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Briar   Listen
noun
Briar  n.  Same as Brier.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Briar" Quotes from Famous Books



... day I paid them another visit, and finding a better post of observation under the shade of a sweet-briar bush, I saw at once they were orchard orioles, and that the young ones were climbing to the edge of the nest; I had nearly been ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller

... it from her, and saw that out of his own shirt, washed and bleached, she had made a lovely garment. And round it, from the hem upward, ran a climbing briar of exquisite delicacy, and with a beautiful design of spines and leaves; but the only flower upon it was a golden rose, worked on the heart of the smock in her own gold hair. And Hobb took it from her and again ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon

... department, and she stopped suddenly. "Peter," she said, "I'm going to give you a pipe. Those chocolates you gave me at Christmas were too delicious for anything. What sort do you like? A briar? Let me see if it blows nicely." She put it to her lips. "I swear I shall start a pipe soon, in my old age. By the way, I don't believe you have any idea how old I am—have ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable

... "Begone, thou fond presumptuous Elf," Exclaimed an angry Voice, [1] "Nor dare to thrust thy foolish self Between me and my choice!" A small Cascade fresh swoln with snows 5 Thus threatened a poor Briar-rose, [2] That, all bespattered with his foam, And dancing high and dancing low, Was living, as a child might know, In an unhappy ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth

... having returned from hunting, awoke them, and, withholding their usual nourishment, gave the signal "Come." The obedient little family followed her along the dark passage, and ventured, close at her heels, into the grass-patch in the middle of the briar-brake. Vulp was slightly more timid than his sisters were; even at that early age he showed signs of independence and distrust. While the other cubs played "follow-my-leader" with the dam, he hung back, hesitating ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees

... done, and the next morning he was waiting before the hall-door for his burden; and she, though somewhat loth at leaving the fine company, mounted him cheerfully enough, and they rode away, and they rode away, and they rode away, through thick briar brakes and up fearsome cliffs. But ever the Black Bull trod the brambles underfoot and chose the easiest paths, while she ate out of his left ear and drank out of his right, and wanted for nothing, though he had neither bite nor sup. So it came to pass that he grew tired and was limping with one ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel

... confess I should think compleat, if my mercenary Father would consent to my Espousals; but it is so far from this, that I am to see for the future, so that the Lilly you admire now droops its Head, and the whole Vale's enclouded at my sorrowful Fate; I would willingly accompany the Briar to the Mountains. Impute not to me your approaching Calamities, which only increase with Theodora's. Think me no longer handsome, who have so many Imperfections to sully those Trifles you call Beauties; No, range me with Deformity, since other Ideas may increase your Pain. ...
— Tractus de Hermaphrodites • Giles Jacob

... from head to foot, and his gaze was returned with stolid defiance. Nicholas did not flinch, but for the first time he felt ashamed of his ugliness, of his coarse clothes, of his briar-scratched legs, of his freckles, and of the unalterable colour of his hair. He wished with all his heart that he were safely in the field with his father, driving the one-horse harrow across upturned furrows. ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow

... chill a fire glittered and sparkled and the deep blue curtains were drawn. Ronder was wearing brown kid slippers and a dark velvet smoking-jacket. As he lay back in the deep arm-chair, smoking an old and familiar briar, his chubby face was deeply contented. His eyes were almost closed; he was the very symbol of ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole

... was where that Broom was; and merry Diarmuid's banner was the Liath Loinneach, the Shining Grey; and the Craobh Fuileach, the Bloody Branch, was the banner of Lugaidh's Son. And as to Conan, it is a briar he had on his banner, because he was always for quarrels and for trouble. And it used to be said of him he never saw a man frown without striking him, or a door left open without ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory

... a tor, but the warmth kept rising from the ground, and the sweet-briar on a cottage bathed them with its spicy perfume. From the converging lanes figures passed now and then, lounged by, staring at the strangers, gossiping amongst themselves, and vanished into the cottages that headed the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... this as he sat at the edge of the dear Old Briar-patch, looking over to the Green Forest. The Green Forest was no longer just green; it was of many colors, for Old Mother Nature had set Jack Frost to painting the leaves of the maple-trees and the ...
— The Adventures of Lightfoot the Deer • Thornton W. Burgess

... they had puzzled Archie in the morning; for she wanted to keep her way, which he did not. She lost it, however, continually. Her eyes were scratched by boughs and brambles, the tree roots tripped her up, her dress caught in a briar and was torn. "Archie! Archie!" she cried, as she went along. Her voice came back from the forest in strange echoing tones which made her start. At last, after winding and turning for a long time, she found herself again upon the main path, not far from the place where ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge

... crossing of the weir, Her beauty broke on him like some rare flower That was not yesterday. Ev'n so the Spring Unclasps the girdle of its loveliness Abruptly, in the North here: long the drifts Linger in hollows, long on bough and briar No slight leaf ventures, lest the frost's keen tooth Nip it, and then all suddenly the earth Is nought but scent and bloom. So unto him Griselda's grace unclosed. Where lagged his wit That guessed not ...
— Wyndham Towers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... his den he smoked many pipes. Twice he cleaned the old briar; still there was no improvement. He poured a pinch of tobacco into his palm and sniffed. The weed was all right. Probably something he had eaten. He was always forgetting that his ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath

... filbert hedge with wild briar overtwined, And clumps of woodbine taking the soft wind Upon their summer thrones; there too should be The frequent chequer of a youngling tree, That with a score of light green brethren shoots From the quaint mossiness of aged roots: Round which ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... In awful silence each of us produced his wrappings and his caskets, extracted the shining briar, smeared it with cosmetics, and polished it more reverently than a peace time Guardsman polishes his buttons when warned for duty next day at "Buck." * * * * * And Jackson smoked his pipe in secret. He would take no leaf from ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 12, 1917 • Various

... decked, Or mosque of Eastern architect. Nor were these earth-born castles bare, Nor lacked they many a banner fair; For, from their shivered brows displayed, Far o'er the unfathomable glade, All twinkling with the dewdrop sheen, The briar-rose fell in streamers green, kind creeping shrubs of thousand dyes Waved in the ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... at the piteous cry, to find his little Boy Blue clinging to him in wild affright, while wind and wave burst into their wretched shelter,—wind and wave! Surging, foaming, sweeping over beach and bramble and briar growth that guarded the low shore, rising higher and higher each moment before the furious goad of the gale, came ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman

... the glaring tints, he pulled down the blinds of the two windows which looked on to a dull suburban roadway, and thus shut out the weak sunshine. Then he threw himself into an uncomfortable arm-chair and sought solace in his briar root. The future was dark, the present was disagreeable, and the past would not bear thinking about, so intimately did it deal with the murder of Pine, the threats of Silver, and the misery occasioned by the sacrifice of Agnes to the family fetish. It was in the young ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume

... assist Uncle Sam in the remonetization of silver. A rainbow-chaser, in the common acceptance of the term, is a fellow who mistakes shadow for substance and wanders off the plank turnpike into bogs and briar patches. Satan appears to have been the first victim of the rainbow-chasing fad—to have bolted the Chicago convention and run for president on the reform ticket. At a very early age I began to doubt the existence of a personal devil, whereupon my parent on my father's ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... of someone. She was a superb comic actress. I mentally compared her with our young ladies, and even the handsome, dignified Anyuta Blagovo could not stand comparison with her; the difference was immense, like the difference between a beautiful, cultivated rose and a wild briar. ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... rose, sweet-briar, we would remember thee And the cinnamon rose that evermore enthralls each passing bee, You old, old-fashioned roses, a-growing ...
— The Miracle and Other Poems • Virna Sheard

... 'Midst the reeds and osier heads, In the rushy soaking damps, Where the vapours pitch their camps, Follow me, follow me, For a midnight ramble! O! what a mighty fog, What a merry night O ho! Follow, follow, nigher, nigher - Over bank, and pond, and briar, Down into the croaking ditches, Rotten log, Spotted frog, Beetle bright With crawling light, What a joy O ho! Deep into the purple bog - What a joy O ho! Where like hosts of puckered witches All the shivering agues sit Warming hands and chafing ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... and down the nut bushes; but Nutkin gathered robin's pincushions off a briar bush, and stuck them full of ...
— The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin • Beatrix Potter

... a grunt of satisfaction, carefully filling a briar-root pipe with some dark tobacco, which he produced from out of a little round brass box that he carried in his waistcoat pocket, telling me it was "the right sort," and proceeding to light it—"now, we ...
— The Penang Pirate - and, The Lost Pinnace • John Conroy Hutcheson

... heightened faces Like wine-red winter buds; Their frolic bodies gentle as Flakes in the air that pass, Frail as the twirling petal From the briar ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. • Walter de la Mare

... hand towards the matches upon the table beside him. Durrance heard the scrape of the phosphorus and the flare of the match. Willoughby was lighting his pipe. It was a well-seasoned piece of briar, and needed a cleaning; it bubbled as he held the match to the tobacco ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason

... scene. Instead of fiery oratory and pipes of peace—the stone calumets of old—the vigorous arguments, the outbursts of passion, and close calls from threatened violence, here was a gathering of commonplace men smoking briar-roots, with treaty tobacco instead of "weed," and whose chiefs replied to Mr. Laird's explanations and offers in a few brief and sensible statements, varied by vigorous appeals to the common sense and judgment, rather than the ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair

... the marsh marigolds, but the most glorious yellow in the picture was the Sulphur Butterfly. He zigzagged lightly down the hedgerow, catching the sunshine at every turn, and the marigolds drooped their heads at the sight of him. Close to the nest he dropped on a briar-leaf, like a floating petal. He was more than colour now—he was form. For a full minute he poised there motionless, the most exquisitely graceful, the most exquisitely coloured of all our butterflies, and, for a full minute, the dormouse ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English

... pretty star-like flowers; the muscadine grape-vines, with their dark purple clusters; the bignonias, with trumpet-shaped corollas; the smilacae, among which are conspicuous the Smilax rotundifolia, the thick bamboo-briar, and the balsamic sarsaparilla. ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid

... the second assistant engineer, hurrying along the deck to relieve the first assistant on watch, found Mr. Reardon leaning over the rail meditatively puffing his old briar pipe. In answer to the former's query as to what kept the chief up so late, the latter replied that he was burning sulphur in his room to ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne

... which this plant diffuses; and as it is most readily cultivated in pots, its fragrance may be conveyed to the parlour of the recluse, or the chamber of the valetudinarian; its perfume, though not so refreshing perhaps as that of the Sweet-Briar, is not apt to offend on ...
— The Botanical Magazine, Vol. I - Or, Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis

... of a monster like a hedgehog, comes out of a coffin to tear the hero in pieces.[181] The group is allied, on the one hand, to that of Fearless Johnny who, passing the night in a haunted house, expelled the ghosts, or goblins, which had taken possession of it; on the other hand, to that of the Briar Rose, illustrated by Mr. Burne Jones' series ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland

... the part of the Virginian Government were requisite to meet it. An army of three thousand men was raised in the utmost haste. This force was in two divisions. One of eleven hundred men rendezvoused in what is now Green Briar county, and marched down the valley of the Great Kanawha, to its entrance into the Ohio, at a ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott

... town. She's opening Briar Hills for a week or so. Awfully nice girl, Roger. You've got to meet her ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs

... suit which was non-committal as to his profession, with a clean-shaven face which bore the unmistakable stamp of good breeding and unlimited good-nature. He tilted his suit-case on end and sat down on it; then he filled his briar pipe, crossed his legs, and looked about to take stock of the situation. He gazed about curiously; but there was nothing of any special interest in sight, except, painfully conspicuous on the face of a grass terrace, the name of the village picked out in large letters composed of oyster-shells ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott

... men clambered up into the engineer's seat. Hemenway gave McLeod his longest and strongest cigar, and filled his own briar-wood pipe. The rain was now pattering gently on the roof of the cab. The engine hissed and sizzled patiently in the darkness. The fragrant smoke curled steadily from the glowing tip of the cigar; but the pipe went out half a dozen times while ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various

... them, and the remainder into a tub, with seven pecks of cowslip pips. Let them remain there all night; then put the liquor and the lemons to eight spoonfuls of new yeast, and a handful of sweet-briar. Stir all well together, and let it work for three or four days; then strain and tun it into a cask. Let it stand six months, ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... thereby to purchase himself profit, or pleasure, or honor, or the like. Therefore why should I be angry with a man, for loving himself better than me? And if any man should do wrong, merely out of ill-nature, why, yet it is but like the thorn or briar, which prick and scratch, because they can do no other. The most tolerable sort of revenge, is for those wrongs which there is no law to remedy; but then let a man take heed, the revenge be such as there is no law to punish; else a man's enemy is still before hand, ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon

... of revolution," said Charles pleasantly, refilling his foul old briar—"the great day when Fleet Street ran with blood and the pipe-smokers put up barricades in the Strand, and Piccadilly became a reeking shambles. Have you ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 10th, 1920 • Various

... more than ten years ago; and he was therefore doubly anxious, after the American style, to be "just dizzy with culture." In his capacity of Maecenas, he had invited amongst others the latest of English literary arrivals in New York—Mr. Algernon Coleyard, the famous poet, and leader of the Briar-rose ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen

... only a better start. James Edward Oglethorpe conceived another settlement in America, and for colonists he would have all these down-trodden and oppressed. He would gather, if he might, only those who when helped would help themselves—who when given opportunity would rise out of old slough and briar. He was personally open to the appeal of still another class of unfortunate men. He had seen upon the Continent the distress of the poor and humble Protestants in Catholic countries. Folk of this kind—from France, from Germany—had been going in a thin ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston

... one of the leading political papers of the day. It was a duel between sheer skill and confident foreknowledge. When Mr. Bodery spoke, Sidney Carew leant back in his chair and puffed vigorously at his briar pipe. ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman

... meantime, D'Artagnan, who had dismounted with his usual agility, inhaled the fresh perfumed air with the delight a Parisian feels at the sight of green fields and fresh foliage, plucked a piece of honeysuckle with one hand, and of sweet-briar with the other. Porthos had laid hold of some peas which were twined round poles stuck into the ground, and ate, or rather browsed upon them, shells and all; and Planchet was busily engaged trying to wake up ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... can quite believe you," said the other, a stolid Englishman with a briar pipe, "he struck me as ...
— Kimono • John Paris

... not see her, but at length he caught sight of her some way off struggling with the undergrowth, her dainty head just peeping out over the tops of the ferns. So back he went once more and brought her out from the tangled mass of briar and brake into an open space where blue butterflies fluttered among ...
— Immensee • Theodore W. Storm

... for their strange love's sake Rode Balen forth by lawn and lake, By moor and moss and briar and brake, And in his heart their sorrow spake Whose lips were dumb as death, and said Mute words of presage blind and vain As rain-stars blurred and marred by rain To wanderers on a moonless main Where night and ...
— The Tale of Balen • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... station, Tucker drew from his pocket a briar-root pipe, filled and lit it and began ...
— The Boy Land Boomer - Dick Arbuckle's Adventures in Oklahoma • Ralph Bonehill

... had dropped when shaken from his pocket by the jerk of his fall. He opened the single blade it contained at once, and went back to the hedge to cut a stick. As he walked along the hedge, he thought the briar was too prickly to cut, and the thorn was too hard, and the ash was too big, and the willow had no knob, and the elder smelt so strong, and the sapling oak was across the ditch, and out of reach, ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies

... then—do I make burnt offering. Now some use censers of clay, others employ censers of rare white earth finely carved and decked with silver and gold. My particular censer, as you see, is a plain, honest briar, a root dug from the banks of the blue Garonne, whose only glory is its grain and color. The original tint, if you remember, was like that of new-cut cedar, but use—I've been smoking this one only two years now—has ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various

... keen, smoked an old briar as he worked. A flannel shirt, open at the throat, showed a well-sinewed neck and powerful chest. Under the inverted cone of a shaded incandescent in his room, at the electricians' quarters of the ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England

... "thing to see, not hear"—that brave, rash, resolute imp clinging like a terrier, or a crab, or a briar, on to the back of that gigantic ruffian, whom, if she had no strength to stop, she ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

... all at breakfast with Lisbeth in a kitchen as clean as she could have made it herself. The window and door were open, and the morning air brought with it a mingled scent of southernwood, thyme, and sweet-briar from the patch of garden by the side of the cottage. Dinah did not sit down at first, but moved about, serving the others with the warm porridge and the toasted oat-cake, which she had got ready in the usual way, for she had asked Seth ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... sleep. Sawkins, with the same intention, stretched himself at full length on the dresser. Another who took no part in the syndicate was Barrington, a labourer, who, having finished his dinner, placed the cup he brought for his tea back into his dinner basket, took out an old briar pipe which he slowly filled, and ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell

... cycling or on foot, to go in any direction they like, to get a specimen of any ordered plant, say a sprig of yew, a shoot of ilex, a horseshoe mark from a chestnut tree, a briar rose, or something of that kind, whichever you may order, such as will tax their knowledge of plants and will test their memory as to where they noticed one of the kind required and will also make them quick in getting ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America

... guide the wandering lights, that in the obscurity of the night beguiled the weary traveller "through bog, through bush, through brake, through briar." But their power of evil only extended, or was only employed, to vex those who by a certain obliquity of conduct gave occasion for their reproofs. They besides pinched and otherwise tormented the objects ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin

... hope the poor dear fellow will be happy," he said, lighting his fifth match and pulling away vigorously at an ugly-looking briar. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 29, 1914 • Various

... they reached the 'Oaks Plantation—.')Stay there till people gin (begin) move bout. Come Watsaw. Gone 'Collins Creek.' In the 'Reb Time' you know, when they sell you bout—Massa sell you all about. Broke through them briar and branch and thing to go to church. Them patrol get you. Church 'Old Bethel.' You don't know 'em. ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various

... quivering face of pride on Sylvia, and then looked past her shoulder with a startled expression into the eyes of one of the fire-fighters, a tall, lean, stooping man, blackened and briar-torn like the rest. "Why, Cousin Austin!" she cried with vehement surprise, "what in the world—" In spite of his grime, she gave him ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield

... Dick Rendal felt in his pockets for a cigar-case; was annoyed and amused (in a sub-conscious sort of way) to find only a briar pipe and a pocketful of coarse-cut tobacco; filled and lit his pipe, and started ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... flower imaginable bloomed and thrived, and reared its graceful head. The Major walked down through great lines of tall hollyhocks and peonies of every color and description. Then he passed under a sweet-briar hedge and then along a further hedge of Scotch roses, red and white; and the scent from mignonette and sweet peas and the sweet-briar and the roses came up to his nostrils. Never to the longest day of his life did the Major forget the sweet scent of the old-fashioned ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade

... "A little briar-torn, I'm afraid. Those big beech woods are rather a puzzle to anybody who is not familiar with the country. No wonder she became frightened when ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers

... the same journal, Colonel W.F. Prideaux, also replying to a query of mine, wrote: "Before briar-root pipes came into common use clay pipes were of necessity smoked by all classes. When I matriculated at Oxford at the Easter of 1858 ... University men used to be rather particular about the pipes they smoked. The finest were made in France, and the favourite ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson

... an unhopeful man would do. The next moment he was laughing horribly. Emilia, to make sure of the thing she dreaded, forced the note, and would not be denied. What voice there was in her came to the summons. It issued, if I may so express it, ragged, as if it had torn through a briar-hedge: then there was a whimper of tones, and the effect was like the lamentation of a hardly-used urchin, lacking a certain music that there is in his undoubted heartfelt earnestness. No single note poised firmly for the instant, but swayed, trembling on its ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... ram jumped o'er a wall, sir, His tail caught on a briar, It reached from Derby town, sir, All ...
— Rhymes Old and New • M.E.S. Wright

... wonders! exceeded expectation, went beyond belief, and soared above all the natural powers of description! she was nature itself! she was the most exquisite work of art! she was the very daisy, primrose, tube rose, sweet-briar, furze blossom, gilliflower, wall-flower, cauliflower and rosemary! in short she was a bouquet of Parnassus. Where expectation was raised so high, it was thought she would be injured by her appearance; but it was the audience who ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various

... invisible, or dammed and left in soak, breeding frogs, gnats, and flies. The trees are always tall and beautifully grown, whatever their age, for the moisture and warmth force vertical growth; the smaller bushes—hawthorn, briar, and wild guelder-rose—also assume graceful forms unhidden, for they always bow their heads towards the sun-reflecting stream. Part of the charm of the transformation of these brookside jungles into the brookside garden ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish

... pompous society to address him lightly as "DAB," and remind him of the dear old Balham days, and the huge amount of bird's-eye we used to smoke together. For his motto now is, "Delenda est Balhamia"—I speak of course figuratively—and half-crown havannahs have usurped the place of the honest briar. I know the poor wretch is making up his mind to cut me, but I must bear it as best ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 11, 1891 • Various

... used to put away farming implements, odd cart-wheels, performed for us the same service as the classic grotto which sheltered Eneas and Dido under similar circumstances. The wild branches of the hawthorn and sweet-briar added to the rusticity ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin

... breathe not contagion here! No myrtle-walks are these: these are no groves Where Love dare loiter! If in sullen mood He should stray hither, the low stumps shall gore His dainty feet, the briar and the thorn 30 Make his plumes haggard. Like a wounded bird Easily caught, ensnare him, O ye Nymphs, Ye Oreads chaste, ye dusky Dryades! And you, ye Earth-winds! you that make at morn The dew-drops quiver on the spiders' ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... prow there knelt a weary figure in a soiled and sun-bleached garment of doeskin, its glittering plastron of bright beads broken here and there, the ragged ends of sinews hanging as they were left by briar and branch, and the haggard eyes went with eager swiftness to the stockade standing in its grim ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe

... the closest compass, every means of delighting and sanctifying the heart of man. "As far as possible;" that is, as far as is consistent with the fulfilment of the sentence of condemnation on the whole earth. Death must be upon the hills; and the cruelty of the tempests smite them, and the briar and thorn spring up upon them: but they so smite, as to bring their rocks into the fairest forms; and so spring, as to make the very desert blossom as the rose. Even among our own hills of Scotland and Cumberland, though often too barren to be perfectly beautiful, ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin

... her heart. Then she looked about a moment confusedly, for she called to mind that in her nakedness she had neither knife, nor scissors, nor bodkin to let her blood withal. But even therewith close to hand she saw hanging down a stem of half-dead briar-rose with big thorns upon it; she hastily tore off a length thereof and scratched her left arm till the blood flowed, and stepped lightly first to stem and then to stern, and besmeared them therewith. Then she sat down on the thwart ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris

... there were neither delicate ferns, nor poetic ivy, but democratic grass and republican groundsel and communistic thistles and nettles. In place of the splendid Cent-Guardes stood tall, impudent weeds; in place of courtiers, the supple and bending briar; while up the steps, which the Queen and Empress and their ladies ascended that night, pert little grisettes of ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood

... and "thorough" are originally the same word, and in Shakespeare's time both forms were used for the preposition. Cf. Puck's song in "Midsummer Night's Dream," "Thorough bush, thorough briar." ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... by the edge of the firs, in a coppice of heath and vine, Is an old moss-grown altar, shaded by briar and bloom, Denys, the priest, hath told me 'twas the lord Apollo's shrine In the days ere Christ came down from God to the Virgin's womb. I never go past but I doff my cap ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan

... sighed, and, taking his short briar pipe from his mouth by the bowl, rapped three times upon the table with it. In a very short time a mug of ale and a paper cylinder of shag appeared on the table ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs

... try his hand at sand-eeling, or watch the surf men feed a devil-fish to the crabs. Then up the gray benches of the furrowed cliffs, starred with silver lichens and stone-crop, to where ploughmen were leaving glistening furrows in the big parsnip fields. Then on through the tangle of sweet-briar, honeysuckle and wild roses, where birds nested in the perfumed foliage, until, the summit reached, surrounded by purple heather and golden gorse, he would look on the sea below, with Sark, like a "basking whale, ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey

... shalt thou see the dew-bedabbled wretch Turn, and return, indenting with the way: Each envious briar his weary legs doth scratch. Each shadow makes him stop, each murmur stay. For misery is trodden on by many, And being ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge

... of the language keeps for us the freshness of the imagery—the sweet-briar and the hawthorn, the mavis and the oriole—which has so long become publica materies. It is not withered and hackneyed by time and tongues as, save when genius touches it, it is now. The dew is ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury

... wanted to know," said Malcolm Sage, as he drew his briar from his pocket and proceeded to fill it. "Will you thank Lady Dene and tell her that I am proud to be under an obligation to her— and to you, Sir ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins

... a little glade, a space clear of trees but hemmed in by the eternal jungle just the same. Here the way was choked with rank cogon grass, growing from eight to twelve feet high. He found this as mean a growth to pass through as any briar patch ...
— Boy Scouts in the Philippines - Or, The Key to the Treaty Box • G. Harvey Ralphson

... insurance, not enough, of course, but a little. He was plannin' to take on more, but somehow it never seemed as if he could die, he so big and strong, and we put it off until he got so he couldn't pass the examination. When the insurance money come I took it to Jedge Briar, a mighty good friend of Jubal's and mine and the one that held the mortgage on the house, and I told him I wanted to pay off the mortgage with it, so's I'd have the house free and clear. But the Jedge advised me not to, said the mortgage was costin' me only six per cent., and ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... up and down the nut bushes; but Nutkin gathered robin's pin-cushions off a briar bush, and stuck them ...
— The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter • Beatrix Potter

... about the lower portion of the Raven Hill estate we stumbled quite by accident into Dark Forest, vaguely hinted at by the negroes as a place to be avoided. This Dark Forest is a large tract of scrub oak, birch and holly, with dense undergrowths of briar; the haunt of innumerable small birds that dart in and out, chirping faintly. In its depressed portions the 'forest' has degenerated into a marsh through which a sluggish stream wends it way to the distant river. Slimy reptiles bask in the warm ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald

... the fond and folding gale The scented briar I pulled, Or for thy kindred bosom culled The ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy

... fox eating a rabbit which it had just caught in a briar-patch, and made such a sudden rush upon Reynard that he fled in hot haste, leaving the rabbit for the bear. In this way Black Bruin learned that rabbit was good to eat, even as palatable as squirrel, and after that he hunted rabbits ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes

... the mounds are so broad that they in places resemble covers rather than hedges, thickly grown with bramble and briar, hazel and hawthorn, above which the straight trunks of young oaks and Spanish chestnuts stand in crowded but careless ranks. The leaves which dropped in the preceding autumn from these trees still lie on the ground under ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies

... murderer, burglar, thug—was at large, and the voice of the prison he had tricked still bellowed in rage, in amazement, still clamored not only for his person but perhaps for his life. The whole countryside heard it: the farmers bedding down their cattle for the night; the guests of the Briar Cliff Inn, dining under red candle shades; the joy riders from the city, racing their cars along the Albany road. It woke the echoes of Sleepy Hollow. It crossed the Hudson. The granite walls of the Palisades flung it back against the granite walls of the prison. Whichever way the convict turned, ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis

... ye barbarous climes, Where angry England sends her outcast sons— I hail your joyless shores! my weary bark Long tempest-tost on Life's inclement sea, Here hails her haven! welcomes the drear scene, The marshy plain, the briar-entangled wood, And all the perils of a world unknown. For Elinor has nothing new to fear From fickle Fortune! all her rankling shafts Barb'd with disgrace, and venom'd with disease. Have pierced my bosom, and the dart of death Has lost its ...
— Poems • Robert Southey

... in Briar Creek. We caught a lot o' fish. Sometimes we used pin hooks we made ourselves. We would trade our fish to missus for molasses to make candy ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... helping her. Peace and tranquility brooded over the Glen; the sky was fleeced over with silvery, shining clouds. Rainbow Valley lay in a soft, autumnal haze of fairy purple. The maple grove was a burning bush of colour and the hedge of sweet-briar around the kitchen yard was a thing of wonder in its subtle tintings. It did not seem that strife could be in the world, and Susan's faithful heart was lulled into a brief forgetfulness, although she had lain awake most of the ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... her what she should sing; and then followed a wonderful story of Giles Collins, who loved a lady: Giles and the lady both died of true love; Giles was laid in the lower chancel, and the lady in the higher; from the one grave grew a milk-white rose, and from the other a briar, both of which climbed up to the church top, and there tied themselves into a true-lover's knot, which made all the parish admire. At this part, Anna was seen looking up at the ceiling; but the rest had no eyes but for Mrs Enderby, ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau

... parted from my Dear The linnet sang from the briar-bush, The throstle from the dell; The stream too carolled full and clear, It was the spring-time of the year, And both the linnet and the thrush I love them well Since last I ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various

... deeply, jamming tobacco fiercely into the bowl of his briar. He growled, "Look, you seem to think that the only thing that restricts man is the fear of being punished. There are other ...
— The Common Man • Guy McCord (AKA Dallas McCord Reynolds)

... few minutes of time or for some other equally foolish reason. The fact is, Peter didn't stop to think what dreadful thing might happen if his plans didn't work out as he intended. He didn't once think of little Mrs. Peter over in the dear Old Briar-patch and how she would feel if he never came home again. That's the trouble with thoughtlessness; ...
— The Adventures of Jimmy Skunk • Thornton W. Burgess

... a briar—I die where I grow; only, instead of your finding me, as you did the first time, on the first or second floor, you will have to look for me on the fifth or sixth, seeing that, by a very natural see-saw movement, as my funds lower ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... sow it up with two good handfuls of salt in it, or stretch it on a stick well salted, and hang it up to dry.—Another way. Clean the maw as above, and let it drain a day. Then put into two quarts of fresh spring-water a handful of hawthorn tops, a handful of sweet briar, a handful of rose leaves, a stick of cinnamon, forty cloves, four blades of mace, a sprig of knotted marjoram, and two large spoonfuls of salt. Let them boil gently till the liquor is reduced to three pints, and strain it off; when only milk warm, pour it on the maw. ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... that. I then set in to help him. I didn't know much, but I did the best I could. Sometimes he would write with a piece of charcoal or the p'int of a burnt stick on the fence or floor. We got a little paper at the country town, and I made some ink out of blackberry briar-root and a little copperas in it. It was black, but the copperas ate the paper after a while. I made Abe's first pen out of a turkey-buzzard feather. We had no geese them days. After he learned to write his name he was scrawlin' ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... The church, its transepts, north and south aisles, and chancel, are gone; and the dormitory, refectory, cloisters, &c. have scarcely left any trace of their gorgeous existence. The lonely ash and sturdy briar vegetate over the ashes of barons and prelates; and the unfeeling peasants intrude their rustic games on the holy place, ignorant of its former importance, and unconscious of the poetical feeling which its remains inspire. We quitted its ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 12, Issue 328, August 23, 1828 • Various

... island of Guadaloupe there are mountains and fertile plains; it is watered by beautiful streams. Honey is found in the trees and crevices of the rocks, and, as is the case at Palma, one of the Fortunate Isles, honey is gathered amongst briar and ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt

... and some of the children have already been cruelly butchered by these remorseless villains; I, alone, escaped, and sought shelter in the jungle, where, from an opening down the ravine, caught a glimpse of your party, and have struggled through brake and briar to implore your assistance. Oh! do not lose a moment, if you would be in time. Even now it may be too late to save them;" and, weeping wildly, sank on her knees, convulsive sobs choking ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest

... Heaven gave beauty, when it grafted roses on a briar. You are the reflection of Heaven in a pond, and he that leaps at you is sunk. You were all white, a sheet of lovely spotless paper, when you first were born; but you are to be scrawled and ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell

... man, with a coat buttoned clear to the neck, and a countenance like a funeral sermon, with no more expression than a wooden decoy duck, who was smoking a briar-wood pipe that he had picked up on a what-not that belonged to the host, knocked the ashes out in a ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck

... presumptuous Elf, Exclaim'd a thundering Voice, Nor dare to thrust thy foolish self Between me and my choice!" A falling Water swoln with snows Thus spake to a poor Briar-rose, That all bespatter'd with his foam, And dancing high, and dancing low, Was living, as a child might ...
— Lyrical Ballads with Other Poems, 1800, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth

... twig of wild cherry, gathered up my boxes, and wandered along the faint path, back of the patch of brush where, I knew, Jonathan was cheerfully threading his line through tangles of twig, briar, and vine, compared with which the needle's eye is as a yawning barn door. Jonathan's attitude toward brush-fishing is something which I respect without understanding. Down one long field I went, where the brook ran in shallow gayety, and there, ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge

... grown to frightful proportions, and carried solely by the pledge of the private property and credit of the president and Ohio directors. These directors, consisting of Hon. Frederick Kinsman and Charles Smith, of Warren, Governor David Tod, of Briar Hill, Judge Reuben Hitchcock, of Painesville, and Dudley Baldwin, of Cleveland, by the free use of their widely known and high business credit, without distrust or dissension, sustained the president ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin

... the highway. It was rather an old place, and had been built ere that highway was cut, and when a lane winding up through fields was the only path conducting to it. Briarfield lay scarce a mile off; its hum was heard, its glare distinctly seen. Briar Chapel, a large, new, raw Wesleyan place of worship, rose but a hundred yards distant; and as there was even now a prayer-meeting being held within its walls, the illumination of its windows cast a bright reflection on the road, while a hymn of ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... briar root; he scarce looked up from that engrossing task. 'Don't ast me what I think of him!' he said. 'There's a day comin', I pray Gawd, when I can ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... and suffered a diminution of several, other countries have been supplied from our streams and woods and hedgerows. England has sent the sparrow to the United States and Australia; also the nightingale, rabbit, salmon, trout, and sweet-briar. ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies

... equal distribution of property, some annihilation of debts, some rebate of all taxes, and all clamoured against law and government." The disorder spread to Virginia. "In several counties the prisons and court houses and clerks' offices have been wilfully burnt. In Green Briar, the course of justice has been mutinously stopped and associations are entered into against the payment of taxes," wrote Madison to Jefferson ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks

... man than he," resumed Henry. "I've looked upon his very face, I've seen him in camp with warriors, and I've had the honor of being pursued by him and his men more hours than I can tell. That's why you see those briar scratches on ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler

... you fervently extol, In vain you puff, your cutty clay. A twelvemonth smoked and black as coal, 'Tis redolent of rank decay And bones of monks long passed away— A fragrance I do not admire; And so I hold my nose and say, Give me a finely seasoned briar. ...
— The Scarlet Gown - being verses by a St. Andrews Man • R. F. Murray

... no more, but went up to her room, and presently Jeff, moodily puffing at his briar in the porch, heard the notes of her piano overhead. She played softly for some little time, and Jeff's pipe went out before it was finished—a most rare occurrence ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... are exceedingly aggravating. They consult you, they ask your advice upon the best way of concealing the stem of a rose, of giving a graceful fall to a bunch of briar, or a happy turn to a scarf. As a neat English expression has it, "they fish for compliments," and ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac

... humorist, lets out nothing or next to nothing of his meat and drink. His hints about pipes are very extensively followed, and nowadays every ambitious young pressman smokes in public at least one well-burnt briar with an eccentric stem—even at some personal inconvenience. But this jealous reticence on the part of successful men—you notice they never let even the interviewer see their kitchens or the debris of a meal—necessarily ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells

... more strength—another effort or two—the cool solitude of the wood would ease the weight of the burden and the throbbing of nerves and brain. The setting sun shone full upon the leafy edge of the wood; hazelnut and beech and oak and clumps of briar rose quivered under the rough kiss of the wind that blew straight across the lowland from the southwest, bringing with it still the confusion of sounds—the weird cannonades and dismal bugle-calls—in such strange contrast to the rustle of ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy

... putting out her candle, lay down. The firelight played on the pale blue walls and lit up the bold design of the briar-roses which ran round the frieze at ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade

... worn by th' poor, Who thither come, and freely get Good words, or meat. Like as my parlor, so my hall And kitchen's small; A little buttery, and therein A little bin, Which keeps my little loaf of bread Unchipt, unflead; Some brittle sticks of thorn or briar Make me a fire, Close by whose living coal I sit, And glow like it. Lord, I confess too, when I dine, The pulse is thine, And all those other bits that be There placed by thee; The worts, the purslain, and the mess Of water-cress, Which of ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin

... try your tragedy airs on us," said the inspector. "We've no time for them. If you won't tell the truth you had better say nothing at all." He plunged his hand into a jardiniere and withdrew a briar-wood pipe. "This looks to me like Birchill's property. Keep that ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson

... quick and green with briar, From their sand the conies creep; And all the birds that fly in heaven ...
— A Cluster of Grapes - A Book of Twentieth Century Poetry • Various

... places are marked by a long dimple in the land's face. The well in the midst of one has been filled up, despite the warning of an old mountain farmer that ill-luck would surely follow whosoever demolished the fairy well. Over it grew a clump of briar and thorn-trees, where one found the largest, juiciest blackberries; that too is gone, but, practically, the fields remain the same. There is the Ten Acre field, stretching so far as to be weirdly lonely at the very far end. Every part of it was distinct. You turned to the ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan

... going to Tibet again?" She asked him the question point blank, as they were drinking their coffee, and Mackenzie was smoking a big briar pipe filled with ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall

... mere vanity and ambition that stimulated the former; whereas the motive force which drove Henry Mills to defy Nature and attempt dancing was the purer one of love. He did it to please his wife. Had he never gone to Ye Bonnie Briar-Bush Farm, that popular holiday resort, and there met Minnie Hill, he would doubtless have continued to spend in peaceful reading the hours not given over to work at the New York bank at which he was ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... the briar pipe into the man's hand, and turned away without waiting for a reply. The seaman looked after him in open amazement. That evening he worked on the socket of the steel hook, and in two days he had the job finished. Then he returned the pipe ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams

... over they came back to the tree, with the intention of getting the dead 'possum, which they meant to cook for their supper. To their astonishment no 'possum was there—neither in the tree, nor the briar-patch beside it, nor anywhere! The sly creature had been "playing 'possum" throughout all that terrible worrying; and, finding the coast clear, had "unclewed" herself, and stolen off to her hiding-place under the ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid

... to other trenches: notice boards guide you, and you keep to Windmill Avenue. You go by Pear Lane, Cherry Lane, and Plum Lane. Pear trees, cherry trees and plum trees must have grown there. You are passing through either wild lanes banked with briar, over which these various trees peered one by one and showered their blossoms down at the end of spring, and girls would have gathered the fruit when it ripened, with the help of tall young men; or else you are passing ...
— Tales of War • Lord Dunsany

... begin his flight, And singing startle the dull night From his watch-tower in the skies Till the dappled dawn doth rise; Then to come, in spite of sorrow, And at my window bid good-morrow Through the sweet-briar, or the vine, Or the twisted eglantine; While the cock with lively din Scatters the rear of darkness thin; And to the stack, or the barn door, Stoutly struts his dames before; Oft listening how the hounds and horn Cheerly rouse the slumbering morn From the side ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth

... pipe, deep in thought. I could see that he was affected by the miscarriage of his counsels. Presently he removed the briar from his lips, and said abruptly: "Jasperson, you assert that you showed down in church. What d'you mean by that? Tell ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell

... those of the cultivated reed, the only one of the Monocotyledones exploited, as far as I know, by the Megachiles. In the construction of cells, on the other hand, I see smooth leaves predominating, notably those of the wild briar and of the common acacia, the robinia. It would appear, therefore, that the insect distinguishes between two kinds of materials, without being an absolute purist and sternly excluding any sort of blending. The very much indented ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre

... sit smoking my faithful briar pipe, indulging in the fragrance of my tobacco as I look out on the campus from my many-paned window, and things are different with me from the way they were way back in Freshman year. I can see now how boyish in many ways I was then. I believe what has changed me as much as anything was ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington

... were seated on either side of the fireplace in Shears's sitting-room. The great detective's pipe had gone out. He knocked the ashes into the grate, re-filled his briar, lit it, gathered the skirts of his dressing-gown around his knees, puffed away and devoted all his attention to sending rings of smoke curling ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc

... original pair of seven-leagued boots, not that I might make such fast time, but that I might kick him at a single kick from one county to another, and back, and then over and over past counting. I'd duck him in a river until he gasped for breath, I'd drag him naked through a briar patch, and then I'd tar and feather him, and ride ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler

... training that made him prefer them. Admiring friends used to send him costly, imported cigars, but he rarely touched them, and they were smoked by visitors. He often smoked a pipe, and preferred it to be old and violent. Once when he had bought a new, expensive briar-root, he handed ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine

... flock alighting on a bush black with ripe berries will clear the bunches in a very short time. Haws, or peggles, which often quite cover the hawthorn bushes, are not so general a food as the fruit of the briar. Hips are preferred; at least, the fruit of the briar is the first of the two to disappear. The hip is pecked open (by thrushes, redwings, and blackbirds) at the tip, the seeds extracted, and the part where it is attached to the stalk left, just as if the contents had been sucked ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies

... from Uncle John broke in on his meditations. Then there was a clatter as a briar pipe dropped on to the floor of the boat, and his ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse



Words linked to "Briar" :   rose, Smilax rotundifolia, horse-brier, smilax, vine, brier, sweetbrier, pipe, horse brier, true heath, briary, rosebush, briar pipe, erica, catbrier, sweetbriar



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