"Vervain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... events, to some of the remoter suburbs. The bank would not claim his thoughts for twenty-four hours, nor the law-school mine. We left the train at a promising point and prepared to scuffle over a half-mile splotched with vervain and yarrow, yet to bloom, toward a long, thin range of trees that seemed to mark the course of some small stream. But between us and that possible stream there soon developed much besides the sprinkling ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... her charms. Her object is to recal Daphnis, whom she styles her husband, to his former love for her. At the same time, she says, she will endeavour by magic to turn him away from his wholesome sense. She directs her attendant to burn vervain and frankincense; and she ascribes the highest efficacy to the solemn chant, which, she says, can call down the moon from its sphere, can make the cold-blooded snake burst in the field, and was the means by which Circe turned the companions of Ulysses into beasts. She orders his image to be thrice ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... and as he recovers, the sick person is supposed to recover too. A cure for a tumour, based on the principle of homoeopathic magic, is prescribed by Marcellus of Bordeaux, court physician to Theodosius the First, in his curious work on medicine. It is as follows. Take a root of vervain, cut it across, and hang one end of it round the patient's neck, and the other in the smoke of the fire. As the vervain dries up in the smoke, so the tumour will also dry up and disappear. If the patient should ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... any village in England; the hedge on each side is of hawthorn, which was then in blossom, and the grass was soft under the feet as a velvet cushion; on the bank, under the hedge, were all manner of sweet flowers, violets, and primroses, and the blue vervain. ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... upward of nine years old; I have parsley in my garden, for the weaving of chaplets, I have a store of ivy, with which, when you have bound your hair, you look so gay: the house shines cheerfully With plate: the altar, bound with chaste vervain, longs to be sprinkled [with the blood] of a sacrificed lamb: all hands are busy: girls mingled with boys fly about from place to place: the flames quiver, rolling on their summit the sooty smoke. But yet, that you may know to what joys you are invited, the Ides are to be celebrated by you, the ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... Deity incarnated by avatars in human forms, I see the spots of the successions of priests on the earth, oracles, sacrificers, brahmins, sabians, llamas, monks, muftis, exhorters, I see where druids walk'd the groves of Mona, I see the mistletoe and vervain, I see the temples of the deaths of the bodies of Gods, I see ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... such an analysis. And what result would it be possible to attain with all our efforts! We could not hope to convey to those who have never heard him, any just conception of that fascination so ineffably poetic, that charm subtle and penetrating as the delicate perfume of the vervain or the Ethiopian calla, which, shrinking and exclusive, refuses to diffuse its exquisite aroma in the noisome breath of crowds, whose heavy air can only retain the stronger odor of the tuberose, the incense ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... on the handkerchief, and are about to fade away, have a sickly and disagreeable odor. This is due to the admixture of the wrong or discordant tones. Thus, heliotrope, vanilla, orange blossom and almond blend together; citron, lemon, vervain and orange peel belong together, but they produce a stronger impression on the sense of smell, and are of a higher octave; and so with a still higher class, ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... more; In my garden, dear Phyllis, thy brows to entwine, Grows the brightest of parsley in plentiful store. There is ivy to gleam on thy dark glossy hair; My plate, newly burnished, enlivens my rooms; And the altar, athirst for its victim, is there, Enwreathed with chaste vervain and choicest ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... hillside was a clump of real friends—the rich green leaves of vervain, that humble little weed, sacred in turn to the Druids, the Romans, and the early Christians, and now brought inadvertently in some long-past time, in an overseas shipment, and holding its own in this breathing-space of the jungle. ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... with a basket of fish; a rustic had seen the child stooping to gather flowers; several persons had heard either the rattling of chariot wheels, or the rumbling of distant thunder; and one old woman, while plucking vervain and catnip, had heard a scream, but supposed it to be some childish nonsense, and therefore did not take the trouble to look up. The stupid people! It took them such a tedious while to tell the nothing ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... heard that it was then concluded as follows, nor is there a more ancient record of any treaty. A herald asked king Tullus thus, "Do you command me, O king, to conclude a treaty with the pater patratus of the Alban people?" After the king had given command, he said, "I demand vervain of thee, O king." To which the king replied, "Take some that is pure." The herald brought a pure blade of grass from the citadel; again he asked the king thus, "Dost thou, O king, appoint me the royal delegate of the Roman people, the Quirites? including my vessels and attendants?" The ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... Palm, Patchouly, Sweet Pea (Theory of Odors), Pineapple, Pink, Rhodium (Rose yields two Odors), Rosemary, Sage, Santal, Sassafras, Spike, Storax, Syringa, Thyme, Tonquin, Tuberose, Vanilla, Verbena or Vervain, Violet, Vitivert, Volkameria, Wallflower, Winter-green—Duty ...
— The Art of Perfumery - And Methods of Obtaining the Odors of Plants • G. W. Septimus Piesse
... vague odor enveloped her. It was not one of those heavy perfumes of her mother, but a discreet breath in which he fancied he could detect a suspicion of iris powder, and perhaps a suggestion of vervain. ...
— Yvette • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... with silver vessels shine; Chaste vervain decks the modest shrine, That longs with crimson stains To see its foliage sprinkled o'er, When the devoted Lamb shall pour The ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... of insignificant purple-blue flowers in the centre, and buds at the top of the vervain's slender spires do not produce a striking effect, yet this common plant certainly does not lack beauty. John Burroughs, ever ready to say a kindly, appreciative word for any weed, speaks of its drooping, knotted threads, that "make a pretty etching upon the winter snow." Bees, ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... said Torquil. "Hell shall not prevail so far: we will steep thy sword in holy water, place vervain, St. John's Wort, and rowan tree in thy crest. We will surround thee, I and thy eight brethren: thou shalt be ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... side, to a patch of shady bush, from which she soon returned victorious, with a bunch of the larger Wood-Sorrel in her hand, to exhibit the identity of its leaves, and its delicate white blossoms with their pinky-purple veins. By the time the other juveniles brought in the blue Vervain, pink Fireweed and tall yellow Mullein, the botanist thought it about time to go home and press ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell |
