"Armchair" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... on his lips he approached the door of Sir Marcus's chamber. The old man was seated in a large armchair, propped up with cushions, before a blazing fire. His long white hair drawn back, and fastened in a queue behind, exposed his high thin forehead, while his lustreless eyes and fallen jaw showed that the hand of time was pressing heavily on him, ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... this broadside had at least stunned Isagani, the old lawyer fell back in his armchair, outwardly very serious, but ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... something of his guest's feelings in his face. "You probably had not suspected it. It leads into my little laboratory. Chemistry is an absorbing study to me, and I spend most of my time there." Mr. Garvey moved up to the armchair on the opposite side of ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... doubt he thought what we had ourselves wasn't good enough. An' it's him 'at sent t' armchair, t'bed-linen, t'bath, an' that ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... their places forward after each beat. What with running at a jog-trot down the rides, shooting hard when in place, and then getting on quickly to the next stand, often along spongy or clayey rides on a nice, warm, moist November day, this is by no means the armchair work which people are fond of calling wood shooting. The variety of scenery in the wood added much to the charm. Sometimes we were in the narrow rides covered with short turf and almost arched over by the tall hazels; sometimes we were in low slop or walking through last year's ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... is the most solemn, it seems that it is here that the distinction between the Dauphiness and the new Empress should be most distinctly marked. The first-named sat in an armchair, placed in front of the altar, but without a canopy, the Queen Marie Leczinska, daughter of King Stanislas, having a place, under a canopy, between the King and Queen ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... a little late in arriving the next night. He had agreed to be on hand exactly at midnight, but it was after one o'clock before the machine began to click and the bell to ring. I had fallen asleep in the soft upholstered depths of my armchair, feeling pretty thoroughly worn out by the experiences of the night before, which, in spite of their pleasant issue, were nevertheless somewhat disturbing to a nervous organization like mine. Suddenly I waked, and with the awakening there entered into my mind the notion that the whole thing was merely ...
— The Enchanted Typewriter • John Kendrick Bangs
... up a head-rest on the edge of the table, pull up the armchair, wrap myself in a rug and sleep leaning forward. I'll show you. Just get down Owen's 'Comparative Anatomy' and stack the volumes close to the edge of the table. Then set up Parker's 'Monograph on the Shoulder-girdle' in a slanting position against them. Fine ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... the ground, and he stooped to pick it up; she had vanished. He threw it over his arm, and approaching the window squarely he saw a monstrous form of a fat man in an armchair, an unshaded lamp, the yawning of an enormous mouth in a big flat face encircled by a ragged halo of hair—Miss Bessie's head and bust. The shouting stopped; the blind ran down. He lost himself in thinking how awkward it ...
— To-morrow • Joseph Conrad
... attempt; and as she is more brave than steady on her little feet, she has many a narrow escape. Her latest escapade was to follow her reckless leader in an attempt to walk round the top of the back of a large armchair, the cane rim of which is a slippery slant, two ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... But not so. A few weeks later he reached his beloved Sydney Lodge, where his room was arranged on the ground floor and a young doctor always in attendance. His patience and fortitude were heroic. Unable to lie down, he sat for weeks in an armchair, supported at night by his two attendants. Nothing could be more sad than to witness his lingering end. Sometimes he rallied sufficiently to be wheeled into the drawing-room and be refreshed by our singing hymns to him in parts. He was a firm believer in Christ, and constantly ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... time Jason's servo-tracer on Lonnie hiccupped and dozed off was at 12:01 a.m., August 7th, 2008, just one day after the Diamond Throne arrived on Earth. The single, glittering diamond crystal, misshapen like an armchair and larger than one, had been mined out of the core of Tycho's crater. And it was also just two days before the Moon Throne would have been installed in the unbreakable ...
— Zero Data • Charles Saphro
... emerged from her bed-room in her embroidered morning gown and stepped into the brilliant sunlight, she felt just a tiny bit faint; he helped her into the armchair, made her drink a little liqueur out of a liqueur glass and eat ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... Cynthia drew forward an armchair, stooped and carefully arranged the ottoman, and then went with stern determination to look ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... lives, when I think of the many such pictures of wanton outrage which are burned into their memories, and which can never be effaced so long as a single German remains in their beloved land. I no longer wonder, but I do not cease to admire. Let anyone who from the depths of an armchair at home thinks that I have spoken too strongly, stimulate his imagination to the pitch of visualizing the town in which he lives destroyed, his own house a smoking heap, his wife profaned, his children murdered, and himself ruined, for these are ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar
... with his clear young laugh, and turned on every light in the place. Lola and I exchanged glances—she had adopted her usual lazy pantherine attitude in the armchair—and her glance was not that of a happy woman to whom a longed-for lover had unexpectedly come. Its real significance I could not divine, but it was more wistful than ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... in town near the harbour. In this store, filled up to the ceiling with rope, twine, hemp and tow, he had a small room with a creaking glass door. In this room stood a big, old, dilapidated table, and near it a deep armchair, covered with oilcloth, in which Mayakin sat all day long, sipping tea and always reading the same "Moskovskiya Vedomosty," to which he subscribed, year in and year out, all his life. Among merchants he enjoyed the respect and reputation of a "brainy" ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... Stillinghast, repressing a groan of anguish which struggled up from his heart. They went together into the sitting-room; and May spread his supper before him, but he only drank his tea, and pushing his plate away, came and sat in his armchair beside the fire. ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... without whispers and smothered laughter—had withdrawn from them. Some of the ladies had already gone up to dress. The men had wandered away into a little library and smoking-room which opened on the hall. Only the squire, safe in a capacious armchair a little way off, was absorbed in a local paper and the last humours ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... dress, she put on an easy dressing-gown of pale blue cashmere, drew up an armchair, and, arranging her electric reading-lamp, sat down to a new novel ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... and detestable, but, all the same, makes life worth the having. Yes! I see it all! Don't interrupt, Polly, I'm inspired. A mauve and white striped 'cloud' round my excellent shoulders, a seat in the fifth row of the Gaiety, and both horses sold. Delightful vision! A comfortable armchair, situated in three different draughts, at every ballroom; and nice, large, sensible shoes for all the couples to stumble over as they go into the veranda! Then at supper. Can't you imagine the scene? The greedy mob gone away. Reluctant subaltern, pink all over like a newly-powdered baby—they really ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... a graceful, simple prose style. In its ease and purity, it most resembles that of Swift, Addison, or Goldsmith. Thackeray writes as a cultured, ideal, old gentleman may be imagined to talk to the young people, while he sits in his comfortable armchair in a corner by the fireplace. The charm of freshness, quaintness, and colloquial familiarity is seldom absent from the delightfully ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... ill-prepared for the comfort and tidiness prevailing within. What a change when the door opened, and our neatly dressed entertainers ushered us into their dining-room! Here, looking on to a well-kept garden was a table spread with spotless linen, covers being laid as in a middle-class house. An armchair, invariable token of respect, was placed for the English visitor; then we sat down to table, two blue- bloused men, uncle and nephew, and three elderly women in mob caps and grey print gowns, dispensing hospitality to their guests, belonging to the noblesse of Lorraine. ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... barrels. And his face still continued to wear the singular, doubtful expression it had put on at first hearing the news. Ellen's trunk was quickly hoisted in, however; and Mrs. Forbes presently appeared with a little armchair, which Mr. Van Brunt with an approving look bestowed in the cart, planting it with its back against the trunk to keep it steady. Mrs. Forbes then, raising herself on tiptoe by the side of the cart, took a view ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... was transformed: blue cloths and lace runners on the deal side-table and improvised pigeon-holes; nicknacks here and there on tables and shelves and brackets; pictures on the walls; "kent" faces in photograph frames among the nicknacks; a folding carpet-seated armchair in a position of honour; cretonne curtains in the doorway between the rooms, and inside the shimmering white net a study in colour effect—blue and white matting on the floor, a crimson cloth on the table, and on the cloth Cheon's "silver" swan sailing in a sea of purple, blue, and ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... approach the door. I opened, and my husband entered, closed it, and turned the key. Oh! Carry, I did feel so funny. I was undressed in a bedroom with a man, and that man had a right to my person. He seated himself in an armchair, and drew me on his knee. Nothing but my thin night-gown separated my bottom from his bare knee, for he had quite undressed in an adjoining room and had nothing on but his shirt under his dressing-gown, which flew open as he sat down. He drew ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... hall door, which he had left open. He must regain the turret chamber unseen and unheard. With all possible caution he crept upstairs, and sank into the armchair which stood in front of the table. The loose leaves of the manuscript seemed to have been awaiting his return. Involuntarily his eyes fell upon the sentence in the middle of which he had broken off. He read: "Voltaire will doubtless prove immortal. But this immortality ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... made no sound as he walked across it. The two gas jets were turned only half-way up, and the dim light with the faint aromatic smell which filled the air had a vaguely religious suggestion. He sat down in a shining leather armchair by the smouldering fire and looked gloomily about him. Two sides of the room were taken up with books, fat and sombre, with broad gold lettering upon their backs. Beside him was the high, old-fashioned mantelpiece of white marble—the top of it strewed with cotton ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of his hat and overcoat, making him sit down in a big armchair before the fire. He watched her curiously as she moved lightly about waiting on him. Nellie was a soft round little person with constant intimations of a childhood not long outgrown. Jeff judged she must be nineteen or twenty, but she had moments ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... support, as he tried to brace himself. She set him in an armchair, then brought him bread, butter, some cold meat and fresh milk from the cupboard, placing them on the ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... daughter! It is all over. (Falls back overcome in an armchair near the table.) God forgive me, if I put an end to the painful dream of life, and let me awaken in ...
— Mercadet - A Comedy In Three Acts • Honore De Balzac
... children that gathered about him with pattering feet and chattering tongues, and never wished to be absent from them. "Oh dear, oh dear," he says, "there is such a comfort in one's old coat and old shoes, one's armchair and own fireside, one's own writing- desk and own library—with a little girl climbing up my neck, and saying, 'Don't go to London, papa—you must stay with Edith'; and a little boy, whom I have taught to speak the language of cats, dogs, cuckoos, and jackasses, ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... to study. She sat in a deep armchair, her books unopened on her lap, looking out upon the sunny garden, and brooding drearily over the past, wondering sadly whether, if Maud were never, never found, she could ever feel happy again! And if happiness ...
— The Girls of St. Olave's • Mabel Mackintosh
... the outhouses at Springfield dwelt an old woman, a superannuated servant. I remember her under the name of "Old Mary." The room she occupied was small, and contained but little furniture. Yet it was always neat and as clean as a new pin. Old Mary used to sit all day long in a high armchair, knitting, and with a black cat asleep on her lap. She was a terrible tea-drinker, and was very fond of me, but I ill requited her kindness by continually plundering her sugar-bowl. The latter she took to hiding, but I, engaging her the time in airy conversation, used to ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... very unwell, and have Dr. Cabell with me."[477] Upon this alarming news, she and others of his kindred in that neighborhood made all haste to go to him. On arriving at Red Hill "they found him sitting in a large, old-fashioned armchair, in which he was easier than upon a bed." The disease of which he was dying was intussusception. On the 6th of June, all other remedies having failed, Dr. Cabell proceeded to administer to him a dose of liquid mercury. Taking the vial in his hand, and looking ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... ravelines I shall speak to your Papa when I fight my battle once again in the Armchair at the Park or at Winnington; enough for you to know that we all breakfasted with Sir Thomas Brisbane, a very superior man and a great astronomer, and tho' brave as a lion, seems to prefer looking at la Pleine lune in the heavens than the host of demi-lunes ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... me to-night—her calm glances killed their fire—and she barely touched my hand, though I offered it with a respectful ardour, she must have understood:"—then he looked admiringly at the long, white hand and thoroughbred wrist which lay idly on the velvet cushion of his armchair; an exquisite ruffle of lace just touched it, and his eyes wandered from the ruffle to the velvet and silver embroidery of his coat; and the delicate laced ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... mart of gain, whereby I insinuate Glasgow, are frequently led to make Gandercleugh their abiding stage and place of rest for the night. And it must be acknowledged by the most sceptical, that I, who have sat in the leathern armchair, on the left-hand side of the fire, in the common room of the Wallace Inn, winter and summer, for every evening in my life, during forty years bypast, (the Christian Sabbaths only excepted,) must have seen ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... trying to comfort me, went away about two o'clock. My grandmother, seated opposite me in her large Voltaire armchair, questioned me: ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... doublet dry as toast. At the courtyard of the inn I flung myself from my horse and strode to the taproom where my companions awaited me. In truth they were making the best of their circumstances. A hot water jug steamed in front of the hearth where Creagh lolled in a big armchair. At the table Captain Macdonald was compounding a brew by the aid of lemons, spices, and brandy. They looked the picture of content, and I stood streaming in the doorway a moment to ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... means hands an' heart an' eyes an' brain an' every inch of him lined up to win. Sandy fights with his head an' he's got the heart to back it. Hell's bells, marm, beggin' yo' pardon ag'in, I ain't worryin' none erbout Sandy! I ain't seen him lose out yet. I'm cussin' about me—warmin' an armchair an' waddlin' ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... he lit a fire. Drawing up in front of it a small armchair, suited for a lady's use, he placed behind it a table with an electric lamp. Letty smiled up at him. He had never seen her smile before, and now that he did he made to himself another comment ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... Latournelles bowed with the most respectful deference to an old lady dressed in black velvet, who did not rise from the armchair in which she was seated, for the reason that both eyes were covered with the yellow film produced by cataract. Madame Mignon may be sketched in one sentence. Her august countenance of the mother of a family attracted instant notice as that of one whose irreproachable ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... into the room while the Doctor was still pondering upon the hardness of the black horsehair-covered armchair ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... London house's library, looking over a niggard enclosure of gravel and dull grass, against a wall where ivy dribbled. An armchair was beside the fireplace. To right and left of it a floreate company of books in high cases paraded shoulder to shoulder, without a gap; grenadiers on the line. Weyburn read the titles on their scarlet-and-blue facings. They were approved English classics; honoured ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... had not heard her plea, crimsoned her face. She jumped from the armchair, breathing rapidly. "Then," she cried, "if you won't have me, get another. The one you have ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... slaves, and offered the Jewess an ivory armchair with cushions embroidered in gold. But Mary Magdalen, pushing it back with disgust, seated herself on the ground with feet crossed in the shade of the great plane-tree stirred by the ...
— Balthasar - And Other Works - 1909 • Anatole France
... also, the patient being well-enough to leave his bed and to occupy the armchair in his room, the inevitable disclosure took place; and Madame Fontaine stood revealed in the character of the Good Samaritan who ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... Q. Porter fidgeted in his armchair. The subject always made him uncomfortable. He could not understand why. Canler was ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... quiet little corner for two, was a nook scooped out, as it were, in a jut of granite; hollowed in behind and perpendicularly to a height above their heads, and embracing a mossy little flat below, so that it seemed like a great solid armchair into which two could get together, and a third ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... in contrasting these demonstrated laboratory facts with the armchair theories that have so long and so harmfully dominated biological studies. A quotation from him will not be out ...
— Q. E. D., or New Light on the Doctrine of Creation • George McCready Price
... tell Shorty that I had been, not exactly an armchair critic, but at least a barrack-room critic in England. I had wondered why British and French troops had failed to smash through. A few weeks in the trenches gave me a new viewpoint. I could only wonder at the magnificent fighting qualities of soldiers who had held their own so effectively against ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall
... mind, then, I was lying in my library chair here at Sevenhays, at two o'clock on the morning of January 4th. I had just finished another reading of the Tenth Vision and had tossed my book into the lap of an armchair opposite. Fire and lamp were burning brightly. The night outside was still and soundless, with ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... position is the best for creative thought, and another friend of mine, also a maker of verses, has patented the very ingenious device of a pair of stirrups just under the mantelshelf, so that, when he sits back in his armchair, he can manage his Pegasus without having his feet continually slipping off the marble surface ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, June 30th, 1920 • Various
... ballroom, dancing ceased before her and around her, and but for the noise of the orchestra there would have been an awed and painful silence. Mrs. Burke's haughty daughter-in-law, with an expression of eager desire to conciliate and to please, hastened forward and conducted the old lady to a gilt armchair in the center of the dais, across the end of the ballroom. It was several minutes before the gayety was resumed, and then it seemed to have lost the abandon which the freely- flowing champagne ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... For nations yet unborn, I would remove From our two lives the morn, And muse on loveliness In mine armchair, Content should Time confess How ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... Jenny!" and Von Barwig, taking the trembling child in his arms, placed her gently in his armchair. "Jenny, ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... just then by the doctor's cabin, and Stahl, pushing the door open, led him in. Taking the sofa for himself, he pointed to an armchair opposite. ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... before the fly was heard in which Linda and her mother returned home. Katie had then gone upstairs, but not to bed. She had seated herself in the armchair in her mother's dressing-room, and sitting there waited till she should be told by her mother what had occurred. When the sound of the wheels caught her ears, she came to the door of the room and held it in her hand that she might learn what passed. She heard Linda's sudden ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... Arcady had sat to pity Miss Caroline for being "lumbered" with it. Again, a "Colonial highboy, hooded," recalled as an especially awkward thing, and "five mahogany side chairs" had gone for three hundred and eighty dollars. A "Heppelwhite mahogany armchair," remembered for its faded red satin, had veritably brought one hundred and sixty dollars; and a carved rosewood screen, said to be of Empire design, but a shabby thing, had sold astonishingly for ninety dollars. A "Hogarth chair-back settee" for two hundred and ten dollars, ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... be charged with that particular kind of affection, Chloe." There was an assertive note in Cheniston's voice when he spoke to his sister which was new to her. "You think a dog's proper place is the best armchair or the ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... you cough like that, Jack?" he demanded after a paroxysm had shaken the other into an armchair, where ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... of getting such a book written in the midst of other work, the ingenious doctor suggested the use of a phonograph driven by a gas-engine. The great thoughts dictated into it from the comfort of an armchair, could easily be worked up into ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... to a sofa, which had been a very handsome one in the year 1809, the Baroness, pointing to an armchair with the arms ending in bronze sphinxes' heads, while the paint was peeling from the wood, which showed through in many places, signed to Crevel ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... and horror, which told me that he now saw Mrs. Roylake in the smoking-room for the first time. I involved myself in new clouds. If I suffocated my stepmother, her own polite equivocation would justify the act. She settled herself opposite to me in an armchair. The agonies that she must have suffered, in preventing her face from expressing emotions of disgust, I dare not attempt to imagine, even at ...
— The Guilty River • Wilkie Collins
... young fellow unlocked the iron door and set it wide, he said he would get them a man, and he got Mrs. Forsyth a gilt armchair from some furniture going into an adjoining twenty-dollar room. She sat down in it, and "Of course," she said, "the pieces I want will be at the very back and the very bottom. Why don't you get yourself a chair, too, Ambrose? What ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... face muddily white as the whiskey bloat deserted it, shrunk inside his shabby clothes. He seemed, every time de Spain darted a look at him, to grow visibly smaller, until his loose bulk had shrivelled inside an armchair hardly large enough normally to ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... The servants were running hither and thither, there was a confusion of voices, and the rooms were lit up. Three antiquated chambermaids entered the bedroom, and they were shortly afterwards followed by the Countess, who, more dead than alive, sank into a Voltaire armchair. Hermann peeped through a chink. Lizaveta Ivanovna passed close by him, and he heard her hurried steps as she hastened up the little spiral staircase. For a moment his heart was assailed by something like a pricking of conscience, ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... the night dreaming in his armchair, for the face of that woman brought before him a number of illustrious shades connected with many happy or terrible souvenirs, and he who had regretted his sleep on first arriving, now thought no ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... the wondering Greek. I try to distract myself by thinking of other images—images that I have seen. I think of Bartolommeo Colleoni riding greatly forth under the shadow of the church of Saint John and Saint Paul. Of Mr. Peabody I think, cosy in his armchair behind the Royal Exchange; of Nelson above the sparrows, and of Perseus among the pigeons; of golden Albert, and of Harvey the not red. Up looms Umberto, uncouthly casting them one and all into the shade. I think of other statues that I have not seen—statues ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... the people and all waited for Miss Anthony. During the afternoon she had been sitting in a large armchair that was almost covered by her cloak of royal purple velvet which she had thrown over it, the white satin lining forming a lovely background for her finely-shaped head with its halo of silver hair. No one ever had seen her so moved as on this occasion when her memory must have carried her back to ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... fool than he could help, that all we needed was enough money to whip Hawkins out of the way, and that if he would "come up" with the needful we would look out for him. I left him a disgusting sight, sitting in a red plush armchair, with his face in his hands, his hair streaking down across his forehead, moaning and mumbling ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... Halidon pushed his armchair back from the fire-light, and twirled his cigar between his fingers. "I didn't suppose there were till I began to look into things a little more closely. You know I never had much of a head for business, and it was chiefly with ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... followed the women into the hotel, while Mendoza steamed away to a haunt of his own. Scott sank into an armchair and settled himself ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall
... and more grotesque than ever in the great high-backed, richly carved armchair, surveyed the progress of the banquet with the air of a god performing miracles of creation and passing them in review and giving them his divine endorsement. He was well pleased with the enthusiastic praises Presbury and his wife lavished ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... on the Embankment, a little to the west of Hungerford Bridge. As he was shown into the room, Fielding could not help noticing the plainness of its furniture and adornment. The chairs were covered with a cheap red cretonne; there was an armchair or two with the high seat and long elbows, which seemed to have gone astray from a Peckham drawing-room; an ormolu clock under a glass shade ornamented the overmantel, and in the way of literature there was one book in the room—Prescott's Conquest of Peru—and ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... introduced Aramis. According to custom, the prisoner was without a light. At the hour of curfew, he was bound to extinguish his lamp, and we perceive how much he was favored, in being allowed to keep it burning even till then. Near the bed a large leathern armchair, with twisted legs, sustained his clothes. A little table—without pens, books, paper, or ink—stood neglected in sadness near the window; while several plates, still unemptied, showed that the prisoner ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to be reading in my armchair, when you came and planted your chairs immediately outside. I was the first- comer, you observe, not yourselves, and I cannot say I was interested enough to listen to your conversation until my attention was attracted by the description of myself. I presume the very ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... shrugged his shoulders, racially, and returned to the armchair which he had just quitted. He reseated himself, placing his hat and cane ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... than grief, for it had been Robert Fairchild's promise that he would not suffer in heart for one who had longed to go into a peace for which he had waited, seemingly in vain. Year after year, Thornton Fairchild had sat in the big armchair by the windows, watching the days grow old and fade into night, studying sunset after sunset, voicing the vain hope that the gloaming might bring the twilight of his own existence,—a silent man except for this, rarely speaking of the past, never ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... said the queen, sinking into the armchair which stood before the table, near the divan, "now give me the paper. But no, you would better read it to me—but exactly as it stands. You promise ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... aid. Between them they lifted the wounded stranger to a seat on their arms. The man put his arms about their necks, and thus they conveyed him to a broad armchair on ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Philippines - or, Following the Flag against the Moros • H. Irving Hancock
... filled with confusion, could prevent him, he seized the two newspapers and flung them out through the window. Then he gravely placed "La Justice" in the hands of Madame de Meroul and "Le Voltaire" in those of her husband, himself sinking into an armchair ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... bad, the chimney smokes, the wood goes out! I throw down my bellows in disgust, and sink into my old armchair. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... was sitting in a big armchair before the fire, with his head in his hands. He looked very much troubled over something. She opened the door, and ...
— The Story of Dago • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... he was back he examined the work he had ordered done, signed his letters, and stretched himself out in his armchair, the arms of which he stabbed with his penknife as he talked. If he was not inclined to talk, he reread the letters of the day before, or the pamphlets of the day, laughing at intervals with the hearty laugh of a great ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... hastened to succour and comfort her; but this time it was no easy matter, and the queen let her act and speak without answering her otherwise than with sobs and tears; when suddenly, looking through the window to which she had drawn up her mistress's armchair— ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... was very large and heavy, and the afternoon was very warm, and the big armchair in which he was curled up was so comfortable that by and by he let the ...
— The Magic Soap Bubble • David Cory
... presented ten slave loads of fine cottons, mantles of rich feather work, and a basket filled with gold ornaments to Cortez; who then handed over the presents intended for Montezuma. These consisted of a richly carved and painted armchair, a crimson cap with a gold medal, and a quantity of collars, bracelets, and ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... idea that reviewing books is something with the capacity for which every man is born, as he is born with the capacity for talking prose. They think it is as easy as having opinions. It is simply making a few remarks at the end of a couple of hours spent with a book in an armchair. Many men and women—novelists, barristers, professors and others—review books in their spare time, as they look on this as work they can do when their brains are too tired to do anything which is of genuine importance. A great ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... the customary position of the furniture in a room had been, in some respects, altered. An armchair, a side-table, and a footstool had all been removed to one of the windows, and had been placed as close as possible to the light. On the table lay a large open roll of morocco leather, containing rows of elegant little ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... kind and a spiritual kind. Which one a man will choose should be left entirely to himself. It is only a question of approaching the same goal from two different directions. Smith is welcome to make himself a better man by exercising his legs three hours a day. But I prefer to sit in an armchair and exercise my soul. Smith comes in refreshed from a half-day's sojourn in the open air, and I come away refreshed from a roomful of old friends talking three at a time amidst clouds ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... said Isabel. She saw that she had startled and distressed her husband, and she drew him down into an immense armchair by the fire, a man's chair, spacious and soft. "Is there room for me too?" She slipped into it beside him and threw her arms round his neck. Lawrence held her lightly and passively. Not once during their engagement had she so surrendered ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... screened off into three sections. One shaded lamp high up near the ceiling served to light all the cubicles, which were heated by small charcoal stoves. These cubicles were identical in shape and appointment, each being draped with quaint Chinese tapestry and containing rugs, a silken divan, an armchair, and a low, ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... patron of the Festival, occupied one. When Madame Lehmann had finished her Aria, she stepped down from the platform. The Prince rose at once and went to meet her. She gave him her hand with a graceful curtesy and he led her to the armchair next his own, which had evidently been placed in position ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... couple of swinging oil lamps. Several more oil lamps are in the bulkheads or walls. They are used when steam is down and the dynamo is not running. The furniture and fittings are completed by a comfortable-looking, well-padded armchair, a couple of steam radiators of polished, perforated brass for warming purposes when the ship is at sea, a red and blue carpet, curtains, a letter rack and notice board, ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling
... rose slowly from the armchair in which she was sitting, busily engaged in cleaning her watch-chain by inserting a pin between every two ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... the old days—with closed eyes he reproduced it; its white walls, its few good pictures, its curtains and carpet of deep blue. Her sofa by the window, the wide armchair on which he always sat, the table where, in and out of season, roses, his roses, stood. The little old gilt clock on the mantlepiece that so quickly, cruelly ticked away their hour. Books, books everywhere, the most important journals and a medley of the ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... Giant grew very old and feeble. He could not play about any more, so he sat in a huge armchair, and watched the children at their games, and admired his garden. "I have many beautiful flowers," he said; "but the children are the most beautiful ...
— The Happy Prince and Other Tales • Oscar Wilde
... bed in the morning when there is no First School is a "frowst." By a subtle law of association, an armchair is also a "frowst." ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... dowager sat knitting, though as a matter of fact she had several times left the room to superintend preparations in the Green Chamber, whither the Countess' luggage had been transported; now, however, she had returned to her great armchair, and stole a glance from time to time at this young relative. Julie felt ashamed of giving way to irresistible broodings, and tried to earn her pardon by ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... it emeralds to match the Green, and mebbe a few sparklers thrown in." He laughed gayly and, taking her arm, drew her back across the room to the open trunk; when she was seated again in the armchair, he knelt to remove the first layer of tissue packing. She took the precaution to spread one smooth sheet of it on her lap and, leaning forward, saw him uncover the plume, the entire hat. "Gracious goodness!" she exclaimed tremulously, as he lifted it awkwardly to her eager hands, ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... with a hand-spike," explained the other, groaning with pain as we assisted him to a seat at the further end of the table, where the skipper's armchair was drawn out for him to fix him up more comfortably. "One of those treacherous niggers came behind his back and dealt him a terrific blow that landed on the side of his head partly, ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... living room he found Ethel sitting idly at her typewriter, playing with the keys. She got up at his return and sat down in the armchair with a novelette that hid her face. He stared at her, full of questions. After all, then, they had not come. He was intensely disappointed now, he was intensely angry with the ineffable young shop-woman in black. He looked ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... in a shabby armchair on one side of the fireless grate. He was still smoking his big pipe. Cicely ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... night, but not sleepy, Joe resolved to solace himself with a pipe before lying down. He threw off his coat, vest, and braces, pulled up his flannel shirt, so as to let it hang comfortably loose over the waistband of his trousers, sat down in an armchair in front of the fire, filled his pipe, and began to smoke. His intention was to "take a few whiffs and then turn in," but the influence of the tobacco appeared to be soporific, for he soon began to nod; then he ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne
... any one dare to deal harshly with a child!" To this loving interest children everywhere have responded. On the poet's seventy- second birthday, about seven hundred children of Cambridge gave him an armchair made of the chestnut-tree celebrated in The Village Blacksmith. A poem was written in answer to the gift, and a copy of this was given to every child who came to visit the poet and sit in his chair. And children did come to visit him ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... the quiet, when they sat at the open window, and Geoffrey smoked and listened to the soft surging of the sea and the harmonious whisper of the night air in the pines. In the corner Mr. Granger slept in his armchair, or perhaps he had gone to bed altogether, for he liked to go to bed at half-past eight, as the old Herefordshire farmer, his father, had done before him; and at the far end of the room sat Elizabeth, doing her ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... seconds he was on the domestic side of the sitting-room window, and seated in the antimacassared armchair between the fire-place and the piano, and Annie had taken his hat and told him that her servant was out ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... not to cause me unnecessary pain by his taunts. He apologised lamely and told me that I was to proceed on board ship. This very much surprised me, and I remarked that I had already been taken from home and hearth 500 miles. This ill-tempered creature then lent back arrogantly in his armchair, puffing at his cigar, and said: "Well, ah, you are banished, don't you know. You are to be sent to St. Helena, or as we call it, 'The Rock.' You will shortly embark. It is a large ship you are going in; it is called—ah, let me see, oh, yes, the Britannica. I will proceed ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... heart less easy to break than the others that lie in its course; this also is broken, and Civilization continues on her course triumphant. And you, too, will do the like; you who with this book in your white hand will sink back among the cushions of your armchair, and say to yourself, "Perhaps this may amuse me." You will read the story of Father Goriot's secret woes, and, dining thereafter with an unspoiled appetite, will lay the blame of your insensibility upon the writer, and accuse him of exaggeration, ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... the house, her eyes brimming, the paper shaking in her poor old hand. She groped her way to an old haircloth armchair in her sitting room, and put on her spectacles. The moisture from her eyes dimmed the glasses and she had to take them off and wipe ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... he said that evening, dropping into his capacious armchair, "I feel as if I should never get warmed through. I do believe we shall have a tremendous snowstorm to take this chill out of the air. Jack, read the ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... be sitting quietly in an armchair in the Kremlin, probing through several thousand miles of solid earth to peep into the brains of the men ...
— That Sweet Little Old Lady • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)
... between the gasps of his own laughter, as he tossed his own fine head in the air, sitting on his rude bench, covered with sheepskin, as if it had been an armchair. "Ah, ah! mesdames, you didn't expect this, hein? You hoped for a landau, and feathers and cushions, perhaps? But soft feathers and springs are not ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... shoulder came a sudden bright gleam of light from the house above, and I knew that Mistress Percy was as usual wasting good pine knots. I had a vision of the many lights within, and of the beauty whom the world called my wife, sitting erect, bathed in that rosy glow, in the great armchair, with the turbaned negress behind her. I suppose Rolfe saw the same thing, for he looked from the light to me, and I ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... come—no doubt he had been shot—but a reed-sparrow did, in velvet black cap and dainty brown, pottering about the willow near me. This was really like the beautiful river I had dreamed of. If only we could persuade ourselves to remain quiescent when we are happy! If only we would remain still in the armchair as the last curl of vapour rises from a cigar that has been enjoyed! If only we would sit still in the shadow and not go indoors to write that letter! Let happiness alone. Stir not an inch; speak not a word: happiness is a coy maiden—hold ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... his armchair, looking meditatively into the fire. He was tall and thin, and his skin was of a dull saffron hue. Long, straight hair,—sharply cut, regular features,—a long, thin moustache, that curled like a dark asp around his mouth, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... passed through the door, which stood wide open. Crossing the hall, we found ourselves in a small square room, furnished with rose-colored hangings. Here supper was spread. Gustave walked up to the table. The duchess flung herself into an armchair. She had taken her handkerchief out of her pocket, and she held it in front of her lips and seemed to be biting it. Her eyebrows were raised, and her face displayed a comical mixture of amusement and apprehension. ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope
... anything but gratefully when Constance approached. Miss Field, however, was not a person to be dismissed with a light and airy word, and Maggie sighed and closed her book when Constance sat down in an armchair, which she pulled close to her. There were no other girls in the library, and Prissie, seeing that Miss Field intended to be confidential, looked at ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... about going away from England to try his luck in Australia. All his friends and relations are around him, expressing their sorrow at his enforced voyage; all but his grandfather, aged ninety-two, who sits stolid and mumbling in his armchair. ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... although the roof was broken in and the place was somewhat littered with stones. The King was, as he said, too fat to do any hard work, so he sat down on a block of marble and watched Inga clear the room of its rubbish. This done, the boy hunted through the ruins until he discovered a stool and an armchair that had not been broken beyond use. Some bedding and a mattress were also found, so that by nightfall the little room ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum
... to find me here," said the old man, who sat in an armchair, a thin, stooped figure, with a ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... John, I obey you," said Julie, sitting down again in a large armchair before the flames, where the ruddy light once more deepened the gold of her hair and the rose of her cheeks. "It seems that you intend ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... by the embers of a fire that was dying on the large hearth at its farther extremity; the walls curiously papered, and the flickering firelight bringing out its grotesque pattern; somebody sitting in a large armchair by the fireplace. All this we saw as we crowded together into the room, ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... daughter and I; Angela seated on what is known, I believe, in upholstering circles as a humpty, while Peggy lay on her tummy on the floor, pencil in hand and a sheet of paper before her; she was chewing the pencil with the ruminating air of one who awaits inspiration. I myself occupied the armchair. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 4, 1919. • Various
... Dr. Samuel Johnson, 'that majestick teacher of moral and religious wisdom,' while sitting solemn in an armchair in the Isle of Sky, talk, ex cathedra, of his keeping a seraglio[607], and acknowledge that the supposition had often been in his thoughts, struck me so forcibly with ludicrous contrast, that I could not ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... our private sitting-room in the Black Bull Hotel. The table was covered with newspaper, and on it lay the long grey horn and Thorndyke's travelling-case, now open and displaying a small microscope and its accessories. The butcher was seated solidly in an armchair waiting, with a half-suspicious eye on Thorndyke for the report; and I was endeavouring by cheerful talk to keep Mr. Stopford from sinking into utter despondency, though I, too, kept a furtive watch on ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... Brandt. "But I never before saw you talking with him. Who is he?" She was a small, brown, square-built, black-haired, homely-featured old woman, in a big, round starched white cap and a flowing black silk gown. She sat in an uncushioned oaken armchair by the window, with some white knitting in her bony, blunt-fingered brown hands, and tortoise-shell-rimmed spectacles on her nose. But the spectacles couldn't hide the goodness or the soundness or the ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... saucepan in one, and a big spoon in the other, and all sorts of good things in the others, so that we can make some molasses candy here in my room, over the open fire. While it cooks you can curl up in the big armchair and listen to a fairy tale in the firelight. Would you ...
— The Gate of the Giant Scissors • Annie Fellows Johnston
... tame and trivial. If we will but think of it, it is very strange in how many unexpected places we shall find it lurking: for example, the painter of portraits is unhappy without his conventional white stroke under the sleeve or beside the armchair; the painter of interiors feels like a caged bird unless he can throw a window open or set a door ajar; the landscapist dare not lose himself in the forest without a gleam of light under its farthest branches, nor ventures out in the rain unless he may somewhere pierce to a better ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... my peaceful study at Fernbridge Seminary for Young Ladies, with its cozy armchair, its comforting stool, or rest, for the slippered feet, its neatly arranged tea table! Nevermore should I spend the tranquil evening hours with Wordsworth and with Tennyson! Nevermore should my eyes rest on my portfolio of pressed autumn leaves, ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... literally everything down to the smallest detail, that Moody could tell him. Having now, in his own phrase, "got to the root of the matter," he relighted his pipe with a grunt of satisfaction, and laid himself back in his old armchair. ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... Hardy, "but the reason I have them is, that they're the cheapest armchair one can get. I like an arm-chair, and can't afford to have any ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... hangs in Santa Maria Novella, over the altar of the Ruccellai chapel, and thither many a pilgrim takes his way to honor the memory of the father of modern painting. The throne is a sort of carved armchair, very simple in form, but richly overlaid with gold; the surrounding background is filled with adoring angels. Here sits the Madonna, in stiff solemnity, holding her child on her lap. If we find it hard ...
— The Madonna in Art • Estelle M. Hurll
... hide a slight confusion. To compare small things with great, Diana must have worn something of that look at sight of Actaeon. M. Charnot did not rise, but hearing somebody enter, turned half-round in his armchair, while his eyes, still dazzled with the lamplight, sought the intruder in the partial shadow of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... candle, bade Morris shut the door, and threw herself into an armchair with wonderful decision of manner, declaring that she had never been so treated;—to be amused and sent to bed like a baby, in a house where she was ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... over the centre of which, however, was spread a thick richly-colored Turkey carpet. Opposite the door was a large mullioned bay-window, then, however, concealed behind an ample flowing crimson curtain. On the farther side of the fireplace stood a high-backed and roomy armchair, almost covered With Kate's embroidery, and in which Mrs. Aubrey had evidently, as usual, been sitting till the moment of their arrival—for on a small ebony table beside it lay her spectacles, and ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... Souvent femme varie! Just now you seemed so anxious,—besides, if one belongs to the Cause one knows what to expect." Emile strolled towards the uncomfortable piece of furniture by the window, that purported to be an armchair, and ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... eyes sparkled. He ran his fingers through his hair, making it stand on end. After a few strides he felt better. He went back to the armchair and took up ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... tour of inspection around the castle and grounds, and, finally, retiring with him to the library, whither the old duke usually went to rest, read, or meditate sometime during the morning, he coiled himself up in an armchair, took a small book out of his pocket, and ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... Peps and Papo, largely helped to make our lodgings homelike; both were very fond of me, and were sometimes even too obtrusive in showing their affection. Peps would always lie behind me in the armchair while I was working, and Papo, after repeatedly calling out 'Richard' in vain, would often come fluttering into my study if I stayed away from the sitting-room too long. He would then settle down on my desk and vigorously ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... receive his just deserts, Stephen hurried home. A light was burning in the sitting-room which his mother had left for him ere she retired for the night. He threw himself into an armchair and reviewed the exciting scenes of the evening. A weight had been suddenly lifted from his mind, and his heart was filled with thankfulness. He thought of the joy which would shine in Nellie's face when she learned how her father had been cleared of that terrible charge. ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... having at last finished and despatched the letter to his mother, drifted up the avenue and into the club. As he passed the smoking room he caught sight of Gerald seated in an armchair by the window. He entered the room and took a ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... saved up until now, and sat down with it by the fire, the only light she had. When the housemaid, suddenly remembering she must put her to bed, and at the same time discovering it was a whole hour past her usual time, hurried to the nursery, she found her fast asleep in her little armchair, her book on her lap, and the fire self-consumed into a dark cave with a sombre glow in its deepest hollows. Dreams had doubtless come to deepen the impressions of sermon and maehrchen, for as she slowly yielded to the hands of Polly putting her to ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... ruddy aspect of my host's face deepened, and he sat down in the great armchair which ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... to be accepted without question, requires the setting of a comfortable armchair or tree-shaded nook in a summer garden. There, forgetting and forgotten by the world, man or maid may indeed be carried far on the Magic Carpet of Tangu, but, when served out by two strangers to a prosaic policeman seated in a humming car, and bound Heaven knew whither long after ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy |
