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Go to any piece of ground which is left wild and untouched you will find it covered with grass weeds, and other plants; if you dig up a small plot you will find innumerable tiny roots creeping through the ground in every direction. Each of these roots has a sponge-like mouth by which the plant takes up water. Now, imagine rain-drops falling on this plot of ground and sinking into the earth.
It gave one the impression of enormous weight carried upon sponge-like feet, which gave forth a muffled but ear-filling sound. The darkness was as complete as ever, but the tread was regular and decisive. And it was coming beyond all question in my direction. My skin grew cold, and my hair stood on end as I listened to that steady and ponderous footfall.
The tank being emptied, the flow ceases; and within a very short time the drain becomes empty of its contents, which are absorbed by the sponge-like action of the earth, and are subjected to the combined influence of the roots of plants, and of the concentrated oxygen contained among the particles of the soil.
Oscar's small portion, a little money and a small house with some land, came to him in the nick of time: he used the cash partly to pay some debts at Oxford, partly to defray the expenses of a trip to Greece. It was natural that Oscar Wilde, with his eager sponge-like receptivity, should receive the best academic education of his time, and should better that by travel.
It gave one the impression of enormous weight carried upon sponge-like feet, which gave forth a muffled but ear-filling sound. The darkness was as complete as ever, but the tread was regular and decisive. And it was coming beyond all question in my direction. My skin grew cold, and my hair stood on end as I listened to that steady and ponderous footfall.
Her teacher's praise of her quickness and memory had taught her to set her pride on learning. And indeed she had been an intelligent child, gifted with a sponge-like faculty of assimilating all kinds of knowledge the result, perhaps, of generations of educated forbears. The admiration paid to her looks did not cause her to relax her intellectual efforts.
He read badly, but to her it was the flower of scholastic accomplishment, and her untrained brain, sponge-like in its acquisitiveness, soaked up many new words and phrases which fell again quaintly from her lips in talk. Lescott had spent a week picking out those books.
Tobias Clutterbuck may be poor, me dear friend, but" and here he puffed out his chest and tapped on it with his round, sponge-like fist "he's honest, and pays debts of honour on the nail. No, sir, there's no one can say a word against Tobias, except that he's a half-pay old fool with more heart than brains.
The mountain, as symmetrically coned as Fuji-yama, stood over it all in grave dominance. Off to the left sponge-like cliffs broke steeply upward from the level of the beach and about their clefts circled endless flights of gulls. There I knew the rising tide would thunder and break itself to pieces in a thousand plumes of spray. But how had I reached this place and what had become of Mansfield?
The sides of these boxes are bored full of holes to admit air, which must be allowed to circulate freely about the plant, or it will smother. I invert a box over the plant after filling it with leaves, and draw more leaves about the outside of it. This prevents water from coming in contact with the soft, sponge-like foliage, and the plant comes out in spring almost as green as it was in fall.
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