"Moss-grown" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... its day has been a very productive and profitable one; and we were told, that in one year it returned Dr. Ripley a hundred dollars, besides defraying the expense of repairing the house. It is now long past its prime: many of the trees are moss-grown, and have dead and rotten branches intermixed among the green and fruitful ones. And it may well be so; for I suppose some of the trees may have been set out by Mr. Emerson, who died in the first year of the Revolutionary war. Neither will the fruit, probably, bear comparison ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... only now where the footpath was; it passed close to the hedge, but its place is traceable only as a groove in the sorrel and seed-tops. Though it has quite filled the path, the grass there cannot send its tops so high; it has left a winding crease. By the hedge here stands a moss-grown willow, and its slender branches extend over the sward. Beyond it is an oak, just apart from the bushes; then the ground gently rises, and an ancient pollard ash, hollow and black inside, guards an open gateway like a low ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... a small stream, so shallow that the stones at the bottom were plainly to be seen. A loud splash, as the sound of carriage wheels broke the uninterrupted silence, and a commotion in the water gave evidence of the sudden disappearance of several green-backed frogs, sunning themselves on a large, moss-grown rock, projecting above the water's edge; from shady nooks and crevices peeped clusters of early white violets; graceful maidenhair ferns, and hardier members of the fern family, called "Brake," uncurled their graceful, sturdy fronds from the carpet of green moss and lichen at the base ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... their time with sufficient accuracy, before they could accomplish their purpose, or retrace their steps to their dark abodes, the first rays of the morning sun appeared, and they were immediately transformed, and remain to the present time in the shape of two tall moss-grown stones of ten feet in height."[264] This is paralleled by the Merionethshire example of a large drift of stones about midway up the Moelore in Llan Dwywe, which was believed to be due to a witch who "was ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... and a number of other things, before they left the table. When they did so they went out to stroll upon the moss-grown stone terrace and listened to the nightingales throwing 'm into the air silver fountains of trilling song. When Bettina paused, leaning against the balustrade of the terrace that she might hear all the beauty of it, and ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... stables—sentinels were heard mounting guard—a thousand lights gleamed from place to place through the ruins, till at length they seemed all concentrated in the baronial hall, whose range of broad windows threw a resplendent illumination on the moss-grown court below. ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... who bears the poor man's fate Might hear Salvation's news. I've walked within the church-yard's walls, With holy dread and fear, And on its marble tablets read "None but the rich lie here." I've wandered till I came upon A heap of moss-grown stones, And some one whispered in mine ear, "Here rest the poor man's bones." My spirit wandered on, until It left the scenes of earth; Until I stood with those who'd passed Through death, the second birth. And I inquired, with holy awe, "Who are they within this fold, ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... this was one which the man is not likely to forget who has once heard it,—whether beneath his foot, as he steps upon the moss-grown log in the rank cedar-swamp, or under his hand, when about to grasp with it a ledge of the rocks among which he is clambering, unknowing of the serpent's dens. With clenched teeth, and hair that rustled like the sedge-grass, I rose and woke ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... built of rough stones, daubed over with a coat of yellowish stucco, and so riven with great cracks that there seemed to be danger lest the slightest puff of wind might blow it down. The roof, covered with brown moss-grown tiles, had given way in several places, and looked as though it might break down altogether under the weight of the snow. The frames of the three windows on each story were rotten with damp and warped by the sun; evidently the cold must find its way inside. The house standing ...
— An Episode Under the Terror • Honore de Balzac
... of beautiful variety, and some looking strangely like green ice-crystals. Presently we came to a little broken-down rude kind of chapel in the midst of the wood. It was built of stone; and masses of stone, shapeless and moss-grown, were lying scattered about on the ground around it. At a little rough-hewn altar within it stood a Christian priest, blessing the elements. Overhead, the great dark sprays of the larches and cone-laden firs swept its roof. I sat down to rest on one of the ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... my house, which was a favourite walk of mine, went over the hill, and at the top a large windmill in a field commanded a fine view of the country for several miles. My garden was very pleasant, and in it was a summer house at the end of a moss-grown walk. One plant which gave me great delight was a large bush of rosemary. The smell of it always carried my mind back to peaceful times. It was like the odour of the middle ages, with that elusive suggestion of incense which reminded me of Gothic fanes and picturesque processions. Many elm trees ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... chain of icy peaks, among which fibrous clouds, which had rushed in from the east, were already roaming. I walked to the extremity of the ledge and gazed down. My head nearly swam. At the foot of the precipice all seemed dark and cold as in a tomb; the moss-grown jags of the rocks, hurled down by storm and time, were awaiting ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... paved court-yard to a gate-way opening on a side street. Houses were few and scattering so far below the heart of the city. The narrow strip of land between the great river and the swamp was cut up into walled enclosures, as a rule,—abandoned warehouses and cotton-presses, moss-grown one-storied frame structures, standing in the midst of desolate fields and decrepit fences. Only among the peaceful shades of the Ursuline convent and the warlike flanking towers at the barracks was there ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King
... young Delight, like any o'erblown flower, Gave, one by one, its sweet leaves to the ground?— Why then, fair Moon, for all thou mark'st no hour, Thou art a sadder dial to old Time Than ever I have found On sunny garden-plot, or moss-grown tow'r, Motto'd with stern ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... satisfied, and there hasn't been a successor since with originality enough to start a fresh one. For they ARE a pretty limited lot, you will admit that? Originality is not in their line; they can't think up anything new, anything to freshen up the old moss-grown dullness of the language lesson and put life and "go" into it, and charm ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... which are still to be seen above the surface of the earth. That there are many covered over with the deposits of years, I have not the slightest doubt. Those tombs, we now see, give the best evidence, in their inscriptions, that those whose remains moulder beneath the moss-grown marbles, were not private individuals—not members of the family owning the estate—but men in public service, and who would not have been laid in an obscure private burial ground, when the church-yard of the new church ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... there for me to say? There wa'n't any more suspicion in them gentle blue eyes of his than in a baby's. Forty years in Pemaquid! Must be some moss-grown, peaceful spot, where a man can grow up so innocent and simple, and yet have the stuff in him Uncle Jimmy must have had. So I tows him back to 42d-st., points him towards the new lib'ry again, and turns him loose; him ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... trees; but the primitive beauty of the mountains remains unmarred, save where a hillside has been swept by fire. In all our wanderings through the forests we saw no evidences of occupation by the Mongols except the wood roads and a few scattered charcoal pits. These were old and moss-grown, and save for ourselves the valleys ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... with women fainting, children screeching, Capuchins preaching. It was like a little rehearsal of doomsday. Don Marzio, a prudent housekeeper, had the latch-key of a private door at the back of the garden. He threw it open—not without a misgiving at the moss-grown wall overhead. That night the very stars did not seem to him sufficiently firm-nailed to the firmament! His family and dependents trooped after him, eager to follow. Rosalbina looked back—at one who was left behind. Don Marzio felt he owed me at least one word ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... the droning of bees. It seemed to Ming-Y that the path he followed had not been trodden by any other for many long years; the grass was tall upon it; vast trees on either side interlocked their mighty and moss-grown arms above him, beshadowing the way; but the leafy obscurities quivered with bird-song, and the deep vistas of the wood were glorified by vapors of gold, and odorous with flower-breathings as a temple with incense. The dreamy joy of the day entered into the heart of Ming-Y; and he sat him ...
— Some Chinese Ghosts • Lafcadio Hearn
... many an hour, 10 Is ended,—and the fruit is at thy feet! No longer where the woods to frame a bower With interlaced branches mix and meet, Or where with sound like many voices sweet, Waterfalls leap among wild islands green, 15 Which framed for my lone boat a lone retreat Of moss-grown trees and weeds, shall I be seen; But beside thee, where still my heart ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... visible in the distance; at the back, glorious "Old Greylock," the highest peak in the State; at the right, the steep, winding road leading down to the village a mile below, through a ravine perfectly bewildering in its beauty of overhanging trees, moss-grown rocks and fern-bordered brook tumbling over the massive boulders in its rapid descent to join the Hoosac; and then united they flow through the pretty town of Adams, turning the countless wheels of the great mills ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... the arm of Don Juan which I had been holding, and with a sickening feeling at my heart followed Inspector Bull. He led me towards the object lying on the old moss-grown tomb, and I could not summon the words to ask him who it was. There was a strong presentiment in my mind that I should look upon the dead face of the old lady at whose wish I had ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... a velvety green sod, overshadowed by waving magnolias. Through the trees bright-plumaged birds were flitting from branch to branch in songless flight, flashing their brilliant colours through the sunny leaves. In places the water splashed over moss-grown rocks into deep pools. Every drifting spray of cloud threw over the dell a new light, deepening the ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... sighing of the pines the little girl hurried on. Perhaps, just because of them, she hurried all the faster, for she felt quite sure that she was nearing the place to which she had been directed. And in a few moments she saw just before her the gray moss-grown rocks piled one above another which the wise old woman of Hollowbush had described, and heard far below the rushing and tumbling ...
— Harper's Young People, January 13, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... whispered to her that a picnic without her would be a desolation and he had half a mind to stop another week at his aunt's—but Gertrude was not enjoying herself. From behind the gorse bushes, from between the moss-grown boulders, from beneath the dark foliage of the Scotch firs, there peeped at her ...
— The Girls of St. Olave's • Mabel Mackintosh
... covered him, rubbing his whiskers again, looking back over his trail as if he heard footsteps behind him. Then another nervous dash, a squeak which proclaims at once his escape, and his arrival, and he vanishes under the old moss-grown log where his fellows live, a whole colony ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... wintry leaves which still strewed the earth thickly, hither and thither in legions; breaking boughs that had weathered the winter hurricanes, and scattering the tender blossoms of the snowdrops and the earliest crocuses in all the little moss-grown garden ways. ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... high: towards the road the building was a little more elevated, for a dormer-window gave it the dignity of a story and a half. Not only the roof, but the walls—we have classical authority for wooden walls—were covered with rounded shingles, long since grey, and in spots, moss-grown. Twice the cottage had escaped a more brilliant exterior; upon one occasion it had been inhabited by an ambitious family, who talked of a coat of red paint; fortunately, they moved away, before concluding a bargain with the painter. Again, when the Hubbards took possession ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... haven't had a swim since the flood," I thought to myself, as I went on, leaped over the rough, moss-grown fence, and was soon after making my way along past the edge of the sugar-cane plantation, where the weeds were growing like mad, and then through the great, tall-leaved rows of tobacco in the new clearing, where the stumps of the trees so laboriously ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... moment, that we are standing upon a ledge of moss-grown rocks, projecting from a red hill-side, and whose verge beetles over a foaming river, which swirls and rages amongst the uplifting crags, flashing with diamonds in its rush and impetuosity, and then, placid and almost waveless, creeping on ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... himself with the newspapers; he had his press-agents; he took good care that his name shouldn't be forgotten. But apart from that? Alas, a few novels in the style of the seventies, a popular and amateurish criticism of such a moss-grown dogma as the Atonement! What did it amount to when one looked at it critically? But the fact that he had the press behind him made his words carry weight. Yes, he was certainly a shrewd and thrifty soul, a real backwoods ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... been renovating my father's large workroom. That delightful, tumble-down old place has lost its moss-grown tiles and the green weather-stains we have known all our lives on the high whitewashed wall, opposite which we sit, in the little sculptor's yard, for the coolness, in summertime. Among old Watteau's workpeople ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... soon mounting the zigzags through the splendid pine woods, and enjoyed the delicious glimpses down the deep moss-grown glades, with the scent of the rising sap in our nostrils. The glimpses on the mountains up and down the road were very felicitous also. On emerging from the forest the road was rather narrow for the carriage for several yards, the snow ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough
... a time. All the room doors were open as he had left them, and somehow those open doors frightened him more than anything else. He ran along the corridors, down more stairs, past more open doors and out through the back kitchen, along the moss-grown walk by the brick wall and so round by the three yew trees and the mounting block to the stable-yard. And there was no one there. Neither coachman nor groom nor stable-boys. And there was no one in the stables, or the coach-house, or ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit
... brick walk leading from the front gate to the sitting-room entrance—red brick, all moss-grown, and with the tiny weeds and grasses pushing up between the bricks. In the garden proper the paths were of earth, bordered and well-defined by inch-wide boards that provided jolly tight-rope practice until grandmother came anxiously ...
— The Long Ago • Jacob William Wright
... successive terraces and broad flights of steps to an artificial octagonal pool, formed by carefully destroying the whole natural beauty of the wild and rocky little English glen beneath. To feed it by fitting a conduit, the moss-grown boulders that strew the 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 ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... Man.—See the moss-grown daisied bank Peering in the stream below; Here we'll sit in dewy dank, Turn thee, Alice: ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... very heart of the forest, where the shadows lay black and deep. Around us on every side the huge and aged trees, stretching in long lines of receding obscurity, stood like a phantom army of giants guarding some dreadful secret of the past. Twisted, distorted, and bent, with hairy, moss-grown trunks from which the decaying bark peeled like the mouldering cement on some old and forgotten ruin, the kings of the forest stood silent and grim, their branches stretched out in grisly menace—giant arms that threatened death ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... perhaps exalted moral sense, was no sooner made than I found myself peeping to right and to left in my double mirror, not without a lively sense of curiosity. At first I saw—what Flemming, indeed, was wont to see when he consulted the Fountain of Oblivion—only streets and moss-grown walls and trembling spires, like those of the great City of the Past, and children playing in the gardens like reverberations from one's lost youth. Soon a nearer image approached. From a troop of blond ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... leading the melancholy little procession. He stumbled, clutched at a tree-trunk, missed his clutch, and disappeared, with a yell and a clatter; and Mabel, who came next, only pulled herself up just in time not to fall down a steep flight of moss-grown steps that seemed to open suddenly in ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... poor, wasted, decrepit revenue of the principality should die a natural than a violent death. In truth, Sir, the attempt was no less an affront upon the understanding of that respectable people than it was an attack on their property. They chose rather that their ancient, moss-grown castles should moulder into decay, under the silent touches of time, and the slow formality of an oblivious and drowsy exchequer, than that they should be battered down all at once by the lively efforts ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... oftentimes breaks forth In strange eruptions; oft the teeming Earth Is with a kind of cholic pinch'd and vex'd By the imprisoning of unruly wind Within her womb; which, for enlargement striving, Shakes the old beldame Earth, and topples down Steeples and moss-grown towers. At your birth, Our grandam Earth, having this distemperature, In passion shook." 1 King Henry ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... does strike one as delightfully fresh, when we consider Donatello's position and external environment. Why, my dear Hilda, he is a Tuscan born, of an old noble race in that part of Italy; and he has a moss-grown tower among the Apennines, where he and his forefathers have dwelt, under their own vines and fig-trees, from an unknown antiquity. His boyish passion for Miriam has introduced him familiarly to our little circle; and our republican and artistic simplicity of intercourse ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... runs, more or less, On the sinuous line of a letter S, Twining its little houses through The twists of the street, as our hamlets do, For no good reason, so far as I know, Save that chance has arranged it so. It's a quaint old ramshackle moss-grown place, Keeping its staid accustomed pace; Not moved at all by the rush and flurry, The mad tempestuous windy hurry Of the big world tossing in rage and riot, While the village holds to ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... by a moss-grown spring: They leaned soft cheeks together there, Mingled the dark and sunny hair, And heard the wooing thrashes sing. O budding time! O love's ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... sullen walls of old Cartagena, the morning beams began to glow in roseate hues on the red-tiled roofs of this ancient metropolis of New Granada, and glance in shafts of fire from her glittering domes and towers. Swiftly they climbed the moss-grown sides of church and convent, and glided over the dull white walls of prison and monastery alike. Pouring through half-turned shutters, they plashed upon floors in floods of gold. Tapping noiselessly on closed portals, they seemed to bid tardy sleepers ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... gnarled trees of the primeval forest, stands the old chateau of my ancestors. For centuries its lofty battlements have frowned down upon the wild and rugged countryside about, serving as a home and stronghold for the proud house whose honoured line is older even than the moss-grown castle walls. These ancient turrets, stained by the storms of generations and crumbling under the slow yet mighty pressure of time, formed in the ages of feudalism one of the most dreaded and formidable fortresses in all France. From its machicolated parapets and mounted battlements ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... dividing rail fence, and came, at the end of a minute's hurried walk, to the old Blake graveyard, midway of one of Fletcher's fallow fields. The gate was bricked up, after the superstitious custom of many country burial places, but he climbed the old moss-grown wall, where poisonous ivy grew rank and venomous, and landing deep in the periwinkle that carpeted the ground, made his way rapidly to the flat oblong slab beneath which his father lay. The marble was discoloured by long ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... stop short with mere impressions and presumptuous hopes. I feel that a great truth is coming. Sometimes it seems as if we should have it among us in a day. Many steps of the Temple have been ascended, steps of purest alabaster, and of shining jasper, also of rough-brick, and slippery moss-grown stone. We shall reach what we long for, since we trust and do not fear, for our God knows not fear, only reverence, and his plan is ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... land where fairy tales die hard, it is sometimes no easy task to discriminate between what is solid historical fact, what is fact, moss-grown and flower-covered, like an old, old tomb, and what is mere fantasy, the innocent fancy of a nation in its childhood, turned at last into stone—a lasting stalactite—from the countless droppings of belief bestowed upon it ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... was a large edifice, constructed of moss-grown stone, but in a modern and airy style of architecture. The engine came to a pause in its vicinity, with the usual ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... their coral feet on the Russ pavement, so thickly moved the drays, and so unremitted was the rush of man and beast. In fact, the one conservative feature eloquent of the past is the churchyard,—the old, moss-grown, sloping gravestones,—landmarks of finished life-journeys, mutely invoking the hurrying crowd through the tall iron railings of Trinity and St. Paul's. It is a striking evidence of a "new country," that a youth from the Far West, on arriving in New York ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... which a great white waterfall gleams like a snow-drift before it leaps into the black pool below, it must be well worth a long journey. I have not seen anything which has pleased me more. There is a fine flight of moss-grown stone steps down to the water, a pretty bridge, two superb stone torii, some handsome stone lanterns, and then a grand flight of steep stone steps up a hill-side dark with cryptomeria leads to a small Shinto shrine. Not far off there is a sacred tree, with the token of love and revenge upon ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... go back to the seat again," he said; "though the ruin is scarcely visible from here," he added, as they reached the spot; "but it is safer. It is the most beautiful ruined castle that you can imagine. It is all covered with ivy, and the stones are moss-grown, and the gray walls show through in places, and in the setting sun they flame with crimson; you've no idea how beautiful it is! I saw it once from the steamboat. It was splendid! Now listen! The last lesson I took, the teacher asked me whether I was in earnest when I said that I wanted to be ...
— Gritli's Children • Johanna Spyri
... the path through the wood and went straight on, not listening to the lad's chatter nor making any myself. The shade was welcome enough; there were pretty places for those that had eyes to see them—waterfalls splashing down from the moss-grown rocks above; little pools, dark and wonderfully blue; here and there a bit of green, which might have been the lawn of a country house. But of dwelling or of people I saw nothing, and to what the boy fancied that he ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... present day Gluck appears to have vanquished Piccini, because occasionally an opera of the former is performed, while Piccini's works are only known to the musical antiquarian. But even the marble temples of Gluck are moss-grown and neglected, and that great man is known to the present day rather as one whose influence profoundly colored and changed the philosophy of opera, than through any immediate acquaintance with his productions. The connoisseurs of the eighteenth century found Piccini's ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... Lord Kelvin's that he suggested the possibility of "seed-bearing meteoric stones moving about through space" inoculating the earth with living organisms; and if he assumes that the whole population of the globe is to be traced back to these "moss-grown fragments from the ruins of another world," it is obvious that he believes in a form of evolution, and one in which a controlling intelligence is not very obvious, at all events not in the initial and all-important stage.) Herschel's was a good sneer. It made me put in the simile ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... rather rotten and insecure one, was obtained, and after some difficulty placed against the wall. It would not, however, reach to the windows, as first intended, therefore Walter mounted upon the slippery, moss-grown tiles of a wing of the house, and after a few moments' exploration discovered a skylight which proved to be over the head of the ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... round in a serpentine course. They climbed over fallen and moss-grown logs; they slushed through shallow water; they crawled on their hands and knees under embankments and rocks, and at last, at Handsome's order, they stepped into a boat of some kind which the latter pushed away from ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter
... on the height above the cannon, where there was a clearing, and where the rocks were moss-grown and bare, the Tyrolese were seen rushing in dense masses from the forest. They were headed by Anthony Wallner and John Panzl. Each of them jumped on a projection of the rocks and raised his rifle. They fired, and two gunners fell ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... trees were like the birds, they scarcely needed ears. And so by the high road of evolution you arrive at man and the enigma of his ear. It is a shrunken and shrivelled remnant, a moss-grown ruin, a derelict ship. It is to a pattern ear what the old shoe which you find in a country lane, shed from the foot of some "unemployed," is to one of Waukenphast's "five-miles-an-hour-easy" boots. We ought to temper our ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... and prominent to his fancy, distinct to his memory, will be the bridge. He will think of Florence as intersected by the Arno, and with the very name of that river reappears the peerless grace of the Ponte Santa Trinita with its moss-grown escutcheons and aerial curves; the Pont Neuf, at Paris, with its soldiers and priests, its boot-blacks and grisettes, the gay streets on one side and the studious quarter on the other, typifies and concentrates for him the associations of the French ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... birds flew with an awful sound through the dark undergrowth. A gloomy wood by night has terrors for the bravest, and it was only the certainty that she was leaving girl-life—chaperons, waltz-tunes, and bitter sneering, for ever—that gave courage to proceed. A bit of moss-grown wall, a singularly shaped holly-bush, a white stone, took fantastic and supernatural appearances, and once she stopped, paralyzed with fear, before the grotesque shadow that a dead tree threw over an unexpected glade. A strange bird rose from the bare branches, ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... woke to the rustling of leaves over her head, and the sound of running water. But, to her surprise, she could find no door—nothing but the moss-grown wall of the cottage. So she crept through an opening in the arbour, and stood in the forest. Then she bathed in a stream that ran merrily through the trees, and felt happier; for having once been in her grandmother's pond, she must be clean and ...
— The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories • George MacDonald
... Up the moss-grown path, where the rose bushes run wild, almost met, came Anna in a spotless white gown, with the flush of her early morning walk in her cheeks, and something of the brightness of it in her eyes. In one hand she carried a long-stalked red rose, dripping ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... was far from being a moss-grown reactionary. Everything was not for the best. Despotic bureaucracy... abuses... corruption... and so on. Capable men were wanted. Enlightened intelligences. Devoted hearts. But absolute power should be preserved—the tool ready for the man—for the great autocrat of ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... ditch, climbed half up the mound, and began to cut away at one of the rods, leaning his left arm on the moss-grown stole. The bark was easily cut through, and he soon made a notch, but then the wood seemed to grow harder, and the chips he got out were very small. The harder the wood, the more determined Bevis became, and he cut and worked away with such force that his chest heaved, his brow ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... bright moon shining full on the white front of the old house revealed not only its highly decorated style, its fluted pillars and doorway, rich and florid carving, and balustraded summit, but also its stained and moss-grown front. Two giant trees, overthrown at last by the recent storm, lay with their upturned roots, and their yellow foliage still flickering on the sprays that were to bloom no more, where they had fallen, at the right side of the court-yard, which, like the avenue, was studded with tufted ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... around which the trees nestle for shelter from the winter storms—the ruined castles with empty "magic casements, opening on the foam of perilous seas, in fairy lands forlorn"—own it still for their pleasure, moss-grown with history as vivid as the lichens on its rocks ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... southern part, from the Varzuga to Kandalax, the Kandalax Coast; whilst the whole of the interior bears the name of Russian Lapland. The surface of the Peninsula is either mountainous, or covered with tundras (i. e., moss-grown wilds), and swamps. The Scandinavian mountain range, which divides Sweden from Norway, extending to the Kola Peninsula, breaks up into several separate branches. Along the shores of the Murman they form craggy coast cliffs, rising at times to an elevation of 500 feet. Further to the east ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... Varney felt so sure of their game, when they saw whither he was speeding, that they relaxed in their haste considerably, calling loudly to each other that the vampire was caught at last, for he could be easily surrounded among the old ruins, and dragged from amongst its moss-grown walls. ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... set, and the sky above showed the crimson of the distant afterglow, warning us that it was time we began to think of how to make our exit. We were passing around a sharp bend in the glen where the boulders were so thickly moss-grown that our feet fell noiselessly, when I thought I heard a voice, and raising my hand we ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... like the folds of a white garment in the twilight. Then more distinct and permanent shapes arose;—shapes familiar to his mind, yet forgotten and remembered again, as the fragmentsof a dream; till at length, far, far below him he beheld the great city of the Past, with silent marble streets, and moss-grown walls, and spires uprising with a wave-like, flickering motion. And amid the crowd that thronged those streets, he beheld faces once familiar and dear to him; and heard sorrowful, sweet voices, singing; 'O forget us not! forget us not!' and then the distant, mournful sound ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... master's hand requires, Shakes off the dust, and makes these rocks resound; For fortune placed me in unfertile ground, Far from the joys that with my soul agree, From wit, from learning—far, oh far from thee! 80 Here moss-grown trees expand the smallest leaf, Here half an acre's corn is half a sheaf; Here hills with naked heads the tempest meet, Rocks at their side, and torrents at their feet, Or lazy lakes, unconscious of a flood, Whose dull brown Naiads ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... right under an archway from the damp, moss-grown court over which the tower throws a perpetual shadow, a broad staircase, closed by a door of open ironwork, leads to the first story (the piano nobile). Here an anteroom, with Etruscan urns and fragments of mediaeval sculpture let into the walls, gives access to a great ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... of revolution were widely in the air. The people were rising against the tyranny of the kings. First in this struggle for liberty came the English colonies in America. Then the people of France sprang to arms and overthrew the moss-grown tyranny of feudal times. The armies of Napoleon spread the demand for freedom through Europe. In Spain the people began to fight for their freedom, and soon the thirst for liberty crossed the ocean to America, where the people of the Spanish colonies had ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... pile of these on the margin of the creek, and apply his torch to them, took but a moment; and in an instant a bright, white flame flashed and lit up the little sheltered alcove. Another, and the almost overcome girl was placed on a seat of soft, dry shavings, against the moss-grown rock, under the rude roof, out of the reach of the snow or wind; and another fire was lit of the dry shingle blocks, at her feet, from which her saturated shoes were removed, and to which ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... Climbing the moss-grown stone, he descended into a dark ravine to the spring. The sun was set by this time, and the sombre shades of twilight began to spread over the scene. His eager eyes pierced the gathering gloom and discovered that the food left had ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... incoherent language. The people of the village began to whisper that he was going mad. At Milton Park they heard of it, and Artis and Henderson hurried to Helpstone to look after their friend. They found him sitting on a moss-grown stone, at the end of the village nearest the heath. Gently they took him by the arm, and, leading him back to the hut, told Mrs. Clare that it would be best to start at once to Northborough, the Earl being dissatisfied that the removal had not taken place. Patty's little ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... old house, grotesquely guarded by the stately skeleton of a moss-grown oak, is thus bereft, by the river in front and the public road at its back, of all but the bare fact ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... table! She is very intimate with one or two antediluvian diplomatists and warriors, who are here striving to bolster themselves up for another year with the waters, and may be heard crowing out lamentations over her fatal passion for play, interspersed with bits of moss-grown scandal, disinterred from the social ruins of an age long past: Radetzky, Wratislaw (le beau sabreur), the two Schwarzenbergs (he of Leipsic, and the former Prime Minister), Paul Eszterhazy, Wrangel, and Blucher were friends of her youth; judging ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... graves complaisantly thinking that they had had the last word in the quarrel, little suspecting how great was their obligation to Mr. Adams for having granted them that privilege. One would think (p. 219) that they might have writhed beneath their moss-grown headstones on the day when his last word at length found public utterance, albeit that the controversy had then become one of the dusty tales ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... knew that the chances were that he would tear the rotten moss-grown stubb up by the roots; if he swung about too much the branches would give way at their intersection with the low stem; if he should force his feet into the crumbling sides he would only kick down more stones and soil, and undermine the ...
— Son Philip • George Manville Fenn
... he traversed the forest paths. Through dell and brake; through endless twilight maze of black tree-trunks; over moss-grown patches, and roots and stumps reeking with the growth of rank fungus. But his eyes never lost the indications of his quarry, and at intervals he paused listening for some sound which should tell ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... golden scarf; Or when the cowled and dusky-sandaled Eve, In mourning weeds, from out the western gate, Departs with silent pace! That spirit moves In the green valley, where the silver brook, From its full laver, pours the white cascade; And, babbling low amid the tangled woods, Slips down through moss-grown stones with endless laughter. And frequent, on the everlasting hills, Its feet go forth, when it doth wrap itself In all the dark embroidery of the storm, And shouts the stern, strong wind. And here, amid The silent majesty of these deep ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... ploughing through stretches of soft, sandy soil. Above and on either side, the great trees interlaced their branches, sometimes letting them droop till they brushed against Hilda's cheek, sometimes lifting them to give her a glimpse of cool vistas of dusky green, shade within shade,—moss-grown hollows, where the St. John's-wort showed its tarnished gold, and white Indian pipe gleamed like silver along the ground; or stony beds over which, in the time of the spring rains, little brown brooks ran foaming and bubbling down ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... her. Her hands were tied by her mother's policy, and she sat moping and chafing like a chained captive, waiting till Mr. Van Dam should come and deliver her from as vile durance as was ever suffered in the moss-grown castles of the old world. The hope of his coming was all that sustained her. Her sad situation was the result of acting on a false view of life from beginning to end. Any true parent would have shuddered at the thought of a daughter marrying such a man as Van Dam, but ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... of incidents, I began to rub my eyes and ask myself whether this was young Louis de Laval, late of Ashford, in Kent, or whether it was some dream of the adventures of a hero of Pigault Lebrun. These massive moss-grown arches and mighty iron-clamped doors were, indeed, like the dim shadowy background of a vision; but the guttering taper, my sodden bundle, and all the sordid details of my disarranged toilet assured me only too clearly ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... at last and nothing remained but the narrow channel of the brook itself, the smooth stones making a precarious and uncertain footing for the adventurous explorer. How soothing was the ceaseless plash of that little stream, fretting its moss-grown banks and dashing in miniature surge against the stones in its path! What infinite peace reigned in this place, around which the brotherhood of mountains had gathered, to hold it inviolate against all comers! The great rocks were moss-covered, the steep ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... corners, and through the clear glass panes of the numerous windows looking into it were visible the folds of the rich curtains in the chambers that were formerly the favourite haunt of owls and bats. They went on down into the garden, by a noble flight of broad stone steps, no longer tottering and moss-grown, and turned first to seek the wild eglantine which had offered its delicate little rose to the young actress, on the memorable morning when the baron had decided to go forth from his ruined castle for love of her. It had another dainty blossom ready for her now, which Isabelle ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... black mountain peaks. The keen March wind is sweeping harsh and dry across a dreary sheet of bog, still red and yellow with the stains of winter frost. One brown knoll alone breaks the waste, and on it a few leafless wind-clipt oaks stretch their moss-grown arms, like giant hairy spiders, above a desolate pool which crisps and shivers in the biting breeze, while from beside its brink rises a mournful cry, and sweeps down, faint and fitful, amid ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... sound of the rippling waters stirred by the gondolier's oar, of guitar and serenade, and within sight of the marble palaces, her thoughts flew back to the dark and dirty streets, the dilapidated houses, the wretched moss-grown roofs, the shrill concerts of the cocks, cats, and children of the little French provincial town. She dreamt also of the lovely meadows, the scented hay, the little running streams, and the floral researches she had been fond of. This tenacity of her instincts was a safeguard she may have ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... natives, who live only upon the sea-coast. The inland part of the island is one immense mountain, or pile of mountains, amongst which, those who dare approach near enough, may, we are assured, discern the moss-grown and antiquated towers and pinnacles of a stately, but ruinous castle, the habitation of the sovereign of the island, in which she has been, enchanted for a ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... length, the eye is satisfied with gazing on the prospect in its entirety, one after another, the moss-grown fortresses and other hoary relics of ancient Erse architecture claim our reverent attention; for the Hebridean chieftains, an amphibious race, almost invariably chose the extreme verge of ocean-precipice for the site of their fortresses, thus securing facilities ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... of the two were disturbed by the shadow of a figure which passed into the moonlight and seemed to rise from the side of the gorge. A man enveloped in a dark cloak with a peaked hood stepped across the moss-grown garden parapet, stood a moment irresolute, then the cloak dropped suddenly from him, and the Cavalier stood in the moonlight before Agnes. He bore in his hand a tall stalk of white lily, with open blossoms and buds and tender ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... the broad country, the ranges of rounded hills, the silent plain under the dull dome of the sky. Three hundred paces away the Gave rolls between marshaled banks, which it has covered with sand; in the midst of the waters may be seen the moss-grown piles of a ruined bridge. One is at ease here, and yet at the bottom of the heart a vague unrest is felt; the soul is softened and loses itself in melancholy and tender revery. Suddenly the clock strikes, and one is forced to go ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... through splendid forests, specially of fine chestnuts and hemlocks. This big timber continues till within a mile and a half of the summit by the winding road, really within a short distance of the top. Then there is a narrow belt of scrubby hardwood, moss-grown, and then large balsams, which crown the mountain. As soon as we came out upon the southern slope we found great open spaces, covered with succulent grass, and giving excellent pasturage to cattle. These rich mountain meadows are found on all the heights of this region. The surface of Roan ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... of South America, or the still more conjectural throw of a line of woven roots, would meet the travelers wherever the cleft was so wide as to render timbering an inconvenient trouble. Occasionally, on one of these damp and moss-grown ladders, a peon's foot would slip, and down he would go, the load strapped on his back catching him as he was passing through the aperture: then, using his hands to hold on by, he would compose, on the spur of the moment, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... wandered my thoughts: to the moss-grown beech in which I cut my name and that of a little girl with yellow curls, of blessed memory, with the first jack-knife I ever owned; to the story-book with the little fir tree that pined because it was small, and because ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... to a small moss-grown cairn, probably the resting-place of some Celtic chief of other times, and the call of "Officers to the front," soon ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... of dead leaves ran here and there through the woods, but he took none of these, keeping straight on toward the northwest until a high, moss-grown wall checked ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... grey-white mist in the forest makes it like a dream of Fairyland, each moss-grown tree stem heavily gemmed with dewdrops. At 5.30 I stir the boys, for Sasu, the sergeant, says he must go back to his military duties. The men think we are all going back with him as he is our only guide, but I send three ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... voice, can Beauty's eye, Can Painting's glowing hand supply A charm so suited to my mind, As blows this hollow gust of wind? As drops this little weeping rill, Soft tinkling down the moss-grown hill; While, through the west, where sinks the crimson day, Meek Twilight slowly sails, and waves ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... halt was in a moss-grown summer-house at the end of the garden, where she ventured to sit down to put on her stout leather shoes. The children's toys, a ball and a set of ninepins lay on the floor! How many ages ago was it that she had made that sarcastic reply ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... dusky yellow leaves of white-pines,—the cast-off garments of last year; part of the way with green grass, close-cropped and very fresh for the season. Sometimes the trees met across it; sometimes it was bordered on one side by an old rail-fence of moss-grown cedar, with bushes sprouting beneath it, and thrusting their branches through it; sometimes by a stone wall of unknown antiquity, older than the wood it closed in. A stone wall, when shrubbery has grown around it, and thrust its roots beneath it, becomes ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... six feet in height, in the center of which was a gate opening on the water. Behind the gate was a small boat dock. Maurice plied the oars vigorously. He skirted the royal gardens, and the smell of newly mown lawns filled the air. Soon he was gliding along the sides of the moss-grown walls. A bird chirped in the overhanging boughs. He was about to cast loose the oars again, when the boat was brought to a violent stop. A few yards waterward from the gate there lay, hidden in the shadowed water, a sunken ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... thy blue lips, Northern lake! Moss-grown rocks, your silence break! Tell the tale, thou ancient tree! Thou, too, slide-worn Ossipee! Speak, and tell us how and when Lived and died this king ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... and afraid, and we help them down the dark winding turret staircase again, and go into the enclosed parts of the ruin. Here is where the monks lived. The walls still stand, and parts of the roof. The windows are thickly ivy-hung and moss-grown. Here is the room where the monks did whilom dine. For three hundred years this dining-room was in daily use, and in the spot where erst the dining-table stood now grows a stalwart tree, whose branches tower and spread beyond the crumbling walls. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... the birds loved the clear old tree! Summer after summer did they return to build nests among its moss-grown branches; and the branches, glad that the songsters had come back again, would put forth green leaves to hide them from prying eyes, so that they could rest there securely. Can you wonder, then, that they sang sweet songs of gratitude to it, and ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer
... itself over a rocky declivity, mingling, in the genial season of the year, a noble bass with the songs of birds and the sighing of the wind, and adding to and deepening in the rougher months, the roar of the tempest. A small stream diverted from the river, turned the wheel of a moss-grown grist-mill, which was nestled under large willows at the foot of the rocks, and conveyed the idea of the presence of man, without detracting from the wild beauty ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... see?" asked Billie, seating herself on a moss-grown log. "What was this evil thing, ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... the intervals of these roofs, of these spires, of these accidents of numberless edifices, which bent and writhed, and jagged in so eccentric a manner the extreme line of the University, one caught a glimpse, here and there, of a great expanse of moss-grown wall, a thick, round tower, a crenellated city gate, shadowing forth the fortress; it was the wall of Philip Augustus. Beyond, the fields gleamed green; beyond, fled the roads, along which were scattered a few more suburban ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... two roofless and moss-grown cottages, I entered the narrow and rambling street which leads through the town. This street a short distance down widens a little, as if to afford the wayfarer space to observe a remarkable old house that stands on the northern side. The house was built of stone, and in a ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... into the valley; smoke rose from the cottages. The ladies-mantle, on whose fluted cups bright pearls trembled; the silver-weed, with its yellow flowers and silver glittering leaves, shone in the morning sun beside the footpath, which wound along the moss-grown feet of the backs of the mountains. It conducted to a spring of the clearest water, which after it had filled its basin, allowed its playful vein to run murmuring ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer
... her grave should be Upon the bare top of a sunny hill, Among the moorlands of her own fair land, Amid a ring of old and moss-grown stones In gorse and heather all embosomed. There should be no tall stone, no marble tomb Above her gentle corse;—the ponderous pile Would press too rudely on those fairy limbs. The turf should lightly ...
— Andromeda and Other Poems • Charles Kingsley
... then. She opened the gate, and by a narrow, moss-grown path through the bushes, came to the door. All was still. It was impossible to suppose ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... Gernsbach and Eberstein there once stood an ancient, moss-grown cell. It had been occupied by a beautiful pagan priestess, a devotee of Herthe, but when the preaching of the white monks had begun to spread Christianity among the people she left the neighbourhood. In passing by that way a Christian ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... cheeks,—"You will comfort me, my little son. You will take care of your mother and of baby Madge." And he remembered the cottage in the country where they had lived, the porch where the rose-tree grew, the orchard and the moss-grown well, the tall white lilies in the garden that stood like fairies guarding the house, and the pear-tree that was laden ...
— The Boy Artist. - A Tale for the Young • F.M. S.
... storms the moss-grown walls of eld And beats some falsehood down Shall pass the pallid gates of death Sans ...
— Dreams and Dust • Don Marquis
... saw the turrets of Front-de-Boeuf's castle raise their gray and moss-grown battlements, glimmering in the morning sun, above the woods by which they were surrounded than he instantly augured more truly concerning ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... within his chambers, who might have suffered in his suffering. Nor do I wish to root up your ancient family. If I prize not your boast of family honours and pedigree, I would not willingly destroy them; more than I would pull down a moss-grown tower, or hew to the ground an ancient oak, save for the straightening of the common path, and advantage of the public. I have, therefore, no resentment against the humbled House of Peveril—nay, I have regard to it ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... in the little Surrey churchyard, now gray and moss-grown with the rains of forty years, on which you remember reading: "Charles Knollys—lost in Carinthia"——This was all she would have inscribed; he was but lost; no one knew that he was dead. Was he not yet to be found? There was no grassy mound ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
... plunge toward the bulrush island, which was nearer than the main-land, and looked firmer than any tussock around him. But he failed to reach this haven of rest, and was forced to stop at an old stump which stuck up, looking very like the moss-grown horns of the "dear departed." Roosting here, Sam began to shout for aid in every key possible to the human voice. Such hoots and howls, whistles and roars, never woke the echoes of the lonely marsh before, or scared the portly frog who resided there ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... reminded, she smiled down into the eyes of the dog and caressed it, pressing its head closer against her bosom. The man stood a few paces away, watching these two beautiful creatures as they sat in the hazy autumn sunlight, with their background of weeds and moss-grown paling. He felt baffled and perplexed, for he knew that he stood apart, excluded from their companionship by something he could not define. So intolerable did this feeling become that he resolved to break through ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... the sun was low, and a purple bluish smoke hung like a thin veil over the tops of the forest, Brita had taken out her knitting and seated herself on a large moss-grown stone, on the croft. Her eyes wandered over the broad valley which was stretched out below, and she could see the red roofs of the Blakstad mansion peeping forth between the fir-trees. And she wondered what they ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... Robinson Crusoe solitude, old Davenport always shut up his log castle early, and retired to rest as soon as daylight departed; for it did so very early in the evening there, as the solemn pines, with their gray trunks and far-spreading moss-grown arms and dismal evergreen foliage, if it can be called foliage, stood close to his dwelling—nay, brushed with the breath of the ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... and cease thy flowing, O thou Bloodstream, rush no longer, Nor upon my head spirt further, Nor upon my breast down-trickle. Like a wall, O Blood, arrest thee, Like a fence, O Bloodstream, stand thou, As a flag in lakelet standing, Like a reed in moss-grown country, 350 Like the bank that bounds the cornfield, Like ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... days, pictures the northern lagoon, some six miles from Venice, as "a revel of pastoral greenness, with briery hedges, numberless wild flowers and the most captivating of sinuous creeks, overarched by an occasional bridge, so old that you greet with respect every moss-grown inch of its drowsy and sagging brickwork. The cathedral, the ineludible cathedral of all Italian settlements, is reached after a short ramble, and you enter it with mingled awe and amusement," he continues. "Some of its mosaics, representing martyrs being devoured by ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... road to a little weather-beaten church a mile or so distant. It was set well back from the highway in the shadow of tall pines, and looked lonely and uncared-for. In the churchyard were a few scattered tombstones, moss-grown, and very much awry. The graves were unkempt and sunken, and weeds and poison ivy struggled for the mastery. The day was bitterly cold, with an occasional flurry of snow; but, in spite of that, an immense crowd had gathered. The church and churchyard were filled to overflowing. ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... see nothing but the brambles. Examining the place more minutely, he found the bushes curiously divided in the centre. Feeling beneath them, his hand came in contact with cold iron. It was a ring, attached to a circular piece of wood, rusty and moss-grown, so that in appearance there was little to distinguish it from the undergrowth. He found ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... monuments about the church, some lying flat on the ground, others elevated on low pillars, or on cross slabs of stone, and almost all looking dark, moss-grown, and very antique. But on reading some of the inscriptions, I was surprised to find them very recent; for, in fact, twenty years of this climate suffices to give as much or more antiquity of aspect, whether to gravestone ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne |
