sun-dials

Here's how Fitzgerald describes one: "The lawn started at the beach and ran toward the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over sun-dials and brick walks and burning gardens — finally when it reached the house drifting up the side in bright vines as though from the momentum of its run."

Great Scott! The Guy Could Write Blake Bailey 2010

In one arresting image, the Buchanan's lawn is described as "jumping over sun-dials."

In the Hamptons 2009

It is difficult to discover when this strange history was written, but perhaps it was towards the time in which the Jews only confusedly knew that there were clocks and sun-dials.

A Philosophical Dictionary 2007

The sun-dials, likewise all over Europe, have some ingenious inscription to that effect; so that nobody squanders away their time, without hearing and seeing, daily, how necessary it is to employ it well, and how irrecoverable it is if lost.

Letters to his son on The Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman 2005

‘They are that,’ said Humpty Dumpty: ‘also they make their nests under sun-dials — also they live on cheese.’

Through the Looking Glass 2003

The lawn started at the beach and ran toward the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over sun-dials and brick walks and burning gardens — finally when it reached the house drifting up the side in bright vines as though from the momentum of its run.

The Great Gatsby 2003

And if, perchance, the garden-lover is not building castles in Spain, but has crept into the garden only for brief rest from the fray, or to give a weary clock-driven soul an hour with its Maker, then truly again -- sun-dials and gardens!

Virginia: the Old Dominion Cortelle Hutchins

They carved their Lares and Penates on their house-fronts very curiously, with sun-dials and hatchments, sacred texts and legends of hospitality.

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 27, January, 1860 Various

We made sun-dials on a clear spot of ground and could tell time perfectly from them.

Old Rail Fence Corners The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History Various

All agreeable thoughts float in his mind during his summer nooning doze when he lies on the grass after dinner waiting for the sun to strike the west side of the farmhouse chimneys, which, standing square north and south, serve for sun-dials.

Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 Various