"Dais" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had been removed from the tabernacle and the first benches had been driven back so as to leave the dais of the altar and the space before it free. Against the walls stood companies of barbells and Indian clubs; the dumbbells were piled in one corner: and in the midst of countless hillocks of gymnasium shoes and sweaters and singlets in ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... the dais of the hall; in the latter sense it would have reference to a banquet, and perhaps "tal" would mean the front or principal seat where Cynon sat. When, however, the battle commenced, the chieftain quitted ...
— Y Gododin - A Poem on the Battle of Cattraeth • Aneurin
... constantly burning before a small image of Jupiter; and the luxurious fragrance of incense, frequently thrown on this fire, filled the magnificent hall. Many courtiers, in splendid apparel, clustered on either side below the dais which raised the throned monarch above them all. Behind these were numerous slaves, mostly Nubians, richly and gaudily dressed, some of whom held aloft large fans of the peacock's many-tinted plumes. The ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... floating in the sunshine and in the heavy breeze; he felt the reverberation of the tropic sun on his head; he saw the crowded humanity of the Square attired in its crude, primary colours; he saw the great brass serpentine instruments gleaming; he saw the red dais; he saw, bursting with infancy, the immense cams to which were attached the fantastically plaited horses; he saw the venerable zealots on the dais raving lest after all the institutions whose centenary they had met to honour should ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... recalls the time when this duty was performed by the "crier" putting his head out of a small window high up in the wall of the Parliament House and shouting down to the counsel and agents assembled below him. Now it is performed from a raised dais on the floor of the hall, and it is no joke when the macer has to call in stentorian tones such a case as "Dampskibsselskabet Danmary v. John Smith." Learned members of the Faculty approach such a difficulty otherwise. During "motions" one day an astute counsel said, "In number ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... there while a banquet was being prepared for them. The hall was richly adorned, but it looked to the heroes as if it had known strange happenings; rich hangings were strewn upon the ground, an ivory chair was overturned, and the dais where the king sat had stains upon it. The servants who went through the hall making ready the banquet ...
— The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles • Padraic Colum
... trio on the dais. Three bedgowns girt about them. Four-cornered shields in their hands, with bosses of gold upon them. Apples of silver they had, ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... been lonely, the Great Hall was doubly, trebly, so. It was a vast room, stretching from side to side of the middle block, and its ceiling soared up into a distant dome. At one end was a dais and an organ, and at intervals down the room stood long tables. The panels were covered with the names of Wrykynians who had won scholarships at Oxford and Cambridge, and of Old Wrykynians who had taken first in Mods or ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... there was a buz of inquiry at the lower end of the school, and those who knew the story crowded eagerly up to the dais to speak to Louis. Alfred's voice was very distinct, for he had worked himself up to ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... a section of solid brick and plaster wall—was closing slowly—heavily. Through the opening which yet remained he caught a glimpse of a small room, draped with Chinese dragon tapestry and having upon a raised, carpeted dais a number of cushions forming a diwan and an inlaid table bearing a silver snuff vase. A cowled figure was seated upon the dais. The door closed completely. Within a niche in its centre sat a yellow leering idol, green eyed ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... the peasants' gardens by the wayside we were always received with extreme friendliness, either on a special dais in the common room looking to the road, or in an inner room whose floor was covered with a mat of dazzling whiteness, and on whose walls hung pictures, with songs and mottoes. The brazier was brought forward, tea and sweetmeats were handed round, all with lively conversation and frequent ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... pressed that the garrison brought up the dead bodies of the dukes and laid them under a dais outside the castle, ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... dry mouth, and a vague impression of Laroche's biting truths anent Anton's stupidity as a composer, and his strange influence over hard-headed Nicholas. Then there was one, last, terrible moment of dread, as the conductor remounted his dais and paused. Obviously he was addressing his men. More than that, he was pleading and admonishing; for yesterday's rehearsal had been a piece of wanton cruelty. But now the baton must go up, happen what ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... hearing the cousin play and sing, till presently we were informed that our boys had got up a siva in Lafaele's house to which we were invited. It was entirely their own idea. The house, you must understand, is one-half floored, and one-half bare earth, and the dais stands a little over knee high above the level of the soil. The dais was the stage, with three footlights. We audience sat on mats on the floor, and the cook and three of our work-boys, sometimes assisted by our two ladies, took their places behind the footlights and began ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... They had all heard of Lieutenant Passford, and they were proud and happy to serve under his command. Promptly at noon, as the church bells on shore were striking the hour, Commander Passford mounted a dais, and his commission was read to the ship's company. He then made a short speech suited to the occasion, and ordered the colors to be run up to the peak. The ship was then in commission, and she was ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... Exchange. Grant looked about him in undisguised astonishment. It seemed like a pandemonium. The room was full of men, shouting, gesticulating and acting like crazy men. The floor was littered with fragments of paper, and on a raised dais were the officers of the Exchange, the chief among them, the chairman, calling rapidly the names of a long list of stocks. Each name was followed by a confused shouting, which Grant learned afterward to be bids for the stock named. There were several groups of brokers, each apparently interested ...
— Helping Himself • Horatio Alger
... clatante o l'pervier s'ploie, Hors de son dais royal se penchant pour mieux voir, Cloptre, debout dans la splendeur du soir, Semble un grand oiseau d'or qui guette au ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield
... latticed hole to which lady listeners are condemned in the English House of Commons. I must remark, also, that the house was well warmed and ventilated, without the aid of alternating siroccos and north winds. The Speaker's chair, on a dais and covered with a canopy, was facing us, in which reclined the Speaker in his robes. In front of him was a table, at which sat two black-robed clerks, and on which a huge mace reposed; and behind ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... Mayor and members of the City Council had previously walked in a body to the pavilion from the City Hall, and now His Worship conducted His Excellency and Her Royal Highness to the dais, and addressing himself ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... but it's right you are. I wish I had you up on the dais at the Synod, to teach the bishops and all the clergy. Is she a nice little girl, ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... until his long spurs jingled like a bunch of keys each time his boot-heels struck the marble floor, strode straight as a soldier up to the raised throne dais—took no notice whatever of the sudden slamming of the door behind him—looked knife-keenly into Howrah's ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... given to exaggeration, she set an exaggerated value upon her person. She looked upon herself as a sovereign lady, a Beatrice, a Laura. She enthroned herself, like some dame of the Middle Ages, upon a dais, looking down upon the tourney of literature, and meant that Lucien, as in duty bound, should win her by his prowess in the field; he must eclipse "the sublime child," and Lamartine, and Sir Walter ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... world. The lady seeing his astonishment said to the Prince, "This mansion is nothing beside all my others which now, of my free will, I have made thine own; and when thou seest them thou shalt have just cause for wonderment. Then that sylph-like being took seat upon a raised dais and with abundant show of affection seated Prince Ahmad by her side. Presently quoth she, "Albeit thou know me not, I know thee well, as thou shalt see with surprise when I shall tell thee all my tale. But first it behoveth me disclose to thee ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... masque. I know not how 'twas: but whereas (saving my respect) I had always been to my dear Master as a brother, close to his heart and thoughts, her coming did at once remove him to a distance from me, so that I looked on the pair as if the dais were part of some other world than this, and they, pledging each other up there and murmuring in foreign tongues and playing with glances, as two creatures moving through a play or pisky tale without care or burden of living, and yet in the end to ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... to the dais, as Mr. Colfe took up his books and departed, he placed the thing on the desk with the ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... was a very pretty one, and on a pleasant April evening there were many places less agreeable to be in than this. Much ground outside had been roofed over, to make a ball-room, large as an opera-house, with a dais and a sofa in the centre of one long side, and another dais with a second sofa immediately opposite to it in the centre of the other long side. Each dais had a canopy of red velvet, one bearing the Lion and the Unicorn, the other the American Eagle. The Royal ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... this room was a great bedstead raised on a dais. The plumed posts and sumptuous hangings of the bed gave it an altar-like air, and the Duke himself, who lay between the curtains, his wig replaced by a nightcap, a scapular about his neck, and his shrivelled body wrapped in a brocaded dressing-gown, looked more like a relic than a man. His heavy ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... Mohammed. Sword in hand, and followed by the Hammal and Long Guled, I walked to the "palace," and entering a little ground-floor-room on the right of and close to the audience-hall, found the minister sitting upon a large dais covered with Persian carpets. He was surrounded by six of his brother Gerads or councillors, two of them in turbans, the rest with bare and shaven heads: their Tobes, as is customary on such occasions of ceremony, were allowed to fall beneath the waist. ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... of the hall was a dais enclosed, and, as it were, roofed in by a towering structure that mingled grace and majesty to a wonderful degree. It was modelled on the pattern of a huge shell. The base of the shell was the platform; behind were the ribs, and above, ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... consecrated to the arts of jugglery. A number of Chinamen of respectable appearance occupied the more distant places, while those immediately behind us were filled by the ladies and gentlemen of the foreign community. On a raised dais hung with kincob [Footnote: Silk, embroidered with, gold flowers.] curtains, the ladies of the Prince's harem reclined; while their children, shining in silk and ornaments of gold, laughed, prattled, and gesticulated, until the juggler appeared, when they were stunned with sudden wonder. Under the ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... the Castle, and followed by the crowd of officers, proceeded to the great Hall of Council and Audience. The Governor, followed by his secretaries, walked forward to the vice-regal chair, which stood on a dais at the head of a long table covered with crimson drapery. On each side of the table the members of the Council took the places assigned to them in the order of their rank and precedence, but a long array of chairs remained unoccupied. ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... and candles therein. When her eyes fell on the Wali, she knew him and rising to her feet, said, "Well come and welcome and fair cheer! By Allah, great honour hath betided me by my lord's visit and indeed thou dignifiest my dwelling." Hereat she carried him up to the dais and seating him on the couch, brought him meat and wine and gave him to drink; after which she put off all that was upon her of raiment and ornaments and tying them up in a kerchief, said to him, "O my lord, this is thy portion, all of it." Then she turned to ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... could not be older than the end of the thirteenth century. The crowns worn by the Virgin and Christ are even more modern, and out of character with the rest of the painting. In Italy the pupils of Giotto first began to represent the Virgin standing on a raised dais. There is an example by Puccio Capanna, engraved in d'Agincourt's work; but such figures are very uncommon. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries they occur more frequently in the northern than in ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... luxuriously on an ottoman covered with brown velvet and placed in the centre of a sort of apse outlined by soft folds of white muslin over a yellow lining. Ornaments of gilt bronze, arranged with exquisite taste, enhanced this sort of dais, under which the Duchess reclined like a Greek statue. The dark hue of the velvet gave relief to every fascinating charm. A subdued light, friendly to her beauty, fell like a reflection rather than a direct illumination. A few rare flowers raised their perfumed heads from costly ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac
... the circle under the dome. The pope's choir was stationed in a gallery there opposite the high altar. Back of the altar was a wide space for the dignitaries; seats were there, also, for ambassadors and those born to the purple; and the pope's seat was on a raised dais at the end. Outsiders could see nothing of what went on within there; and the ladies under the dome could only partially see, in the seats they had fought ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... enemies seemed visible to him. He saw Gardiner, of Winchester, with his snake's eyes under the flat cap, and the Duke of Norfolk with his eyes malignant in a long, yellow face. He had a vision of the King, a huge red lump beneath the high dais at the head of the Council table, his face suffused with ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... the eye could reach stretched the crowd. Under a gorgeous dais of panjandrus leaves respondent with alova blossoms sat Baahaabaa, on his right Captain Triplett, on his left Hanuhonu, the ranking visitor, and all about retinues of nobles, with their superb families, groups of dancers, slim and straight as golden ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... intimate nature, or, again, if it were the master and mistress of the establishment. Walpole relates that so late as the middle of the last century the old Duke and Duchess of Hamilton occupied the dais at the head of the room, and preserved the traditional manner by sharing the same plate. It was a token of attachment and a ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... thought of the most worthy, it was always of the worthiest in her own particular sphere; and he of course would be titled and wealthy, and altogether fitted to be her husband. He would take her by the hand and lead her to a higher seat on the dais, and place upon her head, or at least upon her letter-paper and the panels of her carriage, a coronet in which the strawberry leaves should stand out more prominently than in her brother's emblazonment. Lesbia's ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... at my approach. Forgetting them instantly, my whole attention became riveted upon the marvellous transformation presented by my old Puritan comrade. Odds! what a sight! He sat bolt upright, as though bound in that stiff posture, occupying a low dais, almost at the edge of the platform. This latter had been covered with a glaring crimson cloth, roughly woven, presumably of native manufacture, peculiarly brilliant in its coloring, and hence of rare beauty to Indian eyes. At my approach he began straining at the ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... Mercury's wand; rod of empire, mace, fasces^, wand; staff, staff of office; baton, truncheon; flag &c (insignia) 550; ensign of authority, emblem of authority, badge of authority, insignia of authority. throne, chair, musnud^, divan, dais, woolsack^. toga, pall, mantle, robes of state, ermine, purple. crown, coronet, diadem, tiara, cap of maintenance; decoration; title &c 877; portfolio. key, signet, seals, talisman; helm; reins &c ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... the grandest apartments of this ancient palace—the band stationed in the gallery commences to play, generally the Hohenzollern march. The emperor and empress thereupon take their places on the dais beneath the great escutcheoned golden canopy, and in front of the two chairs of state that represent the thrones. At the right and left are grouped the various royal and imperial personages present, while at the ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... dais was arranged with a red brocade for a background, on which were two red chairs for the King and ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... had given him. Then Hoskuld and Olaf went to Egil's booth. Hoskuld went first, and Olaf followed close on his heels. Egil greeted him well, and Hoskuld sat down by him, but Olaf stood up and looked about him. He saw a woman sitting on the dais in the booth, she was goodly and had the looks of one of high degree, and very well dressed. He thought to himself this must be Thorgerd, Egil's daughter. Olaf went up to the dais and sat down by her. Thorgerd greeted the man, and asked ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous
... dais was a table dight most royally, and the Lady sitting thereat, clad in her most glorious array, and behind her the Maid standing humbly, yet clad in precious web of shimmering gold, but with feet unshod, and the ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... requested his companion to retire to the back of the manege, assisted the ladies from their saddles and, offering his hand to the duchess, led her to the dais, then returning to the ring, he issued some orders to the mounted officers in his train, and stood conversing with the ladies, Alexander Farnese, and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... before a grand piano, and Faith sat down under the shadow of her harp, both being arranged on a dais within an alcove at one end of the room. A screen of ivy and holly had been constructed across the front of this recess for the games of the children on Christmas Eve, and it still remained there, a small creep-hole being left for ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... light. Then, as my eyes recovered their function, I could see that I stood, as I had supposed, in the middle of a large vault or cellar. Around the room, on rude benches, sat perhaps one hundred men. At the end, on a sort of dais, or raised platform, was a man of gigantic stature, masked and shrouded. Below him, upon a smaller elevation, sat another, whose head, I noticed even then, was crooked to one side. Still below him, on a level with the floor, at a table, were two men who seemed ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... dishclouts and scrubbing-brushes, obliterating hereditary glories in their blind hostility to dust and spiders' webs. Full-length portraits of several English kings, Charles II. being the earliest, hang on the walls; and on the dais, or elevated part of the floor, stands an antique chair of state, which several royal characters are traditionally said to have occupied while feasting here with their loyal subjects of Coventry. It is roomy enough for a person of kingly bulk, or even two such, but angular and uncomfortable, ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... me and carried me off, declaring that he was charged to present me to the Duke of York. Trembling between fear and exultation, I walked with him across the floor, threading my way through the dazzling throng that covered the space in front of His Majesty's dais. But before we came to the Duke, a gentleman caught my companion by the arm and asked him how he did in a hearty, cheerful, and rather loud voice. Darrell's answer was to pull me forward and present me, saying that Sir Thomas ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... as Ornament to Initial Letter Chair of St. Peter, Rome Dagobert Chair A Carved Norwegian Doorway Scandinavian Chair Cover of a Casket Carved in Whalebone Saxon House (IX. Century) Anglo-saxon Furniture of About the X. Century The Seat on the Dais Saxon State Bed English Folding Chair (XIV. Century) Cradle of Henry V Coronation Chair, Westminster Abbey Chair in York Minster Two Chairs of the XV. Century Table at Penshurst Bedroom (XIV. Century) Carved Oak Bedstead and Chair The New Born Infant Portrait of Christine De Pisan ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... ready, and heralds posted at the door of the Jesuits' church, which had been gorgeously decorated for the occasion, sounded the assembly. Frontenac, brilliantly apparelled, took his place upon the dais; the gallant noblesse, in various attire, grouped themselves protectingly about his person; the sable Jesuits looked critically on; while the Third Estate hung breathlessly upon the gracious motions of his Excellency. A sunbeam from ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... his seat on the dais beside the bride, and the punghulo passed about the betel-box. First, Busuk took out a syrah leaf smeared with lime and placed in it some broken fragments of the betel-nut, and chewed it until a bright red liquid oozed ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... in well-starched white clothes and pipe-clayed shoes, sat on a dais beneath the crossed flags of his country, giving the effect of an elegant and patriotic waxwork. Below him were the four assessors, sunburned, commonish, seafaring men, with enormous hands that they did not know what to do with, who moved ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... there was a section which was raised a few inches above the rest. Here stood two Steinway grand pianos, tail to tail, their dark polished cases shining soberly in the pale light of November. There were some deep settees on this species of dais, and, looking towards it, over the heads of the crowd in the lower part of the room, Lady ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... the part that envy, malice, uncharitableness, greed, selfishness and ambition were playing in it. He would have seen merely a partially filled courtroom flooded with sunshine from high windows, an attentive and dignified judge in a black silk robe sitting upon a dais below which a white-haired clerk drew little slips of paper from a wheel and summoned jurymen to a service which outwardly bore no ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... doors opening into sleeping places shut off from the rest of the hall on all sides for the heads of the family. In other parts of the passages were sleeping places and beds not so shut off, for the rest of the household. The women servants slept in the passage behind the dais at one end of the hall. Over some halls there were upper chambers or lofts, in one of which Gunnar of Lithend slept, and from which he made ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... les yeux, et jamais je n'oublierai le spectacle que je vis. La plus grande partie de la fume s'tait leve et restait suspendue comme un dais vingt pieds au-dessus de la redoute. Au travers d'une vapeur bleutre, on apercevait derrire leur parapet demi dtruit les grenadiers russes, l'arme haute, immobiles comme des statues. Je crois voir encore chaque soldat, l'oeil gauche ...
— Quatre contes de Prosper Mrime • F. C. L. Van Steenderen
... decoration, with Danish woods and Danish furniture. A handsome cabinet of mahogany and hammered silver is its most striking piece. Other rooms also contain wonderful antique furniture. An assembly room with a raised dais, and mural decorations suggestive of Danish industry and commerce, is in the northeast corner. The building contains a number of paintings by Danish masters that are of great ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... had dinner in a great banqueting hall which was lighted by hundreds of grease-jets, and everything was as fine and lavish and rudely splendid as might become the royal degree of the hosts. At the head of the hall, on a dais, was the table of the king, queen, and their son, Prince Uwaine. Stretching down the hall from this, was the general table, on the floor. At this, above the salt, sat the visiting nobles and the grown members of their ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... seventy-five-dollar-an-evening-with-lights and cloak-room-service ballroom of the Hotel Walsingham, a family hostelry in that family circle of St. Louis known as its West End, the city holds not a few of its charity-whists and benefit musicales; on a dais which can be carried in for the purpose, morning readings of "Little Moments from Little Plays," and with the introduction of a throne-chair, the monthly lodge-meetings of the Lady Mahadharatas of America. For weddings and receptions, a lane of red carpet leads up to the slight dais; and lined ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... secretary of the Co-op, who was a little scrawny henpecked-husband type who never had an opinion of his own in his life, were all sitting back of a big desk on a dais in front. After as many of the crowd who could had found seats and the rest, including the Press, were standing in the rear, Ravick pounded with the chunk of monster tusk he used for a gavel and called the ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper
... myself that the Russian ballet is nothing if not bizarre. The long banqueting-table recalls the canvases of Veronese, but with discordant notes of the Orient and elsewhere. Potiphar himself, seated on a dais, has the air of an Assyrian bull. By his side Mme. Potiphar wears breeches ending above the knee, with white stockings and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, July 1, 1914 • Various
... whereas it stood high on the bent, a great stair or perron of stone went up to it, and was of much majesty. They went through the porch, which was pillared and lovely, and into a great hall most nobly builded, and at the other end thereof, on a golden throne raised upon a dais, sat a big woman clad in red scarlet. The three damsels led Birdalone to some four paces of the great lady, and then stood away from her, and left her standing there alone, the scarlet-clad woman before her; on the right and the left the tall pillars going ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... table was spread in the hall, with the usual appliances befitting princes and nobles. The other tables, below the dais, were of the rudest description, and stained with accumulations of grease and ale; and no wonder, since trenchers were not, and each man hacked a gobbet for himself from the huge pieces of beef carried round on spits—nor would the guests have had any objection, during a campaign, to cook the meat ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Fortuna!" he cried, springing from his couch. "My friends, let us go!" And quietly leaving the table on the dais, the three found themselves outside the banqueting hall, while the provincials, unconscious that their host had departed, continued ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... practice which planted the fire in the middle of the room and left the smoke to spread its sable canopy aloft. Another peculiarity in this picture of ancient manners was the slightly-raised platform called the dais, at the farther extremity of the hall, which reminds us of the distinction that was preserved even in the hours of convivial relaxation, between the family of the lord and its dependents. Nor was this distinction in general one of place alone: in most of the wealthy and ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... the banquet was spread in the hall; a higher table on the dais for the retainers and yeomanry, the latter of whom were armed with dagger, short ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... milk-pans; and even the house-flies had gone to sleep over the crumbs of sugar on the table. In the great banquet-room a thousand knights, overcome with slumber, sat silent at the festal board; and their chief, sitting on the dais, slept, with his ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... revered father," because the eulogist was young and handsome, and obviously anxious to please her. As Arkwright passed along the edge of the dancers a fan reached out and touched him on the arm. He halted, faced the double line of women, mostly elderly, seated on the palm-roofed dais extending the length of that end ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... Wilfrid's carven chair of state 'Neath the dais is gently elevate,— But his smile bespeaks no lordly pride: Sweet Edith sits by her loved sire's side, And five hundred guests, some free, some thrall, Sit by the tables along the wide hall, Each with his platter, and stout drink-horn,— ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... was perilous, and only understood by the initiated, the play took place in the Castle Hall, the largest available place, with Queen Mary seated upon the dais, with a canopy of State over her head, Lady Shrewsbury on a chair nearly as high, the Earl, the gentlemen and ladies of their suites drawn up in a circle, the servants where they could, the Earl's musicians thundering with drums, tooting with ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... name imports, was a circular hall, of large extent, with a flagged floor, an arched coiling, and white walls. These were without windows, for the hall was lighted from above. On one side, near the wall, stood a desk or rostrum upon an elevated dais, and by the side of this a large block of cut stone of the form of a parallelopipedon. The use of these two ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... and none might escape responsibility. The women grew silent as a forest that rustles and shivers in the night wind, and somebody turned down the lights, so that it was easier to see through the carved panel, and not so easy to be seen. Immediately beyond the panel was a dais, or wide platform, bare of everything except a carpet that covered it from end to end. A short flight of steps from the center of it led to the ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... reception she might have been seen pacing to and fro with stately splendour, contemplating the dais erected for royalty at one end of the room, and thinking with a glow of satisfaction that the representative of the Purlings had at last come to her own. At this supreme moment she was grateful to dear Phillipa and to Gilbert little ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... her worth, the world is tolerably provided with utterly inestimable treasures of womankind; yet is it the meek who shall inherit it; and they who make least of themselves are those who shall be led up to the dais at last. ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... bright; Wherefrom there shone forth such a light That great hall was as clear by it, As though by wax it had been lit, As some great church at Easter-tide. Now set a little way aside, Six paces from the dais stood An image made of brass and wood, In likeness of a full-armed knight Who pointed 'gainst the ruddy light A huge shaft ready in a bow. Pondering how he could come to know What all these marvellous matters meant, About the hall the Scholar went, ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... sound of triumphing songs and shouts, and right up to the hall doors; then entered the squire, and by his side came a tall young man, clad but in a white linen shirt and deerskin brogues, his head crowned with a garland of flowers: him the squire brought up to the lords on the dais, and louted to them, and said: "My lords, I bring you Christopher, and he not overwilling, for now hath he been but just crowned king of the games down yonder; but when the carles and queans there said that they would come with him and bear ...
— Child Christopher • William Morris
... to a raised dais whereon two stools were placed, and taking one invited me to the other. Then, while awaiting the arrival of our companions, food was brought to us, and we ate and drank to our full, Babila himself attending to our wants personally. Neither were our companions forgotten, for they ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... Peace, six women, crowned, and with appropriate emblems, are enthroned beside him. The majestic giant of the Commune towers above them all in bulk and stature, as though to indicate the people's sovereignty. The virtues are his assessors and inspirers—he is King. Beneath the dais occupied by these supreme personages, are ranged on either hand mailed and visored cavaliers, mounted on chargers, the guardians of the State. All the citizens in their degrees advance toward the throne, carrying between them, pair by pair, a rope ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... In two thirds of its space were crowded benches. At the upper end of the room was a dais, a schoolmaster's desk. Flanking it on one hand were forms occupied by the men Sabre had seen shuffling out of the mortuary. On the other hand a second dais stood. Facing the central dais was a long table ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... those times in great families. The dinner hour was about noon, or even earlier, when everybody belonging to the establishment assembled in the hall, where they took their places at the board according to their rank. At the upper end was a table raised above the rest on a dais, for the lord of the castle and his family, with any guests of distinction that might happen to be present, and below this was a long oak table extending from it lengthways down the centre of the hall, in the middle of which stood an enormous salt-cellar, as a sort of boundary between ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... dais in the center of the room drew their attention and they saw that Phaestra had risen from her seat in a deeply cushioned divan and now stood at its side in an attitude of welcome. Nearly as tall as Frank, she was a figure of commanding and imperious beauty. The whiteness of ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... out to be spread on three tables, one along each side of a great room, and one across the top of the room, on a dais—such a table as that high one at which dons and distinguished strangers sit in the ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit
... backwoods eyes to be privileged to see this grand room, built, I hear, for the reception of His Gracious Majesty King George the Fourth when he made his visit to Ireland, called the "Irish Avatar." At one side of the round room was a sort of dais, on which was a chair of state that, I suppose, represented a throne. Round the gallery were hung shields, containing the coats-of- arms of the worshipful the Lords Mayor of Dublin. The chair was occupied by the present ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... the Renaissance, and bade the wafer-like simulacrum fill up, expand, raise itself, lift itself on its elbow, arise and take possession of the bed of state, the catafalque raised high above the crowd, draped with brocade, carved with rich devices of leaves and beasts of heraldry, roofed over with a dais, which is almost a triumphal arch, garlanded with fruits and flowers, upon which the illustrious dead were shown to the people; but made eternal, and of eternal magnificence, by the stone-cutter, and guarded, not for an hour by the liveried pages or chaunting ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... by the minister, who was surrounded on the dais by some dozen girls. I noticed that few were very good-looking; but in their faces was religious fervour. Yet they kept their eyes on the man. The prayer was long, intolerably and trickily eloquent and rhetorical, very self-conscious. The man posed before the throne. But I listened to every ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... flower-garden containing all manner trees and flowers and fruits, with birds warbling on the boughs and singing the praises of Allah the Almighty Sovran; and there were four daises, each facing other, and in each dais a jetting fountain, at whose corners stood lions of red gold, spouting gerbes from their mouths into the basin. On each dais stood a chair, whereon sat an elder, with exceeding store of books before ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... for me as (while awaiting my introduction) I looked into the faces of the men and women seated in that crowded parlor. Just before the dais, shading his eyes with his hand, was a small man with a pale face and brown beard. This was Charles E. Hurd, literary editor of the Transcript. Near him sat Theodore Weld, as venerable in appearance as Socrates (with ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... On a raised dais sat the Governor in his great chair. He was clothed in the regulation buff and blue uniform of a Major General of the Continental Army. On his shoulders he wore the epaulets and about his waist the sword knots General ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... declaimed his verses to applauding crowds? Is it possible that into yonder hall, where now the lion of S. Mark looks down alone on staring desolation, strode the Borgia in all his panoply of war, a gilded glittering dragon, and from the dais tore the Montefeltri's throne, and from the arras stripped their ensigns, replacing these with his own Bull and Valentinus Dux? Here Tasso tuned his lyre for Francesco Maria's wedding-feast, and read 'Aminta' to Lucrezia d'Este. Here Guidobaldo listened to the jests and whispered ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... kingly dais-seat, Felt nothing of the passion and the heat That fire young blood. He raised his warlike head And glancing moodily around him, said: "So have ye feasted well, my knights, this day, And filled your hearts ...
— Gawayne And The Green Knight - A Fairy Tale • Charlton Miner Lewis
... end of the refectory was a dais with a table at which Homer took his seat, while another long table stretched down the middle of the hall; but Astulf saw with surprise that three places were laid on the upper board, though the King was apparently ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... the dark wainscot and timbered roof, The long tables, and the faces merry and keen; The College Eight and their trainer dining aloof, The Dons on the dais serene. ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... and they gave me two lutes, one of which I must hold in either hand, and conducted me to the great hall of the palace. Here a number of people of rank were gathered, all dressed in festal attire, and here also on a dais to which I was led, stood my four wives clad in the rich dresses of the four goddesses Xochi, Xilo, Atla, and Clixto, after whom they were named for the days of their wifehood, Atla being the princess Otomie. When I had taken my place upon the dais, my wives came forward one by one, and kissing ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... whereupon up sprang my captors and hauled me along and so presently into a spacious hall with a dais at one end where stood a table and great elbow-chair; but what drew and held my gaze was the slender, dark-robed ecclesiastic that, moving on leisured, soundless feet, went on before until, reaching the table, he seated himself there, head bowed upon one hand; and thus he sat awhile then beckoned ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... dais made of glittering gems set in gold and silver, the steps of which were covered by a carpet of marvellous embroidery, stood a throne of ivory and gold under a canopy of translucent enamel, and on each side two palm-trees three thousand years old, in gigantic vases carved in some bygone ...
— Honey-Bee - 1911 • Anatole France
... and formed a darksome dais. Suddenly the pair found themselves kneeling beside a body which old David was guarding from curious eyes, resolved to ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac
... height. "The roof is of carved oak, with very elegant pendants, profusely decorated with the armorial bearings and badges of King Henry VIII. and Cardinal Wolsey, and has the date 1529." Its bay window at the end of the dais with its rich grained vault of fan-tracery, is admired ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... contains the altar the door is concealed by a curtain embroidered with a large cross. The Mohammedans who created the mosques showed marvellous taste. Copts are often lacking in taste, as they have proved here and there in Abu Sargah. Above one curious and unlatticed screen, near to a matted dais, droops a hideous banner, red, purple, and yellow, with a white cross. Peeping in, through an oblong aperture, one sees a sort of minute circus, in the form of a half-moon, containing a table with an ugly red-and-white striped ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... bonbon tables, fruit-stalls, &c. &c. were surrounded by busy crowds: all was activity and cheerfulness. In a large open space in the midst, a short distance from the front of the chateau, the flowery throne, gorgeous in variety and vividness of colours, was set up on a dais on the greensward. The band of celebrants, with Julia and her train in their midst, advanced. Little Cecilia walked by her sister's side, hand in hand, in proud surprise. Before them, an aged peasant marched solemnly, bareheaded save for his silver hair, carrying the crown destined for Julia; ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 427 - Volume 17, New Series, March 6, 1852 • Various
... and old LADY CULLEN, followed by her lady companions, comes slowly towards the dais, on which she ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... very wals sweat out salt Peter, with the smoothering perplexitie, nay a number of them had meruailous hot breaths, which sticking in the briers of their bushie beardes, could not choose, but (as close aire long imprisoned) engender corruption. Wiser was our brother Bankes of these latter dais, who made his iugling horse a cut, for feare if at anie time hee should foist, the stinke sticking in his thicke bushie taile might be noisome to his auditors. Should I tell you how many purseuants with red noses, and sargeants with precious faces shrunke ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash
... were stained black by the smoke of a fire which burned in one corner; the floor was of clay beaten hard. A strip some ten feet wide, at the further end, was raised eighteen inches above the general level, forming a sort of dais. Here, in a carved settle of black wood, sat the chief. Some females, evidently the ladies of his family, were seated on piles of sheepskins, and were plying their distaffs; while an aged man was seated on the end of the dais with a harp of quaint form ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... humour. The lines of men were now breaking up into knots; bows were being loosened, violins put into cases and brass instruments into bags, while laughing and chatting became general. Poons looked at Von Barwig, who still stood on the small dais, staring out into space, and he saw that something was the matter. He loved Von Barwig; for years before, when hard times had sent him over the border from Amsterdam toward the German music centres, Von Barwig had extended him a helping hand, indeed had almost kept him from starving until ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... of this effect were simple, A dim light suggesting worship; the faint scent of slowly burning incense; women and men sitting on low benches about the walls. In the center, on a kind of raised dais, backed by a drapery of black velvet, a woman was seated, in the semblance of a Hindoo god, so nearly did her heavy, compactly crouched figure, wound about with Eastern stuffs and glistening with gold, recall the images we are accustomed to associate with the worship of Vishnu. Her face, ...
— The Bronze Hand - 1897 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... tables inlaid with mosaic and pearl, are arranged along the sides, and overhung with flowing tapestry that falls carelessly from the large Doric windows. Over these windows are massive cornices, richly designed and gilded. Quiet grandeur pervades the whole; even the fairy-like dais that has been raised for the nuptial ceremony rests upon four pieces of statuary, and is covered with crimson velvet set with sparkling crystals. And while this spectacle presents but the vanity of our nature, grand but not lasting, ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... neck, while a wreath of jasmines and violets encircled her head. Her ornaments were of pearl. Having promenaded the entire length of the room, they mounted the few steps leading to the seats placed for them upon the dais, while the crowd gathered densely in ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... in severe dignity the dais or bench above which ascended a draped canopy of rich brown plush. Here Justice Pomeroy presided, in his robes of silk, a striking, white-haired figure of a man, whose face was seamed and whose eyes were keen with thought ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... Harrington sat on the comfortably upholstered bench on the dais of the Audience Hall, flanked by von Schlichten and Eric Blount. He didn't look particularly regal, even on that high seat—with his ruddy outdoorsman's face and his ragged gray mustache and his old tweed coat spotted with pipe-ashes, ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
... up on the dais, with the air of a young Greek martyr, and made a little moue of discontent to Lord Henry, to whom he had rather taken a fancy. He was so unlike Basil. They made a delightful contrast. And he had such a beautiful voice. After a few moments he said to him, "Have you really a very ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... time before he left Portora that the boys got to know of his full name, Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde. Just at the close of his school career he won the 'Carpenter' Greek Testament Prize,—and on presentation day was called up to the dais by Dr. Steele, by all his names—much to Oscar's annoyance; for a great deal ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... dais and, bowing low, begged that she would accept him as her slave. Henceforward the old lady regarded him as her son-in-law; they drank heavily together and finally parted. Next morning he had all his boxes and bags brought round to Mrs. Li's house and settled there permanently. Henceforward ...
— More Translations from the Chinese • Various
... chair on the top of a dais sat the Goat-King—a snow-white Goat with mauve eyes and beard; completely surrounded with cuckoo clocks, and festoons of yellow wood table-napkin rings, and paper-cutters. The walls seemed to be covered ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... a little dais in front of a hut with an awning over him. He passed word to a satellite in a cloak that he would be pleased were I to land, and I told my guide to tell him I would be pleased to alight from my ramshackle ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... Lord Luffton, now engaged her in conversation, and as Lady Tilchester and I left the hall both he and the Duke were escorting Miss Trumpet to the dais—no doubt to turn up the carpet and search for the ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... balustrade of perforated stonework overlooks the court. The floor is paved in tiles or marble of various colours, usually in some large design, in the centre of which is a shallow basin in which a fountain plays. Round the three walls is a raised dais called "lewan," covered with rugs or mattresses, on which the guests recline. Little recesses in the walls, which in the homes of the wealthy are elaborately decorated with mosaic or tile work, contain ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt • R. Talbot Kelly
... she seated herself on a dais at the upper end of the apartment and, directing her ladies to retire to the other end of the room, where they would be out of earshot, she rested her chin upon her hand, as though in deep thought, and so remained for the space of nearly ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... the hall to the raised dais at the end on which the throne was placed. He ascended the steps, and walked to the throne, the whole assembly looking on in solemn awe, to see what he was going to do. Some expected that he was ...
— Margaret of Anjou - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... a man of sixty, or it might be sixty-two, in all things save that he was covered with gray fur, and had horns like those of a stag. He wore a breech-clout of very dark gray, and he sat in a chair of black marble, on a dais: his bushy tail, which was like that of a squirrel, waved restlessly over his head as he looked at Jurgen, without speaking, and without turning his mind from an ancient thought. And his eyes were ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... him to lead her to the royal dais where she knelt. The queen descended, raised her and led her to the throne. Meneptah met them, kissed Masanath's forehead, and blessed her. The queen embraced her and returned to her ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... remonstrated Mysie—"ou, she's sitting some gate aneath the dais in the hall, and I am feared to gae in in the dark for the dogle; and if I didna see the bogle, I could as ill see the hen, for it's pit-mirk, and there's no another light in the house, save that very blessed lamp whilk the ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... children of Dean Saunders as a memorial of their parents. The retable was given by the Old Boys of the King's School. The reredos is a magnificent erection, and renders the east end of this cathedral one of the most dignified in the kingdom. The dais on which it stands is thirteen feet square, and the summit reaches to the height of thirty-five feet. Four large marble columns stand at the corners, from the capitals of which spring cusped arches, the ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... walls were of stone, but covered half-way from the ground with a panelling of curiously-carved oak; whence were suspended, in massy frames, the family portraits, painted by Dutch and Italian artists. Near the dais, or upper part of the hall, there projected an oriel window, which, as you beheld, you scarcely knew what most to admire, the radiancy of its painted panes or the fantastic richness of Gothic ornament, which was profusely lavished in every part ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... its heavy oaken doors, witnesses to the interest that is centred in the trial, and all eyes are fixed on the pale, stern old man who stands before the dais silently facing his judges. He is quite alone, and his thoughts go back, with some bitterness, to his previous trial, when the people crowded the doors shouting for their favorite, and John of Gaunt and the Lord Marshal of England were standing by his side. He has learned since then not to put ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... notion of the private snuggery of some lofty lord abbot of the time of the Canterbury Tales. The room is a very handsome one, with a low and very richly carved roof of dark oak again; a huge projecting bow window, and the dais elevated more majorum; the ornaments of the roof, niches for lamps, &c. &c. in short, all the minor details, are, I believe, fac similes after Melrose. The walls are hung in crimson, but almost entirely covered ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 339, Saturday, November 8, 1828. • Various
... her foot on the floor of the dais, whereupon the door opens slowly, and swords and spears become ...
— Poet Lore, Volume XXIV, Number IV, 1912 • Various
... thrust in the key, and with a careful aim shot back the door-bolts. As a bull roars when feeding in the field, so roared the goodly door touched by the key, and open flew before her. She stepped to a raised dais where stood some chests in which lay fragrant garments. Thence reaching up, she took from its peg the bow in the glittering case which held it. And now she sat her down and laid the case upon her lap, and loudly ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... Petrie, Royal Tombs i (Egypt Exploration Fund), pi. xi, 14, xv, 16. This is the record of a single year, the first in the reign of Semti, King of Upper and Lower Egypt. On it we see a picture of a king performing a religious dance before the god Osiris, who is seated in a shrine placed on a dais. This religious dance was performed by all the kings in later times. Below we find hieroglyphic (ideographic) records of a river expedition to fight the Northerners and of the capture of a fortified town called An. The capture of the town is indicated by a broken line of ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... of popular amusement and instruction—the theatres, the story-teller's booths, the preacher's dais, the musical recitations, the novels—have taken for their chief theme the stories of the samurai. The peasants round the open fire in their huts never tire of repeating the achievements of Yoshitsune and his faithful retainer Benkei, or of the two brave ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... machine was a narrow gallery. Before the machine had been installed, the chamber had been a lecture hall in Acquatainia's largest university. Now the rows of students' seats, the lecturer's dais and rostrum were gone. The chamber held only the machine, the grotesque collection of consoles, control desks, power units, association circuits, and booths where the ...
— The Dueling Machine • Benjamin William Bova
... of Henry IV. and Richard III. a ceremony was performed which seems to indicate some idea of the elective sovereignty in England. The archbishop stood at each of the four corners of the dais in succession, and asked from thence the consent of the assembled Commons (Heylin, Reform., 1st edit., p. 32.). Did this ever take place at the coronation of English monarchs whose ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 237, May 13, 1854 • Various
... middle on a raised dais sat the king and queen, on their right stood the three princes, on their left the councillors in their robes of state. Three chairs were placed for the maidens, and they were politely but firmly requested to take off ...
— The Grey Brethren and Other Fragments in Prose and Verse • Michael Fairless
... the union of Castile and Arragon by the nuptials of their respective sovereigns in the cathedral church of Valladolid. Over these pictures were suspended golden lamps, inlaid with gems; so that, day or night, the effect should remain the same. Opposite the dais, huge folding-doors opened on an extensive hall, where the banquets were generally held, and down which Don Ferdinand intended to range the tables for his guests of lesser rank, leaving the octangular ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... head of the hall on a dais stood a long, narrow table, spread with a cloth and set with platters and cups of silver. Here we waited till butlers with wands appeared through some curtains which they drew. Then came a man beating a silver gong, and after him a dozen or more ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... Chamber, where the Duke and Duchess sate upon chairs of state under a canopy, and the guests sate down on seats and benches. And presently the Duke sent courteous word to Paul that if he would sing they would gladly hear him. So Paul rose in his place and made obeisance, and then moved to a dais which was set at the end of the chamber; and a page brought him his lute. But Paul first made a signal to the musicians who were set aloft in a gallery, and they played a low descant; and Paul sang them a war-song ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... trodden into a hard substance, such as is often employed in flooring our modern barns. For about one quarter of the length of the apartment, the floor was raised by a step, and this space, which was called the dais, was occupied only by the principal members of the family, and visitors of distinction. For this purpose, a table richly covered with scarlet cloth was placed transversely across the platform, from the middle of which ran the longer and lower board, at which the domestics and inferior ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... long chair with a small fox-terrier asleep on his chest, while Dick was preparing a canvas. A dais, a background, and a lay- figure were the only fixed objects in the place. They rose from a wreck of oddments that began with felt-covered water-bottles, belts, and regimental badges, and ended with a ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... accidental stillness. The tall, flat houses round looked at once prosperous and uninhabited; the square of shrubbery in the centre looked as deserted as a green Pacific islet. One of the four sides was much higher than the rest, like a dais; and the line of this side was broken by one of London's admirable accidents—a restaurant that looked as if it had strayed from Soho. It was an unreasonably attractive object, with dwarf plants in pots and long, striped ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... went up a pair of turnpike stairs. Steele had put on his clothes while the search was making below; the chamber where he lay was called the Chamber of Deese, [Or chamber of state; so called from the DAIS, or canopy and elevation of floor, which distinguished the part of old halls which was occupied by those of high rank. Hence the phrase was obliquely used to signify state in general.] which is the name given to a room where the laird lies when he comes ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... chamber occupying the greater part of the ground- floor of the building. It had probably once been divided; for the farther end was raised by a long step above the nearer, and the blazing fire and the white supper-table seemed to stand upon a dais. All around were dark, brass-mounted cabinets and cupboards; dark shelves carrying ancient country crockery; guns and antlers and broadside ballads on the wall; a tall old clock with roses on the dial; and down in one corner the ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... arrived at the Rock castle in the morning of St. Augustine's day (Aug. 28th). The king was in the chapel hearing Mass, and thither the bishop followed him, and straightway saluted him. Now the king was in the royal dais, near the outer door. Two bishops were standing just below him. (We must think of something like a small upstair college chapel for the theatre of this tale.) These two were old Hugh Pudsey, Bishop of Durham, and young Eustace, Bishop of Ely: the ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... courses of gold and silver, with door-sills of crystal and keystones of greenest emerald. In its midst was a fountain adorned with bells and pendants and figures of birds and beasts spouting forth water, and thereby a dais[FN43] furnished with gold-brocaded silk, bordered or embroidered with jewels: and they found the treasures of the palace past count or description. Then they entered the women's court, where they came upon a magnificent serraglio and Gharib saw, among the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... strikingly beautiful; but, like most Creole women, she had become passee in early middle age. She had made a brave fight, however—with art as her ally—against the attacks of time, and her success had been such that when she sat aloof upon a dais or drove past in a procession, she might still pass as a lovely woman. In a small room, however, or in a good light, the crude pinks and whites with which she had concealed her sallow cheeks became painfully harsh ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... way easily into the hall, for no one thought of staying a priest. The lower end was thronged with soldiers. On the dais stood Sir Piers de Rievaulx and half-a-dozen more, confronting Earl Hubert, who wore an expression of baffled amazement. Just behind him stood the Countess, evidently possessed by fear and anguish; Sir John de Burgh, with his hand upon his sword; Doucebelle, very white and frightened; ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... top of the tent, on a raised dais, sat the King of France, surrounded by his courtiers. The Earl of Evesham, having been conducted by the herald to the dais, paid his compliments to the king, and was saluted by him with ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... feel bound to be specially interested in anybody or anything, except her big brother and his bit of parchment. And so, when he had given her a nod and a smile, as he came down from the dais, crumpling his papers in his big hands, she was ready to look about and enjoy herself. And to the unaccustomed eyes of the country girl, there was a ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... Turkish embroideries hung over doors and windows. The walls were covered with many rare paintings; rich objets d'art were scattered about in profusion; an open door led out into a pretty garden, where flowers bloomed, and a fountain dripped into its marble basin. A raised dais at one side of the room held a divan, over which were draperies of Oriental stuffs. On this divan, as on a throne, sat the great pianist we had come to see. He made a stately and imposing figure as he sat there, with his long silvery beard and his dignified bearing. Near him ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... the balconies, from all the roofs, innumerable spectators shouted their acclamations; the cortege advanced to the sound of all the bells of the city, and to the noise of a salvo of artillery of one hundred and one guns. The King was received under a dais at the door of the metropolitan church, by the Archbishop of Rheims in his pontifical robes, and accompanied by his suffragans, the Bishops of Soissons, Beauvais, Chalons, and Amiens. The Archbishop presented the holy water to the sovereign, who knelt, kissed the Gospels, ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... him with ashen face. Then, plucking at her bosom she sprang from the dais and rushed along the hall, screaming. Men made way for her, and at the door she also ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard |
