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Soil   Listen
verb
Soil  v. t.  
1.
To make dirty or unclean on the surface; to foul; to dirty; to defile; as, to soil a garment with dust. "Our wonted ornaments now soiled and stained."
2.
To stain or mar, as with infamy or disgrace; to tarnish; to sully.
Synonyms: To foul; dirt; dirty; begrime; bemire; bespatter; besmear; daub; bedaub; stain; tarnish; sully; defile; pollute.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Soil" Quotes from Famous Books



... "if you do not recommend the wine, Heaven forbid that we should constrain our guests! My lord duke," turning to one of the Frenchmen, "yours is the true soil of Bacchus. What think you of this cask from Burgundy? ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... man strike me I shall knock him down, if he strike someone else even, in whom I am interested, he must fight his own battles, and let me look after my own interests. So, with England; I don't want to see the sons of the soil turned out to fight like dogs, when there is no occasion for it, by so doing, allowing the commercial and agricultural interests of the country go to ruin, and saddle us with an enormous debt. No! a thousand ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny

... began to take on the color of romantic attraction which had not been apparent to him before. In his way, every flockmaster was a hero, inflexible against the unreckoned forces which rose continually to discourage him. This was true, as he long had realized, of a man who plants in the soil, risking the large part of his capital of labor year by year. But the sheepman's risks were greater, his courage immensely superior, to that of the tiller of the soil. One storm might take his flock down to the last head, leaving him nothing ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden

... Such is the plainest dictate of the instinct of self-preservation. It is also the plainest dictate of justice. Germany must be paid that she has deserved. When the triumphant Allies shall have made good their footing on her soil, they will not indeed rival her exploits or violating women and butchering children, of murdering prisoners and wounded, of slaying unoffending and peaceful peasants, of destroying shrines of religion and learning. But they ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various

... sentences is that no one ever knows the reason why or wherefore, and that the lot may fall on the innocent as well as the guilty. M. M. was delighted with the event, and I was more pleased than she, for I should have been sorry to have been obliged to soil my hands with the ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... the country became far more dreary: it appeared nothing but a dry and sterile region, the soil being remarkably hard and slatey. Here we saw many curious figures, and we soon found that the inhabitants of this desert were mere ciphers. Sometimes they appeared in vast numbers, but only to ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various

... indeed from N.W. to S.E., but narrow and arid; indeed I saw in it only thirteen inhabited spots, counting two caravanserais. Water for the inhabitants is brought from a great distance by subterraneous conduits, a practice which may have tended to desiccate the soil, for every trace of wood ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... remarked, in passing, that though this Poet is evidently bent on making his exhibition a thorough one, though he is determined not to leave out anything of importance in his diagrams, he does not appear inclined to soil his fingers by meddling with the lower orders, or to countenance any innovation in his art in that respect. Whenever he has occasion to introduce persons of this class into his pieces, they come in and go out, and perform their part in his scene, very much as they do elsewhere ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... to glory arise, The queen of the world, and child of the skies! Thy genius commands thee; with rapture behold, While ages on ages thy splendors unfold. Thy reign is the last, and the noblest of time, Most fruitful thy soil, most inviting thy clime; Let the crimes of the east ne'er encrimson thy name, Be Freedom, and ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore

... harbor of the Saints, O sweet and pleasant soil: In thee no sorrow may be found. No grief, no care, ...
— The St. Gregory Hymnal and Catholic Choir Book • Various

... visions of the night, Barren and dimly lighted. There was not A tree in sight, save one seared leafless trunk, Like a rude cross; and, scattered here and there, A shrivelled thistle grew: the grass was dead, And the starved soil glared through its scanty tufts In bare and chalky patches, cracked and hot, Chafing my tired feet, that caught upon Its parched surface; for a thirsty sun Had sucked all moisture from the ground it ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various

... Cuba; I believe the make is not offered for public sale. In a general way, Cuban tobacco is not what it was, but there are belts of soil that grow a leaf that can't ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss

... Livingstone, "that proper treatment has always contained in it the essential element of slavery, viz., compulsory unpaid labor." The Boers had effected the expulsion of Mosilikatse, a savage Zulu warrior, and in return for this service they considered themselves sole masters of the soil. While still engaged in the erection of his dwelling-house at Chonuane, Livingstone received notes from the Commandant and Council of the emigrants, requesting an explanation of his intentions, and an intimation that they had resolved to come and deprive Sechele of his fire-arms. About the same time ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie

... heart's singing was as pure and as grave as theirs. Not the careless glee that sees and wants nothing but roses in the way; but the deep love and gladness, both earthly and heavenly, that makes roses grow out of every soil. So she looked, when Mr. Linden first discerned her, venturing from the hall door and searching ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner

... plain people will remember that men do not gather grapes from thorns, nor figs from thistles. There must be something in the soil which produces such men; something in the poverty that compels exertion; something in the "land of the mountain and the flood" that stirs the imagination; something in the history of centuries of struggle for national ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie

... earth shows, by its color differing from the adjacent soil, that it has been turned up not long since? Thousands of Britons, Portuguese, and French are buried there. They met but to contend, yet now lie peaceably together. I have more than ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen

... enfant," replied Du Mesne, dryly. "'Twas perhaps the property of the Iroquois a moon ago. A moon before that time the soil it stands on belonged to the Illini. To-day both house and soil belong to us. See; here stood the village. There are the cornfields, cut and trampled by the Iroquois. Here are the kettles ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough

... maintain a navy," and to call forth the militia to "repel invasions." These high sovereign powers necessarily involve important and responsible public duties, and among them there is none so sacred and so imperative as that of preserving our soil from the invasion of a foreign enemy. The Constitution has therefore left nothing on this point to construction, but expressly requires that "the United States shall protect each of them [the States] against invasion." Now if a military road ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson

... bank of the Derwent River, which runs into Storm Bay. The surroundings are beautiful, and the soil evidently extremely fertile; but woods and fields were almost burnt up on our arrival; a prolonged drought had prevailed, and made an end of all green things. To our eyes it was, however, an unmixed delight to look upon meadows ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen

... sufferings of the saints are of a redeeming virtue; for, by their patient enduring and losing their blood for the word, they recover the truths of God that have been buried in Antichristian rubbish, from that soil and slur that thereby hath for a long time cleaved unto them; wherefore it is said, They overcame him, the beast, 'by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, and they loved not their lives unto the death' (Rev 12:11). They overcame him; that ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... slavery from the refined policy and irresistible bravery of Rome. Even at the end of the sixteenth century, when every Christian nation was cultivating with ardor every civil art of life, that island, lying in a temperate climate, enjoying a fertile soil, accessible in its situation, possessed of innumerable harbors, was still, notwithstanding these advantages, inhabited by a people whose customs and manners approached nearer those of savages than ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume

... think so," returned the other, thoughtfully. "I cannot bring myself to believe that we have been working on unconsecrated soil; but still we do not know. Of course I could baptize him hypothetically, but I should like to know ...
— Wikkey - A Scrap • YAM

... mind and heart. Through the centuries they listened to the deep music of the sea, gazed upon the majesty of the mountains, meditated upon the solitude of the moors, kept vigil over their flocks in the fields, laboriously tilled the rugged soil; and grew solemn, vigorous, magnanimous, and unconquerable; they became ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters

... rode forward side by side. The tones of the low sky, of the ranks of firs and stretches of heather formed a rich, though sombre, harmony of colour. Scents, pungent and singularly exhilarating, were given off by the damp mosses and the peaty moorland soil. The freedom of the forest, the feeling of the noble horse under her, stirred Helen as with the excitement of a mighty hunting, a positively royal sport. While the close presence of the young man riding ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... it in the holy soil Where once the Saviour trod, Since he might not bear the blessed Cross, Nor strike ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester

... tell him that his changed behavior toward his wife must hasten this change. At such times he suddenly became doubly pleasant and jovial with her; but even this joviality bore something of the nature of the sultry soil from ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various

... considerable house; [32] in short, every product of a luxurious civilisation was found there, except the refreshing shade of green trees, which, beyond a few of the commoner kinds, could not be forced to grow on the shifting sandy soil. The great glory of Alexandria, however, was its public library, Founded by Soter (306-285 B.C.), greatly extended by Philadelphus (285-247 B.C.), under whom grammatical studies attained their highest development, ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... all had the face of Herr Mitmann of Stettin. And a hot wave of angry resentment and hatred of these machine-like invaders of a peaceful unprotected countryside pulsed through my veins. Could they dare—here on English soil? My fists clenched under the bed-clothes. If it was true, by heavens, there was work ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson

... of nature has its mystery and its beauty, its logic and its explanation; and the epigraph given me by Fabre himself, which appears on the title-page of this volume, is in no way deceptive. The tiny insects buried in the soil or creeping over leaf or blade have for him been sufficient to evoke the most important, the most fascinating problems, and have revealed a whole world of miracle ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros

... touched with gold. The little group of houses had mellowed with age; their guarded peacefulness was soothing to the eye and the spirit. Along the stretch of the hollow the land was parcelled into meadows and tilth of varied hue. Here was a great patch of warm grey soil, where horses were drawing the harrow; yonder the same work was being done by sleek black oxen. Where there was pasture, its chalky-brown colour told of the nature of the earth which produced it. A vast oblong running ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing

... Soil. For Pot-Plants. On the Preparation of a Hot-Bed. Planting Flower-Seeds. To plant Garden-Seeds. Transplanting. To Re-pot House-Plants. On laying out Yards. Gardens. Flower-Beds. Bulbs and Tuberous Roots. List of Various Kinds of Flowers, in Reference to Color, and Height. Annuals. Climbing ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher

... fountain of Eternal Youth that gushes up through this dreary earthly soil, for the refreshin' of men and wimmen, in which the weary soul can bathe itself, and ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)

... barely-furnished stage in a small theatre; I wrote them, too, for an audience that was tremendously interested in every expression of national character. "The Land" was written to celebrate the redemption of the soil of Ireland—an event made possible by the Land Act of 1903. This event, as it represented the passing of Irish acres from an alien landlordism, was considered to be of national importance. "The Land" also dealt with a movement that ran counter to the rooting ...
— Three Plays • Padraic Colum

... and true as the oak trees that stand In the soil of Old England—in which thou hast grown, There runs the same life which they draw from the land, And the heart of thy country 's the life of ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning

... wonder of resplendent glories moving in a sphere 'as calm as it is bright,' so, in the other, whirling clouds and jets of vapour as in the crater of a volcano. One shuddering glance over the rim of it should suffice to warn from lingering near, lest the unsteady soil should crumble beneath ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... read the jealous breast of the San Reve, in which kindly soil a wildest suspicion was never two hours old before it had grown to the granite dignity of things certain, his criminal hopes might not have soared so high! Had he known how his every step was shadowed by the sleepless Inspector Val, ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... pass through, but was stopped and warmed before being absorbed. A few uneasy turns and movements, with an occasional growl, was the result—nothing more. But when the density of the rain increased, and the crevices in the soil turned into active water-courses, and their hollow became a pool, Victor became, as we have said, half-awake. Presently he awoke completely, sat up, and scratched his head. It was the power of a soft and gentle ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne

... was covered with bramble bushes. It is a good plan to send the dogs into bushes growing on the banks of ponds; for though rabbits dislike water itself they are fond of sitting out in such cover near it. A low railing enclosed the side towards me: the posts had slipped by the giving way of the soil, and hung over ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies

... any of these various classes, to whom the Government will, I dare hope, extend its mercy. I mean persons advanced in age, or in an infirm state of health, and others who have no choice but to cultivate the soil, but have not the means to purchase land and agricultural implements. In short, these observations are merely to show that an immense number of people still exist who may be in every respect useful, honest, industrious, ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore

... inevitable over-production and lessened home consumption come, Eastern markets, though supplied at moderate profit, will be invaluable. We are building the Panama Canal, whose corollary must be a mercantile fleet of our own upon the seas, distributing the products of our soil and manufactories throughout the world, and Secretary of State Root has made it easy for a better understanding and augmented trade with the republics to the south of us. But America's real opportunity is in Asia, where dwell more than half the people of the earth, for the possibilities ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield

... out-of-doors is a sheepskin laid on the bare ground, under a tent so small that he cannot stand upright in it. Now, as the earth was very damp, those who did not take the precaution of choosing a little mound, and removing a portion of the wet soil, soon found themselves literally in the mud, and were obliged to get up, and walk ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 452 - Volume 18, New Series, August 28, 1852 • Various

... no crime that would not be expiated by six months in the Bastile. They ask me if I shall ever return to France? Yes, I reply, when the Bastile becomes a public promenade. You have all that is necessary to happiness, you Frenchmen; a fertile soil and genial climate, good hearts, gay tempers, genius, and grace. You only want, my friends, one little thing—to feel sure of sleeping quietly in your beds when ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere

... a large farm, a goodly portion of which, in process of time, came to be included in the limits of the new city; and he found a much more profitable employment in selling building lots than in tilling the soil. The property of Mr. Jones lay at the west ...
— Lessons in Life, For All Who Will Read Them • T. S. Arthur

... the canteen was empty, he found, when he stopped the car in a whirl of loose sand beside a prone figure whose khaki clothes were almost indistinguishable against the desert soil. ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin

... a vulgar, common, incorrect German of life and death and birth and the soil. I read the French and German of sentimental lovers and Christmas garlands. And I thought that it was I who had the culture!" she worshiped as she ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... attached themselves to the soil and tried to take root there, were essentially an urban population. They owned real estate and devoted themselves to all sorts of industries. They were allowed to be workmen and to practice every handicraft, inasmuch as the guilds, those associations, partly religious ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber

... willing and ready at any and all times to sacrifice his life upon the altar of his own country, but that he is also willing to fight side by side with his white American brother in an effort to plant the tree of liberty upon a foreign soil. Must it now be said, that, in spite of all this, the colored American finds himself without a home, without a country, without friends, and even without ...
— The Facts of Reconstruction • John R. Lynch

... Carmen explained. "Shut it after you, please, because dogs might stray into the garden if you left it open. No cattle graze on that part of the ranch any more. They're going to irrigate there and to plant alfalfa, the soil's likely to be so good. But I've been weak enough to let gipsies camp on the place once or twice, and there might be some there now, with their dogs and horses, for all I know. As you go out of the gate you'll see a kind of track worn in the grass; ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... against such an enemy, they must send, not only an overwhelming naval force, but a numerous body of troops, both cavalry and infantry, and a fleet laden with supplies for many months. They must proceed, in fact, as if they were founding a great city on a hostile soil. On no other condition, added Nicias, would he undertake the command. Nicias had intended, by exaggerating the difficulties of the undertaking, to damp the ardour of the Athenians; but to his utter dismay, these timid counsels were greeted with a ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell

... thought, in happier days, that she might be such a kind lady as this. But the cruel Tryon who had left her—his mother would be some hard, cold, proud woman, who would regard a negro as but little better than a dog, and who would not soil her lips by addressing a colored person upon any other terms than as a servant. She knew, too, that Tryon did not live in Sampson County, though the exact location of his home was not ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt

... tempted to think that they were written at an earlier period, and their Fancies composed to fit them. If they were written now, it is plain that age had not disenabled him from walking with pleasure and power among those sweet, enamelled meadows of poetry in whose soil he now thought great poetry did not grow. And when we read the lyrics, our regret is all the more deep that he chose the thorn-clad and desert lands, where barren argument goes round and round its subjects without ever finding the true ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke

... no. He used to be the flower of the Norwegian youth in my day, and he's rather an exception, even now. He has retrograded, though. The bonds of the soil have tightened on him, ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather

... to which these anecdotes have carried me back. The dark guesses of some zealous Quidnunc met with so congenial a soil in the grave alarm of a titled Dogberry of our neighbourhood, that a spy was actually sent down from the government pour surveillance of myself and friend. There must have been not only abundance, but variety of these "honourable men" at ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... mountain scenery is spread out before you. Here you see many beds of tilted strata, vast rocks standing on their heads as it were. How vast and immeasurable the forces to bring to these hills their present contour! How wonderful still those forces at work crumbling these rocks, forming new soil for myriads of new plants to gladden the place with their beauty. Beauty lingers all around; there is much knowledge never learned from books and you receive from many sources, invitations to pursue and enjoy it. How one gazes ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand

... science found at Hoxne, in Suffolk, about twelve feet below the surface of the soil, worked flints, which had evidently been the natural weapons of a people who had no knowledge of metals. With these flints were found some strange bones with the gigantic jaw of an animal then unknown. Frere adds that the number of ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac

... river and out of Grierson, a place on our own side; and next of the appearance of a large body of troops at Yolo, in the very heart of this great land, where they seem to have played the very devil, taking prisoners by the hundred and marching with arrogant footsteps on the sacred soil of the province of Savannah. General Napoleon, the only commander who has not yet disgraced himself, still fights an uphill battle in the centre, inflicting terrific losses and upholding the honour of his country single-handed. The infamous Osbourne is shaking in his spectacles ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... years old, and later that she was one hundred and fifty. At Reno I saw more Indians with papooses. The thought, however, that this old race is passing away like the fading leaf before the "pale face," is saddening. Soon we arrive in the El Dorado State, we are at last on California soil, and the train with panting engines climbs the dizzy heights of the Sierras, through beautiful forests, along the slopes of hills, through tunnels, beneath long snow sheds. These sheds are a striking feature, and are, with broken intervals, forty miles long. The scenery is remarkable, entirely ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey

... the birchbark trumpet. Now he lay in a heap, his sides heaving convulsively, beside a good-sized rock he had either carried over the edge of the precipice in his fall from above, or which had carried him. At the top of the ravine there was a deep hole in the soil where the ground had given away and hurled him over the edge. But the fall was not the worst of it. Down in the ravine there stood a broken sapling about two feet high, its sharp point standing up like a bayonet. Straight onto ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey

... directions into the wilds. It is a large oval body of water thirty miles in its greatest diameter. The season here, owing to a sharp northern sweep of the isothermal lines, is two or three weeks earlier than at Quebec. The soil is warm and fertile, and there is a thrifty growing settlement here with valuable agricultural produce, but no market nearer than Quebec, two hundred and fifty miles distant by water, with a hard, tedious land journey besides. In winter the settlement can have little or no communication ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs

... his opportunity to punish his enemies. The opportunity came in the nomination of Van Buren by the Liberty Party Convention, which met later in the summer at Syracuse. The Van Buren wing of the New York Democracy approved the Syracuse Convention, and the Free-Soil party began its first and only campaign with the ex-President as its candidate. Van Buren received nearly 300,000 votes in November and prevented Cass from becoming President. He had avenged himself. The South found her alliance with ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd

... VI.-Henry VII. the English throne was twice lost and twice regained by each of the rival Houses of York and Lancaster. Thirteen pitched battles were fought between Englishmen on English soil. Three out of four kings died by violence. Eighty persons connected with the blood royal ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam

... Solon's laws were of questionable utility. He prohibited the exportation of the fruits of the soil in Attica, with the exception of olive-oil alone,—a regulation difficult to be enforced in a mercantile State. Neither would he grant citizenship to immigrants; and he released sons from supporting their parents in old age if the parents ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord

... with our own ears, so perfectly is the action represented in this life-like, this almost magic picture! But have you observed the lady who leans upon the arm of Endicott?—-a rose of beauty from an English garden, now to be transplanted to a fresher soil. It may be that, long years—centuries indeed—after this fair flower shall have decayed, other flowers of the same race will appear in the same soil, and gladden other generations with hereditary beauty. Does not ...
— Main Street - (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... "Soil for nut trees should be tested for acidity, nitrogen, phosphate and potash. It has been determined that most nut trees prefer a pH range of 6.0 to 8.0; but I have frequently found people planting trees on soils of 4.0 and 5.0, where nothing but ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Thirty-Fourth Annual Report 1943 • Various

... and would no doubt have answered the purpose intended had it not been constructed of clayey soil that disintegrated and floated away with the muddy ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field

... popular worship in India. In the second place, the doctrine advocated by /S/a@nkara is, from a purely philosophical point of view and apart from all theological considerations, the most important and interesting one which has arisen on Indian soil; neither those forms of the Vedanta which diverge from the view represented by /S/a@nkara nor any of the non-Vedantic systems can be compared with the so-called orthodox Vedanta in boldness, depth, and subtlety of speculation. In the third place, /S/a@nkara's bhaashya is, as far ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut

... into the sand. The habit of touching life lightly had become second nature with him, and even now he did not seem quite serious. He was, at all events, free from that deadly earnestness which blinds the eye to all save one side of a question. The very soil that he tapped could have risen up to speak in favour of such as he; for William the Silent, it is said, loved a jest, and never seemed to be quite serious during the long years of the greatest struggle the ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman

... was a barren rock. On this the rains fell and gave rise to moss, and the worms, aided by the dung-beetles, made soil by their castings. Then a sword handle (HAUP MALAT) came down from the sun[159] and became a large tree. From the moon came a creeper, which hanging from the tree became mated with it through the action of the wind.[160] From this union were ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall

... untouchable. Besides, mother keeps a bottle of ammonia in the pantry, to qualify her soap and water with, when she comes to things like these. She calls it her kitchen-maid; it does wonders for any little roughness or greasiness; such soil comes off in that, ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... instances of your vileness. You seemed frank, as well as generous: frankness and generosity ever attracted me: whoever kept up those appearances, I judged of their hearts by my own; and whatever qualities I wished to find in them, I was ready to find; and, when found, I believed them to be natives of the soil. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... affair of the low-warp type, and was operated by a Frenchman who came to this country for the purpose of starting the craft on new soil. ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee

... that you have conquered me by force? Why should you care to know what my feelings are? As you say, after Wednesday I shall belong to you—You can strangle me at Milaslv if you wish. My body will be yours, but my soul you shall never soil or touch, you have no part or lot ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn

... not conquest, must have led to the institution of aristocracy. Thucydides observes, that owing to the repose in Attica (the barren soil of which presented no temptation to the conqueror), the more powerful families expelled from the other parts of Greece, betook themselves for security and refuge to Athens. And from some of these foreigners many of the noblest families in the historical time ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... borders of our neighbor republic there is a territory one-quarter as large as the United States, with a coast line of six thousand miles. In Mexico practically every product of the soil of the tropical and temperate zones can be grown to perfection. Here are vast primordial forests, and ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace

... of the operating theatre itself, we did good work here, and got splendid results. For God was good, and the clean soil took pity upon our many deficiencies. Earth, that in France or Gallipoli hid the germs of gangrene and tetanus, here merely produced a mild infection. Lucky for us that we did not need to inject the wounded with tetanus antitoxin. But an added ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey

... cleared off the soil, and came to what appeared to be a coffin or a large chest. Both then got out of the pit to consider how they should remove the chest; the whole party were discussing the matter, when a tremendous crash, succeeded by a terrific yell, was heard at the other end of the church, and ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... Glass, formerly a corporal in the British artillery. He claimed to be supreme governor of the islands, and had under his control twenty-one men and three women. He gave a very favourable account of the salubrity of the climate and of the productiveness of the soil. The population occupied themselves chiefly in collecting sealskins and sea elephant oil, with which they traded to the Cape of Good Hope, Glass owning a small schooner. At the period of our arrival the governor was still a resident, but his little community ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... a lower depth of ignoble instincts, seems to me characteristic and humiliating. I may add that even in the midst of these dissipations I retained a certain reserve. The contacts to which I exposed myself failed to soil me; nothing was left when I had crossed the threshold. I have always retained, from that forcible and indifferent commerce, the habit of attributing no consequence to the action of the flesh. The amorous ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... pronunciation and national idiom, Esperantists of various countries would not be able to understand the Esperanto of a foreigner, was effectually silenced. From the first moment that the English set foot on French soil to the final adieux, no difficulty was experienced, either in speaking or ...
— The Esperantist, Vol. 1, No. 1 • Various

... knew, there; the soil is good and the seed is taking root," she told herself as she turned with a light heart back ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... of her nature. No one can estimate the results on a character of these slow absorptions, these unconscious biases, from daily contact. All precepts, all religions, are insignificant agencies by their side. They are like sun and soil to a plant: they make a moral climate in which certain things are sure to grow, and certain other things are sure to die; as sure as it is that orchids and pineapples thrive in the tropics, and would die ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous

... was more awake. She knew better than Mrs. Raymount the kind of soil in which this human plant had been reared, and saw more danger ahead. She feared the young man was but amusing himself, or at best enjoying Hester's company as some wary winged thing enjoys the flame, courting a ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... hilly tract. The shores of the bay are studded with villas, and exhibit enclosures: some used for agriculture, some for gardens, one for a mosque, with a cemetery around it. It is said they are extremely fertile; the first example we have seen of the exuberance of the African soil. The villas, we are told, belong to the Consular Establishment. We saw our own, who, if at home, put no remembrance upon us. Like the Cambridge Professor and the elephant, "We were a paltry beast," and he would not see ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... window again. The night was very dark and warm, but the stars had disappeared, and there was the hush and the faint odour of coming rain in the air. He smelt leaves and the earth and the moist things of the ground, the wonderful perfume of the life of the soil. ...
— Jimbo - A Fantasy • Algernon Blackwood

... Then Englands ground farewell: sweet soil adieu, My Mother, and my Nurse, which beares me yet: Where ere I wander, boast of this I can, Though banish'd, yet ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... over vast regions now desolate; or trees that will stand firm against the prairie winds, and in the centuries to come turn this bare and boundless earth, this sea-floor of a primeval ocean, which is now Western Canada, into a garden of the Lord. Or from the epic of the soil, he would slip on to the human epic bound up with it—tale after tale of life in the ranching country, and of the emigration now pouring into Alberta—witched out of him by this delicately eager face, these lovely ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... On English Soil Addressing Royalty Other English Titles -And Still Other Titles Addressing Clergy Abroad Lawyers, Statesmen and Officials-How to Address Them At the Court of England What to Wear to Court The King's Levees In France Addressing Titled People ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler

... grounds of the ancient Agmaras, a race of Indians who ages ago it seems were fishermen. The convulsions of the earth threw to the surface hundreds of the dried bodies of the Indians, still wrapped in their coarse garments, the nature of the soil had prevented decay. When the people beheld this they believed the world had come to an end, and they threw themselves on their faces praying ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds

... in time of danger. There is (p.84 of the R. I. A. TRANSACTIONS for 1789) a particular account of a number of these artificial caves at the west end of the church of Killossy, in the county of Kildare. Under a rising ground, in a dry sandy soil, these subterraneous dwellings were found: they have pediment roofs, and they communicate with each other by small apertures. In the Brehon laws these are mentioned, and there are fines inflicted by those laws upon persons who steal from the subterraneous granaries. All ...
— Castle Rackrent • Maria Edgeworth

... a visit to Jarsey, a short time ago, and if ever a man was justified in cussin' the day he ever sot foot onto the classick red shores of New Jarsey, (which soil, by the way, is so greasy that all the red-headed New Jarsey gals use it for hair ile, while for greasin' a pancake griddle it can't be beat,) ...
— Punchinello Vol. 1, No. 21, August 20, 1870 • Various

... attendance. He was requested in the presence of a great concourse of people to dig the first shovelful of earth and to make a brief address. The speech-making was easy; but when the digging was to be done he encountered some unexpected obstacle and the soil did not yield to his repeated efforts. Not to be defeated, however, he stripped off his coat, went to work in earnest with the spade and raised the earth successfully. Naturally such readiness was hailed with loud applause and pleased the great crowd who saw it. ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse

... sexual nature, like all else that is most essential in him, is rooted in a soil that was formed very long before his birth. In this, as in every other respect, he draws the elements of his life from his ancestors, however new the recombination may be and however greatly it may be modified by subsequent conditions. A man's destiny stands not in the future ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... these the first is Mar, mostly between the Dee and Don, which nearly covers the southern half of the county and contains the city of Aberdeen. It is mountainous, especially Braemar (q.v.), which contains the greatest mass of elevated land in the British Isles. The soil on the Dee is sandy, and on the Don loamy. The second district, Formartine, between the lower Don and Ythan, has a sandy coast, which is succeeded inland by a clayey, fertile, tilled tract, and then by low hills, moors, mosses and tilled land. Buchan, the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... radicle of such legislation in our parliamentary system? Well, there are two measures just sprouting in the political soil, which may conceivably grow to something valuable. One is the institution of a Legal Minimum Wage. The other, Old Age Pensions. But there is a better plan than either of these. Some time ago I ...
— Bernard Shaw's Preface to Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw

... the wonderful adventures which ensued, we can only mention that two years after this, the southern extremity of the North American continent was discovered by Sebastian Cabot. It was in the spring of the year and the whole surface of the soil seemed carpeted with the most brilliant flowers. The country consequently received the beautiful name of Florida. It, of course, had no boundaries, for no one knew with certainty whether it were an island or a continent, or how far ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott

... two dogs for cassava bread and corn, but we should then have been worse off than ever. And in the end the dogs saved us by an occasional capture—an armadillo surprised in the open and seized before it could bury itself in the soil, or an iguana, opossum, or labba, traced by means of their keen sense of smell to its hiding-place. Then Nuflo would rejoice and feast, rewarding them with the skin, bones, and entrails. But at length one of the dogs fell lame, and ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson

... between us and two or three allied European naval Powers, and realizing the length of our Atlantic and Gulf coasts, extending from Maine to Panama, a glance at the map shows us that, apart from the home naval bases on our continental coasts, the position on American soil which is the closest to European bases is on the little island of Culebra, which occupies a salient in the northeastern ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske

... in the nomad age wandered, made perhaps annual migrations, and bore heavy burdens, while we ride relatively unencumbered. He tilled the reluctant soil, digging with rude implements where we use machines of many man-power. In the stone, iron, and bronze age, he shaped stone and metals, and wrought with infinite pains and effort, products that we buy without even knowledge of the processes ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall

... we halted for lunch. In the afternoon we continued, between banks on either side of alluvial formation, principally silts and clay, light grey in colour or white. In fact, the soil in the section directly below the higher terrace of the great central plateau of Matto Grosso, was formed by extensive alluvial accumulations which had made an immense terrace extending right across all Central Brazil from west to east, roughly speaking ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... it. It is a philosophy which may well be contrasted with the transcendental theories of one with whom Meredith may otherwise be compared, Emerson. Both, in different ways, have tried to make poetry out of the brain, forgetting that poetry draws nourishment from other soil, and dies in the brain as in a vacuum. Both have taken the abstract, not the concrete, for their province; both have tortured words in the cause of ideas, both have had so much to say that they have had little time left ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons

... on the 15th, through a dreary region of solid rock, bearing an abundant crop of loose stones, without a particle of soil or vegetation visible to the naked eye in any direction. After leaving nearly twenty miles of this horrible wilderness behind us, our weary minds clogged with an imaginary view of nearly as much more of it in our front, we found ourselves, all at once, looking down upon the valley of the Ebro, ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid

... General Lee's military character was his tireless and irresistible energy. While one whom he deemed a foe of his State remained on her soil, he could not rest. From the moment he took command of the Army of Northern Virginia, all was action in that army. During the nine weeks after A.P. Hill struck Mechanicsville that earthquake shock, how did not the war-map change! Richmond was set free; Washington was ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord

... by caravans, was long and perilous, through pathless and inhospitable wilds, where, for leagues, no inhabitant could be seen, and yet where a fertile soil and a genial clime promised, to the hand of industry, all the comforts and luxuries of life. All along this road she planted villages, and, by the most alluring offers, induced settlers to establish themselves on all portions of the route. Large sums of money were expended in ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott

... flourishing than agriculture; Italy at this period was rich in industries—silk, wool, hemp, fur, alum, sulphur, bitumen; those products which the Italian soil could not bring forth were imported, from the Black Sea, from Egypt, from Spain, from France, and often returned whence they came, their worth doubled by labour and fine workmanship. The rich man brought his merchandise, ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... been exchanged for Abbotsford; the new house was being planned and carried out so as to become, if not exactly a palace, something much more than the cottage which had been first talked of; and the owner's passion for buying, at extravagant prices, every neighbouring patch of mostly thankless soil that he could get hold of was growing by indulgence. He himself, in 1811 and the following years, was extremely happy and extremely busy, planting trees, planning rooms, working away at Rokeby and Triermain in the general sitting-room ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury

... and Malim, about to follow me, found that a constable, to whom the soil of the City had given spontaneous birth, was standing at his shoulder. "Wot's the game?" inquired the officer, with ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse

... every European over them, every German merchant, and, above all, every foreigner in the land to which we are going, or with whom we may have to do, understand that the German Michael has firmly planted on this soil his shield bearing the Imperial Eagle, so as to be able, once and for all, to give his protection to all those who may require it of him. May our fellow-countrymen out yonder be firmly convinced that, no matter what their situation, be they priests or merchants, the protection of the ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam

... effaced the title of Attila to the "scourge of God!" Yet, even Attila, in the falling fortunes of civilization, had, no doubt, his advocates, his tools, his minions, his parasites, in the very countries that he overran; sons of that soil whereon his horse had trod; where grass could never after grow. If perfectly fresh, instead of being as I am, my memory clouded, my intellect stupefied, my strength and spirits exhausted, I could not give utterance to that strong detestation which ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various

... "Furies! the sacred soil of Virginia again passing into the hands of the blarsted Hinglish, from whom it was wrested a century ago by the blood and treasure of George Washington's hatchet! A Federal cadet on one side and an Englishman on the other of Blank ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various

... deceits known to mountain streams. Below the Box Canyon it ploughs through a great bed of yielding silt, its own deposit between the two imposing lines of bluffs that resist its wanderings from side to side of the wide valley. This fertile soil makes up the rich lands that are the envy of less fortunate regions in the Great Basin; but the Crawling Stone is not a river to give quiet title to one acre of its own making. The toil of its centuries ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman

... pursued his way: but, a few days after, lost in devout contemplation, or overwhelmed with sorrow, he wandered from his associates in the caravan, and was not sensible of his situation, till involved in one of those whirlwinds, which, raising into the air the sandy soil of that country, generally prove destructive. Falling on his face, the fury of the blast, and the thick cloud of sand passed over him: almost suffocated with dust, notwithstanding the precaution he had taken, separated from the companions ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various

... and sometimes the songs which had been written by the great masters. But mending broken tinware and playing an old violin were not the only things he did to help the world along. As he wandered from place to place he often noticed how rich the soil was, and he would say to himself, "Some day this will be a great country with thousands of people living on this land, and though I shall never see them, they may never read my verses or hear my name, still I can help them, and add some things to ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... this had been changed by a word. His deliberate attempt to soil my reputation among officers of my own corps left me no choice but that of a resort to arms. I have never felt that Brennan was at heart a bad man; he was hard, stern, revengeful, yet I have no doubt under different circumstances ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish

... I had followed was carefully traced. Our tracks were not discernible until the graveyard was nearly reached. There they found the print of our shoes in the wet gravel; and in the loose soil around the newly dug grave. On Annie was found a note from Ackermann appointing a meeting with her on that evening when ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... surprise when they saw the wonderful strangers kneel and kiss the soil, and then uplift a great and gleaming banner, of rich colors and designs that seemed magical to their untaught eyes. And deep was their delight when these strange beings distributed among them wonderful gifts,—glass beads, hawk's bells, and other trifles,—which ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris

... Naturally delicate, Mr. Lavender at once sought a jacket, and, having put it on, resumed his position at the window. He had not watched her more than two minutes before he saw that she was cultivating soil, and, filled with admiration, he leaned ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... Mary had lost Calais, Dunkirk was the only important foothold England had on continental soil; therefore it was almost as dear to the English people as the city of London itself. Because of its importance, it was greatly coveted by the French king, who shortly before the time of our journey to Dover had ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major

... full bearing, and of the final goal to which it is hurrying us. One thing, however, is clear respecting it: that it was not forced in the hot-bed of any possible fanaticism, but that it grew fairly out of the soil, a genuine product of the time and its circumstances. It was, indeed, a new manifestation of the hidden forces and vitalities of what we call Protestantism,—an assertion by the living soul of its right to be heard once more in a world which seemed to ignore its existence, and had ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various

... measurements, two and a half miles long by one mile broad; also that it was uninhabited. The description, written as a marginal note, further stated that there was a spring of fresh water on the island, and that there were palm-trees thereon; that the islet was of sandy soil, and supported no vegetation beyond the few ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... a fact, there appeared evidences of new evangelical life. When the German soldiers recrossed the river which their ancestors had loved to call "Father Rhine," and felt themselves the proud possessors of free soil, not only they, but all their countrymen living in the Protestant principalities, manifested a decided dissatisfaction with that skepticism which had paralyzed them. Moreover, the memory that France had been the chief ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... explained by the change which had taken place in the condition of the English. The small bodies of conquerors which had landed at different parts of the coast had been interested to a man in the defence of the lands which they had seized. Every freeman had been ready to come forward to defend the soil which his tribe had gained. After tribe had been joined to tribe, and still more after kingdom had been joined to kingdom, there were large numbers who ceased to have any interest in resisting the ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner

... is the fruit of original research and thought. The views expressed will doubtless not please everybody, and some may think that I go too far in pleading the cause of the original natives of the soil. Historic justice demands that some one should tell the truth about the Indians, whose chief and almost only fault has been that they occupied lands which the white man wanted. Even now covetous eyes are cast upon the territory reserved for the use ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann

... the first day the colonists encamped about nine miles from Granite House, on the border of a little stream falling into the Mercy, and of the existence of which they had till then been ignorant; it evidently, however, belonged to the hydrographical system to which the soil owed its astonishing fertility. The settlers made a hearty meal, for their appetites were sharpened, and measures were then taken that the night might be passed in safety. If the engineer had had only to deal with wild beasts, jaguars, or others, he would have simply ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)

... circulation through the community, is a most leading article of ill policy; because it is one of the most capital discouragements to all that industry which may be employed on the lasting improvement of the soil, or is any way conversant about land. A tenure of thirty years is evidently no tenure upon which to build, to plant, to raise inclosures, to change the nature of the ground, to make any new experiment which might improve agriculture, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... would gather an armful of dried heather-stems for kindling, and dig out a few roots and crooked limbs of the long-vanished forest from the dry, brown, peaty soil, and make our campfire of prehistoric wood—just for the pleasant, homelike look of the blaze—and sit down beside it to eat our lunch. Heat is the least of the benefits that man gets from fire. It is the sign of cheerfulness and good comradeship. I would not willingly ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke

... growth pressuring the environment; overharvesting of timber, expansion of cattle grazing, and slash-and-burn agriculture have resulted in deforestation and soil exhaustion; civil ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... was an anomaly, and a glaring inconsistency, in any British settlement. The law, as we have seen, had been laid down as absolutely settled, that no man within the precincts of the United Kingdom could be a slave; that, even had such been his previous condition, the moment his foot touched English soil he became a free man. By what process of reasoning, then, could it be contended that his right to liberty according to English law depended on what portion of the British dominion he was in—that what was incompatible with his claims as a human being in Kent ceased ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge

... spade into the black soil in a truly workmanlike manner, utilizing the foundation of the wall as one side of the oblong pit. The coffin was lowered into place by means of tow-strings, provided by thoughtful Mariposa. There was no reason, ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland

... isn't," grinned young Harling. "Some cotton is far and away better than another. Often it has had better care, better weather, or better soil; or maybe it has grown more evenly and therefore has less unripe stuff mixed in with it. Or perhaps it was a finer, more highly cultivated kind in the first place. There are a score of explanations. Anyhow it is better, and because ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett

... desolation of it all, he stood and gazed. No evidence of any plan, of any continuity in building, appeared upon the waste: mere sporadic eruptions of dwellings, mere heaps of brick and mortar dumped at random over the cheerless soil. Above swam the marvellous clarified atmosphere of the sky, like iridescent gauze, showering a thousand harmonies of metallic colors. Like a dome of vitrified glass, it shut down on the illimitable, ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... of the time of purification. In fact, only that part falls away which, in its desires and wishes, turned, after death, toward physical life. The plunging of the ego into the spiritual world, with what it has acquired in the physical world, may be compared to the planting of a grain of seed in the soil in which it can mature. As the grain of seed draws substances and forces from its surroundings in order that it may develop into a new plant, so the condition of the ego, when implanted in the spiritual world, is one of development ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner

... of high elevations on which a rustic enclosure sometimes marked the limits of the consecrated territory; the worship of the waters that flow to the sea, the streams that arise in the mountains, the springs that gush out of the soil, the ponds, the lakes and the wells, into all of which offerings were thrown with the idea either of venerating in them the thirst-quenching liquid or else the fecund nature of the earth; the worship of the trees that shaded the altars and that nobody ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont

... the public roads, on the uncarved blocks of marble in front of the sculptors' studios, in the antechambers or gateways of palaces,—everywhere, cards are played. Every contadino has a pack in his pocket, with the flavor of the soil upon it. The playing is ordinarily for very low sums, often for nothing at all. But there are some games which are purely games of luck, and dangerous. Some of these, as Rossa e Nera, Banco-Fallito, and Zecchinetto, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various

... with sudden animation, "what a splendid country it must be; and what a desirable change for all of us. Thick and leafy woods like those of old Norway, instead of these rugged cliffs and snow-clad hills. Fields of waving grass and rye, instead of moss-covered rocks and sandy soil. Trees large enough to build houses and merchant-ships, instead of willow bushes that are fit for nothing except to save our poor cattle from starvation when the hay crop runs out; besides, longer sunshine in winter and more genial warmth ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne

... this, which is common to every army, and proceed on our journey. The easily pulverized, light, clayey soil around Sandy Hook was raised in huge clouds by the countless wagons and the hoofs of the horses of the squads of cavalry officers, couriers, and wagonmasters. The little tavern was once, the old woman who kept it assured us, surrounded by a pretty fence, and a garden ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... because a continuation of adverse events, which we should call persistent ill-luck if we did not believe in an overruling Providence, blighted and blasted his infant state before it had time to root itself firmly in the soil. None the less, however, does Theodoric deserve credit for having seen what was the need of Europe, and pre-eminently of Italy, and for having done his best to supply that need. The great work in which he failed was accomplished three centuries later by Charles the Frank, ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin

... soldiers of William these were most dreaded by the Irish. For centuries of Saxon domination had not effaced the recollection of the violence and cruelty of the Scandinavian sea kings; and an ancient prophecy that the Danes would one day destroy the children of the soil was still repeated with superstitious horror, [689] Among the foreign auxiliaries were a Brandenburg regiment and a Finland regiment. But in that great array, so variously composed, were two bodies of men animated by a spirit ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... genius could be communicated like instruction, we might call this work of Goethe's the prime cause of /Marmion/ and the /Lady of the Lake/, with all that has followed from the same creative hand. Truly, a grain of seed that has lighted on the right soil! For if not firmer and fairer, it has grown to be taller and broader than any other tree; and all the nations of the earth are still yearly gathering ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... (p. 010) research. They are washed by the streams of the Monnow, and are embosomed in gardens and orchards, clothing the knoll on which they stand; the aspect of the southern walls, and the rocky character of the soil admirably adapting them for the growth of the vine, and the ripening of its fruits. In the memory of some old inhabitants, who were not gathered to their fathers when the Author could first take an interest in such things, and who ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler

... of plants (and, as we shall presently see, some other plants not allied to the Droseraceae) should subsist partly by digesting animal matter, and partly by decomposing carbonic acid, instead of exclusively by this latter means, together with the absorption of matter from the soil by the aid of roots. We have, however, an equally anomalous case in the animal kingdom; the rhizocephalous crustaceans do not feed like other animals by their mouths, for they are destitute of an [page 357] alimentary ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin

... of that young tree," said Farmer Robinson to his laborer, who was diligently employed in clearing away a rambling company of brambles which had grown unmolested during the time of the last tenant; "the soil is good, and in a very few years we shall have pasturage for our ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church

... being grown are six German-named varieties from the Hillculture Division of the Soil Conservation Service, Glenn Dale, Maryland, planted as rooted cuttings in 1941. The German varieties, are as follows: (1) Barr's Spanische; (2) Neue Riesennuss; (3) Fruhe von Fruendorff; (4) Schliesserin; (5) ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Incorporated 39th Annual Report - at Norris, Tenn. September 13-15 1948 • Various

... something in her nature that excluded the possibility of selfishness. In relation to herself, everything was indifferent; she only wanted to be with him—and to live for him. She was beneficent and intact as virgin soil; Pelle had awakened love in her—and it took the shape of a perpetual need of giving. He felt, humbly, that she brought all she had and was to him as a gift, and all he did was done to repay ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... for the Trojan war, Consign'd the youthful consort to his care. True to his charge, the bard preserved her long In honour's limits; such the power of song. But when the gods these objects of their hate Dragg'd to the destruction by the links of fate; The bard they banish'd from his native soil, And left all helpless in a desert isle; There he, the sweetest of the sacred train, Sung dying to the rocks, but sung in vain. Then virtue was no more; her guard away, She fell, to lust a voluntary prey. Even to the temple stalk'd ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope

... first, gathers strength and volume from its tributaries, and overflowing its bounds, rushes over blooming meadows, fields, and pastures, drawing into its destructive depths the peasant's every joy and hope. That is the soil from which a legend ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles

... allies an impossibility, by consuming all their energies in the support of her immense population and the equipment of her numerous fleets and armies. Hence all the surrounding tribes, once wandering nomads, were forced to become tillers of the soil; and, with colonies sent out by herself, they formed the so called Libyo-Phoenician population, open to the attack of all, and incapable of defence. Thus the country around Carthage was weak, and the moment a foreign enemy landed in Africa the war was ...
— History of Rome from the Earliest times down to 476 AD • Robert F. Pennell

... falling, the cheep of wakening birds, the subtle odor of moisture-drenched soil roused Rhoda from her half sleep on the horse's back at the end of the night's journey. The trail had not been hard, through an endless pine forest for the most part. Kut-le drew rein beside a little waterfall deep in the mountain fastness. Rhoda saw a ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow

... fatigue helped to strew the trail with the graves of men and the carcasses of animals. Hard lines were these; but not so hard as the lines of those who pushed farther into the wilderness, nor stayed their adventurous feet till they were planted on the rich soil of the ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard

... Edenton. These were joined by other dissenters who had found the religious atmosphere of Virginia uncomfortable, and Puritans from New England landed at the Cape Fear River in 1661, and bought lands from the Indians. The soil and climate were admirably suited for successful colonization, and North Carolina might have proved a southern New England but for the hunger for vast American domains which just then possessed the courtiers of Charles II. In view of the notorious depravity of that merry monarch's ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann

... on foreign soil, monsieur. When I reflect that you go back to-night, that to-morrow you will be again in Paris, I could gnash my ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick

... watched her with his telescope from the tower of the Nameless Castle. So, at least, it might be assumed; for the lady very often assisted in the labor of the garden, when, in transplanting tulip bulbs, she would so soil her pretty white hands to the wrists with black mold that it would be quite distressing to see them. Certainly this was sufficient proof that her ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai

... of the sixteenth century many of the higher clergy of the Catholic Church—archbishops, bishops, and abbots—who owned large landed estates quite like their lay brethren.] comprised men who gained a living from the soil without manual labor. They held the land on feudal tenure, that is to say, they had a right to be supported by the peasants living on their estates, and, in return, they owed to some higher or wealthier nobleman or to the king certain duties, such as fighting ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes

... the county of Sangamon, some more easy means of communication than we now possess, for the purpose of facilitating the task of exporting the surplus products of its fertile soil, and importing necessary articles from abroad, are indispensably necessary. A meeting has been held of the citizens of Jacksonville, and the adjacent country, for the purpose of deliberating and enquiring into the expediency of constructing a railroad from some ...
— Lincoln's Inaugurals, Addresses and Letters (Selections) • Abraham Lincoln

... reality. It was much more agreeable to play the gypsy or the tinker than to become either in reality. I had seen enough of gypsying and tinkering to be convinced of that. All of a sudden the idea of tilling the soil came into my head; tilling the soil was a healthful and noble pursuit! but my idea of tilling the soil had no connection with Britain; for I could only expect to till the soil in Britain as a serf. I thought of tilling it in America, in which it was said there was plenty of wild, unclaimed land, ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow

... We cannot soil this page with even a description of the oaths and curses with which he mixed his language. Christy was disgusted with him; and while he still continued his impious ravings, he sent a midshipman with an order to Mr. Makepeace ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic

... inhabitants had to dispose in some quarter or other, and the highlands of Sumeria and Judaea bore oil and wine far beyond the wants of those who cultivated them. What Phoenicia lacked in these respects from the scantiness of its cultivable soil, Palestine was able and eager to supply; while to Phoenicia it was a boon to obtain, not only a market for her timber, but also employment for her surplus population, which under ordinary circumstances was always requiring to be ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson

... corner, thereby to make man remember his sin; for all the toil of man, all the barrenness of the ground, and all the fruitlessness after all; What is it but the fruits of sin? Let not us then find fault with the weed, with the hotness, coldness, or barrenness of the soil; but by seeing these things, remember our sin, Cursed be the ground "for thy sake"; for this God makes our "heaven as iron," and our "earth as brass" (Exo 26:19). "The Lord shall make the rain of thy land powder ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... generation of servants, who seek rather to seduce by vain dress and loose manners the youth who are associated in servitude with them! God did not suffer the wish of this excellent domestic to be thrown upon a barren soil; within half a year after the licentious Holland became a zealous professor of the gospel, and was an instrument of conversion to his father and others whom he visited in Lancashire, to their spiritual comfort and reformation ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... the potential jealousy that Claire's talk had begun, leaped ahead at her words and he felt more than ever doubtful of her attitude toward Lawrence. Though he quickly dispelled his fear, the thought left behind, as such things do, the readier soil for a stronger ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades

... the veranda and rear of the house is magnificent in the extreme. To the west of the dwelling, environed in forest trees well protected against our northern "blizzards," lies the fruit, flower and vegetable garden, laid out originally by Madame Caron; watered by an unfailing spring, its dark rich soil produces most luxuriant vegetables, and Mr. Beckett's phlox, lilies, pansies, roses, generally stand well represented on the prize list of the Quebec Horticultural Society, of which Mr. Beckett is ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... for the routine at Fort Steele—a mere cantonment, yet, of tents and rough board buildings squatting upon the bare brown soil near the river bank, north of us, and less than a month old. The wagon road was a line of white dust from the river clear to Benton, and through the murk plodded the water haulers and emigrants and freighters, animals and men alike befloured ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin

... they were the first to realize that the days of wild game were going, and that if the Hudson's Bay Company was to keep up its trade it must feed its people on the products of the soil, and not of the chase. They speak of sixty million acres of land fit for farming in the Saskatchewan Valley, and speak of the country as the future support of this Pacific coast. That is precisely the policy of the ...
— The Young Alaskans in the Rockies • Emerson Hough



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