"Turf" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... counties," he would proudly point out the precise spots where Fin-ma-coul had "wrastled" with and overthrown another "monsthrous joynt" of name unknown, the traces of the encounter being yet visible in the short turf. ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... peculiar gravity age brings to equine hoofs, about a mile, when the buttress of a thick wall came into view abutting on the lane, and perched thereon what at first I deemed a coloured figment of the mist that festooned the branches and clung along the turf. But when I drew near I saw it was indeed a child, pink and gold and palest blue. And she raised changeling hands at me, and laughed and danced and chattered like the drops upon a waterfall; and clear as if a tiny bell had ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... of which he happened to have some official knowledge. Lydia, readily interested by facts of any sort, thought the subject not a bad one for a casual afternoon conversation, and pursued it until they left the turf and got into the Euston Road, where the bustle of traffic silenced them for a while. When they escaped from the din into the respectable quietude of Gower ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... its enchantment is cast about us we are as once we were when first we came beneath its spell; we are by the smokehouse at the old home place; we stand in shoes whose copper toes wink and glitter in the sunlight, a gingham apron sways in the soft breeze, and on the green, upspringing turf dances the shadow of a tasseled cap. Life was all before us then. Please God, it is not all behind us now. Please God, our best and wisest days are yet to come the days when we shall do the work that is worthy of us. Dear one, mother of my children here and Yonder—and Yonder—the ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... rest watched the servant-girls take the partition-boxes and place them among the rocks, and seat themselves some on boulders, others on the turf-covered ground, some lean against the trees, others squat down besides the pool, and thoroughly enjoy themselves. But in a little time, they also perceived Yuean Yang arrive. Her object in coming was ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... well as another man," said Francois, with dignity, whereupon both men resumed their seats on the turf and their attentions to the wine. The prudent Jacques returned to the circle, and De Berquin, who during the squabble had employed himself entirely in holding me from any attempt at ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... tavern. There are papers on Burke, on Dr. Johnson, on Robert Louis Stevenson, and others as great. One group deals with Scottish History and one with the service of the state. The last is a study of the genius loci of such places of mellow associations as Eton and the Turf. The sort of book ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... the generous messenger, the standing tree of the clergy.' Some of his eulogies both on persons and places are somewhat spoiled by grotesque exaggeration. Even Cilleaden has not only all sorts of native fishes, 'as plenty as turf,' and all sorts of native trees, but is endowed with 'tortoises,' with 'logwood and mahogany.' His country weaver must not only have frieze and linen in his loom, but satin and cambric. A carpenter near Ardrahan, Seaghan ...
— Poets and Dreamers - Studies and translations from the Irish • Lady Augusta Gregory and Others
... justice, he built upon it this church, wherein we are assembled. Publicly, therefore, in the sight of God and man, do I claim my inheritance, and protest against the body of the plunderer being covered with my turf." The appeal was attended with instant effect: bishops and nobles united in their entreaties with Asselin; they admitted the justice of his claim; they pacified him; they paid him sixty shillings on the spot by way of recompense for the place of sepulture; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 556., Saturday, July 7, 1832 • Various
... name,—River's Cottage. There was a little garden between the road and the house, across which there was a straight path to the door. In front of one window was a small shrub, generally called a puzzle-monkey, and in front of the other was a variegated laurel. There were two small morsels of green turf, and a distant view round the corner of the house of a row of cabbage stumps. If Trevelyan were living there, he had certainly come down in the world since the days in which he had occupied the house in Curzon Street. The two ladies got out of ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... few years ago, stand on whichever one you might, the prospect stretched away, fair and distant, in broad level or gently undulating expanses of crisp, compact turf, dotted at remote intervals by farms, each with its low-roofed house nestled in a planted grove of oaks, or, oftener, Pride of China trees. Far and near herds of horses and cattle roamed at will over the plain. If for a moment, as ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... to the patch of greensward around the well; but this was so smooth and even that it seemed as if it had not been disturbed for ages. Such soft emerald turf, as Cuthbert well knew, was the growth of centuries, and there was no sort of trace or seam to indicate the ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Inn. A light gleamed from one of the lower windows, and by it I guided my steps, being determined to partake of tea before turning my steps homeward. I stepped into the little parlour, with its sanded floor, and demanded 'fat rascals' and tea. The girl was not surprised at my request, for the hot turf cakes supplied at the inn are known to all the neighbourhood by ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... pungent smell of burning wood, the scent of running water, the smell of many horses crowded together and of wet saddles and accoutrements. And above the swift rush of the stream, we could hear the ceaseless pounding of the horses' hoofs on the turf, the murmurs of the men's voices, and the lonely cry ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... think of some means or other of effecting his escape. The barn was happily known to him; and he recollected that, though the greater proportion of the gable was built of stone and lime, yet that a small part towards the top, as was sometimes the case in these days, was constructed of turf, and that, should he effect an opening through the soft material, he might drop with safety upon the top of a peat-stack, and thus effect his escape to Creechope Linn, with every pass and cave of which he was intimately acquainted. In a word, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... turf were hidden;—a white paper basket, which still held some flowers, had been suspended by some kind stranger hand over the grave;—from it had dropped a wreath of ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... day there was hard work for Margery's father! Every bit of that "scrambled" turf had to be broken up still more with a mattock and a spade, and then the pieces which were full of grass-roots had to be taken on a fork and shaken, till the earth fell out; then the grass was thrown to one side. That would not have had to ...
— Stories to Tell to Children • Sara Cone Bryant
... becoming more thorough every year. The management is in the hands of gentlemen of character, who are seeking to make at least one place in the country where the blackguards and reckless gamblers who disgrace the American turf shall be powerless to control affairs. The benefits of this management will be very great. The stock of the State will be vastly improved, and the metropolis, especially, will be able to boast some of the finest ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... growth of seedlings of native plants as they came up. He counted and marked all that came up, and out of 357 no fewer than 295 were destroyed, chiefly by slugs and insects. So in a little plot of long-mown turf, allowed to grow freely, out of twenty species nine perished in the struggle. Many further personal observations of the author are given: such as that the winter of 1854-5 destroyed four-fifths of the birds in his own grounds; that he has sometimes failed to get a single seed from wheat ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... round. But she was too busy with the parties in front of her, and at last she made a run. The stout young man pushed the little man towards the cow, and then ran for it. The little one, in his attempt to recoil, fell on the turf, and the cow made at him. I sprang forward, and catching the horn of the animal farthest from me in my right hand, at the same time put my left knee on the horn nearest to me, threw all my weight upon ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... rose-tree just rising and looking from her blushing cup, Eve flitted to and fro among them, and, all the time, Luigi's gaze brooded over the scene. Sometimes her shadow fell in the lighted space of turf, and then Luigi went and laid his cheek upon it; it passed, and he returned once more to his hiding-place, and the dark, motionless countenance, with its wandering, glittering eyes, appeared to hang upon the dense leafage that sheltered all the rest of him like a vizard in whose cavities glowworms ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... he crunched under his feet, purposely, the turf he was standing on, and so carrying out, naturally, the gesture of clasping the air, in establishing his balance—as if it was ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... is a long valley in the chalk, which, for perhaps half a mile, is full of huge blocks of this sandstone, lying about on the turf. The "gray wethers" the shepherds call them. One look at them would show you that no man's hand had put them there. They look like a river of stone, if I may so speak; as if some mighty flood had rolled them along down the ...
— Scientific Essays and Lectures • Charles Kingsley
... of providing seats is a comparatively trifling affair when there are to be young people present, who prefer clean turf or the piazza steps to any more luxurious lounging place. For the older guests, less unconventional accommodations may be devised. Light rockers, camp chairs, wooden or wicker settees are pretty, and in harmony with the rustic nature ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... buildings may be thought to be in better repair. In fact, the town consists of a collection of wooden sheds, one story high—rising here and there into a gable end of greater pretentions—built along the lava beach, and flanked at either end by a suburb of turf huts. ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... turf told that the horseman had alighted. "The bantling is of too good quality to leave," he said good-naturedly. "Catch my bridle, Oswin. Where is ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... the turf above thee, Friend of my better days! None knew thee but to love thee, None named thee but to ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... Grecian lad, as I hear tell, One that many loved in vain, Looked into a forest well And never looked away again. There, when the turf in springtime flowers, With downward eye and gazes sad, Stands amid the glancing showers A jonquil, ...
— A Shropshire Lad • A. E. Housman
... Down there shall we rest till to-morrow, if it please thee, lady; and since the sun will set in an hour, we were best on our way at once. It pleases me well, said Birdalone, and I long to tread the turf by the river-side, for I am weary as weary may be of the ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... gut, stretched on a frame of drift-wood and whale-bones. The winter dwellings were now abandoned. They appeared to consist of holes in the earth, which were covered above, with the exception of a square opening, with drift-wood and turf. ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... long time from feeling either hunger or thirst. In many parts of the mountain there is no wood, so that travellers in those parts are obliged to use a species of earth which is found there for the purpose of fuel, and which burns very much like turf or peats. In the mountains there are veins of earth of various colours, and mines both of gold and silver, in which the natives are exceedingly conversant, and are even able to melt and purify these metals with less labour and expence than the Christians. For this ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... perhaps, thirty seconds from the time when he first caught sight of it that the aeroplane came perpendicularly above his head, the whirring ceased, and the machine descended with graceful swoop upon the well-cropt turf within fifty yards of the spot where the two golfers stood. As soon as it alighted, Mr. McMurtrie handed his sticks to the caddie, and, as one released from a spell, hurried to meet the man who had just ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... Hilda lay back in the prow of the boat between her sleeping women, with hands clasped behind her head, and her eyes closed. More and more the light increased, and sturdily with his paddle Roland propelled the boat towards the shore, bringing it alongside the low bank at last. He sprang out on the turf, and with the paddle in one hand held the boat to land with ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... he set off so fast that I could not restrain him, and I encountered more than one fall before we reached our destination. Selecting there a level, shady spot near the roots of a great oak-tree, I lay down on the turf, made Gizana crouch beside me, and waited. As usual, my imagination far outstripped reality. I fancied that I was pursuing at least my third hare when, as a matter of fact, the first hound was only just giving tongue. Presently, however, Turka's voice began ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... sweeping the autumn grass at sunset as she paced back and forth under the red-gold tents of the maples. It was a row of young trees she had planted to grace a certain turf walk at the top of the low wall that divided, by a drop of a few feet, the west lawn at Stone Ridge from the meadow where the beautiful Alderneys were pastured. The maples turned purple as the light faded ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... they had nothing at all to eat on Tuesday. On Wednesday night she boiled for her husband and the family one head of cabbage, given to her by a neighbour, and about a pint of flour, which she got for a basket of turf she had sold in Skibbereen. On Thursday morning her husband had nothing to eat. She does not account for Friday; but on Saturday morning she sent him for his breakfast less than a pint of flour baked. Poor ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... will be complete till she has read and re-read 'The Grandmothers of England.' The book is the very best guide to oval suction extant.' So says an 'Evening Paper.' . . . WE should be glad to be informed of the name of any real or pretended lover of the turf and its manifold interests, or of an admirer of one of the most entertaining weekly journals on this continent, who could ask more than is offered by the 'Spirit of the Times' to all new subscribers to that widely-popular sheet; ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... more stood in the open air by the cleft I went to the hole and released the chain. Instantly the roar of waters broke out again, and I bade them fill the hole up and put turf over it, and trample it down and scatter the bushes over it; and that being done, we took our way back again across the plain towards the fortress, still leading ...
— The Romance of Golden Star ... • George Chetwynd Griffith
... and then there is a low hum of conversation, until a murmur is heard down the course, which swells into a roar as you notice it. The horses are coming. One of the royal huntsmen gallops by, and then, as the noise comes up towards you, you can hear the maddening rush of the horses' feet upon the turf, and, at the same time, a bay and a chestnut rush past in the last fierce struggle, and no man knows yet who ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... which waits upon a player only when it is uncourted, Jill cracked her ball across the six yards of turf and ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... delayed here too long, for without taking further notice of anything she hurried on to the spot where the first disclosure of their loves had taken place. On reaching it she looked anxiously and earnestly around the copse or dell in which the yew tree, with its turf seat stood. ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... heels against the tail-board. Zeb jumped down and trudged at the side. The hill was long, and steep from foot to brow; and when at length the slope lessened, the wheels turned off at a sharp angle and began to roll softly over turf. ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... he turned again towards the shore when he had crossed the bridge, and almost ran towards the verge of the land. Then he threw himself down on the soft fine turf that grew on the margin of the cliffs overhanging the sea, and commanding an extent of view towards the north. His face supported by his hands, he looked down upon the blue rippling ocean, flashing here and there, into the sunlight in long, glittering lines. The boat was ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... my sighs shall consecrate; in shape Of some fair tomb, here will I heap the turf And call it Adelbright's. Yon aged yew, Whose rifted trunk, rough bark, and gnarled roots Give solemn proof of its high ancientry, Shall canopy the shrine. There's not a flower, That hangs the dewy head, and seems to weep, As pallid blue-bells, crow-tyes and marsh lilies, ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... conversation to myself and Elsie. He was absurdly anxious to humour us. Just at first, it is true, he had discussed the subjects that lay nearest to his own heart. He was an ardent votary of the noble quadruped; and he loved the turf—whose sward, we judged, he trod mainly at Tattersall's. He spoke to us with erudition on 'two-year-old form,' and gave us several 'safe things' for the spring handicaps. The Oaks he considered 'a moral' for Clorinda. He also retailed certain choice ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... neighbourhood, on Monte Buttareto, are the ruins of the castle of Arrigo della Rocca. No more beautiful sight than that of Olmeto can be pictured. Immediately below the town the ground dips steeply down, covered with corn or turf; or in terraces of vineyard, varied with large groups of fine olive trees stretching down to the shore. Above the village a vast growth of vegetation climbs the heights. Among huge masses of granite are tangles of every shrub the island produces, ...
— Itinerary through Corsica - by its Rail, Carriage & Forest Roads • Charles Bertram Black
... they died: and we things that are now, Who walk on the turf that lies over their brow, Who make in their dwelling a transient abode, Meet the things that they met ...
— The Life and Public Service of General Zachary Taylor: An Address • Abraham Lincoln
... I found that a number of labourers were passing that way from their work. I went in a fright to the thickest of the bushes, and lay down, until all again was still, and then ventured out to take my seat again on the turf. ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... a few days after the death of the Duke d'Enghien, she went to take a walk round the castle of Vincennes; the ground, still fresh, marked the spot where he had been buried; some children were playing with little quoits upon this mound of turf, the only monument for the ashes of such a man. An old invalid, with silvered locks, was sitting at a little distance, and remained some time looking at these children; at last he arose, and leading them away by the hand, said to them, shedding ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... turf and vervain too; Have bowls of wine adjacent; And ere our sacrifice is through She may ...
— Echoes from the Sabine Farm • Roswell Martin Field and Eugene Field
... lived content: Their names, I think, were Hreimr and Fiosnir, Klur and Kleggi, Kefsir, Fulnir, Drumb, Digraldi, Drott and Hosvir, Lut and Leggialdi. Fences they erected, fields manured, tended swine, kept goats, dug turf. ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... others avoiding them more or less, but none of them were straight. Always, if you followed them, they bent and bent until after much travelling you were where you began; and the broader the road, the softer the turf beneath it; the sweeter the glades that lined it, the quicker did ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding
... preamble of the bill has not been proved.' The B. and S. C. has won the race. Another victory for Scott's lot! [Footnote: Scott's lot. There was a celebrated trainer of the day, named Scott; and this expression was very familiar in the records of the turf.] The Beckenham project thrown out. [Footnote: West ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... advanced, a glad surprise shining out of her soft quiet eyes. That was as her gaze met mine. As her looks fell on the woman lying stiff, convulsed on the earth, they became full of tender pity; and she came forward to try and lift her up. Seating herself on the turf, she took Bridget's head into her lap; and, with gentle touches, she arranged the dishevelled grey hair streaming thick and ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... North, some thousand feet, more or less. All this to be scooped out, and wheeled up in slope along the sides; high enough; for it must be rammed down there, and shaped stair-wise into as many as 'thirty ranges of convenient seats,' firm-trimmed with turf, covered with enduring timber;—and then our huge pyramidal Fatherland's-Altar, Autel de la Patrie, in the centre, also to be raised and stair-stepped! Force-work with a vengeance; it is a World's Amphitheatre! There are but fifteen days good; and at ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... reaching the green spot in question, shouted out that he could discern nothing; but presently added, as he moved about, that the turf heaved like a sway-bed beneath his feet, and he thought—to use his own phraseology—would "brast." The abbot then commanded him to go down to the orchard below, and if he could find Demdike to bring him to him instantly. The forester did as he was bidden, ran down the hill, and, leaping the ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... study and hard-earned experiences of many men for many years? Men whose humble lives had been spent along the rough coast in daily struggles with the storms of ocean and of life? Many of them now slept in obscure graves, some in the deep sea, others under the tender, green turf; but here was the concentration of their ideas, the ultimatum of their labors, and I inwardly resolved, that, since to me was given the enjoyment, to them should be the honor, and that it should be through no fault of her captain if the Centennial Republic did not before ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... bye-laws framed and headman and tithing-man chosen for its governance. Here plough-land and meadow-land were shared in due lot among the villagers, and field and homestead passed from man to man by the delivery of a turf cut from its soil. Here strife of farmer with farmer was settled according to the "customs" of the township as its elder men stated them, and four men were chosen to follow headman or ealdorman to hundred-court or war. It is with a reverence such as is stirred by the sight of ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... turf on the lawn which sloped to the lake, was dotted with magnificent old trees undisturbed for a century. Back of the house, or rather beyond the barn, was another swell or mound, which like the first, was so regular in its form as ...
— Bertie and the Gardeners - or, The Way to be Happy • Madeline Leslie
... and some four miles above the head of Hurricane Island, whose foot the Votaress was then passing. They and the Gilmores were still down at the forward edge of the texas roof, the players finding the Carthaginians very attractive: fluent on morals, cuisine, manners, steamboats, the turf, fashions, the chase; voluble on the burdensomeness of the slave to his master, the blessedness of the master to his slave; but sore to the touch on politics and religion—with their religion quite innocently adjusted to their politics—and promptly going hard aground on any allusion ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... for the one place in the Quarry Wood which commanded a clear view of the entrance to the mansion. The two men were skirting the disused quarry, now a rabbit warren, which gave the locality its name; they followed the rising edge of the excavation, treading on a broad strip of turf, purposely freed of encroaching briers lest any wandering stranger might plunge headlong into the pit. Near the highest part of the rock wall there was a slight depression in the ground; and ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... Eugene Brooks] A microprocessor-based machine that infringes on mini, mainframe, or supercomputer performance turf. Often heard in "No one will survive the attack of the killer micros!", the battle cry of the downsizers. Used esp. of ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... surrounding the flower-garden, which was not shrubbery, nor wood, nor kitchen garden—only a grassy bit, out of which a group of old forest trees sprang. Their roots were heaved above ground; their leaves fell in autumn so profusely that the turf was ragged and bare in spring; but, to make up for this, there never was ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... his servile tribe of moon-calves. I have public duties to perform, and if, in the course of my comments on racing, I should find myself occasionally compelled to run counter to the imbecile prejudices of some of the aristocratic patrons of the turf, I can assure my readers that I shall not flinch from the task. I therefore repeat that, in the middle of last month, the Duke of DUMPSHIRE killed two trainers, and that up to the present time the Jockey Club have not enforced ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, May 3, 1890. • Various
... vividly coloured at certain times of the year, and in the spring are covered with lichens and turf, with blossoms ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... along the springy turf outside Swilford Wood. Once or twice the scent turned in and got doubtful among the underwood, but it came out again just as often, and presently turned off ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... service more or less reluctantly, was alarmingly great. Through these the mode of life in the capital was introduced into the camp, not at all to the advantage of the army; the tents of such grandees were graceful bowers, the ground elegantly covered with fresh turf, the walls clothed with ivy; silver plate stood on the table, and the wine-cup often circulated there even in broad daylight. Those fashionable warriors formed a singular contrast with Caesar's daredevils, who ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... officer looked at the sodden turf, and at the swollen Andelle beyond it, which was overflowing its banks, and he was drumming a waltz from the Rhine on the window-panes, with his fingers, when a noise made him turn round; it was his second in command, Captain ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... place, the man of God finds not only an enchanting retreat, but a delicious repast. He has only to put forth his hand to gather dates and other pleasant fruits; a brook affords him the means of quenching his thirst. A green turf invites him to sleep; upon waking he performs the sacred ablution, and exclaims in a transport of joy: "O Allah! how great is thy goodness to the children of men!" After this perfect refreshment, the saint, full of strength and gaiety, pursues his way; it leads ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach
... singular relics of paganism. It is the custom at sunset on that evening to kindle numerous immense fires throughout the country, built like our bonfires to a great height, the pile being composed of turf, bog-wood, and such other combustibles as they can gather. The turf yields a steady, substantial body of fire, the bog-wood a most brilliant flame; and the effect of these great beacons blazing on every ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... When the sky turns to brass; when the clouds are like withered leaves; when the sun sucks the earth's blood like a vampire; when rivers shrink, streams fail, springs perish; when the grass whitens and crackles under your feet; when the turf turns to dust; when the fields are like tinder; when the air is the breath of an oven; when even the merciful dews are withheld, and the morning is no fresher than the evening; when the friendly road is a desert, and the green woods like a sick-chamber; when the sky becomes ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... many of the crew of patches, perhaps beneath the roof of "Marian Hacket, the fat ale-wife of Wincot," where we may suppose him to have made merry with "Stephen Sly, and old John Naps of Greece, and Peter Turf, and Henry Pimpernell." ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... His frequent pulls at the whiskey flask had been of little or no avail as a support to his aching limbs, and, now he had reached his destination, he threw himself full length on the turf in front of the hut ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... bed of the torrent above and below have been carefully removed, and the unwilling stream, as it runs into the pool, has been coerced into a long straight channel, bordered on either side by bedded turf, and planed off at measured intervals so as to produce a series of eminently regular and classical cascades. Even Lord Exmoor himself, who was a hunting man, without any pretence to that stupid rubbish about ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... was over on Wednesday morning, but the day was gray and chill and the crisping turf and the hardening road indicated a coming frost. There was nothing, however, to prevent the contemplated visit to Burrell Court, and a painful momentary shadow flitted over John's face when Denas came to breakfast in her new ruby-coloured ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... some bowery fragment of an old country-place. It was the latest whim of the wealthy to establish themselves on these outskirts of Paris, where there was still space for verdure; and he had pictured Susy behind some pillared house-front, with lights pouring across glossy turf to sculptured gateposts. Instead, he saw a six-windowed house, huddled among neighbours of its kind, with the family wash fluttering between meagre bushes. The arc-light beat ironically on its front, which had the worn look of a tired work-woman's face; and ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... on already, like grim death. The two mechanics held the tail of the impatient giant bird, and when Eagle raised one hand, they let go. For perhaps fifty yards the Golden Eagle ran lightly over the turf on her bicycle wheels; then her master tilted the planes, and his namesake soared upward from ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Whitney, the editor of Forest and Stream, and perhaps the foremost living writer on sport in the United States, for the statement that members of a defeated football team in America will sometimes throw themselves on their faces on the turf and weep (see his "Sporting Pilgrimage," Chapter IV., pp. 94, 95).[13] It was an American orator who proposed the toast: "My country—right or wrong, my country;" and there is some reason to fear that American college athletes are tempted to adapt this in the form "Let us win, by ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... every second field, lusty horses and stout country-folk a- ploughing. The way I followed took me through many fields thus occupied, and through many strips of plantation, and then over a little space of smooth turf, very pleasant to the feet, set with tall fir-trees and clamorous with rooks making ready for the winter, and so back again into the quiet road. I was now not far from the end of my day's journey. A few hundred yards farther, and, passing through a gap in the hedge, I began to go down hill ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... tempting stretch of heath-land. There was a heavy mist, but the scent of the heather in the early morning was delightful, and there was something exhilarating in the dull thud of the hoofs upon the springy turf. The negro was a natural horseman, and he seemed to enjoy the ride every bit as much as I did. For my own part I was sorry to return. But the vapours of the night had been effectively cleared from my mind, and when presently we headed ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... hundred years ago,[6] the moon Shone on a battle plain; Cold through that glowing night of June Lay steeds and riders slain; And daisies, bending 'neath strange dew, Wept in the silver light; The very turf a regal ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... right and left, and was evidently uncertain what to do. Then, seeing escape was hopeless, she stopped, took out her purse, and gave it to the man who had first spoken to her. Thinking this was going too far, I jumped up and went quickly across the turf towards them. My footsteps made no sound on the soft grass, and as they were too much occupied in examining what she had given them, they ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... in our Europe this something corresponds to the use and presence of men, especially in mountainous places. For men's habits and civilization fill the valleys and wash up the base of the hills, making, as it were, a tide mark. Into this zone I had already passed. The turf was trodden fine, and was set firm as it can only become by thousands of years of pasturing. The moisture that oozed out of the earth was not the random bog of the high places but a human spring, caught in a stone ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... me to come down and set th' milk. When he'd gone, I stole roun' to the apple-tree And seed the earth all new turned Where I left it in my hurry. I did a heap o' gardenin' That mornin'. I couldn't cut no big sods Fear Clarence would notice and ask me what I wanted 'em fer, So I got teeny bits o' turf here and ther, And no one couldn't tell ther'd be'n any diggin' When I got through. They was awful days after that, Mis' Priest, I used ter go every mornin' and poke about them bushes, An' up and down the fence, Ter find the body that hand come off ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... place, O youths, I protect, nor less this turf-builded cottage, Roofed with its osier-twigs and thatched with its bundles of sedges; I from the dried oak hewn and fashioned with rustical hatchet, Guarding them year by year while more are they evermore thriving. For here be owners twain who greet and worship ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... sparse, and the movement of so large a number of men along a certain route completely exhausted all the resources of the inhabitants; and although willing to pay for all that his men required, the Earl of Evesham had frequently to lie down on the turf supperless himself. ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... he cultivated his tastes in that line assiduously, he no doubt would have become the foremost scholar of the State, if not the South. He was passionately fond of manly sports and out-door exercise. He was a devotee of the turf, and this disposition led him early in life to the development of fast horses and a breeder of blooded stock. He was a turfman of the old school, and there were but few courses in the South that had not tested the mettle of his stock. But like his brother in arms, Colonel ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... to his ears, the unmistakable thudding of galloping hoofs on turf. The posse was riding for the bridge full tilt. He picked up his rifle and dodged in among the trees along the trail. Forty yards from the mined stringer he met Molly riding ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... me white lilies, according to its wont, or red roses with sweet smelling savour, I had plucked them from the countryside, or from the turf of my little garden, and had sent them, small gifts for great ladies! But since I lack the first, I e'en pay the second, for he presents roses in the eyes of love, who offers only violets. Yet, these violets I send are, among perfumed herbs, ...
— Early Double Monasteries - A Paper read before the Heretics' Society on December 6th, 1914 • Constance Stoney
... up to than St. Andrew's at Farnham. If you know the way you can come to a corner of the churchyard by a side street, but Farnham goes to church chiefly by alleys and footpaths. The churchyard is more striking than the church, much of which is new. The thick turf, shaven and level, runs to the foot of mossy brick walls; an avenue of pollarded elms leads from the south door; all round stand little, old red houses. Six o'clock on a sunny autumn evening is the time to wait in Farnham ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... the Soul Straw-Color'd and other Psyches A Night Remembrance Wild Flowers A Civility Too Long Neglected Delaware River—Days and Nights Scenes on Ferry and River—Last Winter's Nights The First Spring Day on Chestnut Street Up the Hudson to Ulster County Days at J.B.'s—Turf Fires—Spring Songs Meeting a Hermit An Ulster County Waterfall Walter Dumont and his Medal Hudson River Sights Two City Areas Certain Hours Central Park Walks and Talks A Fine Afternoon, 4 to 6 Departing of the Big Steamers Two Hours on the Minnesota Mature Summer Days and ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... is a tiny village of a dozen straw-thatched cottages in which I lived. I hear again blackbirds and thrushes in the hedges, and see again bluebells spilling out from the oak woods and over the velvet turf like a creaming of blue water. And most of all I remember a great, hairy-fetlocked stallion, often led dancing, sidling, and nickering down the narrow street. I was frightened of the huge beast and always ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... English householder should divide his yearly accounts into 'ordinary' and 'extraordinary' accounts, putting under the 'ordinary' accounts his cab and railway fares, his club expenses, his transactions on the turf, and his ventures at Monte Carlo, but remitting to the 'extraordinary' accounts such unconsidered trifles as house-rent, domestic expenses, the bills of tailors and milliners, and taxes, local and imperial. For 1879, for example, M. Leon Say, as Finance Minister, gave in his ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... chained to the desk and the counter during the day, revel in the license of the hour, and eat, and drink, and smoke to the highest point either of excitement or stupefaction, and enter into all the slang of the day—of the turf, the ring, the cockpit, the theatres—and shake their sides at comic songs. To enter one of these places when the theatre was over, was a luxury indeed to Titmouse; figged out in his very uttermost best, with satin stock and double breastpins; ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... left by myself. Instead of a friend in a postchaise or in a Tilbury, to exchange good things with, and vary the same stale topics over again, for once let me have a truce with impertinence. Give me the clear blue sky over my head, and the green turf beneath my feet, a winding road before me, and a three hours' march to dinner—and then to thinking! It is hard if I cannot start some game on these lone heaths. I laugh, I run, I leap, I sing for joy. From the point of yonder ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... terrestrial purgatory that is neither town or country. The face of England is so beautiful, that I do not believe Tempe or Arcadia were half so rural; for both lying in hot climates, must have wanted the turf of our lawns. It is unfortunate to have so pastoral a taste, when I want a cane more than a crook. We are absurd creatures; at twenty I ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... And roses ne'er a thorn, No man would be a funker Of whin, or burn, or bunker. There were no need for mashies, The turf would ne'er be torn, Had cigarettes no ashes, And roses ne'er ...
— New Collected Rhymes • Andrew Lang
... said he, "is from the Somomy stock, and holds as brilliant a record as his famous ancestor. He is now in his fifth year, and has brought in turn each of the prizes of the turf to Colonel Ross, his fortunate owner. Up to the time of the catastrophe he was the first favorite for the Wessex Cup, the betting being three to one on him. He has always, however, been a prime favorite with the racing public, and has never ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... blacksmith yarn was a corker. He was a game old codger. That was scrapping; no hall full of tobacco-smoke, no palm-fans, lemonade, peanuts and pop-corn; just right out on the turf, and may the best man win. I know. I went through that. No frame-ups, all square and on the level. A fellow had to fight those days, no sparring, no pretty footwork. Sometimes I've a hankering to get back and exchange a wallop or two. ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... cedar of Japan, raised its delicate rosy crest here under the blue of an English sky; a young Turkish cypress shot like a dart from the ground and threw its narrow shadow straight as a spear across the emerald turf; and farther on a small squat tree, from China, unfurled smooth, glossy, polished leaves of lightest green, and thick-lipped succulent scarlet flowers, indolently to the kiss of the British sun. We caught a passing glimpse of it, and Lucia drew in ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... picture; or as they passed some high convent-wall, and caught the strange, metallic clang of the nuns' voices singing their hymns within. Sometimes they whiled away the hours on the Esplanade, breathing its pensive sentiment of neglect and incipient decay, and pacing up and down over the turf athwart the slim shadows of the poplars; or, with comfortable indifference to the local observances, sat in talk on the carriage of one of the burly, uncared-for guns, while the spider wove his web across the mortar's mouth, and the ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... amphitheatre the crest of which was bordered by a fringe of perpendicular rocks as white as dried bones. Under this crown, which rendered it almost inaccessible, the little valley was resplendent in its wealth of evergreen trees, oaks with their knotty branches, and its fresh green turf. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... roofs, on one of which a cow was actually grazing at the time. Outside, drying in the sun, were pieces of peat in size about two feet by three, and about two inches thick; they were doubled, tent-fashion, to enable the air to pass through, and were standing in a row along a turf wall. On inquiring their use, we learnt they were intended as a species of saddle-cloth for the pack ponies, to protect the vertebrae. The peat being placed on the animal's back, the loads are attached on either ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... For the crime of not saluting Mr. Governor Price, they were placed upon a dietary of seven ounces of what was called brown bread and a pint of Anna Liffey, in the twenty-four hours. Brown, indeed, the article was, but whether it deserved the name of bread, was quite another question. The turf-mould taken from the Bog of Allen was the nearest resemblance to it that he could think of. For his own part, he did not mean to complain of his rations—he could take either rough or smooth as well as most men; but what he would complain of was, the system ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown
... policy to the admiration of his country. Mr. Disraeli, however, pays in many respects a tribute that is no more than just to the memory of Lord George, and his book affords material for an impartial judgment. At that period the noble lord was a distinguished patron of the turf: all England knew him as a sporting gentleman, a first-rate judge of horses, and an extensive winner on the course. In allusion to his habits in these respects, it became a popular sneer that the Conservatives ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan |
