"Doorpost" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... white lilacs; all the flowers were white; they were like a prolongation, a mystical efflorescence, of the long rows of marble tombstones, and their perfume seemed to cover an odor of decay. The rich atmosphere made Glennard dizzy. As he leaned in the doorpost, waiting for the flowers, he had a penetrating sense of Margaret Aubyn's nearness—not the imponderable presence of his inner vision, but a life that ...
— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton
... squalor of the meanest garret, and the subdued light of the little kitchen where the red-petticoated housewife is sweeping must contrast so delicately with the white glare of the brick yard where the neighbour stands in parley, leaning against the doorpost, that the humble life of the place is transformed and poetised. This was the ABC of Dutch art; it was the Dutchmen who first found out that with the poetising aid of light and shade the meanest and most commonplace incidents of every-day life could be ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... perched on his shoulder. The fire in the stove had burned lower, and its downcast glow revealed less mercilessly the dirty condition of the floor. Otherwise no one, nothing, seemed to have been disturbed. Pyne leaned against the doorpost, taking out and lighting a cigarette. The eye of Sin Sin ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... man said nothing. He tied up the goat to the doorpost of the house, where it could eat the green grass. Then he went into the house and lay down, and fell asleep at once, because he was an old man and had done a ...
— Old Peter's Russian Tales • Arthur Ransome
... to shake off the restraining hand that pinned him, helpless, half behind the doorpost. "Never ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... It is exactly in a line with the opposite hut, and the fellows in there must come to their door to fire. I will take this slanting hole by the doorpost. I can see one of the windows of the next hut to that we were in. I have no doubt that they are firing from there also. Don't wait for them to shoot, but fire directly a figure ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... more fortunate. A short distance below the surface were a number of pieces of stone of various sizes, which, he had no doubt, had been cut from the blocks to allow for the fixing of the lintel and doorpost. He chose half a dozen pieces of the handiest sizes, each having a flat surface. Then replacing the earth carefully, he took one of the pieces in his hand, and moistening it with water, set ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... Hamilton and I had been busy in our respective lodges getting peltries and personal belongings into shape for return to Red River. On Saturday night, at least I counted it Saturday from the notches on my doorpost, though Eric, grown morose and contradictory, maintained that it was Sunday—we sat talking before the fire of my lodge. A dreary raindrip pattered through the leaky roof and the soaked parchment tacked across the window opening flapped monotonously against the ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... certificate of character and efficiency to a departing maid. Some of these papers are still extant in Tahiti and Mangareva. Many years ago when buying turtle at the little island of Rurutu, I saw one pasted on a doorpost in a native house. In the Western Carolines and the Pelew Group, when whale ships were plentiful and prosperous, the native girls preserved these "characters" by gumming the paper (often upside down) on a piece of pandanus leaf bordered with devices in bead-work. When a fresh ...
— Concerning "Bully" Hayes - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... ball of silken thread," she said. "As soon as you go into the Labyrinth where the monster is kept, fasten one end of the thread to the stone doorpost, and then unwind it as you go along. When you have slain the Minotaur, you have only to follow the thread and it will lead you back to the door. In the meanwhile I will see that your ship, is ready to sail, and then I will wait for you at the door ...
— Old Greek Stories • James Baldwin
... think to returning," said Strickland. He had been leaning against the doorpost. Now he straightened himself. "I will go on as far as ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... the platform steps and staggered against the doorpost. His face flamed so red that, as Shadrach said afterward, it was "a ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... On the doorpost of the house of a friend of mine, a few inches above the lock, is a little chalk-mark which some sportive boy in passing has probably scratched on the pillar. The door-steps, the lock, handle, and so forth, are kept decently ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... One morning I saw, through the windows of my bedroom, that a large pond not far off was covered with wild ducks. In an instant I took my gun from the corner, ran downstairs, and out of the house in such a hurry that I imprudently struck my face against the doorpost. Fire flew out of my eyes, but it did not prevent my intention; I soon came within shot, when, leveling my piece, I observed to my sorrow, that even the flint had sprung from the cock by the violence of the shock I had just received. There was no time to be lost. I presently ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... the brief reply, and Wilford staggered back against the doorpost, where he leaned a moment for support in that first great shock for ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... was done, Huntington reappeared at the door of his bedroom. The revolver in his right hand moved slowly upward. In the kitchen doorway was Claire—a stricken thing in blue and gold—clinging to the doorpost, her lips parted, her eyes wide with terror. But Haig! Could anything have been more horrible than that smile? It was fearless, mocking, insolent. And his whole attitude matched it perfectly. He stood carelessly erect, with ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... his name on the doorpost with his pen, and rubbing it out again with the feather. 'Will you leave a ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... the ewer from the basin and substituted the brass can. She covered the can with a white towel, uncovered the soap dish, and disappeared, closing the door as softly as if it and the doorpost were padded with velvet. ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... Benediktov—the poet in fashion in those days—could rival the slender grace of her figure. When, at the most emotional passages, she raised her eyes upwards—it seemed to him no heaven could fail to open at such a look! Even the old man, Pantaleone, who with his shoulder propped against the doorpost, and his chin and mouth tucked into his capacious cravat, was listening solemnly with the air of a connoisseur—even he was admiring the girl's lovely face and marvelling at it, though one would have thought he must have been used to it! When she had finished the ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... sharp for them. Some bad, crafty, light-steppin' woodsmen 'round heah, Jean.... Three mawnin's ago, just after daylight, I stepped out the back door an' some one of these sneaks I'm talkin' aboot took a shot at me. Missed my head a quarter of an inch! To-morrow I'll show you the bullet hole in the doorpost. An' some of my gray hairs ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... out of sight next morning when Ian Direach seized the falcon, and throwing a cloth over her head hastened with her to the door. But the rays of the sun pierced through the thickness of the cloth, and as they passed the doorpost she gave a spring, and the tip of one of her feathers touched the post, which gave a scream, and brought the giant back in three strides. Ian Direach trembled as he saw him; but the ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... had locked over the quillons. He had pushed its massive weight halfway across the door before Fortunio grasped the situation. Instantly the captain sought to take advantage of it, thinking to catch Garnache unawares. But no sooner did he show his nose inside the doorpost than Garnache's sword flashed before his eyes, driving him back with a bloody furrow ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... gentlemen to see you, Mr Amena." The door opened, and his landlady's dirty little daughter put her towsled head through the little space behind the doorpost. "They're down below; ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... in amazement mixed with anxiety. His emotion is beyond speech. He turns and leaves the room. In his perturbation he even forgets to kiss the mezuzah[2] on the doorpost. The pupil feels reproved and yet somehow in the right. Who did make God? But if the rebbe will not tell—will not tell? Or, perhaps, he ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... sprang into my eyes; whereupon Terence, in defiance of all military laws, laid his gun against the doorpost and put his arms around me, and I confided my fears. It was at this critical juncture that the door opened and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... satisfied with the captain's arrangement, so, when the latter went in to perform his part of this delicate business, the former remained at the doorpost, expectant. ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... John Barter; and these are my offices.' The outer oak, cracked and blistered to the likeness of an ancient tar-barrel, bore an inscription, dim with long years—'Fellowship, Freemantle, and Barter'—and the names were repeated on the doorpost at the entrance. ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... 'a was young. When he came home after his first voyage he stayed about here a long time, and used to look in at the mill whenever he went past. "What will you be next, sir?" said mother to him one day as he stood with his back to the doorpost. "A lieutenant, Dame Loveday," says he. "And what next?" says she. "A commander." "And next?" "Next, post-captain." "And then?" "Then it will be almost time to die." I'd warrant that he'd mind it to this very day if you were to ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... fear, shaggy pate. They will not fire at you. Go and huddle behind the doorpost if you like. I mean to go alone into the courtyard, and will draw the snake out of its hole with my ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... the doorpost, now looking in at Ben and his cows, and now at the sunshiny strawyard. She felt tired and languid, as she very often did at the end of the day, although the work at Orchards Farm was no harder than she had always been used to at home. There, however, it had been ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... at times by broken murmurs from his wife, Mr. Teak informed him of the robbery. Mr. Chase, leaning against the doorpost, listened with open mouth and distended eyeballs. Occasional interjections of pity and surprise attested his interest. The tale finished, the gentlemen exchanged a significant wink and ...
— Ship's Company, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... In the doorpost of a queer little stone house in Cologne is carved an inscription to the effect that Peter Paul Rubens was born there on June Twenty-ninth, Fifteen Hundred Seventy-seven. It is probably true that the parents of Rubens lived there, but ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... delighted crowds, who roared with laughter whenever the little frau beat her loutish husband about the head, and set him to tend the baby, who continued to wail, notwithstanding the man knocked its head against the doorpost. There were the great beer-restaurants, with temporary benches and tables' planted about with evergreens, always thronged with a noisy, jolly crowd. There were the fires, over which fresh fish were broiling on sticks; and, if you lingered, you saw the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... I am! Speaking trumpet!" muttered the man, and directing his light toward the doorpost he saw a raised patch of snow, which upon being removed ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... Sara, but as sure as I'm here I saw Morva standing there, just as I saw her that night when I gave her her necklace, standing under the elder-tree, with the round moon shining full on her face. Sara, woman, I nearly lost my breath, and had to lay my hand on the doorpost to steady myself. Bella had hold of my arm, and I felt as if a snake was hanging there that I wanted to throw off. The music came full and loud into the street, and I hated it all. I cannot tell what came over me, but my knees trembled and my hands—mine, remember, ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... Man started and woke. The fire on the hearth was dead, the candle in the outer room flickering in its socket, and somebody was rapping at the door. He opened it, but fell back with a cry before the dripping half-naked figure that reeled against the doorpost. ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... party rescued his dog, already straining at his chain to escape a watery grave; another saved (dearer than life itself) his favourite violin. A fisherman, surprised in his kitchen, was flung down and nearly strangled between door and doorpost by the rush of a wave through the window. A neighbour was drifted out of his house on the top of one wave, and scrambled back to find the door slammed and held against him by another. Rueful groups of women stood in the street, sobbing over armfuls ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... the villain could not speak, but leaned against the doorpost, with his cheeks gone white and his jaw fallen, the most pitiable spectacle to be conceived. I affected to see nothing, however, but went by him easily, and into the room, drawing off my gauntlets as entered. The dicers, from their seats ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... furnish means whereby to indulge his consuming and all absorbing love of gaming. After entering the street, he glanced cautiously around, and then advancing to the iron-gray charger that was tied with a stout bridle to the horse-shoe at the doorpost, adjusted the accoutrements, leaped to the saddle, and rode hurriedly along the road leading ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... armed himself and made the two servants do the same, and they took their stand beside the king. While the arrows lasted, Ulysses shot, and struck down the wooers man by man. And then he leant the bow against the doorpost, and slung the shield about him and put on the helmet and took two spears ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... armour, and stood beside the wise and crafty Odysseus. Now he, so long as he had arrows to defend him, kept aiming and smote the wooers one by one in his house, and they fell thick one upon another. But when the arrows failed the prince in his archery, he leaned his bow against the doorpost of the stablished hall, against the shining faces of the entrance. As for him he girt his fourfold shield about his shoulders and bound on his mighty head a well wrought helmet, with horse hair crest, and terribly ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... with a clatter from the old man's hands. He sank back against the doorpost and leaned there an instant; then, whimpering and laughing, he came tottering forward—his old legs failing him in this excess of unexpected joy—and sank on his knees to ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... disease of slaves licensed to display all the power of slavish feelings and cattle habits. Others are poisoned with the desire for vengeance. Still others, beaten down to stupidity, become dumb and blind. They deprave the nation, the whole nation!" He stopped, leaning his elbows against the doorpost. He clasped his head in both hands, and ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... the tableau was complete with the following figures, all coloured in the richest manner, and harmonizing most exquisitely:—a very pretty, intelligent young woman, dressed in green, violet, red, and brown, stood leaning against the doorpost, with an infant in pink, grey, and stone-colour, in her arms: her husband—a handsome, dark Spaniard, with a many-coloured handkerchief with ends twisted round his wild, black, straggling hair—raised his face above her: in shade, behind, ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... done! And it is on that point that your letter displays much reserve: I presume, to prevent my being too much agitated by despair. For what action do you see possible to be taken, or in what way? Through the senate? But you yourself told me that Clodius had fixed upon the doorpost of the senate-house a certain clause in the law, "that it might neither be put to the house nor mentioned."[340] How could Domitius,[341] therefore, say that he would bring it before the house? How came it about also that Clodius ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... the street-door and gazed from there at the disappearing youth, as long as she could see him, resting her head sadly against the doorpost. ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... grating of the turning-stone as it closed. The man who had tracked them and given the alarm was cutting off their retreat. Gerrard turned mechanically, and putting out his hand, felt the stone beginning to fill the doorway behind him. Stooping, he groped for the stone doorpost, and snatching off his cap, thrust it across the corner where the outer edge of the doorpost met the floor. The cap was iron-framed, and padded to turn a sword-cut, and he heard the stone grate more harshly, then stick, so that at least he and Charteris ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... dreadful has happened since we passed by here this morning. That is crape, Samuel, crape, hanging from the doorpost yonder!" ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... and began to puff at his pipe with sombre determination. In the blackness of the doorway a pair of eyes glimmered white, and big, and staring. Then James Wait's head protruding, became visible, as if suspended between the two hands that grasped a doorpost on each side of the face. The tassel of his blue woollen nightcap, cocked forward, danced gaily over his left eyelid. He stepped out in a tottering stride. He looked powerful as ever, but showed a strange and affected unsteadiness in his gait; ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... together, and made to sit together in the heavenly places; and by the same emphasis that we declare ourselves to be His, we confess that we are amongst those who are bound to a life of consecration. We are pledged to it by union with our Lord. We cannot draw back from the doorpost to which He was nailed without proving that we are deficient in appreciating the purpose which brought Him to our world, the surrender that withheld not His face from spitting, His soul from ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... as snow, and the spray was dashing right over the fisher-hut. In all his life Matte had never remembered such a night. To launch the boat and put to sea to rescue the net was a thing not to be thought of. The fisherman and his wife stood aghast on the doorstep, holding on fast by the doorpost, while the ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... thin streak of candle-light flashed on him through the narrow chink between the hardly-closed door and the doorpost. It increased rapidly in intensity, as the sound of softly-advancing footsteps now grew more and more distinct from the stone passage leading to the interior of ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... their doors on three-legged stools, patiently knitting stockings. To them came stiff-limbed youths who, with a "Blawy nicht, Jeanie" (to which the inevitable answer was, "It is so, Cha-rles"), rested their shoulders on the doorpost, and silently followed with their eyes the flashing needles. Thus the courtship began—often to ripen promptly into marriage, at other times to go no further. The smooth-haired maids, neat in their simple wrappers, knew they ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... nineteen subjects, divided by channelled pilasters with a carved frieze, above a bench which ran round the circular wall from one doorpost to the other, the whole work crowned with a cornice also carved with foliated ornament. The first subject on the right was an open cupboard with architects' and joiners' tools. The second was the portrait described above. The third ...
— Intarsia and Marquetry • F. Hamilton Jackson
... discovering anything of further interest, Peterkin took up the old cat, which had lain very contentedly asleep on the stool whereon he had placed it, and we prepared to take our departure. In leaving the hut, Jack stumbled heavily against the doorpost, which was so much decayed as to break across, and the whole fabric of the hut seemed ready to tumble about our ears. This put into our heads that we might as well pull it down, and so form a mound ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... across toward the wool-shed, and found the blacks jabbering away hard, and evidently quite excited; but they heard his steps, and three rough black heads came softly into sight, one round each doorpost, and the other above a couple of broad boards which ran in grooves, used to keep pigs or other animals from entering to make a warm bed in the wool. But the moment they caught sight of their young master they disappeared, the middle man going off cart-wheel fashion, like a black firework, ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... half-apologetic explanations, yet he scarcely heard them, but still stood leaning against the doorpost, gaping with astonishment. Of course he had always known that there was something unusual about the Beeman, but as to who he really was he had never had an inkling. And this was Cousin Eleanor, the ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs |
