"Chimneypiece" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... she meant to do, she dragged the heavy washhand-stand away from the chimneypiece, ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... hanging holly on the walls and bringing bundles and boxes and queer-shaped packages from the other rooms and hiding them under chairs and tables and in out-of-the-way places; and presently a row of stockings was hung from the chimneypiece, and the children clapped their hands and danced round and round the room. And then they threw their arms around their father and mother and kissed them good night and left them that ...
— The Man in Lonely Land • Kate Langley Bosher
... which he had told her to answer. As soon as he had started she went into his room to look for them. If they were not on the chimneypiece they would be in the drawer with ...
— The Romantic • May Sinclair
... myself; but he eyed them dully. There was a set of Solingen razors, marked in Arabic with the days of the week; a cloak of blue-and-white-striped cloth, fit for any prince of Bedouins; and an ormolu clock with a gong inside it that would have graced the chimneypiece of ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... life. When that strange and silent meal was over, the old man retired to the warehouse and left the children alone. But that did not disconcert them, as might have been expected. From the first moment they felt at home with each other. Walter was the first to speak. He leaned up against the chimneypiece, and meditatively watched the girl as she began deftly ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... fell on the Persian rugs laid between the two white beds and the tall glass in the wardrobe where Olive wasted half-an-hour every evening, examining her beauty. Would she ever do so again? Now a broken reflection of feverish eyes and blonde hair was what remained. The white curtains of the chimneypiece had been drawn aside, a bright fire was burning, and Barnes was removing a ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... on the usual condition of touching nothing. It was not until the last gleam of sunset had for some time faded, and the twilight had so deepened that she could no longer discern the colours on the china figures on the chimneypiece or in the cabinets, that the child returned to the housekeeper's room ...
— Green Tea; Mr. Justice Harbottle • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... Marlborough had an opportunity of proving the sincerity of those professions by which he had obtained from a heart, well described by himself as harder than a marble chimneypiece, the pardon of an offence such as might have moved even a gentle nature to deadly resentment. He received from Saint Germains a message claiming the instant performance of his promise to desert at the head of his troops. He was told that this was the greatest service which he could render to ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... immensely. Sometimes the cramped positions and unwinking eyes of that 'Holy Family' there over the chimneypiece make ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... practised calm I observed to be the expression assumed by the best-bred officers of the army on occasions that caused visible emotion in others. I went in quietly, seeing a well-amused party of dames and younger folk, with, over against the chimneypiece, the great Benjamin Franklin, now in the full prime of varied usefulness, a benevolent face, and above it the great dome of head, which had to me even then a certain grandeur. He was talking eagerly ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... brightness, for Mrs. Melville, birdlike in everything, had a wonderful faculty for bursts of gaiety, pure in tone like a blackbird's song, which brought out whatever gladness might be latent in any person or occasion. As twelve chimed out they had stood in front of the chimneypiece mirror and raised their glasses above their heads, singing, "Auld Lang Syne" in time with the dancers on the other side of the wall, who were making such a night of it that several times the house had seemed ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... State-rooms. The pictures and tapestry have been taken from the walls, the old panelling is bare. The distinctions which remain are the fine proportions of the apartments— the marble pillars and niches of one; the remains of a richly-carved chimneypiece in another; the highly-wrought ceilings, to which ancient history and allegory have supplied grandiose figures—their deep colours unfaded, the ruddy burnish of their gilding as splendid as ever. Here and there great ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... over it ... and cast terrified glances round the victim's room, at the spot where the corpse had lain, at the floor stripped of its blood-stained carpet and especially at the walls, those solid walls through which the criminal had passed. They felt to make sure that the marble chimney-piece did not swing on a pivot, that there was no secret spring in the mouldings of the mirrors. They pictured yawning cavities, tunnels communicating with the sewers, ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... places were set at the table, and no doubt the proprietors of the house, on going to church, had left their dinner on the fire, their nice Sunday boiled beef and vegetable soup, while there was a loaf of new bread on the chimney-piece, between ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... had been dismantled. It opened before us, walls and chimney-piece bare, rugs gone from the floor, even curtains taken from the windows. To emphasize the change, in the center stood a common pine table, surrounded by seven plain chairs. All the lights were out save one, a corner bracket, which was screened with ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... it would stand best; but at last they decided upon their own room, opposite the bed, between the two windows, and as soon as it was in its place Madame Caravan filled it with her own things. The clock was placed on the chimney-piece in the dining-room, and they looked to see what the effect was, and were both delighted with it and agreed that nothing could be better. Then they retired, she blew out the candle, and soon everybody ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... a country house, in which, opposite each other at the sides of the drawing-room window, were two pictures, belonging to what in the nineteenth century must be called old times, namely Rossetti's "Annunciation," and Millais' "Blind Girl"; while, at the corner of the chimney-piece in the same room, there was a little drawing of a Marriage-dance, by Edward Burne Jones. And in my bedroom, at one side of my bed, there was a photograph of the tomb of Ilaria di Caretto at Lucca, and on the other, an engraving, in long since superannuated ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... know I can; I made 'M.L.' in roses on mamma's last birthday, and set it up over the chimney-piece in the drawing-room, and I am sure we could contrive this. How ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... G, the golden or mineralogical cupboard; and H, the grand entrance. The two dots with a back represent my chair, which is properly solid and not un-easy. Three others of lighter disposition find place somewhere about. These with the chimney-piece and drawer's head are covered, or rather heaped, with all they can carry, and the morning is just looking in, astonished to see what is expected of it, and smiling—(yes, I may fairly say it is smiling, for it is cloudless for its part above the ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin
... London," says, "In a room adjoining to the south-side of the saloon, in the manor-house, at Charlton, in Kent, is a chimney-piece, with a slab of black marble so finely polished, that Lord Downe is said to have seen in it a robbery committed on Blackheath; the tradition adds, that he sent out his servants, who apprehended the thieves." Dr. Plot makes the story more marvellous, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 397, Saturday, November 7, 1829. • Various
... myself away. I had blubbered till my eyes were so red and swollen, that the pupils were scarcely to be distinguished, and tears and dirt had veined my cheeks like the marble of the chimney-piece. My handkerchief was soaked through with wiping my eyes and blowing my nose, before the scene was over. My brother Tom, with a kindness which did honour to his heart, exchanged his for mine, saying, with ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... subject again, and nothing more was said about it until our bed-room candles were brought to us and we were about to retire for the night. Then, as we vacated the chairs we had been occupying during the evening, and rose to our feet, he grasped me by the arm and planted me square in front of the chimney-piece, which was surmounted by a pier-glass, and, placing himself beside me, remarked, ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... and more puzzled]. Yes—oh, yes. They have always been—[His eye catches that of Constance, first Lady Bantock, looking down at him from above the chimney-piece. His tone changes.] Well, yes, ...
— Fanny and the Servant Problem • Jerome K. Jerome
... moment an influx of guests intimated that the assembly at Lady St Julian's was broken up. Many at the table rose and yielded their places, clustering round the chimney-piece, or forming in various groups, and discussing the great question. Several of those who had recently entered were votaries of Rat-trap, the favourite, and quite prepared, from all the information that had reached them, to back their ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... ended in sobs, and then tears flowed from her eyes, which she mopped convulsively with an already damp pocket-handkerchief. Before she had recovered sufficient self-possession to speak, she signed to Hyacinth to fetch a bottle of smelling-salts from the chimney-piece. He hastened to obey, and found himself kneeling beside the sofa, holding the bottle to her nose. After a while she recovered sufficiently to tell him that she had not slept at all during the night, and felt extremely unwell and ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... determined to make many more trials. As we had noticed that the radicles grew much more quickly when subjected to considerable heat, and as we imagined that heat would increase their sensitiveness, vessels with germinating beans suspended in damp air were placed on a chimney-piece, where they were subjected during the greater part of the day to a temperature of between 69o and 72o F.; some, however, were placed in the hot-house where the temperature was rather higher. Above two dozen beans were thus tried; and when a square ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin
... bait, during which operation Connie begged to be carried into the parlour of the little inn that she might see the china figures that were certain to be on the chimney-piece, as indeed they were, where she drank a whole tumbler of new milk before we lifted her to carry her back, we came upon a wide high moorland country the roads through which were lined with gorse in full golden bloom, while patches of heather all about ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... said Iachimo, 'is south of the chamber, and the chimney-piece is Diana bathing; never saw I figures ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... gallery, and were shaded by curtains of Madras chintz. The chairs, which were inconveniently heavy, were also covered with chintz; it was frilled round them like a petticoat, and was just short enough to show their hideous club-feet. Over the chimney-piece was a frame, and something in it said to be a picture. Peter, when a very little child, used to call it "a picture of the dark," for it seemed to be nothing but an expanse of deep brown, with a spot of some lighter hue in one corner. He wished, he said, that they had put a piece of moon in to ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... away from the blackness of the future and let his mind dwell on the hardly less murky past. Then, throwing up his hands, he buried his face in them with a hollow groan. By some miserable forgetfulness he had left the challenge on his chimney-piece, where his housemaid would undoubtedly find and read it. That would explain his absence far better than the telegraphic instructions he had left on his table. There was no time to go back for it now, even if he could have faced the risk of being seen ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... superior to any now in France, excepting Rachel, whom he resembles both in his powers of declamation and his fortunes. He is not unknown—he is no mute inglorious Milton; for the first poets, statesmen, and men of letters in France have been to visit him. His parlour chimney-piece, behind his barber's shop, is covered with offerings to his genius from royalty and rank. His smiling, dark-eyed wife, exhibits to the curious the tokens of her husband's acknowledged merit; and gold and jewels shine in the eyes of the astonished stranger, who, having heard ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... body, the side upon which I was lying, loyally preserving from the past an impression which my mind should never have forgotten, brought back before my eyes the glimmering flame of the night-light in its bowl of Bohemian glass, shaped like an urn and hung by chains from the ceiling, and the chimney-piece of Siena marble in my bedroom at Combray, in my great-aunt's house, in those far distant days which, at the moment of waking, seemed present without being clearly denned, but would become plainer in a little while when I was ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... preeminently, and the Van Eycks and their followers had done such things as held the attention of all to the neglect of other arts. At Bruges in the cathedral, the Church of St. Jacques, and the Liebfrauenkirche there are some fine monuments, and the Palais de Justice has a carved chimney-piece which is magnificent, and a work of the ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students - Painting, Sculpture, Architecture • Clara Erskine Clement
... gravel sweep, and its glazed door by the fireplace leading through a small conservatory, gay with begonias, asters, and petunias to the garden beyond, was not merely large, by Gablehurst standards, but undeniably pleasant. She regarded its various features—the white chimney-piece and over-mantel with Adam decorations in Cartonpierre, the silk fire-screen printed with Japanese photographs, the cottage-grand, on which stood a tall trumpet vase filled with branches of imitation peach ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... farmhouse at Wickford, Rhode Island, is a splendid chimney over twenty feet square. So much room does it occupy that there is no central staircase, but little winding stairs ascend at three corners of the house. In the vast fireplace an ox could literally have been roasted. On each chimney-piece are hooks to hang firearms, and at one side curious little drawers are set for pipes and tobacco. In some Dutch houses in New York these tobacco shelves are in the entry, over the front door, and a narrow flight of three or four steps leads up to them. ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... that of building log-houses—two for our twenty hands. In each was an immense chimney-piece, a cooking-stove, and a bed stretching the width of the house on the floor, with a mattress of hemlock boughs. The rifles and shotguns hanging over the wide fireplace, and a long pine table and rustic benches, completed the furniture of our houses. ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... friend of mine stated that a French, gentleman of good education called upon him one day, and happened to look at a French Testament which lay open on the chimney-piece. "Tiens!" he said, "Paternoster in the Bible?" when he saw the Lord's Prayer in the ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... my Uncle Luke on the chimney-piece, an artless thing of a country photographer. He is wearing his militia uniform, and even the country photographer had no power to destroy the bonny charm which sat on his eyes and ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... visit to Lord Lansdowne at Bowood, years after they had left Cambridge, Austin and Macaulay happened to get upon college topics one morning at breakfast. When the meal was finished they drew their chairs to either end of the chimney-piece, and talked at each other across the hearth-rug as if they were in a first-floor room in the Old Court of Trinity. The whole company, ladies, artists, politicians, and diners-out, formed a silent circle round the two ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... spent there. He called up the image of Sterne in his 'black satin smalls,' and talked with him. They used to show his room, regularly marked, as I have seen it, 'STERNES'S ROOM, NO. 31,' with its mezzotint, after Sir Joshua, hung over the chimney-piece. But this tradition received a shock some sixty years since. An inquisitive and sceptical traveller fancied he saw an inscription or date lurking behind the vine-leaves that so luxuriantly covered the old house, and sent up a man on a ladder to clear away the ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald
... was held in the principal room in the house; which was well enough adapted for the purpose, being lofty and spacious, and lighted by an oriel window at the upper end. Over the high carved chimney-piece were the arms of the Vintners' Company, with a Bacchus for the crest. The ceiling was moulded, and the wainscots of oak; against the latter several paintings were hung. One of these represented the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... invisible wires some twenty humming birds, of different kinds; and whether the light fell upon this screen in front or came through it from behind, the display was in either case most beautiful and novel. Betty at last wandered to the chimney-piece, and went no farther for a good while; studying the rich carving and the coat of arms which was both sculptured and painted in the midst of it. By and by she found ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... IX., ornamented by Louis XIII. and XIV., to which Napoleon I. added the throne. In this room the marshals of France used to take their oath of allegiance. The ceiling magnificently gilt and painted, and chimney-piece in same style. Over it portrait of Louis XIII. The lustre of rock crystal is valued ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... his hand on the knob, as he closed the door behind him, Thor could see into the huge, old-fashioned, gilt-framed mirror over the chimney-piece in the drawing-room. The two women were standing, separated by a small table which supported an azalea in bloom. His stepmother, in a soft, trailing house-gown, her hands behind her back, seemed taller and slenderer than ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... the proportions of the windows were enhanced. And the walls were stretched with silk of a fine romantic design, the dominant note of which was red to match the curtains. There were wall lights, and a curious old clock on the marble chimney-piece amid branching candelabra. I stayed a moment to examine the clock, deciding very soon that it was not of much value ... it was made in Marseilles ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... wash-hand-stand the same, with marble slab; there is a very handsome Brussels carpet, a large round table, at which I am now writing, a very handsome bronze and ormolu lustre, with six gaslights, and two ormolu candelabra on the chimney-piece. The chimney-piece is of white marble, and over it is a most gorgeously carved mirror. The room is about fourteen feet high; the ceiling slightly alcoved and painted in medallions of flowers on a blue ground, with a great deal of very well painted and gilt moulding, which ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... be. For the nonce——" He turned to a tall dark girl who was leaning against the chimney-piece, watching us curiously. "Let me introduce my brother-in-law. Carefully kept from me before marriage and by me ever since. Both the ablative case, I believe, but what a difference? So rich is the ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... evening, and was astonished to learn that the Minister had not received it until the morning. He immediately rang for the messenger, and ordered me to be sent for. Being in a very bad humour, he pulled the bell with so much fury that he struck his hand violently against the angle of the chimney-piece. I hurried to his presence. "Why," he said, addressing me hastily, "why was not my letter delivered yesterday evening?"—"I do not know: I put it at once into the hands of the person whose duty it was to see that it was sent."—"Go and find the cause of the delay, and come back quickly." Having ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... the use of the Alumnae Association. The possession of this building and Catherine Strong Hall, the two connected by a cloistered walk, has added greatly to the enjoyment and convenience of the women students. Miss Eddy's half-length portrait of Miss Anthony hangs over the chimney-piece in the largest parlor and these rooms furnish a homelike place for their smaller social gatherings: larger affairs, such as the alumnae dinner, are held in the gymnasium. "Miss Anthony would certainly rejoice if she could ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... with corresponding devices. The ceiling or cove is the colour of peach blossom; and a Chinese canopy is suspended round from the lower compartment with tassels, bells, &c.: the furniture and other decorations, such as cabinets, chimney-piece, trophies, and banners, which are in the gallery, are all in strict accordance with the Chinese taste; while on every side the embellishments present twisted dragons, pagodas, and mythological devices of birds, flowers, insects, statues, formed from a yellow ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... but rather a contribution to it. The young lady, who was charming to behold, was also in deep mourning, which had a freshness, if mourning can be fresh, an air of having been lately put on. She went straight to the bell beside the chimney-piece and pulled it, while in her other hand she held a sealed and directed letter. Her companion glanced in silence at the letter; then she looked still harder at her work. The girl hovered near the fireplace, without speaking, and after a due, a dignified ...
— The Chaperon • Henry James
... my host the quarryman, reaching down the relics from their hook in the wall over the chimney-piece; "they've hung there all my time, and most of my father's. The women won't touch 'em; they're afraid of the story. So here they'll dangle, and gather dust and smoke, till another tenant comes and tosses 'em out o' doors for rubbish. Whew! 'tis ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Aubrey came back alone, and found them all hanging on his entrance. Pamela put down her knitting and looked at him anxiously; so did the elder sisters. He went up absently to the chimney-piece, and stood ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... taking an ivory-headed stick which leaned against the side of the chimney-piece, walked with tottering steps towards the bureau. There she took from her pocket a small bunch of keys, and having, with some difficulty from the trembling of her hands, chosen one and unlocked the sloping cover, she opened a little drawer inside, and took out a gold watch with ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... the corner of the chimney-piece, near which his friend sits, and talking to him directly over the register: "I think you'll have to get along without the name for the present. I'll tell you by and by." As Mr. Ransom pronounces these words, Miss Reed, on her side of the partition, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... not above enlivening them by a few jests in the best taste. So he too pleased every one. In the evening, when the drawing-room, furnished with what Madame Guillaume called "everything handsome," was deserted, and while she flitted from the table to the chimney-piece, from the candelabra to the tall candlesticks, hastily blowing out the wax-lights, the worthy draper, who was always clear-sighted when money was in question, called Augustine to him, and seating her on his knee, spoke ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac
... Over the chimney-piece, in the huge carved-oak frame (now already two centuries old), a common sailor, in the striped loose trousers, the blue jacket with red piping of a man-of-war's man, with pigtail and coarse open shirt—stood boldly forth as the representative ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... like the nest of a bird in its pale-blue satin, with its blue silk counterpane and its embroidered cushion at the foot of the bed; and her boudoir, which looked to the Vatican, was full of vases of malachite and the skins of wild animals, and had a bronze clock on the chimney-piece set in a statue of Mephistopheles. The only other occupant of her house, besides her servants, was a distant kinswoman, called her aunt, and known to familiars as the Countess Betsy; but in the studio below, which was connected with the living ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... cottage Aunt Butson found Mrs. Trevarthen standing beside a half-filled packing-case and contemplating a pair of enormous china spaniels which adorned the chimney-piece, one on either side of Chinese junk ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... know all ill-natured people hear all ill news,-told me he heard you was ill: I vowed you was grown as strong as the Farnese Hercules. Then he desires you will send him four of the Volterra urns, of the chimney-piece size; send them with any of my things; do, or he will think I neglected it because he is our enemy; and I would not be peevish, not to be like them. He is one of the most inveterate; they list under Sandys,(364) a parcel of them with ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... chair, and stood leaning on a corner of the chimney-piece, with his head resting on his hand, and ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... have jumped of its own accord off the chimney-piece," Ted said. He looked down at his wife on her knees beside him, ruefully collecting the fragments of the broken vase. "I wasn't so much as looking at ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... an' clane, with the shakin' iv it. All av a suddint the storm stopt, as silent an' as quite as if it was a July evenin'. Well, your honour, it wasn't stopped blowin' for three minnites, before he thought he hard a sort iv a noise over the chimney-piece; an' with that my father just opened his eyes the smallest taste in life, an' sure enough he seen the ould squire gettin' out iv the picthur, for all the world as if he was throwin' aff his ridin' coat, until ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... dirty, although about its upper parts spiders had run their cobwebs in every direction. In the centre of the ceiling hung a quicksilver globe, a common ornament in those days, but the major part of it had lost its brilliancy, the spiders' webs enclosing it like a shroud. Over the chimney-piece were hung two or three drawings, framed and glazed, but a dusty mildew was spotted over the glass, so that little of them could be distinguished. In the centre of the mantelpiece was an image of the Virgin Mary, of pure silver, in a shrine of the same metal, ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... grimy and forbidding with its iron bars and chains. An iron kettle stood on the chimney-piece, ...
— The Rover Boys on the Farm - or Last Days at Putnam Hall • Arthur M. Winfield (AKA Edward Stratemeyer)
... staggering heavily to the chimney-piece, where he, too, laid his hands upon the mantel-board, which was just on a level with his height, bowing his forehead upon them. As he did so she moved away. Seeing his broad shoulders heave, and fearing she heard something smothered—was it a groan or ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... though it still was, with its massive bookcases filled with rows upon rows of finely bound books, it had taken on a festal air. Great bowls of roses, deep crimson, glowing pink, rich amber, had been brought in; they stood on table, chimney-piece, and floor; hundreds of them it seemed to him there must be. He realized that Georgiana herself could not have seen them; they would be a surprise to her. Evidently the simple little wedding was to have a character ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... India shawls suspended, curtain-wise, in the parlor door, and curious fabrics, corresponding to Gertrude's metaphysical vision of an opera-cloak, tumbled about in the sitting-places. There were pink silk blinds in the windows, by which the room was strangely bedimmed; and along the chimney-piece was disposed a remarkable band of velvet, covered with coarse, dirty-looking lace. "I have been making myself a little comfortable," said the Baroness, much to the confusion of Charlotte, who had been on the point of proposing to come and help ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... several children. One leaning against the chimney-piece was dressed in the full Indian costume—calico shirt, blanket, and leggings. His dark complexion, and full, melancholy eyes, which he kept fixed upon the ashes in which he was making marks with a stick, rarely raising ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... could be, hadn't she recognised the awful thinness—? If she didn't she was nothing, and if she did why such an insolence of serenity? This question expired as our young man's eyes settled at last on the genius who had advised him in a great crisis. St. George was still before the chimney-piece, but now he was alone—fixed, waiting, as if he meant to stop after every one—and he met the clouded gaze of the young friend so troubled as to the degree of his right (the right his resentment would have enjoyed) ...
— The Lesson of the Master • Henry James
... own expression, "that she never put her hand to a single thing;" that she could not live without port wine, when she herself never drank even gooseberry, except on Sundays; never ironed a collar, never dusted the chimney-piece, or ate a shoulder of mutton—roast one day, cold the next, and hashed the third. While each day brought some fresh illustration of her thoughtlessness to the eyes of the wife of the wealthy tiller of the soil, the widow of the physician thought herself ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... panada, Miriam, and ask no questions," she said, lifting a bowl from above a spirit-lamp on the chimney-piece, and bearing it toward me. "Here it is, nice and hot. The doctor said you were to take it ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... or rather leaning, with folded arms, against a column of the dark marble chimney-piece, which, enriched by various carvings and mouldings, rose nearly to the ceiling. The Baronet's hair, of mingled grey and black, had been cropped according to the approved fashion of the time; so that his features had not the advantage ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... "I put aside the setting altogether: it is a little too large for the present fashion; and have the portrait of my uncle framed and placed over my chimney-piece, next to yours. It's a ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... that did not at first convey much gratification; but when Mrs. Phillips understood from him what Rosings was, and who was its proprietor—when she had listened to the description of only one of Lady Catherine's drawing-rooms, and found that the chimney-piece alone had cost eight hundred pounds, she felt all the force of the compliment, and would hardly have resented a ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... Moor drew near, Adam leaned on the chimney-piece, the workers paused, and having produced her sensation, Prue proceeded to gratify their curiosity as briefly as possible, for all knew the parties in question and all ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... Provisions' on the label; spirits were set forth in case bottles with no throats. Old prints of ships with alphabetical references to their various mysteries, hung in frames upon the walls; the Tartar Frigate under weigh, was on the plates; outlandish shells, seaweeds, and mosses, decorated the chimney-piece; the little wainscotted back parlour was lighted by a sky-light, like ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... sentences in letters of gold, reminding judges, juries, witnesses, and suitors, of their duties. The room itself is said to be the most beautiful in France for its proportions and quantity of light. In the Antiquites Nationales, is described and figured an elaborately wrought chimney-piece in the council-chamber, now destroyed, as are some fine Gothic door-ways, which opened into the chamber. The ceiling of the apartment called la seconde Chambre des Enquetes, painted by Jouvenet, with a representation of Jupiter ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... the big kettle and a few crocks and wooden bowls. Yet whereas all was clean, it had an air of comfort and civilisation beyond any of the cabins in the neighbourhood, more especially as there was even a rude chimney-piece projecting far into the room, and in the niche behind this lay the little girl in her clothes, ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... for the police, Mrs. Lecount took a large green paper fan from the chimney-piece, and seated herself ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... having been born in Chaudiere, she had a right to live there and die there; and if she had sinned there, the parish was in some sense to blame. Though he had no lodge-gates, and though the seigneury was but a great wide low-roofed farmhouse, with an observatory, and a chimney-piece dating from the time of Louis the Fourteenth, the Seigneur gave Paulette Dubois a little hut at his outer gate, which had been there since the great Count Frontenac visited Chaudiere. Probably Rosalie spoke to Paulette Dubois more often than did any one else in ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Turlington barred the window shutters of the room, and looked at his watch. It wanted only a quarter to nine o'clock. He took his dog-whistle from the chimney-piece, and turned his steps at once in the direction of the drawing-room, in which his guests ...
— Miss or Mrs.? • Wilkie Collins
... Desroches entered with a light. Helene was on her knees praying; without rising, she signed to Madame Desroches to place the light on the chimney-piece, which that lady did, ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... baroness immediately improvided a mise-en-scene, so that when the duke entered, he perceived the marchioness seated as usual in her easy chair, the baroness standing near the chimney-piece, and Claire with her back to the light. He bowed low before the noble woman who ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... beads, flowing by clockwork within a shrine which the worshippers were too respectful to approach very nearly. Little ormolu fountains, which stream on the same principle, are now common ornaments for the chimney-piece in Paris.] ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... the room, his writing-table, a half dozen of Chippendale chairs, and the chintz-covered sofa where he now lay practically completed the inventory of the room. Three or four bronzes, a Narcissus, a fifteenth-century Italian St. Francis, and a couple of Greek reproductions stood on the chimney-piece, but the whole room breathed an atmosphere ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson
... If the reader will apply to his ear the sea-shell on his chimney-piece, he will be aware of what is alluded to. If the text should appear obscure, he will find in Gebir the same idea better expressed in two lines. The poem I never read, but have heard the lines quoted, by a more recondite reader—who seems to be of a different ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... of unlocking, and displayed the thick cream-coloured note-paper on which Mr. Pitman was in the habit of communicating with the proprietors of schools and the parents of his pupils. He placed the desk on the table by the window, and taking a saucer of Indian ink from the chimney-piece, laboriously composed ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was with a smile of amusement only that he now took it off. He was so free from selfishness that he knew nothing of shame. Never a shadow of blush at his bad manners tinged his cheek. He put the cap in his pocket, and catching sight of a footstool by the corner of the chimney-piece, was so strongly reminded of his creepie by the cottage-hearth, which, big lad as he now was, he had still haunted, that he went at once and seated himself upon it. From this coign of vantage he looked ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... princely palace opposite the Louvre, a wreck now, since it was annexed by the Committee of National Defence, for the housing of soldiery. But the Drouldes' home was essentially a refined one. The delicate china on the tall chimney-piece, the few bits of Buhl and Vernis Martin about the room, the vision through the open doorway of the supper-table spread with a fine white cloth, and sparkling with silver, all spoke of fastidious tastes, of habits of luxury and elegance, which the ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... of Cornwall, small branches of sea-weed, dried and fastened in turned wooden stands, are set up as ornaments on the chimney-piece, &c. The poor people suppose that they preserve the house from fire, and they are known by the name of "Lady's trees," in honour, I presume, of the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 72, March 15, 1851 • Various
... fulfil the sphere of his offence. He signed to Innes (whom he had just fined, and who just impeached his ruling) to succeed him in the chair, stepped down from the platform, and took his place by the chimney-piece, the shine of many wax tapers from above illuminating his pale face, the glow of the great red fire relieving from behind his slim figure. He had to propose, as an amendment to the next subject in the case-book, "Whether capital punishment be consistent ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... parlour and looked appraisingly (as was his habit) round the room. The grandfather clock in the corner was genuine, but he was beyond grandfather clocks. There was nothing else of any value: three china dogs and some odd trinkets on the chimney-piece; ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... floor up—had its elaborate silk or satin curtains, heavily fringed, a canopy (is it?) above, its completely white shutters folding into the deep thickness of the wall. At either end of that great still place was an immense marble chimney-piece; the end by the bookcase showed the wolf and Romulus and Remus, with Homer and Virgil for supporters; the design of the other end I have forgotten. Frederick, Prince of Wales, swaggered flatly over the one, twice life-size, but mellowed by the surface gleam ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... unhappy. He was right (if he said it) that he was LA MISERE HUMAINE, cureless misery - unless perhaps by the gallows. Death is a great and gentle solvent; it has never had justice done it, no, not by Whitman. As for those crockery chimney-piece ornaments, the bourgeois (QUORUM PARS), and their cowardly dislike of dying and killing, it is merely one symptom of a thousand how utterly they have got out of touch of life. Their dislike of capital punishment ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to me. The gaudy-coloured child and dog irritates me, I confess; but I have watched a grimy, inartistic personage, smoothing it affectionately with toil-stained hand, while eager faces crowded round to admire and wonder at its blatant crudity. It hangs to this day in its cheap frame above the chimney-piece, the one bright spot relieving those damp-stained walls; dull eyes stare and stare again at it, catching a vista, through its flashy tints, of the far-off land of art. Christmas Waits annoy me, and I yearn to ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... on Woman's Rights," said the young gentleman who was carefully examining his luxuriant crop of decidedly auburn hair, as he lounged with both elbows on the chimney-piece. ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... drawing-room where he was requested to sit down and await madame's coming. Left to himself, he began an inventory of the apartment, as a general studies the ground on which he is about to give battle. No trace remained of the unfortunate scene of the previous night, save a broken candelabrum on the chimney-piece. It was the one which Pascal Ferailleur had armed himself with, when they talked of searching him, and which he had thrown down in the courtyard, as he left the house. But this detail did not attract M. Fortunat's attention. The only thing that puzzled ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... in her strong outstretched hands. The sergeant of dragoons, with his back to a roaring fire, was pinned against the hearthstead by the pitchfork, the tines of which were stuck in the oak lintel of the chimney-piece, so that a ring of steel encircled his throat like the neckhole of a pillory, and held him there helpless and roasting. When I first caught sight of him he was making a frenzied attempt to wrench the prongs out, but, finding it hopeless, drew ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... all contrasts—offering a visible link between the modern conceptions of torture and of luxury. There are fireplaces nowhere but in the kitchen, where a couple of sentry-boxes are inserted on either side of the great hooded chimney-piece, into which people might creep and take their turn at being toasted and smoked. One may doubt whether this dearth of the hearthstone could have raged on such a scale, but it's a happy stroke in the representation of an Italian dwelling ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... ecclesiastical language), the red tape dangling limp and dejected, the pasteboard boxes covered with traces of the gambols of mice, the dirty floor, the ceiling tawny with smoke. A frugal allowance of wood was smouldering on a couple of fire-dogs on the hearth. And on the chimney-piece above stood a foggy mirror and a modern clock with an inlaid wooden case; Fraisier had picked it up at an execution sale, together with the tawdry imitation rococo candlesticks, with the zinc beneath showing through the lacquer in ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... supported between a merman with a whelk shell and a mermaid with a comb, and another like Siren curled her tail on the top of the gaping baronial helmet above the shield, while two more upheld the main weight of the chimney-piece on either side ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Pamela, was always ready to measure swords with the Frenchmen; and, after a brawl at Silves', the then fashionable Bonapartist cafe at the corner of the Rue Lafitte and the Boulevard, in which two of our Scotch countrymen showed the white feather, he and another officer placed their own cards over the chimney-piece in the principal room of the cafe, offering to fight any man, or number of men, for the frequent public insult offered to Britons. This challenge, however, ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... violence that he upset the block for wood-chopping. Jendrek laughed, but his father unbuckled his belt and did not stop beating him till the boy crept, bleeding, under the bench. With the belt in his hand Slimak waited for his wife to make a remark. But she remained silent, only holding on to the chimney-piece for support. ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... scream nor faint, as Cutter had expected. The blood rushed to her face, and then sank again as suddenly. She steadied herself with one hand on the chimney-piece ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... crossed at regular intervals by smaller joists, richly carved, and retaining some traces of gilding. The spaces between had been originally of a deep blue tint, almost lost now under the thick coating of dust and spiders' webs that no housemaid's mop ever invaded. Above the grand old chimney-piece was a noble stag's head, with huge, spreading antlers, and on the walls hung rows of ancient family portraits, so faded and mouldy now that most of the faces had a ghastly hue, and at night, by the dim, flickering lamp-light, they looked ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... ordered up, and the Gubbaun gave him all kinds of directions how to carry it, and towld him where he'd get it, 'in the big chest, over the chimney-piece.' ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... large room furnished with the traditional stool which is to be seen in all these dens of law-quibbling. The stove-pipe crossed the room diagonally to the chimney of a bricked-up fireplace; on the marble chimney-piece were several chunks of bread, triangles of Brie cheese, pork cutlets, glasses, bottles, and the head clerk's cup of chocolate. The smell of these dainties blended so completely with that of the immoderately overheated stove and the ...
— Colonel Chabert • Honore de Balzac
... to human feet, forming a fine retreat for foxes. These animals often may be seen from the heights, sporting with their cubs in perfect safety. This day I went to see the works of an old virtuoso, who turns in marble, or rather granite [serpentine] all kinds of chimney-piece ornaments, rings, ear-rings, etc. Several specimens of his work, which must have cost him a vast deal of trouble, I thought very beautiful. It was in this neighborhood that the celebrated Ferguson spent so much of his time. The globular stones on the gate of Durn are ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... cracked, and twisted, and mended till it was impossible to know what they had been intended to represent; and the whole affair had become a huge receptacle of dust, which fell in flakes upon the chimney-piece when it was invaded. There was a second table opposite the window, more rickety than that in the centre; and against the wall opposite to the fireplace there was an old sideboard, in the drawers of which Tom, the one-eyed waiter, kept knives and forks, and candle-ends, ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... low, heavily beamed ceiling and walls of birch, stained to a rich sienna, glistening in fresh spar varnish; the fire licking up the throat of the wide chimney-piece built of rough boulders from the bed of Big Shanty; the floor laid with rare rugs; the easy chairs and shaded lights—all gave to this living room a charm that none in the house of marble possessed. This artistic result was due to the personal supervision and good taste of the same architect ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... Christmas cheer, the wounded hero, with black patch and crutches well displayed, sat by the fire in the old chair whose familiar creak was soothing to his ear; pretty Dolly was stirring about, gaily trimming dresser, settle, high chimney-piece, and old-fashioned cradle with mistletoe and holly; while the mother rested beside her son, with that blessed baby on her knee. Refreshed by a nap and nourishment, this young actor now covered himself with glory by his ecstatic prancings, incoherent remarks ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... end, a colossal gothic chimney-piece with a fireplace large enough to roast, not an ox, but a herd of oxen. In the middle of this striking hall, the walls of which are covered with objects more or less precious, have been placed the tombs ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... was a tiny dog in a basket, which barked shrilly and feebly as Gertrude approached the fire, and there were various cheap illustrated papers and a couple of sixpenny novels to be seen emerging from the litter here and there. For the rest, the furniture was of a squalid lodging-house type. On the chimney-piece however was a bunch of daffodils, the only fresh and pleasing ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the experienced surgeon carried by a passenger ship), the dirtiest white trousers conceivable by mortal man, carpet slippers, and no visible linen. 'Childbed?' said the doctor. 'I'm the boy!' With that the doctor took a comb from the chimney-piece and stuck his hair upright—which appeared to be his way of washing himself—produced a professional chest or case, of most abject appearance, from the cupboard where his cup and saucer and coals were, settled his chin in the frowsy wrapper round his neck, and became a ghastly ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... been said to threaten complications he rather visibly did so now. I began to regret my officious presentation of his name and prepared without delay to lead him out of the house. We overtook the housekeeper in the last room of the series, a small unused boudoir over whose chimney-piece hung a portrait of a young man in a powdered wig and a brocaded waistcoat. I was struck with his resemblance to my companion while our guide introduced him. "This is Mr. Clement Searle, Mr. Searle's great-uncle, by Sir Joshua Reynolds. He died young, poor gentleman; ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James
... had gone, he took up his favourite position before the mirror over the chimney-piece, and stood there for a little, looking at himself ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... by the fire beating the devil's tattoo upon the chimney-piece, and ever and anon turning his glance towards Lilburne, who seemed to have ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the arm-chair near mine, laid back his head, and clasping his arms beneath it, looked up at the picture above the chimney-piece. ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... before him, but Paquita in all her womanly and voluptuous glory. The section of the boudoir in which Henri found himself described a circular line, softly gracious, which was faced opposite by the other perfectly square half, in the midst of which a chimney-piece shone of gold and white marble. He had entered by a door on one side, hidden by a rich tapestried screen, opposite which was a window. The semicircular portion was adorned with a real Turkish divan, that is to say, a mattress thrown on the ground, but a mattress as broad as a bed, ...
— The Girl with the Golden Eyes • Honore de Balzac
... Sir James Thornhill, whose daughter Hogarth married: the proprietor bestows most praiseworthy care on the house, which was formerly one of considerable extent and importance. Mr. Allison says there can be little doubt that the grounds extended into Wardour Street. Once, while removing a chimney-piece in the drawing-room, a number of cards tumbled out—slips of playing-cards, with the names of some of the most distinguished persons of Hogarth's time written on the backs; the residences were also given, proving that the "gentry" then dwelt where ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... shawl and slipped down stairs shoeless into her father's study. She laid a note on his chimney-piece, which she had written in the morning, and opening the back-door fled swiftly forth, not daring to look behind her. Quickly, under the blinking stars, under the blooming apple-trees, out to the croft-gate, and there was George waiting impatiently ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... again at night. I am quite the happiest girl in the world. Oh, think of kissing Hilda again; and I didn't fret, no, I didn't—not really. Babs, don't you think you might make the room look pretty? You might get out all the animals and put them on the chimney-piece." ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... thought he saw a Buffalo Upon the chimney-piece: He looked again, and found it was His Sister's Husband's Niece. "Unless you leave this house," he said, ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... a thoughtful sigh, and was silent for a little while after this; and then the talk went on again until the clock upon the chimney-piece struck the half-hour after ten, and Gilbert Fenton rose to say good-night. "I have stayed a most unconscionable time, I fear," he said; "but I had really no idea it was ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... upon the library table, with pencils, and slips of paper containing the first lessons in arithmetic, in which some of the young people had been engaged the morning we had driven from home; a pansy, in a glass of water, which one of the children had been copying, was still on the chimney-piece. These trivial circumstances, marking repose and tranquillity, struck us at this moment with an unreasonable sort of surprise, and all that had passed seemed like an incoherent dream. The joy of having my father in safety remained, ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth
... head-laundress—a personage of unknown antiquity, and who had been in the family ever since it was a family—addressing the fine powdered gentleman in silk stockings, and pink, white, and silver livery, who leaned negligently against the chimney-piece. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... entertained of the size of the house. At length a door was flung open, and we entered a large, old-fashioned parlour, having coloured glass in the windows, oaken panelling on the wall, a huge grate, in which a large faggot or two smoked under an arched chimney-piece of stone which bore some armorial device, whilst the walls were adorned with the usual number of heroes in armour, with large wigs instead of helmets, and ladies ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... fullest height dropped a brilliant smile on him; then her eyes turned to the portrait of the great fighting Duke set in the monumental stucchi of the chimney-piece. ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... London from the port where he landed, he accidentally found in the inn where he lodged Johnson's life of Savage, and was so taken with the charms of composition, and the masterly delineation of character displayed in that work, that, having begun to read it while leaning his arm on the chimney-piece, he continued in that attitude, insensible of pain till he was hardly able to raise his hand to his head. The admiration of the work naturally led him to seek the acquaintance of its author, who continued one of his sincerest admirers and warmest friends ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... Afterwards the crossed and self-fertilised seeds were in most cases placed on damp sand on opposite sides of a glass tumbler covered by a glass plate, with a partition between the two lots; and the glass was placed on the chimney-piece in a warm room. I could thus observe the germination of the seeds. Sometimes a few would germinate on one side before any on the other, and these were thrown away. But as often as a pair germinated at the same time, they were planted ...
— The Effects of Cross & Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom • Charles Darwin
... him, is still preserved at Child's bank. They also show there among their heirlooms "The Welcome," probably written by immortal Ben himself, which is full of a jovial inspiration that speaks well for the canary at the "Devil." It used to stand over the chimney-piece, written in gilt letters on a black board, and some of the wittiest and wisest men of the reigns of James and Charles must have read it over ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... little by little they stopped, and the poor marquis began to make his jokes again. The doctor found something that gave him great comfort—some white stuff that we kept in a great bottle on the chimney-piece. I used to give it to the marquis through a glass tube; it always made him easier. Then the doctor went away, after telling me to keep on giving him the mixture whenever he was bad. After that there was a little doctor from Poitiers, who came every day. So we were ...
— The American • Henry James
... the curtains, the carpet glared on you: the books, the wax-flowers in glass-cases, the chairs in flaring chintz-covers, the china plates on the door, the blue and pink glass vases and cups ranged on the chimney-piece, the over-ornamented chiffoniers with Tonbridge toys and long-necked smelling bottles on their upper shelves—all glared on you. There was no look of shadow, shelter, secrecy, or retirement in any one nook or corner ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... the warm season by a screen of flowered wallpaper. They were in the plain old dining-room with its smaller fireplace and its big old-fashioned cupboards built into the wall on either side of the projecting chimney-piece. "There ain't much," resumed Sallie. "But I reckon you ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... fireplace had been set in the blind chimney-piece, in which were placed grandma's graceful andirons, buried so long in the attic that Nan had never seen them, while the old mantel-shelf in the library was torn out altogether and a stately new one put in its stead, and in this too was a place for wood and fire-dogs. The two French ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... anecdote of him as very likely to be authentic. The great artist occasionally made sketches from an honest old tailor, of the name of Fowler, who had a picturesque countenance and silver-gray locks. On the chimney-piece of his painting-room, among other curiosities, was a beautiful preparation of an infant cranium, presented to the painter by his old friend, Surgeon Cruickshanks. Fowler, without moving his position, continually peered at it askance with inquisitive eye. "Ah! Master Fowler," said the painter, ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... when heated, and there they would at once escape by a fit opening. Where there is no such opening, however, they become diffused in the upper air of the room, and can escape only slowly by diving under the chimney-piece as that air is changed. Thus the air of a room above the level of the fire-place, whenever there are people or lights in the room, must always be loaded, more or less, with impurity. The purest air of the room is that near the floor, being the last ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps
... a very lovely profile in bas-relief of the exquisite little head, and then had it photographed. Mary Ogilvie, coming to Kenminster as usual when her holidays began in June, found the photograph in the place of honour on her brother's chimney-piece, and a little one beside it of the ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... chimney-piece hangs a great missionary map, showing the stations of the different societies, with a key at one side. This blue square in Persia denotes a missionary post of the American Board of Commissioners; that red cross in India is an outpost of a Presbyterian ...
— Saint Patrick - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... candle from the porter, and mounted the four flights to my own room. Although I could not deny that I was drunk, I was at the same time lucidly rational and practical. I had but one pre-occupation—to be up in time on the morrow for my work; and when I observed the clock on my chimney-piece to have stopped, I decided to go downstairs again and give directions to the porter. Leaving the candle burning and my door open, to be a guide to me on my return, I set forth accordingly. The house was quite dark; but as there were only the three doors on ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Columbus of a morning was the summer morning, that it discovered Cripple Corner. The light and warmth pierced in at the open windows, and irradiated the picture of a lady hanging over the chimney-piece, the only other decoration of ...
— No Thoroughfare • Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins
... truth, from a man so still and so tame, as to be contented to pass many years as the domestick companion of a superannuated lord and lady[103], conversation could no more be expected, than from a Chinese mandarin on a chimney-piece, or the fantastick figures on a gilt ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... Rebecca's quaint epistles, in the midnight stillness, the things of which I was writing arose before me like a picture. I could see the blue parlour that Sunday evening; the sober couple seated primly opposite to each other; the china monsters on the high chimneypiece; the blue-and-white Dutch tiles, with queer squat figures of Flemish citizens on foot and on horseback; the candles burning dimly on the spindle-legged table—two poor pale flames reflected ghastly in the dark polished panels of the wainscot; the big open Bible ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... the rancher. "She's in the kitchen now. And if I was you, pardner, and had a real hankering for grub I'd mosey right along in there while there's something left." His eye roved to the bottle on the chimneypiece and dropped to the fire. "I'll trail ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... grandchildren are here on canvas, with many portraits of her brothers and sisters and their children. A full-length likeness of the former owner of Frogmore, Princess Augusta, Fanny Burney's beloved princess, hangs above a chimneypiece; while on the walls of another room quaintly painted floral festoons, the joint work of the painter, Mary Moser, and the artistic Princess ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... I was obliged to repeat such poetry several times before he could comprehend it. Yet he would, while I was otherwise occupied than with him, address to his favourite wooden image of a little bear on the chimneypiece, grotesque soliloquies which would have delighted a Hoffman, or conduct with it dialogues which often startled me. With more education, he would have become a Rommany Bid- pai; and since India is the ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... salon an enormous and gorgeously sculptured chimneypiece which has a tiny fire-place that, when crammed full of wood, and after we have puffed our lungs out blowing on it and prodded it with tongs, etc., consents to smile and warm the chair nearest ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... spirits, ranging along the whole scale from confidence to despair. There were times when he started, as exclaiming 'By Jupiter here it is at last!' There were other times when, being equally depressed, he would be seen to shake his head, and give up hope. To see him at those periods leaning on a chimneypiece, like as on an urn containing the ashes of his ambition, with the cheek that would not sprout, upon the hand on which that cheek had forced conviction, was a ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... her head by way of acquiescence, and made as if to throw the goose-wing, with which she had been fanning herself, behind the fire, but altered her mind, and put it on the chimneypiece ...
— The New Forest Spy • George Manville Fenn |
