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Oasis   Listen
noun
Oasis  n.  (pl. oases)  
1.
A fertile or green spot in a waste or desert, esp. in a sandy desert, where the water table approaches the surface. "The Arab does not love the desert; the Arab loves the oasis and green fields."
2.
Hence: (fig.) Any refuge from a prevailing stressful, unpleasant, or annoying situation.
Synonyms: haven. "My one oasis in the dust and drouth Of city life."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Oasis" Quotes from Famous Books



... woman and an inscrutable stranger meet and love in an oasis of the Sahara. Staged this season with magnificent cast and ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower

... the ocean isle, with its tropical perfumes and colours, its superb mountain and valley scenery, bathed in eternal sunshine by day and kissed by cool ocean breezes by night—the isle of Paul and Virginia, the isle which to Alexandre Dumas was the Paradise of the World, an enchanted oasis of the ocean, "all carpeted with greenery and refreshed with cooling streams, where, no matter what the season, you may gently sink asleep beneath the shade of palms and jamrosades, soothed by the babbling of a ...
— Laperouse • Ernest Scott

... harmony of scene and incident is found in the meeting of the arms and ideals of the East and West, when the two champions fight in the burning desert, and then eat bread together in the cool shade of the oasis, as described in the opening chapter of The Talisman. A third illustration is found in that fascinating love scene, where Ivanhoe lies wounded, raging at his helplessness, while the gentle Rebecca alternately hides and reveals her love ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long

... of our ride lay across an undulating plain of dolorite, to a farm situated at the head of an inlet of the sea. At a distance, the farm-steading looked like a little oasis of green, amid the grey stony slopes that surrounded it, and on a nearer approach not unlike the vestiges of a Celtic earthwork, with the tumulus of a hero or two in the centre, but the mounds turned out to be nothing more than the grass roofs of the house ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)

... poured into the red barn of the census shack and entered the artificial fairyland within. The President walked through, smiling; the senators protected their friends in the crush; and Harry Cresswell led his wife to a little oasis of ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois

... some time after there was occasion to open, was discovered an acknowledgment of many pounds of gold received by him from Cyril, through Paul, his sister's son. Nestorius was abandoned by the court, and eventually exiled to an Egyptian oasis. An edifying legend relates that his blasphemous tongue was devoured by worms, and that from the heats of an Egyptian desert he escaped only into the ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper

... given up much of the joy of living to serve, has learned to keep self under and love even the unlovable, has put to the test the promises of the Bible and found them hold true in time of need, and has found the Sabbath day an oasis in the desert of an otherwise dreary life, even an old theologian wouldn't have much more to go on in beginning ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill

... wandering party of the Arabs, with whom the coast was then lined; as is usually the case immediately after tempestuous weather. Unable to carry off much of the cargo, this party had secured the prisoners, and hurried inland to an oasis, to give the important intelligence to their friends; leaving scouts on the shore, however, that they might be early apprised of any similar disaster, or of any change in the situation of their present prize. These scouts had discovered the Montauk, drifting along the coast, dismasted ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... who dwelt in the middle of the block to waste some valuable minutes in dragging himself to one of these fountains of bliss at either end; but at the time my story opens a wide-awake philanthropist was fitting up a neat and attractive little bar-room, called "The Oasis," at a point equally distant between the other two ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... husband, and spent her life in the recesses of the harem, praying as a Christian both for the murderer and his victims. It is a relief, in the midst of this atrocious saturnalia to encounter this noble and gentle character, which like a desert oasis, affords a rest to eyes wearied with the contemplation of ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... a shadowy pool hidden behind the Pisan hills, like a forgotten oasis in the great plain at the foot of the mountains, a pallid autumn rose, smiling subtly among the gardens that girdle her round about with a sad garland of green, a cincture of silver, a tossing sea of olives. However you come to her, you must pass ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton

... the art of moderation. Also it was an afternoon that invited bodily activity after the convalescent languor of the earlier part of the day. Elaine had instinctively found her way into her riding-habit and sent an order down to the stables—a blessed oasis that still smelt sweetly of horse and hay and cleanliness in a world that reeked of petrol, and now she set her mare at a smart pace through a succession of long-stretching country lanes. She was due some time ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki

... the other, like the strokes of a lash; a wind came up out of the sea, and one could hear the thunder of surf on the headlands. The mother-ship lay moored in a wild, desolate, and indescribably romantic bay; she floated in a sheltered pool, a very oasis of modernity, a marvelous creature of another world and another time. There was just light enough for me to see that her lines were those of a giant yacht. Then a curtain of rain beat hissing down on the sea, and the ship and the vague darkening landscape disappeared—disappeared ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various

... offended by the methods pursued. This fact is attested by statements of those who speak for invested industrial wealth. Thus, W. S. Thomas, of Springfield, says that the policies pursued have made "Ohio an oasis in the widespread area of industrial turmoil during and ...
— The Progressive Democracy of James M. Cox • Charles E. Morris

... it can afford but three floors. The spaciousness of some of those ancient drawing-rooms is that of a Russian steppe. The "family circle," gathered anywhere within speaking distance, must resemble a group of pilgrims encamped in the desert on a little oasis of carpet. Madame Gryzanowska, living at the top of a house in that dusky, tortuous old Borgo Pinti, initiated me the other evening most good- naturedly, lamp in hand, into the far-spreading mysteries of her apartment. Such quarters seem a translation ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James

... Nature sublime! Reign’d tyranny, warfare, and every crime; The world a desert—no oasis green A man-loving soul on its surface had seen; Then mercy above a mandate sent forth An Eden to form—a refuge for worth. From the ocean it came, with halo so bright, Want, strife, and oppression were lost in ...
— The Old Bush Songs • A. B. Paterson

... dear child, we sleep at the pretty little town—yes, town I may almost call it—of Seeberg. It stands in what I may call an oasis of the forest, which stops abruptly, and begins again some miles beyond Seeberg. We should be there in another hour or so," he went on, consulting his watch. "I have, of course, written for rooms there, ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth

... your heart. It has counted the cost, and finds that it can pay a million of men thirteen dollars a month for three years, and still make a good thing out of it—that's about the breadth of it. Here's an oasis in the desert of darkness. ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... them now, through the crystalline flicker of the heat, he saw the dark rim of the wood, the cork forest of La Huerca for which he was looking, and which hid the river from his aching eyes. No foot-burnt wanderer in Sahara ever hailed his oasis with heartier thanksgiving; but it was still a league and a half away. He addressed himself to the task of reaching it, and we may suppose Manuela respected his efforts. At any rate, there was silence between the pair for the better part of an hour—what time the unwinking sun, vertically ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett

... travellers with general rations for both man and beast. The place was clean in comparison with what we had been accustomed to, and we seemed to sigh a mutual sigh of content at our good luck in reaching this "oasis." We rested all afternoon, and got to bed early, and, although there were rats about, I slept "like a log," ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various

... just then that we spotted a tent with the sign of 'The Red Triangle.' We had visions of hot tea. An oasis in the desert could not have been more welcome. We entered the large tent; it was very full, and a long line was patiently awaiting the turn for purchasing. There was no shouting, no pushing or elbowing ...
— One Young Man • Sir John Ernest Hodder-Williams

... drank of the Nile. Above the cataracts they pushed their arms into Ethiopia, and left there the monuments of their dominion. To the west they were at once defended and confined by a desert impassable to armies, but which the oasis rendered passable to the caravan. On the north was an almost harborless sea. On the east was another desert, through which roads led to the ports of the Red Sea and the mines of Sinai. On the north-east the Arabian desert formed an imperfect barrier. It was traversed by the hosts of Sesostris and ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various

... himself is left behind; we are crossing the chalk uplands. On all sides are vast stretches of unfenced arable land, though here and there a tiny village with its square-towered Norman church peeps out from an oasis of green fields and stately elm trees. On the right the Chiltern Hills are seen in the background, and Wittenham Clump stands forth—a conspicuous object for miles. The country round Didcot reminds one very much of the north of France: between Calais and Paris one notices ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs

... Robinson Crusoes of the class, many such slaves of conventionalism achieve their freedom while intending only to better their condition. They emigrate to a new country, and find themselves actually in a desert island—an oasis in the wilderness—where it is necessary to work at whatever employment offers the means of subsistence—to resort to all sorts of shifts and expedients, and to submit cheerfully to the deprivation of things they ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 457 - Volume 18, New Series, October 2, 1852 • Various

... to him as a bondman laziness was great gain, for he had no pecuniary interest in his own labor. Hence, holidays were more to be desired than whole labor days, and he learned to do as little as he might, be excused as often as he could, and hail Saturday as the oasis in a desert week. He hails it yet. The labor efficiency of the Negro has greatly increased since the emancipation, for self-interest is a factor now. In 1865, each Negro produced two-thirds of a bale of cotton; now he produces an average of one whole bale to the man. But there is still woful ...
— The Negro Problem • Booker T. Washington, et al.

... sea, and here we found her on the outpost of civilization, determined to start what Kansas most needed—a good hotel. But alas! it was too good for that latitude and proved a financial failure. It was, to us, an oasis in the desert, where we would gladly have lingered if the opposition would have come to us for conversion. But, as we had to carry the gospel of woman's equality into the highways and hedges, we left ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... the desert sky that men called "mirages." They were of shady groves and flowing rivers, and many a time had Aleppo seen them as he pressed on through the sands, with head held high, so that he might scan the horizon for the longed-for oasis. He turned to speak of these to Phil; but his little companion, he saw, had meantime drifted ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten

... N. disjunction, disconnection, disunity, disunion, disassociation, disengagement; discontinuity &c 70; abjunction^; cataclasm^; inconnection^; abstraction, abstractedness; isolation; insularity, insulation; oasis; island; separateness &c adj.; severalty; disjecta membra [Lat.]; dispersion &c 73; apportionment &c 786. separation; parting &c v.; circumcision; detachment, segregation; divorce, sejunction^, seposition^, diduction^, diremption^, discerption^; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... and bellowing like pandemonium turned loose as we marched through Corinth on the morning of the evacuation. We bade farewell to Corinth. Its history was black and dark and damning. No little speck of green oasis ever enlivened the dark recesses of our memory while at this place. It's a desert that lives only in bitter memories. It was but one vast graveyard that entombed the life and spirit of once brave and chivalrous men. We left it ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins

... in Colorado, a genuine oasis in the desert, with its huge irrigating canals of mountain water running through the mighty wheat fields, glistening each autumn at the base of the range, affords a good deal that is curious, not only to the mind of the gentleman from the States, but even to the man who ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... coloured spurs of naked rock, most picturesquely crowded with chod-tens, rise above the greenery, breaking the purple gloom of the gorge which cuts deeply into the mountains, and supplies from its rushing glacier torrent the living waters which create this delightful oasis. ...
— Among the Tibetans • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs Bishop)

... and farther away to a bit of an oasis where the Sheikh's people are gathered with their flocks. They find pasture there at this time of year, and a little employment with the travellers who come to Cairo. In the summer time, when the city is pretty well empty, they ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn

... the empire. Europe was now again in repose; and Aurelian found himself at liberty to apply his powers as a reorganizer and restorer to the East. In that quarter of the world a marvellous revolution had occurred. The little oasis of Palmyra, from a Roman colony, had grown into the leading province of a great empire. This island of the desert, together with Syria and Egypt, formed an independent monarchy under the sceptre of Zenobia. [Footnote: Zenobia is complimented by all historians ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey

... gray line on its horizon, marking, I afterward learned, the boundary of the Great Cypress Swamp, there was but a single break on this expansive waste. That was a rich growth of trees about two miles out, to the southeast of us; an oasis, it would have been called in the Sahara, but in the Florida prairies known as an "island." Whether this term of "island" finds origin in the similarity of these verdant places to real islands, seeming as they do to float upon an inland sea of grass, or whether because, being of higher ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris

... my little house. The gardener and his family live in the pavilion in the garden and we are the last house at the end of the village, quite isolated in the country, which is a ravishing oasis. Fields, woods, appletrees as in Normandy; not a great river with its steam whistles and infernal chain; a little stream which runs silently under the willows; a silence ... ah! it seems to me that I am in the depths of the virgin forest: nothing speaks except the little jet of the spring which ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert

... neutral oasis encircled by belligerents is fraught with difficulty, has long been treated as hardly more than an adjunct of the German empire, and many of the best Swiss writers, far from resenting this affront, welcome it as a compliment. Just as Americans ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon

... (what is more to our purpose) where we find associations of Charles Dickens. There are a beautiful bowling-green and grounds at the back, approached by a series of terraces well planted with flowers, and the green is surrounded by fine elms which constitute quite an oasis in the desert of the somewhat prosaic Chatham. The Mitre is thus immortalized in the "Guest's Story" ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes

... had been my misery for the past two years, that this gloomy stay in a hospital was for me like an oasis in the desert. The good sisters were very kind to me; and, when I was able, I helped them with their lighter work, or went to the chapel with them. I shuddered at the thought that I must leave them as soon as I was entirely well; and then what would ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau

... do the tablets of Karnak, the palaces of Nineveh, and the cylinders of Babylon tell us about the thoughts of men? All is dead and barren, nowhere a sigh, nowhere a jest, nowhere a glimpse of humanity. There has been but one oasis in that vast desert of ancient Asiatic history, the history of the Jews. Another such oasis is the Veda. Here, too, we come to a stratum of ancient thought, of ancient feelings, hopes, joys, and fears,—of ancient religion. There is perhaps too little of kings ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller

... which this cavern occurs is a small green oasis on the undulating steppe, lying on a vast bed of rock-salt, which extends over an area of two versts in length, and a mile in breadth, with a thickness of more than 100 feet. When the thin cover of red sand ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne

... has the good fortune to meet on his progress with an incident that gratifies the mind, raises the soul, and fills the heart with pleasing emotions, he stops there, Gentlemen, as the African traveller halts in an oasis! ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago

... infant of her own, had rendered those poor folks, the Soubirouses, the service of suckling and keeping their child for them. Bartres, a village of four hundred souls, at a league or so from Lourdes, lay as it were in a desert oasis, sequestered amidst greenery, and far from any frequented highway. The road dips down, the few houses are scattered over grassland, divided by hedges and planted with walnut and chestnut trees, whilst the clear rivulets, which are never silent, follow the sloping banks ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... come upon an oasis in this desert of stone," muttered Tonnison, as he gazed interestedly. Then he was silent, his eyes fixed; and I looked also; for up from somewhere about the center of the wooded lowland there rose high into the quiet air a ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson

... between the Guanches and Berbers, a tribe of mountaineers, in which the ancient Numidians, Getuli, and Garamanti are confounded, and who extend themselves from the eastern extremity of Atlas by Harutsh and Fezzan, as far as the oasis of Siwah and Augela. The natives of the Canary Islands called themselves Guanches, from guan, man; as the Tonguese call themselves bye, and tongui, which have the same signification as guan. Besides the nations who speak the Berberic language are not all of the same race; and the description ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... While preparations for the final campaign were being made, he undertook a journey to the temple of Jupiter Ammon, which was situated in an oasis of the Libyan Desert, at a distance of two hundred miles. The oracle declared him to be a son of that god who, under the form of a serpent, had beguiled Olympias, his mother. Immaculate conceptions and celestial descents were so currently received in those days, that whoever ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper

... becoming dusk when they swept down into a little nest of green trees and grass. It appeared so suddenly, and was such an unexpected oasis amid that surrounding wilderness, that Hampton gave vent to a sudden exclamation of delight. But that was all. Instantly he perceived numerous dark forms leaping from out the shrubbery, and he wheeled his horses to the left, lashing them into a rapid run. ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish

... the feeble attention of savage man and taught him facts of nature, through his eagerness to get signs of coming plenty or suggestions as to his own plans and efforts. Attention has been called to a very interesting fact about the fructification of the domesticated date palm wherever oasis cultivation prevailed in western Asia.[1887] The fructification must be artificial. Men carry the pollen to the female plant and adopt devices to distribute it on the wind or by artificial contact. At the present time this is done by attaching a bunch of the male ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... women who have given their hands to their husbands, but never their hearts. I see faces, now and then, which make me think of what I have read descriptive of deserts where there is no water to quench the thirst, no oasis with its green palms giving grateful shade from the summer heat,—faces that tell of hunger and thirst for the bread and water of love ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin

... dear, dear Fernley. Alas! how young I was there! a simple child, sporting among the Northern daisies. Now, in the whirlwind of my passionate existence, I look back to that peaceful summer. For you, Marguerite, the green oasis, the palm-trees, the crystal spring; for me, the sand storm and the fiery death. No matter! I live and die a daughter of Cuba, the gold star on my brow, the three colours painted on my heart. Good night, beloved! ...
— Rita • Laura E. Richards

... is about the same as this, but not quite so large. It is in the oasis of Deira, across the desert. The Sahib knows how well the palms grow there. My cousin tells me the compound is very large; the Sahib there kept four malis;[1] very fine garden, many ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross

... again, surrounded by a circle of admirers—men and women—an oasis of intelligence, it seemed to him as he listened, in a desert of twaddle. She smiled at him with her eyes, as he looked at her through the press, and just as he had won to a place by her side, the tide was sent flooding into a large room where, it was ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick

... was soon established. Then, with trembling and eager footsteps, the girls hastened to what appeared to be an oasis ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell

... the valley and came to the top of the gentle slope extending along its eastern edge, Helen made a discovery. All these latter days she had thought of the desert as behind her, lying all to the westward. Now she understood how the ranch was aptly named Desert Valley; it was a freak, an oasis, a fertile valley with desert lands to east as well as west, and to north and south. When they had ridden down the far slope of the hills they were once more upon the edges of the solitudes of sand-sweep and sand-ridge and cactus ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory

... returned to the moat-house it was dark, and on the stroke of the dinner hour. That meal he took with Sir Philip and Miss Heredith in the faded state of the big dining-room—three decorous figures at a brightly lit oasis of snowy linen and silver, with the sober black of Tufnell in the background. Sir Philip greeted Colwyn with his tired smile of welcome. He seemed somewhat frailer, but quite animated as he pressed a special claret on his guest and told him, like a child ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees

... ever crossed the desert, though hundreds had tried to do so, for everyone knew that it was in the very center of the oasis that the Wonderful Plant grew. He had never been able to find out why it was a Wonderful Plant; some said it had a flower that never died, the perfume of which would keep off trouble, others said that its leaves, crushed and eaten, would cure ...
— The Enchanted Island • Fannie Louise Apjohn

... weakness, vanity, and irresolution, make haste to depreciate his achievements in philosophy, without troubling themselves to inquire too closely into their intrinsic value. I am sorry to be obliged to instance the illustrious Mommsen, who speaks of the De Legibus as "an oasis in the desert of this dreary and voluminous writer." From political partizanship, and prejudices based on facts irrelevant to the matter in hand, I beg all students to free themselves in reading ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... village we sought. Sunrise found us on our way, and a tramp of several weary hours, with occasional breaks for rest and refreshment, brought us at last to the desired spot. It was a quaint, picturesque little hamlet, embosomed in a mountain recess, a sheltered oasis in the midst of a wind-swept, snow-covered region. The usual Swiss trade of wood-carving appeared to be the principal occupation of the community. The single narrow street was thronged with goats, whose jingling many-toned ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford

... the extraordinary sequence of dishes which probably belonged to the early days of colonisation, either proves herculean strength or the triumph of mind over matter, but to those of less heroic mould the unwonted amenities of a more familiar civilisation are welcome as a green oasis in a sandy desert. A cool and healthy mountain climate gives unwonted zest for the lovely excursions of which Garoet is the centre. From the little lake Setoe Bajendit, a covered raft plies to a cupola-crowned hill, facing a ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings

... for example—no mean artery, either—was torn up when I came into New York, and it was still torn up when I left. And, lastly, why are there no island refuges on Fifth Avenue? Even at the intersection of Fifth and Broadway there is no oasis for the pursued wayfarer. Every European city has long ago decided that the provision of island refuges in main thoroughfares is an act of elementary justice to the wayfarer in his unequal and exhausting ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett

... he paused athirst And suddenly across the wastes of heat, He saw cool waters gleaming, and a sweet Green oasis upon his vision burst. A tender dream, long in his bosom nursed, Spread love's illusive verdure for his feet; The barren sands changed into golden wheat; The way grew glad that late had ...
— Poems of Progress • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... clapping him on the back, "no hard feelings. Remember that in an hour we are starting for the oasis. Have the cartridges ready. It is of the utmost importance to ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit

... abundantly west of the Indus river, in Baluchistan, extending into Persia and Turkestan, as far north as north latitude 48 degrees. It appears that the Bikaneer herd consists at most of about 150 individuals, which frequent an oasis a little elevated above the surrounding desert, and commanding an extensive view around. A writer in the Indian Sporting Review, writing of this species as it occurs in the Pat, a desert country between Asnee and the hills ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale

... he again lay down on the couch, but he could not sleep and remained motionless, flat on his stomach, his face buried in the pillow. His reverie kept conjuring up strange scenes. At one time he was in Africa, in Egypt, on some oasis, where palms were dotted about. The caravans were at rest, the camels lay quietly, and the travelers were eating their evening meal. They drank water direct from the stream which ran murmuring close by. How refreshing was the marvelously blue water, and how beautifully clear it looked ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne

... might have missed each other, and Tim should have found his way to the spot to which he had been directed. Nothing could exceed the beauty of the vegetation on the banks of the stream, or the magnificence of the trees which here and there shot up in this oasis among the mountains; while its elevated position gave it a far more temperate and refreshing atmosphere than that to which we were accustomed even in our own district. Our scanty supply of powder made us refrain from shooting any of the numberless birds we saw fluttering ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston

... into my arid days like dew, Like wind from an oasis, or the sound Of cold sweet water bubbling underground, A treacherous messenger, the thought of you Comes to destroy me; once more I renew Firm faith in your abundance, whom I found Long since to be but ...
— Second April • Edna St. Vincent Millay

... jemenfoutiste. En Allemagne, philosophe Surexcite par Emporheben Au grand air de Bergsteigleben; J'erre toujours de-ci de-la A divers coups de tra la la De Damas jusqu'a Omaha. Je celebrai mon jour de fete Dans une oasis d'Afrique ...
— Poems • T. S. [Thomas Stearns] Eliot

... alder-trees, oaks, and the largest beeches that are to be found in Europe, on the eastern side of the city, a few paces from the last fringe of houses, and measuring about one French league in circuit; a truly delightful oasis in the midst of the melancholy Dutch plains. As you enter it, little Swiss chalets find kiosks, scattered here and there among the first trees, seem to have strayed and lost themselves in an endless and solitary forest. The trees are as thickly set as a cane-brake, and the ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various

... fellows without redress, and thrashed for very little reason; where there were also many coarsenesses which were sickening at the time to any lad with a sense of decency, and which he is glad, if he can, to forget; but, at least, there was one oasis in the wilderness where there was nothing but enjoyment for the boys, and that was the "Department of Modern Languages," over which Moossy ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren

... application to the common life of humanity. Knowing them even approximately, we often find texts which illumine them in the writings of men who went below the surface of things, Emerson, or Carlyle, or Schopenhauer. Thus Carlyle, writing on Dante says: "He has opened the deep unfathomable oasis of woe that lay in the soul of man; he has opened the living fountains of hope, also of penitence." Does not the mind instantly revert to the ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer

... at Albertstown, what a wonderful power among the natives, though not without disappointment, and she had been still more effective among the settlers and their daughters. Carrigaboola, Fulbert's farm, had been an oasis of hope and rest to the few clergy of his scanty staff, and Fulbert himself had been a tower of strength for influence over the settlers who had fallen in his way, by his unswerving uprightness and honour, with the deeper principles of religion, little talked ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... gorgeous in gilded moldings that were chipped and broken; a slim-legged card-table, placed in the post of honor, formed the principal pieces of furniture. A threadbare patch of Brussels carpet covered the center of the room, and formed an oasis of roses and lilies upon a desert of shabby green drugget. Knitted curtains shaded the windows, in which hung wire baskets of horrible-looking plants of the cactus species, that grew downward, like some demented class of vegetation, whose prickly ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon

... Though they were so near, there was already a good difference in level; and Mr. M'Eckron's head must be a long way under the feet of Mr. Schram. No more had been cleared than was necessary for cultivation; close around each oasis ran the tangled wood; the glen enfolds them; there they lie basking in sun and silence, concealed from all but the clouds and ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson

... executed on account of the dampness of the church and the hardness of men's hearts. But it was impossible to disturb a religious service. So she coaxed the boy, dragging behind her, down the ambulatory beside the oasis of chapel, where the singers, sitting side-wise, in rows facing each other, chanted the Venite. A few worshipers from the close, all of them women, pattered in to take part in this daily office. The smithy hammers rang ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... those just described were smaller and insignificant—the principal one being the house appropriated to the men; the others were mere sheds and workshops. Luxuriant forests ascended the slopes that rose behind and encircled this oasis on all sides, excepting in front, where the clear waters of the lake sparkled ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne

... sand in that part lay in high ridges or dunes, some of them at least a hundred feet high, and he hoped that on surmounting the next beyond him he would come in sight of the town, or at least of some oasis, with water and human habitations, and with each recurring disappointment he became only the more eager to reach the sand-hill beyond. But he was becoming very faint, and the wound in his head throbbed to agony. He was at last so "beat" that he was ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough

... watched them, there fell the golden chains that suspend the hearts of men upon the poet's mouth. You shall read Chenier through to me from beginning to end; he is the lover's poet. You shall not be unhappy any longer; I will not have it. Yes, dear angel, I will make an oasis for you, there you shall live your poet's life, sometimes busy, sometimes languid; indolent, full of work, and musing by turns; but never forget that you owe your laurels to me, let that thought be my noble guerdon for the sufferings which I must endure. ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... his mouth sagged open, and his tongue, swollen to prodigious size, burst through its proper limits and hung down upon his breast, broiling in the rays of the hot sun. To make the keener his thirst, there lay before him a delectable oasis, a patch of moist green, with playing fountains and rippling cascades plainly visible to his tortured gaze. He struggled toward it, and always, as he neared it, some malign influence clutched his wrists—which unaccountably stuck out behind ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer

... surroundings. In one part of it a small grove of bananas and palms had taken root, and their smiling greenery offered a refreshing contrast to the dark oppressive gloom of the giant rock masses piled all about. From the center of this oasis in the rocky range bubbled a tiny spring of water as clear and cold as if it had been filtered and iced. Frank's first act was to send out a wireless to the River ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... her head. "I like your sweet things better. Bobbie and I are the ones who don't like lobster. He says that I'm a sort of oasis in a ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey

... is but a little green oasis in the desert. In a day or two we shall separate, probably forever; but both, I doubt not, will be happier through life for this brief reunion. His plan is to make his future residence ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various

... humanity furnished a single case in which a person, perfectly deaf during all his life, had the ability to speak words? Such is unknown in the history of the past, and also in the records of the present. History is as blank at this point, as a barren oasis. All the other faculties are as perfect with the deaf as they are with those whose hearing is perfect. Their inventive genius is equally vigorous; this being true, why should the defect of the ear deprive them of the power of speech? Will the Deist answer this ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, - Volume I, No. 10. October, 1880 • Various

... is an odor from the heavenly bowers, Which stirs our senses tenderly, and brings Dreams which are shadows of diviner things Beyond this grosser atmosphere of ours. An oasis of verdure and of flowers, Love smiteth on the Pilgrim's weary way; There fresher air, there sweeter waters play, There purer solace charms the quiet hours. This glorious passion, unalloyed, endowers With moral beauty all who feel its fire; Maid, wife, and offspring, brother, mother, sire, Are names ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... and a half of resolute practising makes you not at all sorry for an oasis in the counting, which you inaugurate (or whatever you do when it's an oasis) by smashing the top coal and making a great blaze. And then you go ever so ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... is better to give no cause for questionings. Go then, to their house, but say nothing of having met me, or of any new hope in thine heart. Yet let the hope remain, and be to thee like the young moon that riseth over the desert, to show the weary traveller a rill of sweet water in an oasis of date palms. And now I will bid thee farewell, with a night of dreams in which thy dearest desires shall be fulfilled before thine eyes. I go to ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... attractive appearance, however hot and acrid, all go to form a mulching of vegetable matter such as no other tree of forest or jungle gets. Prodigal and profuse as she may be, Nature is the rarest of economists. Out here in the forest is springing up an oasis of jungle, every plant of which owes its origin to ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield

... find that kindness and coercion were united in the discipline of Point Puer: an oasis in the desert of penal government—unless viewed from the woolsack. Captain Booth was prompt in subduing rebellion and enforcing industry: the meals were regular, and habits of devotion and cleanliness were promoted. But when the boys were submissive and diligent, ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West

... Bermuda. He had begged Howells to go with them, but Howells, as usual, was full of literary affairs. Twichell and Clemens spent four glorious days tramping the length and breadth of the beautiful island, and remembered it always as one of their happiest adventures. "Put it down as an Oasis!" wrote Twichell on his return, "I'm afraid I shall not see as green a spot again soon. And it was your invention and your gift. And your company was the best of it. Indeed, I never took more comfort in being with ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... gained an ascendency over the Syrian, and compelled him to accuse his benefactor, Timasius, of a treasonable conspiracy, supporting the charge by forgeries. The accused was tried, condemned, and banished to the Lybian oasis, a punishment equivalent to death; he was never heard of more. Eutropius, foreseeing that the continued existence of Bargus might at some time compromise himself, suborned his wife to lodge very serious charges against her ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various

... daughter, married Mr. John Cropper in 1858, and here, too, in her house beside the Mersey, among fields and trees that still maintain a green though besmutted oasis in the busy heart of Liverpool, that girdles them now on all sides, and will soon engulf them, there were kindness and welcome for the little Tasmanians. She died a few years ago, mourned and missed by her own people—those lifelong neighbors who ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... his rooms, however. He could delay no longer reaching Mrs. Preston. From the quiet decorous boulevard, with its clean asphalt pavement and pleasant trees, he turned at once into the dirty cross street. The oasis of the prosperous in the expanse of cheap houses and tawdry flat-buildings was so small! It was easy, indeed, to step at least physically from the ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... reached him as from a great distance; but as one dying in the desert turns his face toward the distant oasis, Deacon turned weakly to the speaker. She placed one fair arm behind his head, pillowing him, and with a peacock fan which had lain amid the cushions fanned his face. The strange scene became wholly unreal to him; he thought himself ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer

... and thereby plunged the cowpunchers in gloom. They partially forgave Cumberland, but only because he was an old man. A younger reformer would have met armed resistance. Morgan's place was miles away from the next oasis in the desert and the closing meant dusty, thirsty leagues of added journey to every man in the neighbourhood. The word "neighbourhood," of course, covered a territory fifty ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand

... turf. From the grove arose the softening song of doves, and showers of gay and sparkling butterflies, borne on their tinted wings of shifting light, danced without danger in the liquid air. A fair and fresh Oasis! ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli

... kverko. Oakum stupo. Oar remilo. Oasis oazo. Oath (legal) jxuro. Oath (curse) blasfemo. Oatmeal grio. Obduracy obstineco. Obdurate obstina. Obedience obeo. Obedient obea. Obeisance riverenco. Obelisk obelisko. Obese grasega. Obesity ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... alders, oaks, and the largest beech trees to be found in Europe. It is more than a French league in circumference, and is situated to the east of the city, only a few steps from the last houses. It is a really delightful oasis in the midst of the depressing Dutch plains. When one has entered the wood and passed beyond the fringe of pavilions, little Swiss cottages, and summer houses dotted about among the first trees, one seems to have lost ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis

... and tone stung Stanton into saying more than he intended, and thus the girl's artifice became successful. Hearing about Van berg and all that related to him was like looking out of a desert into a fruitful oasis; and yet cruel as was the fascination, ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe

... upon him. The result of all these tendencies was that the Platonic Academy at Florence deliberately chose for its object the reconciliation of the spirit of antiquity with that of Christianity. It was a remarkable oasis in the ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt

... and naturally conceived; there is no rant or false pathos; it is an oasis in a book which, though in many ways the finest in the Pharsalia, yet owes its impressiveness to a rhetoric which, for all its brilliance and power, will not always bear more than superficial examination. The last passage, ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler

... linter, groceries and necessaries all provided, and all she will have to do will be the housework and gently train and care for the minds and bodies of the little ones, with some help from the oldest set of triplets, and make my home agin an oasis of joy, a Eden below. Oh! how happy she will be!" sez he, "Nestlin' down like a wanderin' dove in the safety and peace and pride of married life. When can I see Miss Smith?" sez he. "Or will you tell her in ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley

... clear water, running over the meadow-flat. Rich pasture extended along the line of trees that marked the serpentine course of the brook which zigzagged its way toward the southwest. Every man, woman and child of our company expressed in some way the declaration, "We must get into that beautiful oasis." It looked like field, park and orchard, in one landscape; all fenced off from the desolate surroundings by this wall of stone. Like Moses viewing Canaan from Nebo's top, we looked down and yearned to be amidst ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell

... a great and superb oasis situated upon a plateau of the desert of Libya, wonderfully fertile, rich, and bland, with a splendid climate, and springs of sweet waters which, carefully directed into a network of channels, spreading like wrinkles over the face of the land, carry life and a ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens

... the card player rose. He was a tall, wide-shouldered man, a little too thin for his height. Deep lines in his clean-shaven face bracketed his wide mouth. His curly hair was a silvery blond, and he had dark, deeply set eyes. "I'm Reese Topham, owner of this oasis," he introduced himself. ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton

... would be without dreams—waking dreams, I mean—the dreams that we call "castles in the air," built by the kindly hands of Hope! Were it not for the mirage of the oasis, drawing his footsteps ever onward, the weary traveler would lie down in the desert sand and die. It is the mirage of distant success, of happiness that, like the bunch of carrots fastened an inch beyond the donkey's nose, seems always ...
— Dreams - From a volume entitled "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow" • Jerome K. Jerome

... again enveloped them and seemed to cut them off from the observation of passers-by. It was as if their tenderness for each other had found an oasis in the ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte

... "It's that Oasis gang," Johnny responded. He fired, and growled with disappointment. "Harlan's at the ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford

... as I told you, is flooded with recruits, of the amateur variety. But our post is a little oasis all by itself, and except that they come and drill on the parade ground, they do not come near us. Did I tell you that out in front of the house, merely across a driveway, is this great field where the training companies manoeuvre ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French

... one beautiful evening in July, under a sky resplendent with stars, amid the perfume of gardens and caressed by the cool night breeze, we made our entry into the village of St. Martinville—the Little Paris, the oasis in the desert. ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... Cyril presided, and at which Nestorius was not present, he was judged and condemned without being heard, and deprived of his see. He then retired to his monastery, in Antioch, and was afterwards banished to Petra, in Arabia, and thence to Oasis, in Egypt, where he died, about ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward

... the proprietor of this roadside ranch, this artificial oasis in a land of desolation, strolled into the big bare room where half a dozen troopers were dozing or gambling, it was with an air of confidential joviality that he whispered to the ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King

... spent thirty days at your Invalids' Hotel and Surgical Institute, and came away like a new man, comparatively speaking. I found the Institution all it had been represented, and I may truthfully say, that the time spent there was to me as an oasis in a desert to a weary and thirsty traveler; for those were among the happiest days of my life. No pains were spared to make each patient comfortable and at home. I cannot recommend your Institution too highly, for I ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... young man. Besides, I do not always regret my panther and my palm-tree oasis: I must be very sad for that. But I will tell you this: in the desert there is ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... oasis about noon—sweet water and thirty or forty palm-trees—and simply had to camp there because the camels were exhausted after a night and half a day of strenuous marching, they were still so full of high spirits that they ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy



Words linked to "Oasis" :   piece of ground, tract, parcel of land, shelter



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