"Plot of ground" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was still grown in Lincolnshire and Somerset, and Marshall tells us that in 1803 there was a considerable quantity of hemp grown in Shropshire.[560] In that county there was a small plot of ground, called 'the hemp-yard,' appendant to almost every farm-house and to many of the best sort of cottages. Whenever a cottager had 10 or 15 perches of land to his cottage, worth from 1s. 6d. to 2s. 6d. a year, with the aid of his wife's ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... originally belonging to the house was simplicity itself, and covered scarcely an acre. All round the inner border of the moat there ran a broad terrace-walk, divided by a low stone balustrade from a grassy bank that sloped down to the water. The square plot of ground before the house was laid out in quaint old flower-beds, where the roses seemed, to Clarissa at least, to flourish as they flourished nowhere else. The rest of the garden consisted of lawn and flower-beds, with more roses. There ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... 'Pictish Castle.' His attention was attracted by a tall, burly stranger, who was surveying this ancient relic with deep interest. As the water of the loch was well up about the castle, converting the plot of ground on which it stood almost altogether into an island, the stranger took off shoes and stockings and trousers, and waded all round the building in order to get a thorough view of it. This procedure was all the more remarkable from the fact, as above mentioned, ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... War is practically over, until the next one begins there isn't very much that you can do with that large plot of ground which used to be your war-garden. It is too small for a running-track and too large for nasturtiums. Obviously, the only thing left is ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... "What if the affair should not pay expenses? would they not be personally saddled with the debt?" Liszt promptly answered that, if the proceeds were not sufficient, he himself would pay the cost of the building. The architect of the Cologne Cathedral was placed at the head of the work, a waste plot of ground selected, the trees grubbed up, timber fished up from one of the great Rhine rafts, and the Festhalle rose with the swiftness of Aladdin's palace. The erection of the statue of Beethoven at his birthplace, ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... me, I'll maintain my words On any plot of ground in Christendom. Was not thy father, Richard Earl of Cambridge, For treason executed in our late king's days? And, by his treason, stand'st not thou attainted, Corrupted, and exempt from ancient gentry? His trespass yet ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]
... Ask the priest. If the dead man can pay for a plot of ground for a grave, well and good; or if ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... of the exterior were suggested by its situation, it being placed on an angular plot of ground, between Langham-place and Regent-street. To afford an advantageous view from either point, the tower, which is circular, is nearly detached from the body of the church, and is surrounded by columns of the modern ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII. F, No. 325, August 2, 1828. • Various
... all this, Big Dan continued digging his way among the potatoes, helping the crippled boy to harvest and prepare for market the cabbages and other vegetables, that grew in the plot of ground under his study window, never dreaming that there was aught of interest either to church or town in the simple neighborly kindness. It is a fact—though Dan at this time, would not have admitted it, even to himself—that the hours spent in the garden, ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... of the garden there is a small plot of ground, so damp that nothing will grow there, and consequently is almost unfrequented; but for all that it is thither that you must follow me. We will each take spade and pick-axe, and in a very brief period we can hollow out a receptacle for the body of the one who falls. When this work is completed, ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... old readers know, Putnam Hall was a handsome structure of brick and stone standing in the center of a large plot of ground, bounded on two sides by cedar woods. To the front was the campus and the wagon road and beyond this a slope leading to the lake. To the rear were rich farm lands, cultivated solely for the benefit of the institution. ...
— The Rover Boys on the Farm - or Last Days at Putnam Hall • Arthur M. Winfield (AKA Edward Stratemeyer)
... the old deep road, the green bank on each side, on which stood thatched cottages, whitewashed or of the pale red of old weathered bricks; each with its plot of ground or garden with, in some cases, a few fruit trees. Here and there stood a large shade tree—oak or pine or yew; then a vacant space, succeeded by a hedge, gapped and ragged and bare, or of evergreen holly or yew, smoothly trimmed; then a ploughed field, and again cottages, looking up or down ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... sniffing delightedly as he swung a hoe in his grimy hands. He had been working in his garden. That spring Marilla, by way of turning Davy's passion for reveling in mud and clay into useful channels, had given him and Dora a small plot of ground for a garden. Both had eagerly gone to work in a characteristic fashion. Dora planted, weeded, and watered carefully, systematically, and dispassionately. As a result, her plot was already green with prim, orderly little rows of vegetables and ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... it suited its surroundings, and Uncle Paul looked supremely happy as he sat there slowly smoking his pipe and gazing dreamily before him at the beautiful landscape stretching far, and the garden of the one cottage within reach only a short distance away from the plot of ground where by the help of the neighbour sufficient potatoes were grown for the widow's use. "What a silent, peaceful evening, Pickle," said Uncle Paul. "Look yonder in the east; the moon will be up soon, and then it will be night, and we have done no ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... Worldliness, Covetousness, and others make it a sort of headquarters. They never bother the grape-vines; it is only the pilgrims that they annoy. The soil is rocky and hard to subdue and cultivate. I wanted the very best fruits the land had; so I, too, was obliged to take a plot of ground in the Valley of Sore Temptation and make ...
— Adventures in the Land of Canaan • Robert Lee Berry
... R. L. Watts. This book is designed for the small grower with a limited plot of ground. The reader is told what types of vegetables to select, the manner of planting and cultivation, and the returns that ...
— Taxidermy • Leon Luther Pray
... an internal vestibule, lighted from above, and flanked by rows of small coupled columns; then through these colonnaded entrances, the inner one kept purposely rather dark, we come into an interior expanding in every direction; an effect of strong contrast and climax. If our plot of ground again be so situated that one angle of it is opposite the vista of two or more large streets, there and nowhere else will be the salient angle, so to speak, of the plan, and we can place there a circular porch—which may, it is evident, rise into a tower—and enter the interior at the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 633, February 18, 1888 • Various
... appears that the association was revived in the year 1611, by warrant from the privy council; and the volunteers soon amounted to six thousand. In the year 1640, they quitted their old field of discipline, and entered upon a plot of ground in Bunhill-fields, leased to them by the city.—(See Ellis's History of Shoreditch, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 553, June 23, 1832 • Various
... on, and found ourselves in presence of an old man and a younger one, who were working hard at a plot of ground and watering it by a channel from the spring. We stood still, divided between fear and delight. They were standing speechless, no doubt with much the same feelings. At length the old man spoke:—'What are you, strangers; are you spirits of the sea, or unfortunate mortals ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... later Paul Lessing stood, one morning in March, with his hands thrust deep into his pockets, looking out of his sitting-room window. His eyes rested on the little plot of ground before him, with its borders of snowdrops and crocuses, and the road beyond, along which the village children in their scarlet cloaks hurried to school: a narrow boundary to a narrow life, he told himself—and lonely, since Sally ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford
... complete system by the present much-respected rector, the Rev. H. Munn. The land itself is situated not more than 300 yards from the village of Lyddington, by the side of a good turnpike-road, and is traversed by two roads giving easy access to every allotment. Each plot of ground is divided from the next by a narrow green path: no hedges or mounds are permitted, and the field itself is enclosed without a hedge to harbour birds. The soil is a rich dark loam, yielding good crops, with very little manure, and the surface is level. There are sixty-three tenants ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... transient rates, and then, having dumped the deceased into a shallow grave, to return what is facetiously known as the "wooden overcoat" to its original owner, for further service. This was bad enough, considering the danger of infection thus engendered; but much worse remains behind. It seems that the plot of ground reserved for dead paupers was very circumscribed. So it had become necessary to bury four or five bodies in the same hole, the last one in being perhaps no more than six inches from the light of day. And, as if this state of affairs were not already ...
— From Yauco to Las Marias • Karl Stephen Herrman
... much harder task than had been that of deposing the company at the trestle. The Confederates were located at every window and door of the building, and as soon as any one of Deck's command appeared he was fired upon. Moreover, the mill stood in a plot of ground by itself, so it could not be approached excepting by a ...
— An Undivided Union • Oliver Optic
... Marius' solitary strolls led him to this plot of ground, near the water. That day, there was a rarity on the boulevard, a passer-by. Marius, vaguely impressed with the almost savage beauty of the place, asked this passer-by:—"What is the ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... of the results of single cropping and the rotation of crops has been clearly shown at the Experiment Station of the Agricultural College of the State of Minnesota, where for ten years they have planted corn on one plot of ground. For the first five years it averaged a little more than twenty bushels per acre, and for the last five years, ...
— Checking the Waste - A Study in Conservation • Mary Huston Gregory
... it was Hunter's ambition to establish a museum where the study of anatomy, surgery, and medicine might be advanced, and in 1765 he asked for a grant of a plot of ground for this purpose, offering to spend seven thousand pounds on its erection besides endowing it with a professorship of anatomy. Not being able to obtain this grant, however, he built a house, in which were lecture and dissecting rooms, and his museum. In this museum were anatomical preparations, ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... against him, and brought such people vnder his subiection as he found in the Ile, and searched the land from the one end to the other: he was desirous to build a citie, that the same might be the seate roiall of his empire or kingdome. Wherevpon he chose a plot of ground lieng on the north side of the riuer of Thames, which by good consideration seemed to be most pleasant and conuenient for any great multitude of inhabitants, aswell for holsomnesse of aire, goodnesse of soile, plentie of woods, and commoditie of the riuer, ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (2 of 8) - The Second Booke Of The Historie Of England • Raphael Holinshed
... kind treatment. Study them first before doing anything. Take stock of existing trees, shrubs and the like. Notice the contour of the land. Then make a simple landscaping plan. This, well thought out, will give direction to the eventual development of the plot of ground you have in mind. Work gradually. If you are reclaiming an old place, remember the original owner did not achieve everything in a week or a year. Nature cannot be hurried. It is true that, if one desires shade trees and cannot wait for them to ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... little cottage, standing off from the road in a poor plot of ground. The sergeant led the way up to it, turned the cottager and his family out of it into a shed, and set two men without as sentries. He then made the others strip me to the skin and examined every shred of clothing, ripping out the linings and even cutting my boots to ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... places about the castle the privy garden was perhaps the most sacred. It was a small plot of ground, only a few rods long and wide, and was kept absolutely private for the use of the Countess and her family. Only a little while before Myles had first come to Devlen, one of the cook's men had been found climbing ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... lepers for the first time. The valley of the Kidron is the low ground lying between Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives. The water flows here only in the wet part of the year. Crossing this valley and starting up the slope of the Mount of Olives, we soon come to a plot of ground inclosed by a high stone wall, with a low, narrow gateway on the upper side. This place is of great interest, as it bears the name "Garden of Gethsemane," and is probably the spot to which the lowly Jesus repaired ...
— A Trip Abroad • Don Carlos Janes
... we can secure at any given time the good effects of both methods by some trick of combination is an error—as well attempt to arrange on the same plot of ground a French and an English garden. If indeed Christian people could bring themselves to acknowledge frankly the legitimacy of both methods and provide amicably for their separate use, a great step forward in the direction of Church unity would have been achieved; but for ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... Sunday, I peeped round its immediate neighbourhood, and saw, to my inexpressible delight, within hail, some noble-looking evergreen oaks, and close to the house itself a tiny would-be garden, a plot of ground with one or two peach-trees in full blossom, tufts of silver narcissus and jonquils, a quantity of violets and an exquisite myrtle bush; wherefore I said my ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... matter is as follows: On the 4th August, the day of the service at St Paul's, Dr Duthoit was walking up and down and about that pleasant garden on slopes of the Wye. Just above the water his gardener had prepared under direction and instruction a plot of ground in a very special manner. I do not gather the precise purpose of the operation, but it seems that the soil had been very fine and level for a superficies of about ten yards. To this place the Prebendary walked, slowly and ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... plot of ground," said the grizzled gardener, and looked away. She had his tulips in her hand, and now buried her face ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... A careless boy will never respect the property of others so much as when he himself has proprietary interests involved. We believe, therefore, that every teacher should encourage his pupils to cultivate plants and, if possible, to own a plot of ground however small. ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education
... two sane men at this meeting. I suppose, gentlemen, you agree with me that this affair cannot be kept too private? To that end you had best ride with me to Verney Manor, and there have it out on this plot of ground Charles talks of. It is ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... admission to Paaker's plot of ground through the wall which surrounded it, was disproportionately, almost ostentatiously, high and decorated with various paintings. On the right hand and on the left, two cedar-trunks were erected as masts to carry standards; he had had them felled for the purpose on Lebanon, and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... lived the greater part of her life at this place as the slave of Colonel William Bowen, who owned the plot of ground upon which the Tuskegee Institute now stands. The birthplace of my mother was Baltimore, Md. She was taught to read by her master's daughter in Baltimore, and was never forbidden to read by those who owned ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various
... often they had been cleared and made valuable by the work of preceding generations of monks, and on these estates peasants came to live. Workingmen and workingwomen from neighboring districts came to help at harvest time, and, after a chance meeting, were married and settled down on a little plot of ground provided for them near the monastery. As these communities grew up, they looked to the monasteries and convents for aid of all kinds, and turned to them particularly in times of illness. The need for definite instruction in medicine on the part of a great many of the monks and nuns can be readily ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... clean outlet, lay small drain tiles, two or three inches in diameter, under the entire house and for several feet all around it, like a big gridiron. When this is buried under one or two feet of clean gravel or sand you will have a permanently dry plot of ground to build upon. The same treatment will be effective if the ground is "springy." But there must be a "cut-off" encircling the house. This you can make by digging a trench a foot wide, reaching down to the drain tiles, and filling it nearly to the top with loose stones or coarse gravel, ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... is now to be said we have spoken thus of the Bosphorus, and the bay and town of Therapia, and the high promontory, as accessories merely to a plot of ground under the promontory and linked to it by the descending terrace. There is no word fitly descriptive of the place. Ravine implies narrowness; gorge signifies depth; valley means width; dell is too toylike. A summer retreat ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... whips - a glaring injustice that elicits not the slightest adverse criticism from the spectators, and nothing but silent contortions of face and body from the individual receiving the attention. I finally obtain a good place, where nothing but an open plank fence and a narrow plot of ground thinly set with shrubbery intervenes between me and the street leading from the palace. In a few minutes the approach of the Sultan is announced by the appearance of half a dozen Circassian outriders, who dash wildly down the streets, one behind the other, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... called Ingenios, which make great quantity of sugar. There is also one league of ground which standeth between two townes, the one called Larotaua, and the other Rialeio, and it is thought that the like plot of ground is not in all the world. The reason is, that this one league of ground produceth sweet water out of the cliffes or rocky mountaines, come of all sortes, fruites of all sortes, and excellent good ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... his slaves to have a garden and chickens of their own. In fact, he gave each of them land, a small plot of ground for this purpose. The benefit of this was twofold as far as the slave was concerned. In the first place he could vary his diet. In the second place he was able to earn money by selling his produce either in town or to "Old Marster." Sometimes ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... like the colonists of Virginia, to own their land and work it in common; but they were much quicker than the Jamestown folk to perceive the inexpediency of this plan, and reformed it by giving each man or family a private plot of ground. Agriculture then developed so rapidly that corn enough was raised to supply the Indians as well as the English; and the importation of neat cattle increased the home look as well as the prosperity of the farms. There was also a valuable trade in furs, which stimulated ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... plot of ground on the banks of the stream, some way removed from the township, and here, with the aid of three or four hired labourers, he had made a clearing and erected a log-hut, at which Donald was always a welcome guest, with several others who came to hear ...
— Janet McLaren - The Faithful Nurse • W.H.G. Kingston
... his interpreter to write an equally pointed letter, reminding the Mayor of B—— that the removal of refuse was a municipal concern, and that the British Army was therefore waiting for the Town to hand over a plot of ground for the purpose. ...
— General Bramble • Andre Maurois
... entreated Dick and Grosvenor to accompany him to the palace forthwith; with which request they were of course perfectly ready to comply. The palace was but a bare hundred yards from the larger building, both in fact being built on the same plot of ground, and a few minutes sufficed the trio to pass from the one building to the other, to traverse the noble entrance hall of the palace, and to make their way to the Queen's private suite of apartments, outside the door ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... eccentric personage in the form of an old retired clergyman of the Church of England. He lived like a hermit in a small hut under the hills, which he had built himself, as well as some outbuildings and a capital little bakery, which he was very proud of. He cultivated a small plot of ground, where he grew potatoes and other vegetables and kept a cow, and he possessed several cats and a couple of fine collie dogs. He gave food—especially bread—to any traveller passing who needed it, and free quarters ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... ground. There was no neatness, no regularity, although there was abundant evidence of toil. To clear that rugged space, to fence it, and plow it, appeared at once to Carley an extremely strenuous and useless task. Carley persuaded herself that this must be the plot of ground belonging to the herder Charley, and she was about to turn on down the creek when far up under the bluff she espied a man. He was stalking along and bending down, stalking along and bending down. She recognized Glenn. He was planting something ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... set for it; this the level plot of ground in front of the cavern's month. A rope hangs down with a running noose at one end; the other, in default of gallow's arm and branch of tree, rigged over the point of ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... I thought the Bastions a very convenient place, since the girl did not think it prudent as yet to introduce that young man to her mother. It was here, then, I thought, looking round at that plot of ground of deplorable banality, that their acquaintance will begin and go on in the exchange of generous indignations and of extreme sentiments, too poignant, perhaps, for a non-Russian mind to conceive. I saw these two, escaped out of ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... very difficult way across a plot of ground from which a row of dilapidated cottages had been razed to the ground. The fog still hung around them and seemed to bring with it a curious silence, although the dying traffic from one of the main thoroughfares reached them in muffled notes. Lutchester climbed to the top of a pile ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to aid me in choosing a two-acre plot of ground for corn and potatoes. This we marked out from the upper and eastern slope of a large meadow. The grass was running out and ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... Gaul, when, while the Franks were thundering at their gates, and starved and half-burnt corpses lay about the unguarded streets, the remnant, like that in doomed Jerusalem of old, were drinking, dicing, ravishing, robbing the orphan and the widow, swindling the poor man out of his plot of ground, and sending meanwhile to the tottering Caesar at Rome, to ask, not for armies, but ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... years make Ghat a large and most lovely oasis of Desert. Water is complained of as to supply, but there is water enough to irrigate an oasis of five times the present extent. So in Ghadames, so almost in every Saharan oasis. The Governor encourages his sons to industry, by giving each a plot of ground to cultivate for himself. I saw a fine field belonging to one of his sons, which has been under culture only three years. It is sown with barley and wheat, and planted with rows of sprig-palms, in the very childhood of growth; but, by the time the sons of the Marabout are married, ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... mail. Even in his choice of a dwelling-place he seemed instinctively to avoid the modern; he had found a studio in the street, the name of which no one had ever heard before; it was found with difficulty; and the studio, too, it was hidden behind great crumbling walls, in the middle of a plot of ground in which some one was growing cabbages. Octave was always, as he would phrase it, dans une deche epouvantable, but he managed to keep a thoroughbred horse in the stable at the end of the garden, and ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... looked out. The remnants of the disastrous gale blew in upon him and gave him new life, as it had formerly threatened him with death. He saw that he was in a village of small houses, each cottage standing in its own plot of ground. It was apparently a village of one street, and over the roofs of the houses opposite he saw in the distance the white waves of the sea. What astonished him most was a church with its tapering spire at the end of the street—a ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... gardening, etc. In cooperation with the Department of Agriculture and under the leadership of a student of an Agricultural College, an experiment in raising vegetables may be tried in long-term camps. A plot of ground may be plowed and harrowed, and sub-divided into as many plots as there are tents, each tent to be given a plot and each boy in the tent his "own row to hoe," the boy to make his own choice of seed, keep a diary of temperature, sunshine, ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... slowly, in the lovely silence of the early Eastern morning, back to the place from whence he had last night wandered,—the Hermitage of Elzear, near the Ruins of Babylon. He soon came in sight of it, and also perceived Elzear himself, stooping over a small plot of ground in front of his dwelling, apparently gathering herbs. When he approached, the old man looked up and smiled, giving him a silent, expressively courteous morning greeting,—by his manner it was evident that he thought his guest had merely been out for an early stroll ere the heat ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... overgrown with grapevines which Joseph had planted, and which as a result of training and watchfulness yielded him abundant fruit. South of the house there stretched a field, bordered on all sides by leafy shrubbery. This plot of ground was used by Mrs. Swift as a bleachery, and through her industry and carefulness she succeeded in making her linen snow-white, so that all the housewives of that village and neighboring town brought her ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne
... blossomed on either side of the footpath. The little church was one of those venerable simple buildings which abound in the English counties; half overgrown with moss and ivy, and standing in the centre of a little plot of ground, which, but for the green mounds with which it was studded, might have passed for a lovely meadow. I fancied that the old clanking bell which was now summoning the congregation together, would seem less terrible when it rung out ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... and staler all the time. And sometimes it never does come to them; or, perhaps, it only comes to them too late. There are some, of course, who never feel this wild longing to escape. They are the human turnips; and, so long as they have a plot of ground on which to expand and grow, they look for nothing else other than to be "mashed" from time to time by someone of the opposite sex. These people are quite content to live and die in a row, and to have ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... to settle there under circumstances not at all mysterious—he used to be very communicative about them at the time—but extremely morbid and unreasonable. He was possessed of some little money evidently, because he bought a plot of ground, and had a pair of ugly yellow brick cottages run up very cheaply. He occupied one of them himself and let the other to Josiah Carvil—blind Carvil, the retired boat-builder—a man of evil ...
— To-morrow • Joseph Conrad
... any moment under undue excitement. Ambrosia Moreno, who was called Madre, when she grew older, held our family to blame for this affliction, and made a vow that every generation of the Sotos should suffer through this plot of ground as long ...
— The Beautiful Eyes of Ysidria • Charles A. Gunnison
... preached the gospel in the district of Inverness-shire known as Glen-Urquhart which in Catholic ages bore the name of "St. Drostan's Urquhart." Here a plot of ground, said to have been cultivated by the saint when he lived there as its apostle, is still known as "St. Drostan's Croft." In St. Ninian's Chapel, in the glen, was preserved the saint's cross, and the custodian of the relic had the use ...
— A Calendar of Scottish Saints • Michael Barrett
... means whatever of ascertaining; that it is sufficient to form beds of sand of very great magnitude is attested by the existence of numerous and extensive sandbanks all along the coast. One single heavy tropical shower of only a few hours' duration washed down, over a plot of ground which was planted with barley, a bed of sand nearly five inches deep, which the succeeding showers again swept off, carrying it further upon ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... peepul. A six-foot Sikh, in the red-and-blue turban and neat blue uniform of the Punjab soldier-police, stands at the door and executes a stiff military salute as I wheel past. A row of conical white pillars and a grass-grown plot of ground containing a few bungalows and camping space for a regiment indicate a military reservation. These spaces are reserved at intervals of ten or twelve miles all down the Grand Trunk Road; the distance from each represents ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... and pick our way into what seemed to me a mere heap of rubbish on the dexter side of the court. But I was agreeably surprised to find, amidst these wrecks, a room with a noble casement, commanding the whole country, and placed immediately over a plot of ground cultivated as a garden. The furniture was ample, though homely; the floors and walls well matted; and, altogether, despite the inconvenience of having to cross the courtyard to get to the rest of the house, and being wholly ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... our own, but the battledore is the sole of the foot. A number of young men form a circle on a clear plot of ground. One of them opens the game by throwing the feathered toy to the player opposite him, who, turning quickly and raising his leg, receives it on the sole of his foot, and sends it like a shot to another, and he to another; and so it is kept flying for an hour or ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... there would be herds of cattle, and flocks of sheep, and carpets spread, and the banquet-tables, and great orchards.' But she stubbornly shook her head. 'Where the eagle built shall not the young eagle nest? How should God meet me in the way and bless him who stood not by his birth right? The plot of ground was the lad's, and all that is thereon. I pray thee, mock me not.' God knows I did not mock her, for her words were wisdom. So did it work upon me that, after many days, I got for the lad his own again, and there he is happier, and his mother happier, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the farmhouse stood a plot of ground planted with cherry trees. Low grass under the trees and little paths worn into it led like aisles up and down. There, near the centre of the plot, Amanda and Martin chose the place for the ceremony. The march to and from that spot would ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... life. Whervpon it chanced that king Ediswald the son of king Oswald which reigned in the parties of Deira, mooued with the fame of his vertuous trade of liuing, had him in great reuerence: and therefore vpon a good zeale and great deuotion, willed him to choose foorth some plot of ground where he might build a monasterie, in the which the king himselfe and others might praie, heare sermons the oftener, and haue place where to burie the dead. The bishop consenting to the kings mind, at length espied a place amongst high ...
— Chronicles 1 (of 6): The Historie of England 5 (of 8) - The Fift Booke of the Historie of England. • Raphael Holinshed
... plot of ground back of the dock was deserted. Warrington jumped from his rickshaw and divested himself of his coat and flung his hat beside it. Gleefully as a boy Mallow did likewise. Warrington then bade the coolies to move ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... greatest of individual property owners. The sense of possession is satisfied. And woe to the fool who suggests they surrender this. Little wooden houses, thousands and thousands of them, with a small plot of ground in the rear where a man in the springtime may dig his hands into the soil and say gratefully to God, 'Mine, mine!' I, too, am a Russ. I thought in the beginning that you would take this country as an example, a government of the people, by the people, for the people. Wrongs? Yes. But day by ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... ground were sold, and the proceeds devoted to Vandon's Charity Account. Part of the funds was used to purchase a plot of ground in Lambeth, where new almshouses were erected, and after the death of the recipients of the charity these were let to tenants, and the proceeds devoted to ...
— Westminster - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... bunch of considerable size has accumulated, when they are bound together with strips of bark. [197] At the end of the day these bundles are carried to the drying yards, where they remain until the whole crop is harvested. A drying yard is a plot of ground surrounded by a bamboo fence of such a height that it is impossible for fowls and the like to gain entrance. When all the bundles are thoroughly dried, they are placed in the granary, and from that time on the handling of the rice is given over ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... This little plot of ground proved very fertile, and whatever the owner planted produced a hundredfold. His trees were borne down by the weight of the fruit, which always ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... he said, as likewise did all that followed. Even among the common people it created a wonderful change of feeling; every one now cheered and encouraged his neighbor, and set himself to the work, proceeding in it, however, not by any regular lines or divisions, but every one pitching upon that plot of ground which came next to hand, or best pleased his fancy; by which haste and hurry in building, they constructed their city in narrow and ill-designed lanes, and with houses huddled together one upon another; for it is said ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... not," said the lawyer. "I dare say not." Then he walked round the plot of ground, pacing it, as though something might be learned in that way. Then he looked up at the building with his hands in his pockets, and his head on one side. "Has there been a deed of gift,—perhaps a peppercorn rent, or something of that kind?" The Vicar declared that he was altogether ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... of London have, in the most liberal manner, given a plot of ground, eighteen by thirteen and a half-inches, for the erection of a pickled whilks and pennywinkle establishment, at the corner of Newgate-street and the Old Bailey. This will be a valuable boon to the Blue-coat ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 2, 1841 • Various
... therefore only suited to those who have already large, superfluous wealth, or to those whose penury bids them only seek a bare subsistence. The choice of such a man as we have supposed is soon made; he sells his plot of ground, leaves his dwelling, and embarks in some hazardous but lucrative calling. Democratic communities abound in men of this kind; and in proportion as the equality of conditions becomes greater, their multitude increases. Thus democracy not only swells the number ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... China, but his national importance and hence his ranking in society is much higher. In Japan to-day farming absorbs 60 per cent. of the population. The system of tillage, in many respects primitive, is yet very thorough, and by means of skilful manuring makes one plot of ground yield two or three crops per annum.[981] Every inch of arable land is cultivated in grain, vegetables and fruits. Mountains and hills are terraced and tilled far up their slopes. Meadows are conspicuously absent, as are also fallow ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... volition. I look upon the world at large as belonging to me, but I only spend the interest of my capital. I shall depart this life without having possessed anything save "that which it is usual to consume," according to the Franciscan code. Whenever I have been tempted to buy some small plot of ground, an inward voice has prevented me. To have done so would have seemed to me gross, material, and opposed to the principle: Non habemus hic manentem civitatem. Securities are lighter, more ethereal, and more fragile; they do not exercise the same amount of attachment, and there ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... it has remained deserted to this day. It is nothing but a meadow now, with that one little grassy hollow in it to tell a piteous tale. It is mown by any farmer who chooses to take it for a price; but we regard it differently from any other plot of ground. It is "the Cemetery," and always will be. We wonder who has bought the grass. "Eli's got the Cemetery this year," we say. And sometimes awe-stricken little squads of school children lead one another there, hand in hand, to look at the grave where Annie Prince was going to be buried when her beau ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... very terrible: but worse remains behind. TYMPANUM proceeds thus:—"But why should there be the half-yard at all? Because without it there would be no space at all for flowers. By means of it, we find reserved in the very centre a small plot of ground, two yards long by half-a-yard wide, the only space not occupied by walk." But Balbus expressly said that the walk "used up the whole of the area." Oh, TYMPANUM! My tympa is exhausted: my brain is num! ...
— A Tangled Tale • Lewis Carroll
... sure to give it plenty of space. If the soil is lacking in plant food feed the tree, remembering it can draw food only from a given space. No one would expect to grow the same farm crop on a plot of ground for many years without fertilizer. Prepare to conserve moisture for the hot, dry season either by cultivation or mulching. One of the thriftiest best bearing nut tree plantings I know of is on very sharp, hilly clay ground in Rockport, but the owner fertilizes ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-Fifth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... Behar, close by the retreat of Dhurmma, there was an open plot of ground, upon which a temple was in course of erection, under the management of a man of the Kayeth caste, named Subhadatta. A carpenter upon the works had partly sawed through a long beam of wood, and wedged it open, and ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... years ago Dr. Wallace built a house upon a plot of ground adjoining that upon which our house stood. I was at that time an assistant master at Charterhouse School; and Dr. Wallace became acquainted with a few of the masters besides myself. With two or three of them he had ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... and Whitefield died members of the Church of England, and were buried in consecrated ground; but John Wesley passed peacefully out in his eighty-eighth year, requesting that his body be buried in City Road Chapel, in the plot of ground that he by his life, love and work had consecrated. And it ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... just on the outskirts of the city, on a beautiful ten-acre plot of ground. The buildings were five in number, consisting of a dormitory for young men, two for young ladies, a building for recitations, and another, called the teachers' mansion; for the teachers resided there. These buildings were very ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... peak of Furness fells, Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells: In truth the prison unto which we doom Ourselves no prison is: and hence for me, In sundry moods, 'twas pastime to be bound Within the Sonnet's scanty plot of ground; Pleased if some souls (for such there needs must be) Who have felt the weight of too much liberty, Should find brief solace ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... the city hung the moon, Right o'er a plot of ground Where flowers and orchard-trees were fenced With lofty walls around: 'Twas Gilbert's garden—there to-night Awhile he walked alone; And, tired with sedentary toil, ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
... hedge," in the parish of Kilglass; the dogs had the flesh almost eaten off. Under date of the 18th of May, I find this entry; "Small pox, added to fever and dysentery, is prevalent at Middleton, County Cork; and, near Bantry Abbey, 900 bodies were interred in a plot of ground forty feet square." From the autumn of 1846 to May, 1847, ten thousand persons were interred in Father Mathew's cemetery at Cork—he was obliged to close it. On the 12th of June, the number of fever patients ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... the quarry we sought was hard to find. I, indeed, found it so. It not only required an "eye as practiced as a blind man's touch," it required an eye practiced in this particular kind of detective work. My new friend conducted me down into the plot of ground and, stopping on the edge of it, said, "There is a nest within two feet of me." I fell to scrutinizing the ground as closely as I knew how, fairly bearing on with my eyes; I went over the soil inch by inch with my eyes, but to no purpose. There was no mark on the gray and brown earth ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... magnificent pile including the Hall of Records to the east of the main structure. The location is somewhat central, being opposite Eighth street, just north of Market street, and bounded by Park avenue, Larkin and McAllister streets. The plot of ground on which it is erected has an area of six and three-quarters acres and is triangular in shape. The front is eight hundred feet in length, the Larkin street side five hundred and fifty feet, and the McAllister side six hundred and fifty feet long. While the architecture ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... carnivorous animal became, the more places they would be enabled to occupy. What applies to one animal will apply throughout all time to all animals—that is, if they vary—for otherwise natural selection can do nothing. So it will be with plants. It has been experimentally proved, that if a plot of ground be sown with one species of grass, and a similar plot be sown with several distinct genera of grasses, a greater number of plants and a greater weight of dry herbage can thus be raised. The same has been found to hold good when first one variety ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... stood in a small plot of ground, the cultivation of which was the delight of papa Christinat. It soon became a miniature zoological garden, where all sorts of experiments in breeding and observations on the habits of animals, were carried on. A tank for turtles ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... them. If they are poor, and bad times come, the black man crowds them out, and off they go to Australia. You can depend on a German peasant settling, but bring an Englishman or a Scotchman, and he wants to better himself. In that he is quite right, but he does not see his way on a small plot of ground, and off he goes down a mine, or something of that sort. There are great difficulties in the way of State-aided emigration. We do not want the riff-raff; we don't want the "surplus population." It is one of the greatest difficulties to ...
— A Winter Tour in South Africa • Frederick Young
... gorgeous perennial bloom. But Queen Margarets, ragged robins, variegated balsams, and tawny marigolds, have their associations, doubtless, to make them dear and valuable to the foreign heart, to which they seem essential, wherever a plot of ground be ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... my grave quite content if I thought, Nello, that when thou growest a man thou couldst own this hut and the little plot of ground, and labor for thyself, and be called Baas by thy neighbors," said the old man Jehan many an hour from his bed. For to own a bit of soil, and to be called Baas—master—by the hamlet round, is to have achieved the highest ideal of a Flemish peasant; and the old soldier, ...
— A Dog of Flanders • Louisa de la Rame)
... atmosphere had altered—it, too, was making game of him. It distorted his vision. The things he saw around him were no longer stationary—they moved. They twirled and twisted themselves into all sorts of grotesque and fanciful attitudes; grew large, then small; nearer and then more distant. The plot of ground in front of which the children knelt played all manner of pranks—pranks Van Hielen did not at all like. It moved round and round—faster and faster, until it eventually became a whirlpool; which suddenly reversed and assumed the appearance of a pyramid revolving on its apex. Quicker and quicker ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... air and synthetic food. It couldn't have had wool rugs or down pillows or smiling wives or fresh air or eggs for breakfast. It would have been just like this. So, since the ship was obsolete, they gave it to us, and a plot of ground to anchor it to, and we're home. They did the best they could for us, ...
— Homesick • Lyn Venable
... into a bare necrology, or barren list of dates and names. For, unless a narration be supported with some degree of dignity and spirit, and diversified by the intermixture of various events, it deserves not the name of history; no more than a plot of ground can be called a garden, which is neither variegated with parterres of flowers, nor checkered with walks and beds of useful herbs or shrubs. To answer the title and design of this work, a short account is given of those fathers whose names are famous in the history of the church, and ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... heaving of that tune there was an earnestness which made him thoughtful, and the shine of those windows he had characterized as ugly reminded him of the shining of the good deed in a naughty world. The chapel and its shabby plot of ground, from which the herbage was all trodden away by busy feet, had a living human interest that the numerous minsters and churches knee-deep in fresh green grass, visited by him during the foregoing week, had often lacked. Moreover, there was going to be a baptism: that meant the immersion of ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... a cottage which had once belonged to Manius Curius, who three times received the honour of a triumph. Cato used frequently to walk over and look at this cottage, and, as he observed the smallness of the plot of ground attached to it, and the simplicity of the dwelling itself, he would reflect upon how Curius, after having made himself the first man in Rome, after conquering the most warlike nations, and driving King Pyrrhus out of Italy, used to dig this little plot of ground with ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... first storm, he took care that neither the owners nor the tillers of the soil should be injuriously affected by his own movements, or by the movements of his armies. With the object of carrying out this principle, he ordered that when a particular plot of ground was decided upon as an encampment, orderlies should be posted to protect the cultivated ground in its vicinity. He further appointed assessors whose duty it should be to examine the encamping ground after the army had left it, and to place the amount ...
— Rulers of India: Akbar • George Bruce Malleson
... their needs, and dropped their anchors in its secret channels, in "a fit and convenient road," where a sailor might take his ease over a rum bowl. Drake took his men ashore, and cleared a large plot of ground "both of trees and brakes" as a site for a little village, trimly thatched with palm leaves, which was built by Diego, the negro, after the Indian fashion, for the "more comfort of the company." The archers made themselves butts to shoot at, because they had "many that delighted ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... cottage was set in a rather large plot of ground, which was mostly given up to Mr. Lockwood's nursery and hot-houses. The twins' father was wrapped up in his horticultural experiments, and as they had no mother the two girls were left much to their own devices. Mrs. Betsey Spink kept house for the Lockwoods, and ...
— The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison
... after divers persecutions, they were at length suffered to assemble within the walls of Newcastle itself, upon the north side of the 'Blew Stone' above the River Tyne. Here, in 1698, they bought a plot of ground, within a stone's-throw of St. Nicholas, facing towards the street that the townsmen call Pilgrim Street, since thither in olden days did many weary pilgrims wend their way, seeking to come unto the Mound ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... have a melancholy little plot of ground behind them, usually fenced in by four white-washed walls, and frowned upon by stacks of chimneys, in which there withers on from year to year a crippled tree, that makes a show of putting forth a ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... Mr. Balfour. The plot of ground you purchased gets its strange name from an ancient tin mine that is comprised in it, once worked by the Romans, but disused since their time. There are many such ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... all of those in our big garden now. I thought you wanted your little plot of ground ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... same plot of ground, for about six yards compass, were digged up coals and incinerated sub- stances, which begat conjecture that this was the ustrina or place of burning their bodies, or some sacrificing place unto the Manes, which was properly below ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... They owned a plot of ground, and had a hundred dollars lying at the bottom of a chest, and in the stall two fine cows. One day the woman said ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... that soar for bloom, High as the highest Peak of Furness-fells, Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells: In truth, the prison unto which we doom Ourselves, no prison is: and hence for me, In sundry moods 't was pastime to be bound Within the Sonnet's scanty plot of ground; Pleased if some Souls (for such there needs must be) Who have felt the weight of too much liberty, Should find brief solace there, ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... with that of our society. Gentlemen, I am convinced that the Fifth Form Literary Society has a great future before it. (Laughter.) I look forward to the time when we shall not grub here at 'Duster's,' but dine together in premises of our own. Our friend Mr. James has a nice little plot of ground in a soap-box, where he now grows mustard-and-cress, but which I have no doubt he would let to us on reasonable terms for building purposes. But, perhaps, I am looking a little too far ahead. As regards our immediate future, I intend making a determined effort to publish another number of ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... prosperity he gave to the congregation of the Lutheran Church in his town a choice plot of ground, the consideration being the sum of five shillings and an annual rental of one ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... detective hastened to the window, placing himself behind the curtain so that he could not be seen from outside. He himself could see first a wide courtyard lying between the two wings of the house, then beyond it the garden, an immense square plot of ground beautifully cultivated. The left wing of the house was about six windows longer than the other, and from the first story of it it would be quite easy to look out over the vacant lot where the old shed stood which had served as a night's ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner
... to-day the signal for meeting is given." I was led across a plain to a hill; and lo! at the foot of the hill was an avenue of palms continued even to its summit, which we entered and ascended: on the summit or top of the hill was a grove, the trees of which, on an elevated plot of ground, formed as it were a theatre, within which was a court paved with various colored stones: around it in a square form were placed seats, on which the lovers of wisdom were seated; and in the middle of the theatre was a table, on which was laid a sealed paper. Those who sat on the seats invited ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... Dora Stanhope and her cousins, Nellie and Grace Laning. When Dick went into business he made Dora Stanhope his life partner, and a short while after this Tom married Nellie Laning and Sam married Grace. The three brothers purchased a fine plot of ground on Riverside Drive overlooking the Hudson River, and there they built three connecting houses, Dick and his wife living in the middle house, with Tom on one side and Sam on ...
— The Rover Boys on a Hunt - or The Mysterious House in the Woods • Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer)
... trains came and went, teams made dust in the streets, cavalry passed through the village, music arose from all the outlying camps; parades and inspections were made, and all the preparations for killing men were relentlessly forwarded. A pleasant entertainment occurred one evening, when a plot of ground adjoining the Warrenton Inn, was appropriated for a camp theatre. Candle footlights were arranged, and the stage was canopied with national flags. The citizens congregated, and the performers deferred to their ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... Angelo Puma's agile gaiety and exotic exuberances, his brain remained entirely occupied with two matters. One of these concerned the possibility of interesting Mr. Pawling in a plot of ground on Broadway, now defaced ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... the spring, Mr. Harrison gave to each of them a little plot of ground for a garden; and the little fellows were very busy during play-hours, in preparing and arranging their gardens. They had permission to go to the gardener and get just what seeds they wanted; so some of the boys planted melons and cucumbers, and some pumpkins and radishes, and two of them made ...
— The Apple Dumpling and Other Stories for Young Boys and Girls • Unknown
... A plot of ground near the Captain's log-house had been enclosed with shingles, and cleared for a kitchen-garden; there indeed paced Colonel Washington, his hands behind his back, his head bowed down, a grave sorrow on his handsome face. The negro ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... countries I do certaine know, The parents with their children married be, Which they do most, their godlinesse to show, Because their loues increast thereby they see. Then shal this lucklesse plot of ground remaine, Th'occasion that ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale
... night sprite Cad glided away and Oscar fell to the shadow of the man Redalli. He followed him to the Hoboken ferry, crossed on the same boat with him, and saw him enter a house situated in the midst of a large plot of ground covered by lines ...
— Cad Metti, The Female Detective Strategist - Dudie Dunne Again in the Field • Harlan Page Halsey
... learners, gladly welcoming every help, and respecting every personality. But we should also respect our own, and bear in mind, that "though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to us but through our toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to us to till." To undervalue our own thought because it is ours, to depreciate our own powers or faculties because some one else's are more vigorous, to shrink from doing what we can because we think we can do so little, is to hinder our own development and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... realized a few days later, and Mr. Grummit at the back window sat gloating over a dozen fine geraniums, some lobelias and calceolarias, which decorated the constable's plot of ground. He could not ...
— Captains All and Others • W.W. Jacobs
... front, painted in the German fashion, imitated a trellis with flowers up to the second floor, and was really a charming example of the Pompadour style, so well called rococo. A long avenue of limes led up to it. The gardens of the pavilion and my plot of ground were in the shape of a hatchet, of which this avenue was the handle. My wall would cut away ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac
... the shore, a plot of ground Clips a ruin'd chapel round, Buttress'd with a grassy mound; Where Day and Night and Day go by, And bring no touch ...
— Sixteen Poems • William Allingham
... which is one of the dullest books we know, but it must be admitted that by sending Mr. Blunt to gaol he has converted a clever rhymer into an earnest and deep-thinking poet. The narrow confines of the prison cell seem to suit the 'sonnet's scanty plot of ground,' and an unjust imprisonment for a noble cause strengthens as well as deepens ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... the tombs, as heretofore, continue to crowd together toward the gate. The keeper, who is at once grave-digger and church-beadle—thus making a double profit out of the parish corpses—has taken advantage of the unused plot of ground to plant potatoes there. From year to year, however, his small field grows smaller and when there is an epidemic, he does not know whether to rejoice at the deaths or regret ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... noteworthy section of the table, and that was the so-called Academy. This consisted of a plot of ground, surrounded by an iron fence, and divided up into twelve or fifteen square fields, each of which was painted in fresh green. In the middle of each field there was a wooden peg about two inches high, and to the middle of each ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... so much that she gave him a plot of ground to cultivate for himself, and he immediately set to work to plant vegetables, spending every spare moment of the day in ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... is one thing I forgot to say, that we want more individual will in building, I think. As it is at present, a great builder takes a plot of ground and turns out innumerable houses, all alike, the same faults and merits running through each, thus adding to the ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... and when I grew to be a lad he could not afford to keep me idle, he took me to a farm in the country and set me there to work it. [38] Then it was my turn, and I supported him while he lived, digging with my own hands and sowing the seed in a ridiculous little plot of ground, and yet it was not a bad bit of soil either, but as good and as honest earth as ever you saw: whatever seed it got from me, it paid me back again, and so prettily and carefully and duly, principal and interest both; not that the interest ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... was so near the farm-buildings that it almost looked like one of them, but a narrow lane really ran between, and it stood on its own little plot of ground. At its door there was an immense horse-chestnut, which she could "mind," she said, helping to plant when she was a girl. She had held it straight in the hole while old Mr Solace, the grandfather of this young Master Andrew, had filled in the earth. She was most sorry to think she had ...
— Black, White and Gray - A Story of Three Homes • Amy Walton
... raking the surface of things, if haply they may chance upon another. The moral of one of Hawthorne's stories is that there is no element of treasure-trove in success, but that true luck lies in the deep and assiduous cultivation of our own plot of ground, be it larger or smaller. For indeed the only estate of man that savors of the realty is in his mind. Mr. James seems to have arrived early at an understanding of this, and to have profited by the best modern appliances of self-culture. ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... engineering. But it has not brought him a satisfaction in which he can rest. And he has not become a saint. An aged couple, who belong to the old regime and obstinately refuse to part with the little plot of ground on which they have lived for years, anger him to the point of madness. He wants their land so that he may build on it a watch-tower from which to survey and govern his possessions. He sends his servitor to remove them to a better home which he has ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... the care of the property left to your father. There is a house that is rented, and a great plot of ground. Cousin Charles owned so much land, and he never was married, so it had to go round to the cousins. He was very fond of your father as a little boy. And Uncle Winthrop seems the proper person to take charge ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... knew how to cultivate the ground, but for himself only. For others, he dug ditches, gathered fagots, barked the trees, or cut them down. In all such work the employer is at the mercy of the workman. Tonsard owned his plot of ground to the generosity of Mademoiselle Laguerre. In his early youth he had worked by the day for the gardener at Les Aigues; and he really had not his equal in trimming the shrubbery-trees, the hedges, the horn-beams, and the horse-chestnuts. His very ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... Browning—his sense of the symbolism of material trifles. Enormous problems, and yet more enormous answers, about pain, prayer, destiny, liberty, and conscience are suggested by cherries, by the sun, by a melon-seller, by an eagle flying in the sky, by a man tilling a plot of ground. It is this spirit of grotesque allegory which really characterises Browning among all other poets. Other poets might possibly have hit upon the same philosophical idea—some idea as deep, as delicate, and as spiritual. But it may be safely asserted that no other poet, ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... Inquisition was founded in Spain for the extermination of Jews, Moors, and Christians with a taint of heresy. During the next four years 2,000 victims were burned in the province of Castile. In Seville, a plot of ground, called the Quemadero, or place of burning—a new Aceldama—was set apart for executions; and here in one year 280 heretics were committed to the flames, while 79 were condemned to perpetual imprisonment, and 17,000 to lighter punishments ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... at first more surprising to one who crosses a country inhabited by savages than the few marks of their presence which strike the eye, or at least an unpractised eye. The little plot of ground the Kafirs have cultivated is in a few years scarcely distinguishable from the untouched surface of the surrounding land, while the mud-built hut quickly disappears under the summer rains and the scarcely less destructive ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... differently; a hundred men declared that they would die in defence of him; and at last I gained my point. Tui Mbua agreed to go to the neighbourhood of the hostile town, if I would bring its principal men to meet him at an appointed place. So we went. This chosen place was a fine plot of ground enclosed by magnificent chestnut trees. I went on to the town, with a few unarmed men. The people received us well; but it was difficult to make the old heathen, brought up on treachery and falsehood, ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... turned out of pots, and having mixed it with as much leaf-mould and quite rotten manure as can be spared, lay the mixture in a ridge at the foot of the wall. As walls do not anywhere run in such lengths as to provide for all the early Potatoes that are wanted, select a plot of ground lying warm and dry to the sun, and having spread over it a liberal allowance of decayed manure, and any light fertilising stuff, such as the red and black residue from the burning of hedge clippings, turf, and weeds, ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... growing in our own garden, they can be moved with very slight check to their growth. In starting the seed there is no necessity for hot-bed or cold-frame. It may be put in the ground the first week of April, and the best plants are thus secured. Much is gained by preparing a warm but not dry plot of ground in autumn, making it very rich with short, half-decayed stable-manure. This preparation should be begun as soon as possible after the soaking September rains. Having thoroughly incorporated and mixed evenly in the soil an abundance of the manure described, leave the ground ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe
... and famine and all manner of earthly ills. But now in her old age she had peace. Two of her dead sons, who had sought their fortunes in the other hemisphere, had left her a little money, and she had a little cottage and a plot of ground, and a pig, and a small orchard. She was well-to-do, and could leave it all to Bernadou; and for ten years she had been happy, perfectly happy, in the coolness and the sweetness and the old familiar ways and habits ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... short span of time they live, men of great intellect are like huge buildings, standing on a small plot of ground. The size of the building cannot be seen by anyone, just in front of it; nor, for an analogous reason, can the greatness of a genius be estimated while he lives. But when a century has passed, the world recognizes it and wishes ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... the witnesses belonged to men who were dead and could not repudiate the signatures. Then came the signing of the quitclaim deed which provided an opportunity to substitute the will, and which, as far as Isaac Perry was concerned, was a bona fide transaction. The little plot of ground was in truth a portion of his own compensation exacted in advance of ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... set in low, rough, wood palings. Behind the palings lay a large, straggling, and untidy garden, relieved from absolute ugliness by some high forest trees which had been allowed to remain when the house in the centre of the plot of ground was built. ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... oats, hay, and grass. We were struck with the sight of haycocks fastened down with aprons, sheets, pieces of sacking—as we supposed, to prevent the wind from blowing them away. We afterwards found that this practice was very general in Scotland. Every cottage seemed to have its little plot of ground, fenced by a ridge of earth; this plot contained two or three different divisions, kail, potatoes, oats, hay; the houses all standing in lines, or never far apart; the cultivated ground was all together also, and made a very ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... first came in sight of it, appeared more like a log cabin in America than like a well-known and much-frequented European hotel. It stood on a very small plot of ground, which formed a sort of projection on a steep mountain side, facing the Jungfrau. In front of the hotel the land descended very rapidly for a considerable distance. The descent terminated at last on the brink of an enormous ravine which separated the base of the Wengern Alp from that of the Jungfrau. ...
— Rollo in Switzerland • Jacob Abbott
... looked more like a rubbish heap than a garden, and the close neighbourhood of the well did not improve it. There was only one cheerful object in the Wilderness just now, and that was a little monthly rose-bush in Dickie's plot of ground, which, in spite of most unfavourable circumstances, bore ...
— The Hawthorns - A Story about Children • Amy Walton
... San Cristobal. Mr. M.F. Juncos believes that the prisons were in the lower part of the Dominican Convent, later the territorial audience and now the supreme court, but Mr. Salvador Brau thinks that they occupied a plot of ground in the angle formed by Cristo Street and the "Caleta" of ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk
... before the appointed time, Ole Thorwald, under cover of a dark night, stole out of his own dwelling, with slow and wary step, and crossed the little plot of ground that lay in front of it, with the sly and mysterious air of a burglar rather than that of an ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... with infinite awe as being the nearest approach within the circuit of his observation to a conception of the majesty of Sinai. Indeed, at this period his infant fancy was much exercised with the threats and terrors of the Law. He had a little plot of ground at the back of the house, marked out as his own by a Tory of oyster-shells, which a maid one day threw away as rubbish. He went straight to the drawing-room, where his mother was entertaining some visitors, walked into the circle, and said very solemnly: "Cursed be Sally; for it is written, Cursed ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan |
