyond but the country. Close to the house there was a small pleasure-ground, with a mound at the farther end of the lawn slightly inclosing the view. Behind the mound there was a kitchen-garden, not unintermixed with flowers and ornamental vegetation; and farther still was a piece of ground traversed by a lane deeply excavated in the chalk soil. At that time Shelley had a thousand a year allowed to him by his father; but although he was in no respect the unreckoning, wasteful person that many have represented him to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... from this relic of primeval grandeur. These people were but little indebted to fortune, and the size of their potato-patch did not exactly correspond with the number of rosy-cheeks within doors. So the loan of a piece of ground was a small thing to ask or to grant. Upon this piece of lent land stood our favorite oak. The potatoes were scarcely peeping green above the soil, when we observed that the great boughs which we ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... their way, one to his farm, and another to his merchandise." Luke is more large in this, and saith, "I have bought a piece of ground, and must needs go see it;" another said, "I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them;" and the third said, "I have married a wife and therefore I cannot come." 1. We learn here, that never a man refuses Christ but from some by-respects, such as a farm, oxen, and marriage. ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... descended gently to a beautiful plane meadow, skirted on the hither side by a row of fine apple-trees. The smooth green flat tempted Ellen to a run, but first she looked to the left. There was the garden, she guessed, for there was a paling fence which enclosed a pretty large piece of ground; and between the garden and the house a green slope ran down to the spout. That reminded her that she intended making a journey of discovery up the course of the long trough. No time could be better than now, and she ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... weather, bad air, bad milk, bad everything, unless you have plenty of money. Many a time I've sat and cried, just from thinkin' how bad I wanted a little place of our own, where there was grass and trees and a piece of ground for a garden. And I knew we'd never be able to buy it. We couldn't ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... had a good deal of talk with the brown people, who could all speak a little Spanish. Some years before, the two old people had settled there, and set up the ferry. Besides this, they made nets and caught much fish in the river, and cultivated the little piece of ground which formed the point of the promontory. While their descendants went no further than grandchildren the colony had done very well; but now great-grandchildren had begun to arrive, and they would soon have to divide, and form a settlement up in the woods across the river, or upon some patch of ground ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... living man, he must have died ages and ages ago. If buried, the accumulated deposits upon his grave, in this low piece of ground, during thousands of years would have been deeper than three feet. If he were drowned, or if he lay down on the surface of the earth to die, the flesh would have decayed and dropped from his bones without petrification. If he were petrified in his present ...
— The American Goliah • Anon.
... distance from our business. May we not expect in the near future to see one portion of our cities devoted entirely to business, with the homes of the people so separated as to give light, sunshine, and air to all, besides a piece of ground for a garden sufficient to supply the table ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall
... his papers, and declared that he intended to settle down in the place. After the necessary preliminaries had been accomplished, Herr Huerlin developed a busy and mysterious activity and correspondence, often took little journeys, and bought a piece of ground at the bottom of the valley. He began to build there, on the site of an oil-works that had burned down, a new brick house, a stable and coachhouse near it, and between the stable and the house a huge brick chimney. ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... pleasant one, the road presenting a most animated appearance, with crowds of soldiers, sailors, Chinamen, Parsees, Jews, all hurrying along by the side of the numerous sedan-chairs and carriages. We were puzzled to imagine where, on this rocky, hilly island, there could possibly be found a piece of ground flat enough for a race-course. But the mystery was solved when we reached a lovely little valley, about two miles from the town, where we found a very fair course, about the size of that at Chester, ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... slackened their speed at an ascending piece of ground outside the town, Lynde took Ruth's hand. The color of health had reasserted itself in her cheeks, but her eyes had not lost a certain depth of lustre which they had learned during her illness. The happy light in them illumined her face ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... only arranged for the housing of the two men, but gave them a piece of ground and seed for food plants. When she went to tell him all had been done, he simply said, "Thank you, Ma." But in the evening he came alone to her, knelt and held her feet, and thanked her again and again ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... still remembers with tenderness the sacred scene of youth, could scarcely do better than build a Gothic apartment for the reception of the collection. It cannot be doubted that the Provost and fellows would be gratified in granting a piece of ground for the purpose. ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... the king, and found him in a good humour, and conferring with him upon some former business, we came to a conclusion before I left him, to the following purpose: That he was to give us a convenient piece of ground for building upon, for which we were to pay 1500 dollars, and were to be free from all customs on exports and imports on payment of 800 ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... another piece of ground is laid out and divided into four plots. When I first began to prepare for forcing I waited four years, and had one plot planted with divided heads each year. Clumps are taken up from the reserve bed and then ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 803, May 23, 1891 • Various
... to solicit your guidance, but I've been in fear and dread lest you should give way to suspicion. For not only would then all my disclosures have been in vain, but I would have deprived myself of even a piece of ground wherein my remains ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... of Lagos and the Territories thereunto belonging, have this day granted, assigned, and made over, unto Doctor Martin R. Delany, for his use and the use of his Heirs and Assigns forever, All that Piece of Ground, situated on the South of the Premises and Ground occupied by Fernando, in the field at Okai Po, Po, measuring as follows, Three Hundred and Thirty ...
— Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party • Martin Robinson Delany
... of rocky ground with somewhat greater depths connects this with Batsons Shoal, some 5 miles SW., the two thus making what is virtually one piece of ground. Depths on Batsons Shoal are rather less than on Northwest Ledge, but the methods of fishing, the species taken, and the seasons of their abundance are the same on both. The bottom all about these two grounds is ...
— Fishing Grounds of the Gulf of Maine • Walter H. Rich
... escape from his hand, it is no violation of property in any one to make it his own. And to prove that there existed no property after publication, they found an analogy in the gathering of acorns, or in seizing on a vacant piece of ground; and thus degrading that most refined piece of art formed in the highest state of society, a literary production, they brought us back to a state of nature; and seem to have concluded that literary property was purely ideal; a phantom which, as its author could neither grasp nor confine to himself, ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... you are not right. I'm only a gardener, but I've noticed these things a great deal. Nature is not a bungler. She gives us apple and plum trees, and they grow and bear fruit in a natural and sufficient way. It is because man wants them to bear more and bigger fruit, and for more to grow on a small piece of ground than Nature would plant, that man ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... breastwork and endeavoured to climb over; but each time these efforts were repulsed. The little force, however, was unable successfully to defend the hospital, which, after desperate fighting, was carried by the Zulus and burnt, the garrison then being concentrated in the storehouse and a small piece of ground enclosed by meal-bags in front. For twelve hours the fight continued, and then the Zulus, after suffering a loss which they themselves admit to exceed 1000, fell back, and the all-important ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... shop, one of several then standing in the Market Place, on or near the site of the present Stanhope Memorial; {142a} the whole of these being cleared away when the late Honble. Edward Stanhope presented that piece of ground to the town, for the enlargement of the Market Place. He resided in a small house in Stonewell Row, but afterwards removed into better premises in Queen Street. While living in Stonewell Row he purchased ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... thought it best to let him alone; and this being exactly what old Jonas Junk wanted, he was well satisfied. Apparently what he wanted beside was to build a house for himself: at all events, that is what he did. He bought a large piece of ground and built a high wall all round it, and put the ugliest and most vicious looking iron spikes that you can imagine all along the top of the wall. Then he chose the sunniest and most sheltered spot he could find on the place, and there the old man built his house. Well, ...
— Five Mice in a Mouse-trap - by the Man in the Moon. • Laura E. Richards
... that it hath lost its vegetable functions. Now, both these may be remedy'd, in a great measure, by one and the same physick.... The watering of soils with cold hungray springs doth little good; whereas muddy saline waters brought to overflow a piece of ground enrich it much. But above all, well-digested dew makes all plants luxuriate and prosper most. Now what may it be that endues these liquors with such prolifick virtue? The meer water which is common to them all, cannot ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman
... princes and princesses. He was in other respects a perfect Robinson Crusoe; he had a few head of cattle, and some pigs; these latter have greatly multiplied on the island. Domestic fowls were numerous, and he had a large piece of ground planted with potatoes, the only place south of the Equator which produces them in their native perfection; the land is rich and susceptible of great improvement; and the soil is intersected with numerous running ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... this treaty strenuously resisted the sale of any of their land west of the Genesee river; yet with a view of furnishing "a piece of ground for a mill yard" at the Genesee Falls, were finally persuaded to give their assent to a boundary line, that included a tract twelve miles square, west of that river. The eastern boundary of the lands ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... of good land, but they were not large, and were along the creek. The greater portion of the country was only common land. Evening coming on, we rode back to the plantation of a Mr. Man, lying upon a neck of land called Cheese-and-bread Island, which is a good piece of ground, and up to which the creek is navigable for large boats or barks.[258] This man is a great friend of Mr. Moll. We were, therefore, very welcome, ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... l'Academie des Inscriptions. This cippus supported a statue raised in honor of Titus Sennius Sollemnis, a Viducassian by birth, and one of the high priests of the town. The statue was erected to him after his death, in the Viducassian capital, upon a piece of ground granted by the senate for the purpose, in pursuance of a general decree passed by the province of Gaul. The inscriptions set forth the motives that induced the nation to bestow so marked a distinction upon a simple individual; and, in the foremost rank of his merits, they place the games which ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... of Chapter X was arranged so that the light at the entrance to each electric-box had a value of 20 candle meters, less the diminution caused by a piece of ground glass which was placed over the end of the electric-boxes to diffuse the light. The windows through which the light entered the electric-boxes were covered with pieces of black cardboard; in one of these cardboards ...
— The Dancing Mouse - A Study in Animal Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... you told me to do so, through the piece of ground they call the park here. It is extremely pretty, and I never grow weary of admiring the orderly love of beauty of ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... through the trees, revealed. Gradually, the timber thinned. The river became plainly visible with the Bay itself shimmering to the fore. Then the trees ended abruptly, and they came out on Greenberry Point: a long, flat, triangular-shaped piece of ground, possibly two hundred yards across the base, and three hundred from ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott
... division not been delayed by causes beyond control, what was simply a complete repulse of the enemy would have been a disastrous rout. The rebel slain in this day's fight was enormous. Dead men never lay in greater numbers on the same sized piece of ground. Our men buried 2,840, exclusive of those carried off ...
— History of the Eighty-sixth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, during its term of service • John R. Kinnear
... parsonage-house. The county contains 2,092 square miles; that is to say, something less than 3 square miles to each parish, and that is 1,920 statute acres of land; and the size of each parish is, on an average, that of a piece of ground about one mile and a half each way; so that the churches are, even now, on an average, only about a mile and a half from each other. Now, the questions for you to put to yourself are these: Were churches formerly built and kept up without being ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... that here in times of flood the water flowed. Well, there was little enough of it now, only a pool or two to form a mirror for the lightning. In front of her lay the island where grew the Cape gooseberries, or winter cherries as they are sometimes called, which she came to seek. It was a low piece of ground, a quarter of a mile long, perhaps, but in the centre of it were some great rocks and growing among the rocks, trees, one of them higher than the rest. Beyond it ran the true river, even now at the end of ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... sitting around that the Earl heard these clamours as far off as the castle, and he enquired of some how it was there was such a clamour, and answer was made to him that two kinsmen were fighting about a certain piece of ground, and that one had fled till he reached a certain little pit, and that as he stood over the pit and was about to fall into it the other warned him. Then the townsmen being moved with pity, made a covenant with the Earl that they should give him threepence yearly for each ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... father had allotted him and his brother Arthur a convenient piece of ground, in order that each might be possessed of a little garden, and display his knowledge and industry in the cultivation of it. They had also leave to sow whatever seed they should think proper, and to transplant any tree they liked out ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin
... he declared it was of no use to work on his farm; it was the most pestilent little piece of ground in the whole country; everything about it went wrong, in spite of him. His fences were continually falling to pieces; his cow would either go astray, or get among the cabbages; weeds were sure to grow quicker in his fields than ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... as I was looking for him to explain the position of Dordrecht on the map, for it seemed to me very singular. In fact, it is singular. Dordrecht is situated at the extremity of a piece of ground separated from the continent, and forming in the midst of the land an island crossed and recrossed by numerous streams, some of which are natural, some the work of man, rivers made half by man, half by nature—a bit of Holland encircled and imprisoned by the waters, like a battalion overcome ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... this we arrived at a fort called Thilutha, situated in the middle of the river on a very high piece of ground, and fortified by nature as if by the art of man. The inhabitants were invited gently, as was best, to surrender, since the height of their fort made it impregnable; but they refused all terms as yet, though they answered that when the ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... for me, on Peggotty's solicitation, to resolve to stay where I was, until after the remains of the poor carrier should have made their last journey to Blunderstone. She had long ago bought, out of her own savings, a little piece of ground in our old churchyard near the grave of 'her sweet girl', as she always called my mother; and there they were ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... squawking, whirring their flippers, splashing and churning the water, reminding one of a crowd of miniature surf-bathers. We followed the files of birds marching inland, along the course of a tumbling stream, until at an elevation of some five hundred feet, on a flattish piece of ground, a huge rookery opened out—acres and acres ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... draw nigh, And sit down here. He came and sat him down. Then he took ten men, elders of the town, And caused them to sit down. Then to the man That was of kin, thus he his speech began, Naomi, said he, who not long since sojourn'd Among the Moabites, is now return'd; And doth intend to sell a piece of ground, The which Elimelech our brother own'd. And now to give thee notice, I thought fit, That if thou pleasest, thou may'st purchase it. In presence of these men assembled here. Then if thou wilt redeem it, now declare Thy mind, but if thou wilt not, then let me, For ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Ruth answered, "there is nothing nearer than my cottage half a mile away; and this short grass and flat piece of ground are entirely natural. Nothing has been touched, except here and there a tree cut out to keep the borders straight. The late Lady Ashiel, the wife of my unfortunate cousin, was very fond of this place. Although it is farther, she always walked ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... those who make it; for they who defend the works, fighting on top of the walls, have greatly the advantage of those beneath. Sometimes intrenchments run in straight or crooked lines, and sometimes enclose an irregular square or circle; and any piece of ground, or body of men, thus enclosed or fortified, is said to ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... gallows. "A bishop," says the noble squire, "I hate the very name, To have two thousand pounds a-year—O 'tis a burning shame! Two thousand pounds a-year! good lord! And I to have but five!" And under him no tenant yet was ever known to thrive: Now from his lordship's grace I hold a little piece of ground, And all the rent I pay is scarce five shillings in the pound. Then master steward takes my rent, and tells me, "Honest Jo, Come, you must take a cup of sack or two before you go." He bids me then to hold my tongue, and up the money locks, For fear my lord ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... overlooking, the village. To carry out my plan I had first of all to apply to the Vali for permission to do so. His Highness, with an outburst of Oriental liberality, declared his readiness to give me not only a piece of ground but a garden as well. This I declined with thanks, knowing the value of such an offer, but showed him on paper the spot I had chosen, consisting of a barren rock, and asked him to send a competent person to the place to examine the site and value it, and at the same time see ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... season set my toiling brethren free! Let them leave awhile their labour, let them roam the country fair, Quit the close and crowded city for a breath of purer air; Or, perchance, their faithful service you will graciously repay, And a piece of ground assign them from your gardens vast ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... "Now-a-days one is happy to be able to call a piece of ground one's own. If my predecessor hadn't been snapped up by a frog two days ago, I should still be without a proper place to live in. It's not very pleasant to have to hunt up a different lodging every night. ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels
... places blossom like a rose, I did one warm Sunday in last year's April during the servants' dinner hour, doubly secure from the gardener by the day and the dinner, slink out with a spade and a rake and feverishly dig a little piece of ground and break it up and sow surreptitious ipomaea, and run back very hot and guilty into the house, and get into a chair and behind a book and look languid just in time to save my reputation. And why not? It is not graceful, and it makes one hot; but it is a blessed ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... other objects, of whatever form or character, standing or lying upon the earth, and no solid can be placed upon a flat piece of ground, without itself exposing a greater surface than it covers. This applies, of course, to forest trees and their leaves, and indeed to all vegetables, as well as to other prominent bodies. If we suppose forty trees to be planted on an acre, one being situated in the ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... large piece of ground in the angle of the causeways, but quite big enough to fight upon, especially for Christians, who loved to be cheek by jowl at it. The great boys stood in a circle around, being gifted with strong privilege, and the little boys had leave to lie flat and look ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... obstructed by sand-bars and shoals—that the boats fell aground. There was nothing now for Timur to do but to abandon the boats and escape with his men to the land. This he succeeded in doing; and, after reaching the shore, he was able to form his men in array, on an elevated piece of ground, before Elak could bring up a sufficient number ...
— Genghis Khan, Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... occasions. He felt now what he had never felt before, that one's own home means happiness. And he felt the benefit of having an assured income, that allowed him to enrich his life with all sorts of comforts. The house was pretty. But when he bought it shortly he would certainly add to it, and buy the piece of ground next to it as well. It would be extremely disagreeable if anybody settled down ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... came up to him and would have kissed his hand, but the King withheld it, and said angrily unto him, Ruydiez, quit my land. Then the Cid clapt spurs to the mule upon which he rode, and vaulted into a piece of ground which was his own inheritance, and answered, Sir, I am not in your land, but in my own. And the King replied full wrathfully, Go out of my kingdoms without any delay. And the Cid made answer, Give me then thirty days time, as is the right of the hidalgos; and the King said ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... (1) A piece of ground beyond Goswell Street, near Mount Mill, being some of the remains of the old lines or fortifications of the city, where abundance were buried promiscuously from the parishes of Aldersgate, Clerkenwell, and even out of the city. This ground, as I take it, was ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe
... fresh water. Farmers find that they can raise most food by a rotation of plants belonging to the most different orders; Nature follows what may be called a simultaneous rotation. Most of the animals and plants which live close round any small piece of ground could live on it (supposing it not to be in any way peculiar in its nature), and may be said to be striving to the utmost to live there; but it is seen that, where they come into the closest competition with each other, the advantages of diversification of structure, ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... pretty intelligible English, conveying particulars of the preparations which were made in the family with whom she was residing against the dreaded event; the bundles of clothes that were packed up ready for a flight to Alston Moor (a wild hilly piece of ground between Northumberland and Cumberland); the signal that was to be given for this flight, and for the simultaneous turning out of the volunteers under arms—which said signal was to consist (if I remember rightly) in ringing the church bells ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... 225 improved pecan trees of 25 different varieties and all other kinds of nut trees, fruit trees and a variety of berries on a piece of worn-out upland, pronounced by our county agent to be the poorest piece of ground in our county, and predicted it would be a ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Seventh Annual Report • Various
... repeat here that the house of the late Professor Deeping was more properly a cottage, surrounded by a fairly large piece of ground, for the most part run wild. The room used as a study was on the ground floor, and had windows on the west and on the south. Those on the west (French windows) opened on a loggia; those on the south opened right into the dense tangle of a neglected shrubbery. The place possessed ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... to dance and enjoy themselves; here there were cows, and fashionable ladies used to get up early in the morning and go to drink the milk which had just been taken from the cows. At this place there was a spring of water, which used to start up from the ground if anyone walked over a particular piece of ground, and so pressed the grass with his foot. Sometimes a person did not know this, and would come walking quite gravely along and tread on that place, and a great stream of water would jump out of the ground all over him, and the other people would shout and laugh with amusement to ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... made by Flinders. Even were there not his specific statement that he explained his discoveries and showed one of his charts to illustrate them, it would be incredible that while the French and English ships lay together for some weeks at Port Jackson, with tents erected on the same piece of ground, the officers frequently meeting on friendly terms, Freycinet and Peron should not have learnt what the Investigator had been doing. Both the French authors are individually mentioned by Flinders as having been present on one or other of these occasions, and Freycinet does not ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... that as many as thirty rat-tailed snakes were killed in clearing a piece of land, of no great extent, near Government House.' I can well believe this, for about the same number were killed only two years ago in clearing, probably, the same piece of ground, which is infested with that creeping pest of the West Indies, the wild Guava- bush, from which guava-jelly is made. The present Lieutenant- Governor has offered a small reward for the head of every Fer-de- lance killed: ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... spacious verandah (portico) and hall, with two rooms on each side. Rather more to the front are two other rooms separate, and on one side is a storehouse, separate also, which will make a printing-office. It stands by the river-side upon a pretty large piece of ground, walled round, with a garden at the bottom, and in the middle a fine tank or pool of water. The price alarmed us, but we had no alternative; and we hope this will form a comfortable missionary settlement. Being near to Calcutta, it is of the utmost ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... field bazaar, where a large number of booths, occupied by traders and country peasants, were erected. The former principally sold arms, saddlery, and garments; the latter, the produce of their own villages. Choosing an unoccupied piece of ground, Harry erected a little shelter tent; composed of a dark blanket thrown over a ridge pole, supported by two others, giving a height of some four feet, in the centre. The pony was picketed just behind ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... had any idea of a landslide, it was a little piece of ground which could be thrown away in half a day's time; but the sight of a real landslide was what took his breath away. He didn't eat a very hearty supper after that, for the thought that was uppermost in his mind was that the men who had stood by him, and of whom he had a right ...
— Elam Storm, The Wolfer - The Lost Nugget • Harry Castlemon
... a few of them in writing. In forming this Establishment for their religious education, it is of the greatest importance that they should be gradually inured to the cultivation of the soil, and instructed in the knowledge of agriculture. For this purpose I have allotted a small piece of ground for each child, and divided the different compartments with a wicker frame. We often dig and hoe with our little charge in the sweat of our brow as an example and encouragement for them to labour; and promising them the produce of their own industry, we find that they ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... this stump burning, which usually followed upon the clearing of a new piece of ground. More than a year before Jonas Harding had begun on this lot, with the intention of clearing it entirely and in the end having a handsome piece of grass-land along the edge of the creek. In the fall a fire had run over the piece and now the stumps were mostly dead, ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... cows and a bull, some sheep, and the horse and mare were also landed, greatly to the captain's satisfaction, and to that of everybody else on board, probably, when it is considered what care and attention it must have required to keep them alive for so many months. A piece of ground was also cleared for a garden, and in it, among other things, were planted several shaddock trees, which had been brought from the Friendly Islands, two pine-apple plants, some melons and potatoes. The Spaniards had left a vine, ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... live in. The king, not suspecting guile, conceded their request, whereupon the Fulanghis cut the hide into strips and joined them together, making many hundreds of ten-foot measures in length; and then, having surrounded with these a piece of ground, called upon the king to stand by his promise. The king was much alarmed; but his word had been pledged, and there was no alternative but to submit. So he allowed them to have the ground, charging a small ground-rent as was the custom. But no sooner had the Fulanghis got the ground ...
— China and the Chinese • Herbert Allen Giles
... story is entirely devoid of the colour with which Mrs. Radcliffe, her model, contrived to decorate the past. It is, moreover, written in a style so opaque that it obscures her images from view as effectually as a piece of ground glass. To describe the approach of twilight—an hour beloved by writers of romance—she attempts a ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... time they might spread over the whole country, to its eminent advantage. Some days afterward, when everything belonging to the ship had been removed from the shore, he set fire to the top-wood in order to dry a piece of ground, which he dug up, and sowed with several sorts of garden seeds. The soil, indeed, was not such as to promise much success to the planter; but it was the best that could ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... view, it is rather a dangerous thing to ignore the intellect and the emotions. Nature resents being ignored. If you do not cultivate her, she will assuredly avenge herself. If you do not get wheat out of your piece of ground, she will abundantly give you tares. And there can be no other rule expressly invented for the benefit of fashionable young women. Their moral nature, if nobody ever taught them to keep an eager eye upon it, is soon overgrown, either with flaunting poison plants, or at ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... deny that rent sometimes enters into cost of production [of other than agricultural products]. If I buy or rent a piece of ground, and build a cloth-manufactory on it, the ground-rent forms legitimately a part of my expenses of production, which must be repaid by the product. And since all factories are built on ground, and most of them in places where ground is peculiarly valuable, the ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... alone?" The old man emptied his cup, and his heart being warmed with the mead, he told me his history, which was simplicity itself. His father was a small yeoman, who, at his death, had left him, his only child, the cottage, with a small piece of ground behind it, and on this little property he had lived ever since. About the age of twenty- five he had married an industrious young woman, by whom he had one daughter, who died before reaching years ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... taken out into the garden; it was a small piece of ground that had once been a yard; it was inclosed within walls of great height, and to us would have seemed a cheerless place for horticulture, but to Robinson it appeared the garden of Eden. He gave a sigh of relief and pleasure, but the next ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... The piece of ground in Athens purchased by Dr. King in 1829, was at that time little prized by Turks or Greeks. But after the capital became permanently fixed there, the land had become a most desirable part of the city, as it commanded an unobstructed view of many of the finest ancient monuments ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... Alleys of trees, which were decayed from age, have been cut down, and replaced by young plants of thriving growth. In front of the south facade is to be a tasteful parterre, with an oblong piece of water in its centre. Beyond the garden is a large piece of ground formerly belonging to the Carthusian monastery, which is now nearly demolished; this ground is to be converted into a national nursery for all sorts of valuable fruit-trees. Being contiguous to the garden of the Senate, ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... all; and if the sinner hadn't one already the devil was there at his elbow to suggest one, about the truth of the Bible, or something of that sort. One of the excuses mentioned was that the man invited had bought a piece of ground, and had to look at it. Real estate and corner lots are keeping a good many men out of God's kingdom. It was a lie to say that he had to go and see it then, for he ought to have looked at it before he bought it. Then the next man said he'd bought some oxen, and must prove them. That was ...
— Moody's Anecdotes And Illustrations - Related in his Revival Work by the Great Evangilist • Dwight L. Moody
... took a seat the large committee was engaged in a warm debate over a certain piece of ground occupying a space midway between the King's Highway and the Broad Highway. This eligible site had been used for holding church-festivals to raise funds for the maintenance of gospel work. A few wealthy friends of Satan wanted ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... are used in Fezzan, and in Ghadames the water runs itself into the gardens. The places for burying the dead around the Saharan towns occupy more space than the abodes of the living. This is not surprising, when we reflect that every new grave occupies a new piece of ground, and many years elapse before the old grave is opened to place in it a fresh body. I saw but one grave whitewashed; it was that of a Marabout, the only "whitewashed sepulchre," and, strange enough, ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson |
