Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Fruitfulness   Listen
Fruitfulness

noun
1.
The quality of something that causes or assists healthy growth.  Synonym: fecundity.
2.
The intellectual productivity of a creative imagination.  Synonym: fecundity.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Fruitfulness" Quotes from Famous Books



... had never seen anything like them. He described the trees, the flowers, the tribes, the scenery in general; he dwelt upon the vast uncultivated spaces, the amazing fruitfulness of the soil, the gorgeous beauty above all. "I'd like to get the overcrowded cities of England and Europe spread all over it," he said with enthusiasm. "There is room for thousands there to lead a simple life close to Nature, in health and peace and happiness. Even your tired millionaires could ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood

... disinterested passion of ravage. Through such catastrophe we can realise what formidable forces of annihilation are kept in check in our communities by bonds of social ideas; nay, made into multitudinous manifestations of beauty and fruitfulness. Thus we know that evils are, like meteors, stray fragments of life, which need the attraction of some great ideal in order to be assimilated with the wholesomeness of creation. The evil forces are literally outlaws; they only need the ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore

... Fauna. In Roman mythology, the goddess of fields and shepherds; she represents the fruitfulness of the earth.] ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... the richest green turf, and scattered with a profusion of the evergreen forest-trees, indigenous to the island; while far below, in the midst of all these horrors, smiles a fairy region of cultivation and fruitfulness, with a church and village, the white cabins of which seem half smothered in the luxuriance of their own vines ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 267, August 4, 1827 • Various

... were mild and gentle. But with the warmth of Spring and the fruitfulness of summer, with the green grasses of the Plains for their ponies, with wild game in the open, and the labor of the industrious settler of the unprotected frontier as a stake for the effort, the "good Indian" came forth from his reservation. Like the rattlesnake from its crevice, ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter

... about him from the instant of his birth. The reaction, however, against what was superficial in the school of the eighteenth century went to its extreme length in Emerson, and blinded his eyes to the wisdom, the profundity, and the fruitfulness of their leading speculations. It is enough for us to note the fact in passing, without plunging into contention on the merits. All thoughts are always ready, potentially if not actually. Each age selects and assimilates the philosophy ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 1, Essay 5, Emerson • John Morley

... shall obey her Maker's will, And yield a full increase; Our God will crown his chosen isle With fruitfulness ...
— The Psalms of David - Imitated in the Language of The New Testament - And Applied to The Christian State and Worship • Isaac Watts

... is a great and spacious country, on the East of Asia, famed for its fruitfulness, wealth, beautifulness of towns, and incredible number ...
— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown

... to see Goody Stoyte and her husband; pray give them my humble service, and to Catherine, and to Mrs. Walls—I am not the least bit in love with Mrs. Walls—I suppose the cares of the husband increase with the fruitfulness of the wife. I am grad at halt(5) to hear of Ppt's good health: pray let her finish it by drinking waters. I hope DD had her bill, and has her money. Remember to write a due time before ME money is wanted, and be good galls, dood dallars, I mean, and no crying dallars. I heard somebody coming upstairs, ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift

... fox-terriers, seated patient in the grass, pricked their ears. A voice speaking on one note broke the hush. The spaniel John sighed, the fox-terriers dropped their ears, and lay down heavily against each other. The Rector had begun to preach. He preached on fruitfulness, and in the first right-hand pew six of his children at once began to fidget. Mrs. Barter, sideways and unsupported on her seat, kept her starry eyes fixed on his cheek; a line of perplexity furrowed her brow. Now and ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... principle of grafting. When the branch is grafted into the tree the life of the tree throbs its way into the branch and ultimately there is fruitfulness. If we only could sustain the right relations to Christ we would have ...
— And Judas Iscariot - Together with other evangelistic addresses • J. Wilbur Chapman

... in a whole world of colour—yellow leaves and green leaves, and light red and dark red, and golden and blood-red patches, with the dark green of the pines between. His eyes had all this to rest on. Did he really live here? What abundant fruitfulness all around him! What a sky, so wide, so golden that it seemed to ring again. The potato-stalks lay uprooted, scattered on the fields; the corn was safely housed. And here he stood. He seemed again to ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer

... The fruitfulness of the tree is remarkable. As long as it lives it bears, and without intermission. Two hundred nuts, besides innumerable white blossoms of others, may be seen upon it at one time; and though a whole year is required ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville

... exclaims, congratulating her, "Contentment and sons!" and scatters orange-leaves also over the sill where the bride must pass. Sometimes she breaks at her feet two eggs—a truly Oriental symbol of fruitfulness. In the county of Modica wine is sprinkled before the door and the bottle broken: when the married pair have entered, the husband is offered a spoonful of honey, of which he takes half and gives the rest to his wife. There gifts of sweetmeats, dried fruits, etc. are given to the guests.[21] ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various

... of gardens and villages. After the empty, wind-driven plains they had come through, those vast cold expanses without a house or living creature in sight, what a laughing plenty, what a gracious fruitfulness, was here. And when they went back to their compartment it too was full of summer smells,—the smell of fruit, ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim

... clouds thy power confess, And thy paths drop fruitfulness: And the voice of song and mirth Rises ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams

... This means a Strong-breasted one, the Pourer or Shredder forth of spiritual and temporal blessings. It refers to God: (1) As a nourisher, strength-giver, satisfier and a strong one who gives; (2) As the giver of fruitfulness which comes through nourishment. He was to make Abraham fruitful, Gen. 17:1-8; (3) As Giver of chastening. This he does in the way of pruning that ...
— The Bible Book by Book - A Manual for the Outline Study of the Bible by Books • Josiah Blake Tidwell

... situation relieves them; the hanger of a hill will purge and vent his own malignant moisture, and the burning of the upper turf of some ground (as health from cauterizing) puts a new and a vigorous youth into that soil, and there rises a kind of phoenix out of the ashes, a fruitfulness out of that which was barren before, and by that which is the barrenest of all, ashes. And where the ground cannot give itself physic, yet it receives physic from other grounds, from other soils, which are not the worse for ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne

... Life out of death, the endless mystery;— For all the first sweet flushings of the Spring; The greening earth, the tender heavenly blue; The rich brown furrows gaping for the seed; For all Thy grace in bursting bud and leaf,— The bridal sweetness of the orchard trees, Rose-tender in their coming fruitfulness; The fragrant snow-drifts flung upon the breeze; The grace and glory of the fruitless flowers, Ambrosial beauty their reward and ours; For hedgerows sweet with hawthorn and wildrose; For meadows spread with gold and gemmed ...
— Bees in Amber - A Little Book Of Thoughtful Verse • John Oxenham

... they wandered through the pleasant paths of the copse, his very talk seemed somehow changed, and to have gained just that little mingling of perception of her tastes and wishes which she had desired. There was a little autumnal mist about the softening haze which was not decay, but only the "mellow fruitfulness" of the poet; and the day, notwithstanding this, was as warm as June, the sky blue, with only a little white puff of cloud here and there. Phil paused to look down the combe, with all the folds of the downs that wrapped it about, going off in blue outlines ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant

... remarkably level plain they traverse. Thus not only the plain and the glades lying nearer the sources of the rivers, but the sterile, rugged crests of the Alps and Apennines which enclose this great basin are made to contribute evermore to the fruitfulness of its soil, so that Despotism, Ignorance, Stolidity, Indolence and Unthrift of all kinds vainly strive to render it other than the Garden of Europe. The banks of the Canals and the sides of the highways are generally lined with trees, rows of which also traverse many if not most of the ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley

... said Jane; "a place of choice. How difficult to know which to choose—liberty or fruitfulness. One would have to consult the Sphinx—wise old guardian of the ages, silent keeper of Time's secrets, gazing on into the future as It has always gazed, while future became present, and present glided into past.—Come, Schehati, let us descend. Oh, yes, I will certainly sit ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay

... see how wide and high the beautiful heaven is, how swift its motion, and how marvellously its Creator has adorned it with the seven planets, and with the countless multitude of the twinkling stars. Consider what fruitfulness, what riches, the sun bestows upon the earth, when in summer it sheds abroad its rays unclouded! See how the leaves and grass shoot up, and the flowers smile, and the woods and plains resound with the sweet song of nightingales ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge

... question the whole race in order to be just to the individual. If he is born to be a poet, he examines humanity in his own heart to understand the infinite variety of scenes in which it acts on the vast theatre of the world. He subjects imagination and its exuberant fruitfulness to the discipline of taste, and charges the understanding to mark out in its cool wisdom the banks that should confine the raging waters of inspiration. He knows full well that the great is only formed of ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... is accomplished by those few who, having more than usual emotive capacity in combination with sensibility to the beautiful, are hereby stimulated to mold and shape into fresh forms the stores gathered by perception and memory, or the material originated within the mind through its creative fruitfulness. In strictness, this exaltation of intellectual action should be ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert

... created them, that the great God of heaven Himself respects them, that the covenant which He makes with the father He makes with the children; that He commands marriage, and that He blesses it with fruitfulness; that it is He who has told us "Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth;" that the tie of brotherhood is His making also; that HE will require the blood of the murdered man AT HIS BROTHER'S HAND; that a man's brothers, ...
— Twenty-Five Village Sermons • Charles Kingsley

... The fruitfulness of the time of monarchical reaction in France may be chiefly attributed to two causes, the one general, the other personal; the one connected with the French Revolution, the other with the exceptional gifts of Bonaparte. ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... convert at a revival, in the postulant's vivid sense of vocation and consequent break with the world? in the disinterested man of science consecrated to the search for truth, and in the apostle's self-giving to the service of God, with its answering gift of new strength and fruitfulness. Its secret, and indeed the secret of all transcendence is implied In the direction of the old English mystic: "Mean God all, all God, so that nought work in thy wit and in thy will, but only God,"[76] The over-belief, the religious formula in which this instinctive ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill

... has He to do with this? This was a custom in Rome six hundred years before He was born. The boys used to go through the streets, at the Lupercalia flogging themselves. And the married women used to shove in, and try and get a blow from the monkeys' scourges; for these blows conferred fruitfulness in those days. A foolish trick this flagellation; but interesting to the bystander; reminds him of the grand old heathen. We are so prone to ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... the intellectual inferiority of so many women is due to the inhibition of thought imposed upon them for the purpose of sexual repression. Having thus suppressed the natural sex desires of the unmarried woman, Puritanism, on the other hand, blesses her married sister for incontinent fruitfulness in wedlock. Indeed, not merely blesses her, but forces the woman, oversexed by previous repression, to bear children, irrespective of weakened physical condition or economic inability to rear a large family. Prevention, even by scientifically ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman

... this block of wood glows too, but it is so placed that it is hardly reduced to ashes within a year. When the new foundation is laid, the remains of the old block are carefully taken out, ground to powder, and strewed over the fields during the Twelve Nights. This, so people fancied, promotes the fruitfulness of the year's crops."[635] In some parts of the Eifel Mountains, to the west of Coblentz, a log of wood called the Christbrand used to be placed on the hearth on Christmas Eve; and the charred remains of it on Twelfth Night were put in the corn-bin to keep the mice from devouring the corn.[636] ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... fruitfulness of this valey, and pleasantness of its situation, its security from storms, and the delightfulness of the adjacent woods, I concluded I was settled in the worst part of the country, and therefore was thinking to ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe

... Horselberg was the home of Dame Holda, or Holle, and the horde of weird creatures which used to go tearing through the German forests on a wild rout in the Yuletide. Dame Holle, like many another character in Teutonic mythology, was a benignant creature, whose blessing brought forth fruitfulness to fields and vineyards, before the Christian priests metamorphosed her into a thing wholly of evil. She was the mother of all the fays and fairies that followed in the train of the Wild Huntsman, and though she appeared at times as a seductive siren ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... shook hands with the kingly main, And, glancing back to her source again, Beheld each place where her steps had been Glowing in tenderest, loveliest green,— Saw beauty and fruitfulness fresh and fair Wherever her gladdening footsteps were, And caught from the green hills far away The echo of many a woodland lay, And the perfume of many a wild flower borne On the scented wings of ...
— Poems of the Heart and Home • Mrs. J.C. Yule (Pamela S. Vining)

... fellow-scholars, and grateful love to their teachers, which are the only infallible signs of a change in the affections. These things encourage them, in spite of many difficulties and mortifications, to persevere in well doing; and may the God of love bless their labours with an increase of fruitfulness! It is only my purpose here to state, that the most likely human means to produce such an increase, is the establishment of infant schools;—schools designed, particularly, for the cultivation of the affections,—for preparing the heart to receive that wisdom ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin

... the thought which has already been hinted at is here more fully developed and dwelt upon, this great truth that earthly fruitfulness is possible only by the reception of heavenly gifts. As sure as every leaf that grows is mainly water that the plant has got from the clouds, and carbon that it has got out of the atmosphere, so surely will all our good be mainly drawn from heaven and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... enjoyed the comforts of domestic love; the example was imitated by many citizens impatient of celibacy, but regardful of their families. If at any time they desired to legitimate their natural children, the conversion was instantly performed by the celebration of their nuptials with a partner whose fruitfulness and fidelity they had already tried.[31] By this epithet of natural, the offspring of the concubine were distinguished from the spurious brood of adultery, prostitution, and incest, to whom Justinian reluctantly grants the necessary aliments of life; and these natural children alone were ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various

... terrible punishments; and this it did by vitiating and perverting his high powers. First, it diseased his fine intellect, gave imagination the ascendency over judgment, turned the inventiveness and fruitfulness of his mind into rash, impatient, restless energies, and thus precipitated him into projects, which, as the wisdom of his counsellors pronounced, were fraught with ruin. To a man, whose vanity took him out of the rank of human beings, no foundation for reasoning was left. All things ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... that charity and make those conquests, to the Source whence such virtues came, and to the Ear which was never deaf to supplication. How simple and noble was that whole address! And I cannot forbear testimony to the fruitfulness of a Christian practice such as that of our then tutor, dear Mr Clare. Even thoughtless boys could not sneer at the constant manly practice of his life. We had to see that it gave the loftiest aims even to the smallest acts of his everyday life—that where ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston

... Our fruitfulness is there but dearth, And all things held in time's control Seem there, perchance, ill dreams, not worth A ...
— A Century of Roundels • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... when purged it shall experience a certain progression. Observe the order, 'bear fruit—more fruit—much fruit', and 'fruit which shall remain'. Let us ask ourselves to which of these stages we have attained, and go on earnestly to a fuller fruitfulness. ...
— Standards of Life and Service • T. H. Howard

... munificence of its goodness at the moment of our greatest need, and in direct contrast to the evils occasioned by the waywardness of man, we have been blessed throughout our extended territory with a season of general health and of uncommon fruitfulness. The proceeds of our great staples will soon furnish the means of liquidating debts at home and abroad, and contribute equally to the revival of commercial activity and the restoration of commercial credit. The banks, established ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson

... say, 'Herein is love—that He gave His Son to be the propitiation for our sins,' that our hearts are melted, and all their snows are dissolved into sweet waters, which, freed from their icy chains, can flow with music in their ripple and fruitfulness along their course, through our otherwise silent and barren lives. Faith in Christ is the only possible basis ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... you saw at the Museum the other day—when sown still brought forth fruit; not in Egypt where they first grew, but in England. But those grains which had slept the sleep of ages would never have thus wakened into life and fruitfulness unless they had been sown in the earth; for before we can see the "full corn in the ear," the one grain from which so many were to come, must "fall into the ground and die": in darkness and silence and death the plant is born, ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham

... initiative, and the power of thinking out a system of philosophy which to-day satisfies largely, if not wholly, the needs of the educated Chinaman, there has been in the Japanese mind, as shown by its history, apparently no such vigor or fruitfulness. From the literary and philosophical points of view, Confucianism, as it entered Japan, in the sixth century, remained practically stationary for a thousand years. Modifications, indeed, were made upon the Chinese system, and these were striking and profound, but they were less ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis

... praise-singing psalmist like David; a shrine of wisdom like Solomon; a chosen vessel for proclaiming truth like Paul the Apostle; a man full of grace and knowledge of the Holy Ghost like John; the root of a holy herb-garden towards the children of faith; a vine branch with fruitfulness; a sparkling fire, with power to heat and warm the sons of life, in founding and dispensing charity. A lion in strength and might; a dove in gentleness and humility. A serpent in wisdom and cunning in regard to good; ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various

... [906] 'The fruitfulness of Iona is now its whole prosperity. The inhabitants are remarkably gross, and remarkably neglected; I know not if they are visited by any minister. The island, which was once the metropolis of learning and piety, has now no school for education, nor temple for worship, only two inhabitants ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell

... was supposed they would become—under the favorable auspices of their emigration to the country, and with such facilities for accumulating money—a wealthy and intelligent population. This calculation was sadly disappointed. The mildness of the climate and the fruitfulness of the soil combined to enervate, instead of stimulating them to active industry, without which there can be no prosperity for any country. A few acres, though half cultivated, were found sufficient to yield an ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... world there is no fruitfulness without suffering—either physical pain, secret sorrow, or trials known sometimes only to God. When good thoughts and generous resolutions have sprung up in our souls through reading the lives of the Saints, we ought not to content ourselves, as in the case of profane books, with paying ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)

... steeds in harness golden-plated and glittering, they go down, coach and four, herald and postilion, racketing on the hot pavements of hell. Clear the track! Bazaars hang out their colors over the road; and trees of tropical fruitfulness overbranch the way. No sound of woe disturbs the air; but all is light and song, and wine and gorgeousness. The world comes out to greet the dazzling procession with Hurrah! and Hurrah! But, suddenly, there is a halt and an outcry of dismay, and an overthrow worse ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage

... plot is conceived wholly in the spirit of modern times. At the end of the eighteenth century, a large number of writers turned to Bible heroes and heroines for dramatic uses, and since then Jewish interest in the drama has never flagged. The luxuriant fruitfulness of these late Jewish playwrights, standing in the sunlight of modern days, fully compensates for the sterility of the Jewish dramatic muse during the centuries ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles

... Kadesh. "From hence we may observe the peculiar propriety of this punishment of Sodom and of the neighbouring cities. By their sodomitical impurities they meant to acknowledge the Heavens as the cause of fruitfulness independently upon, and in opposition to, Jehovah;[FN391] therefore Jehovah, by raining upon them not genial showers but brimstone from heaven, not only destroyed the inhabitants, but also changed all that country, which was before as the garden ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton

... of two years and a half, during which his imagination was uncreative, it might have been anticipated that, under the new conditions of tranquillity and private happiness, in the favorable surroundings of the Manse, he would have shown unusual fruitfulness; but such was not the case. In the additional three years and a half that had now passed since he settled at Concord, he gave to the world only eighteen papers. They did not begin until 1843, and were distributed, for the most part, evenly over the next two years. "Little Daffydowndilly" ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry

... seems, the strain upon the muscles implied by that hoe-full of earth. Or look at the easier attitude of "The Grafter" (Pl. 6), engaged upon his gentler task, and at the monumental silhouette of the wife, standing there, babe in arms, a type of eternal motherhood and of the fruitfulness to come. ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox

... by Indian commentators, was the storm with all its alternations which bursts forth with more terrific violence in hot climates. The luminous clouds which bring rain are the purple kine whom a black-demon tries to steal; the fruitfulness of the earth depends on the issue of the contest, and the thunderbolt disperses the cloud, which falls on the earth in rain, while Indra, that is, the blue ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli

... and another with a swayback that made it fairly comfortable for lounging gave the rear deck the air of an outdoor sitting-room, which indeed it was. Burlingham, after a comprehensive glance at the panorama of summer and fruitfulness through which they were drifting, sprawled himself in the swayback chair, indicating to Susan that she was to face him in the rocker. "Sit down, my dear," said he. "And tell me you are at least eighteen and are not running away from home. You ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... diversity of heat and cold as if you dwelt in several places. Neither is it ill air only that maketh an ill seat, but ill ways, ill markets; and, if you will consult with Momus, ill neighbors. I speak not of many more; want of water; want of wood, shade, and shelter; want of fruitfulness, and mixture of grounds of several natures; want of prospect; want of level grounds; want of places at some near distance for sports of hunting, hawking, and races; too near the sea, too remote; having the commodity of navigable rivers, ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon

... barley is often four fingers in breadth. As for millet and the sesame, I shall not say to what height they grow, though within my own knowledge; for I am not ignorant that what I have already written concerning the fruitfulness of Babylonia, must seem incredible to those who have never visited the country.... Palm trees grow in great numbers over the whole of the flat country, mostly of the kind that bears fruit, and this fruit supplies them with bread, wine, ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot

... OF CHOW AND THE SOUTH.— Celebrating the Virtue of King Wan's Bride Celebrating the Industry of King Wan's Queen In Praise of a Bride Celebrating T'ae-Sze's Freedom from Jealousy The Fruitfulness of the Locust Lamenting the Absence of a Cherished Friend Celebrating the Goodness of the Descendants of King Wan The Virtuous Manners of the Young Women Praise of a Rabbit-Catcher The Song of the Plantain-Gatherers The Affection of the Wives ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous

... cultivators of the soil. The quantity of booty frequently carried off on such occasions, amounting, according to the testimony of both Christian and Moorish writers, to twenty, thirty, and even fifty thousand head of cattle, shows the fruitfulness and abundant pasturage in the southern regions of the Peninsula. The loss inflicted by these terrible forays fell, eventually, most heavily on Granada, in consequence of her scanty territory and insulated position, which cut her off from ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott

... chivalry." These minstrels, like the majority of poetic singers, were no doubt sons of the people—bold, aspiring, and genius-lit—bursting strong from their mother earth, with all her sap and force and fruitfulness about them. Amongst the last of the professed minstrels was one Burn, who wonned on the Borders as late as the commencement of the eighteenth century, and who, in his pleasant, chirping ditty of "Leader Haughs and Yarrow," takes to himself this ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... good, reigns over the world, in that it illumes and vivifies it; so the Supreme Good, of which the sun is only the work, reigns over the intelligible world, in that it gives birth to it by virtue of its inexhaustible fruitfulness.[642] The Supreme Good is GOD himself, and he is designated "the good" because this term seems most fittingly to express his essential character and essence.[643] It is towards this superlative perfection that the reason lifts itself; it is towards this infinite beauty ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... them for a moment. Where Christ abides in a man's heart, love will be the very soil in which his life will be rooted and grow. That love will be the motive of all service, it will underlie, as its productive cause, all fruitfulness. All goodness and all beauty will be its fruit. The whole life will be as a tree planted in this rich soil. And so the life will grow not by effort only, but as by an inherent power drawing its nourishment ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren

... had gone into the house with the nurse girl Marian. It had become too dark for his wife to dig in the garden. It was August and the fruitful time of the year for farms and gardens had come, but his wife had forgotten fruitfulness. She was making plans for another year. She came along the garden path followed by the negro. "We will set out strawberry plants there," she was saying. The soft voice of the young negro murmured his ...
— Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories • Sherwood Anderson

... Apocalyptic, is shewn by the one fact that Papias (in Iren. V. 33) quotes as words of the Lord which had been handed down by the disciples, a group of sayings which we find in the Apocalypse of Baruch, about the amazing fruitfulness of the earth during the time ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack

... are true heartnuts from the shape of the leaves and color of the bark and general formation. In order to hasten their bearing, scions have been taken from these small trees and will be grafted on large black walnut stocks to bring them into fruitfulness much earlier than if they were left to their own slow growth. This system of testing out seedlings long before they have reached a size sufficient to bear on their own roots is applicable to all of the species of nut ...
— Growing Nuts in the North • Carl Weschcke

... existence! hemmed around With woes, which who that suffers would not kneel And beg for exile, or the pangs of death? That man should thus encroach on fellow-man, Abridge him of his just and native rights, Eradicate him, tear him from his hold Upon the endearments of domestic life And social, nip his fruitfulness and use, And doom him for perhaps a heedless word To barrenness and solitude and tears, Moves indignation; makes the name of king (Of king whom such prerogative can please) As dreadful as the Manichean god, Adored through fear, strong ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper

... are gathered for exportation. Later still, apples, walnuts, and pears; the village not far from our own sends fruit to the Paris markets valued at 1,000,000 francs annually, and the entire valley of the Marne is unequalled throughout France for fruitfulness and abundance. But the traveller must settle down in some delicious retreat in the valley of the Marne to realize the interest and charm of such a country as this. And he must above all things be a fairly good pedestrian, for, though a land of Goshen flowing with milk ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... disturbed by the earthquake? In the tropical regions of America, where sometimes not a drop of rain falls for ten months together, the natives consider the repeated shocks of earthquakes, which do not endanger the low reed huts, as auspicious harbingers of fruitfulness and ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt

... adventurous inhabitants. Companies have been formed to go and possess the Oregon territory—an enterprise hazardous and unpromising in the extreme. The old States are distributing their population over the whole continent, with unexampled fruitfulness and liberality. But why this restless, roving, unsatisfied disposition? Is it because those who cherish it are treated as the offscouring of all flesh, in the place of their birth? or because they do not possess equal rights and privileges ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison

... service, and by the excessive similarity in the scenes. Perhaps the spot intended, after this, to be most perfect, may be the garden of Alcinous, where the principal ideas are, still more definitely, order, symmetry and fruitfulness;[89] the beds being duly ranged between rows of vines, which, as well as the pear, apple, and fig trees, bear fruit continually, some grapes being yet sour, while others are getting black; there are plenty of "orderly square beds of herbs," chiefly leeks, and two fountains, one ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin

... swiftness, the tender herbage bursts from the ground, as born from the dazzling brightness and the fertilising rain. So all things shall rejoice in the reign of the King, and humanity be productive, under His glad and quickening influences, of growths of beauty and fruitfulness impossible to ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... of his disciples (ch. i. 7). But the Apostle was as keenly interested in its spiritual welfare as if he had been instrumental in founding it. So when he had heard of their faith and love (ch. i. 4), and the fruitfulness of their life (ch. i. 6), he thanked God on their behalf (ch. i. 3), and prayed this prayer. Deep interest in the spiritual life of others was one of the prominent marks of the Christian character of St. Paul. His was no self-centred life, for he ...
— The Prayers of St. Paul • W. H. Griffith Thomas

... curious depressions in drift-covered regions called kettles or sinks. On these decaying glaciers we may also find many interesting lessons on the formation of boulders and boulder-beds, which in all glaciated countries exert a marked influence on scenery, health, and fruitfulness. ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir

... laborers; for where, in my opinion, forty would be few, there are only two of them. Certainly this is to be regretted, for it is one of the most glorious missions that could be desired, lacking neither the evidence of great fruitfulness nor promise of most noble martyrdom. And finally, it is enough that St. Francis Xavier is its apostle, since it was he who first preached in it the holy gospel, [97] as is stated in the bull for his canonization. I trust that, through the divine ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various

... story of Frey in the Norse mythology corresponds to that of Persephone (Proserpine) in classic mythology. (See No. 255.) Frey is "the god of the earth's fruitfulness, presiding over rain, sunshine, and all the fruits of the earth, and dispensing wealth among men." Skirnir is the sun-warmed air, and Gerda is the seed. The version of the story used below is from The Heroes of Asgard by Annie and Eliza ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... any comfort to him; but, as it is, he confesses to Lady Culross that it was a peculiar pang to him to be 'the first in the kingdom put to utter silence.' The bitterness of banishment has been sung in immortal strains by Dante, whose grace under banishment also grew to a fruitfulness we still partake of to ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte

... worship the genius which could achieve the most with the least. And yet the basis of nearly all we see is a microscopic cell endowed with essential powers. That large apple-tree yonder, whose buds are becoming so pink, started from one of these minute cells, and all the growth, beauty, and fruitfulness since attained were the result of the power of this one cell to add to itself myriads of like cells, which form the whole structure. It is cell adding cells that is transforming the world around us." He spoke earnestly, and almost as if he were thinking aloud, and he looked like one in the presence ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe

... misery drove the men away, and the stock were sold to pay the taxes. So the land lacked both the arms of the tiller, and the dressing whose generous chemistry would have transmuted the dull earth into fruitfulness and plenty. The extent of the district was estimated at a million and a half of hectares, equivalent to nearly four millions of English acres: yet the population of this vast tract was only five hundred thousand souls. Even to-day it is not ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Turgot • John Morley

... hills, and see the bowed heads and folded hands of the peons. Once more we gaze delighted upon lovely valleys, dark shadowy gorges, far-reaching plains of cacti and yucca palms, bordered by lofty, snow-tipped mountains; we see again the exuberant fruitfulness of the tropics, and the loveliness of the floral kingdom in this land of the sun; once more we stroll through the dimly lighted aisles of grand cathedrals, listening to the solemn chant of human voices, and the organ's deep reverberating tones; or view again the suggestive ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou

... he indeed issues more sure of God and finally more trustful in Him, as is testified by his fair song on the beauty and fruitfulness of faith, beginning ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith

... him was the solemnity of simple hearts, stirred and responsive, and over him was the serenity of June, and the warmth of the earth pregnant with fruitfulness. ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck

... fact that it preserves the race, the most important feature connected with this reproduction is its wonderful fruitfulness. Since it results from division, it always tends to increase the offspring in geometrical ratio. In the simplest case, that of the unicellular animals, the cell divides, giving rise to two animals, each of which divides again, producing four, ...
— The Story of the Living Machine • H. W. Conn

... problem you may present at the end of the decade. I thought Dacres was moved by a fine sense of compassion. I thought that with his admirable perception he had put a finger on the little comedy of fruitfulness in my life that laughed so bitterly at the tragedy of the barren woman, and was attempting, by delicate manipulation, to make it easier. I really thought so. Then I observed that myself had preposterously deceived me, that it wasn't like that at all. When Mr. Tottenham joined us, Cecily and ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... hill could it have been than the southward slope of that goodly mountain, Hermon, which is, indeed, the centre of all the promised land, from the entering in of Hamath to the river of Egypt; the mount of fruitfulness, from which the springs of Jordan descended to the valleys of Israel. Along its mighty forest avenues, until the grass grew fair with the mountain lilies, His feet dashed with the dew of Hermon, He must have gone to pray ...
— Memoranda Sacra • J. Rendel Harris

... Order'—that is, enforcing God's law of order, spiritual and material, over men and things. The first thing you have to do, essentially; the real 'good work' is, with respect to men, to enforce justice, and with respect to things, to enforce tidiness, and fruitfulness. And against these two great human deeds, justice and order, there are perpetually two great demons contending,—the devil of iniquity, or inequity, and the devil of disorder, or of death; for death is only consummation of disorder. You have to fight these two fiends daily. So far as you don't ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... and force of expression, and wonders whence came the thoughts that stand on the page before him. If called to speak in public, opium gives him a copiousness of thought, a fluency of utterance, a fruitfulness of illustration, and a penetrating, thrilling eloquence, which often astounds and overmasters himself, not less than it kindles, melts, and sways the audience he addresses. I might dilate largely on this topic, but space and ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day

... information he possesses has induced the habit of drawing too largely upon it; and he is apt to be led aside from the straight road of his argument, to elucidate some minor disputed point. But the argumentative style of which we speak is almost peculiar to himself. There is a ripeness, a fruitfulness, in his mind, that places him above the fetters of ordinary speakers. Such men, from the difficulty of clearing their heads for the contest, too often present a mere fleshless skeleton, as it were, very convincing to the judgment, but powerless over the feelings; so that no lasting ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various

... years have produced ten children apiece should be added to those of the peers living in 1828. The proper way to ascertain whether a set of people be prolific or sterile is, not to take marriages selected from the mass either on account of their fruitfulness or on account of their sterility, but to take a collection of marriages which there is no reason to think either more or less fruitful than others. What reason is there to think that the marriages contracted by the peers who were alive in 1828 were more fruitful than those contracted by ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... discontented list, Are the prime guests. There, and to these, she tells Whose niece she was, whose daughter, and whose wife. And then must they compare her with Augusta, Ay, and prefer her too; commend her form, Extol her fruitfulness; at which a shower Falls for the memory of Germanicus, Which they blow over straight with windy praise, And puffing hopes of her aspiring sons; Who, with these hourly ticklings, grow so pleased, And wantonly conceited ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson

... that Mr. Seeley has achieved considerable success in the difficult task he has undertaken in the later and more valuable portion of his book. Fully admitting, as he does, Napoleon's extraordinary military talents, his astonishing versatility and fruitfulness of resource, the promptitude, rapidity, and unerring precision of his movements, Mr. Seeley maintains that what is really marvellous is the remarkable combination of favorable circumstances which at the outset furnished ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various

... November, as a day of national thanksgiving, to come together in their several places of worship, for a service of praise and thanks to Almighty God for all the blessings of the year, for the mildness of seasons and the fruitfulness of the soil, for the continued prosperity of the people, for the devotion and valor of our countrymen, for the glory of our victory and the hope of a righteous peace, and to pray that the Divine guidance, which has brought us ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... it will then be said, a part of the kingdom of Queen Victoria which presented a lamentable contrast to the rest; not from the want of natural fruitfulness, for there was no richer soil in Europe; not from want of facilities for trade, for the coasts of this unhappy region were indented by bays and estuaries capable of holding all the navies of the world; not because the people were too dull to improve these advantages or too pusillanimous ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... Holy Ghost sustains the life of the Church. In Him we live and move and have our being. As the bird lives in the air, as the flower lives in the sunshine, so we live in the Spirit, and when we drink in His fulness there is growth and fruitfulness. ...
— The One Great Reality • Louisa Clayton

... pick-a-back; a third toddles clinging to its mother's skirts; others follow closely, the biggest in the rear, ferreting in the blackberry-laden hedgerows. It is a magnificent spectacle of happy-go-lucky fruitfulness. They go their way, penniless and rejoicing. The sun is hot and the earth ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre

... respective and specific wants. If His outward dispensations towards the same person constantly vary, yet all work towards one end, the soul's good,—even as the combinations of the elements vary day by day, yet all help on the earth's fruitfulness,—we might expect that His dealings with the inner life of persons should also vary, while one glorious scheme of education for heaven is carried on in all and by all. And if so, why do we think it strange that an individual should have his times of comparative spiritual darkness ...
— Parish Papers • Norman Macleod

... was most rich— I had a world about me—'twas my own; I made it, for it only lived to me, 145 And to the God who sees into the heart. Such sympathies, though rarely, were betrayed By outward gestures and by visible looks: Some called it madness—so indeed it was, If child-like fruitfulness in passing joy, 150 If steady moods of thoughtfulness matured To inspiration, sort with such a name; If prophecy be madness; if things viewed By poets in old time, and higher up By the first men, earth's first inhabitants, 155 May in these tutored days no more be seen With undisordered ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth

... the material was great indeed; I was assured that the spirit had been just fifteen years away from its native city, Cork. Honoured be its parent. Still! may the turf ever burn bright beneath it, and the New World long rejoice in its fruitfulness! ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power

... and use of floral garlands, the offering of human and other sacrifices, and the performance of sacred dances; and that its object was to increase the power of the sun by magical sympathy, to obtain a good harvest and fruitfulness of all creatures, and to purge the sins of the people. It was, in fact, the chief ceremony of the year among the ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland

... we become in conduct and the higher we turn in aspiration—the more beautifully are we prepared for the great services of Romance. As a race we have only touched our lips to the cup of its beauty and fruitfulness.... Would you, who understand so well what culture has done for corn and roses, forget the mysteries of your own great being—rush blindly as the world does into the arms that first beckon, following the laws that have made you the most superb of animals, forgetting the laws that have ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort

... the heart of things thou art nourishing seeds into sprouts, buds into blossoms, and ripening flowers into fruitfulness. ...
— Gitanjali • Rabindranath Tagore

... bears its sori on the under side of long, narrow pinnae. Besides, the sterile fronds of the latter have serrulate segments. As in the sensitive fern there are many curious gradations between the fertile and sterile fronds, both in shape and fruitfulness. Waters calls them ...
— The Fern Lover's Companion - A Guide for the Northeastern States and Canada • George Henry Tilton

... slowly to Bologna; the sight of the country I passed through, and the fruitfulness of honest human labour, made me happy. I retraced my steps towards St. Peter's; my melancholy returned when I found myself again amidst the ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About

... certain ceremonies had a distinct flavor of sex worship: a rude phallicism which exists to the present day. To the priests, as to most modern observers, these rites were offensive and obscene, but to the Indians they were only natural and simple prayers for the fruitfulness of their wives and of ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James

... chance of a woman continuing to produce the sex which first makes its appearance, she was much complimented and congratulated by the officers when she so soon gave signs of an increase, and they prophesied that she would, by her fruitfulness, in a few years obtain a pension for her husband. My father hoped so, and thought that if he had lost the brigade, he would be indemnified by the pension. My mother was certain of it; and declared it was ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat

... Mionvu, Mutware of Kimenyi, Mirambo; defeated at Mfuto, Misonghi, deserted village, Mizanza, Mkuti River, Mkuyu, gigantic sycamore, Moero Lake; beauty of the scenery, Mohammed bin Abdulla slain, Mohammed bin Gharib, Monkeys, troop of, Morris, Hon. E. J., Mpokwa River, Mponda, chief, Mpwapwh, its fruitfulness; Mountains, Mrera, chief, —-, warriors of, Msuwa, Mtemi, chief, Mud-fish, Mugere River, Mugeyo village, Mugihewa territory, Mukamba, chief, Mukondoku, chief, Mukondokwa Range; Pass; River, Mukungu, Mukunguru, African intermittent fever, Munieka, Muniyi Usagara, Murembwe Cape; Point, Musa, chief ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... Erythreum of the ancients, and is landed at the port of Gida, Joddah or Jiddah, which is about forty miles from Mecca. The rest of their provisions are brought from the Happy Arabia, or Arabia Felix, so named from its fruitfulness in comparison with the other two divisions, called Petrea and Deserta, or the Stoney and Desert Arabias. They also get much corn from Ethiopia. At Mecca we found a prodigious multitude of strangers who were peregrines or pilgrims; some from Syria, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr

... them all, which the Apostle states to be 'even your sanctification,' and let us understand how summer and winter, springtime and harvest, tempest and fair weather, do all together make up the year, and ensure the springing of the seed and the fruitfulness ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... some of them to the Gods of the country. The inhabitants of the Isle of Rhodes were said to have been changed into rocks, because they perished in an inundation, which laid a part of that island under water, and particularly the town of Ialysus. The fruitfulness of the daughter of Alcidamas occasioned it to be said, that she was changed into a dove. The rage of Maera is shown by her transformation into a bitch; and Arne was changed into a daw, because, having sold her country, her avarice was well depicted under the symbol of that bird, which, according ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso

... the death of Socrates, the murder of Caesar, the crucifixion of Christ,—the sun has shone on all these things of beauty, triumph or horror with the same even radiance, always the generator of life and fruitfulness, itself indifferent as to what becomes of the atoms germinated under its prolific heat and vitality. The sun takes no heed whether a man ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli

... who, passing through the valley of weeping, gather their tears into a well; the rain also covereth it with blessings.' So the old Psalm put the thought that sorrow may be turned into a solemn joy, and may lie at the foundation of our most flowery fruitfulness. And the same lesson we may learn from this symbol. The Christ who transforms the water of earthly gladness into the wine of heavenly blessedness, can do the same thing for the bitter waters of sorrow, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren

... say, men may always make that future life and their relation to it what they will. Either the heavens may pour down their dewy influences of benediction and fruitfulness upon them, or may pour down fire and brimstone upon their spirits. Men have the choice which it shall be. The evil conscience drapes the future in darkness, and is right in doing it. The evil conscience ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren

... its genial climate and unusual fruitfulness, is of volcanic origin, and contains about 14,000 acres. It lies on the 29th parallel,[51] north of New Zealand: it is nine hundred and ninety miles from Port Jackson, thirteen hundred miles from the Derwent, and until seen ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West

... invented the Honey-Extractor, which enables the honey to be withdrawn by centrifugal force without breaking the combs, etc. And thus, in a few years, the methods of apiculture underwent a radical change. The capacity and fruitfulness of the hives were trebled. Great and productive apiaries arose on every side. An end was put to the useless destruction of the most industrious cities, and to the odious selection of the least fit which was its result. Man truly became the master ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck

... respects, to these sandy islands, and yet but little superior to them in fruitfulness, are some of those which were visited by the same enterprising voyager on the eastern coast of Australia. Their shores were very low, so much so, that frequently a landing is impossible, and generally very difficult, on account of ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden

... certainly the wisest and the most advantageous, could men be content to enjoy what is their own without seeking to lord it over others. But since to be safe they must be strong, they are compelled avoid these barren districts, and to plant themselves in more fertile regions; where, the fruitfulness of the soil enabling them to increase and multiply, they may defend themselves against any who attack them, and overthrow any who ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli

... her corn moistened with honey!" whispered old Onucz to the bridesmaids;—he considered this old custom as of the highest importance. Possibly it was a symbol of fruitfulness. ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai

... property of the neighbourhood. For the privilege of occupying such a residence, 'the interior,' said advertisement, 'handsomely decorated,' they were racked with an expenditure which, away in the sweet-scented country, would have housed them amid garden graces and orchard fruitfulness. ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing

... surprise I found a fine clump of filberts growing quite near the campus of the O. A. C. at Guelph. These trees were introduced from England about sixteen years ago and at first they did not appear to be hardy, but eventually they established themselves and are now doing well in growth and fruitfulness. I was somewhat amused to think that I was searching so diligently for valuable nut trees all over the Province and did not even know of the existence of these trees, until a year and a half after I made my initial attempt to discover ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fourteenth Annual Meeting • Various



Words linked to "Fruitfulness" :   prolificacy, productiveness, fecundity, productivity, creative thinking, quality, richness, fruitful, fertility, creativity, creativeness, rankness, fruitlessness



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com