"Shelf" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... automatically when a five-drachma coin was dropped into the slot at the top of the machine. The internal mechanism of the machine was simple enough, consisting merely of a lever operating a valve which was opened by the weight of the coin dropping on the little shelf at the end of the lever, and which closed again when the coin slid off the shelf. The illustration will show how simple this mechanism was. Yet to the worshippers, who probably had entered the temple through doors miraculously ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... his shiny pennies rolled and rolled. And he looked and looked where they rolled, and when he counted, one was gone. So he looked and looked for the one shiny penny till he was tired to death. And so he climbed up high, into a funny bed on a shelf, and rested. And when he was rested he couldn't open the door, and he kicked and kicked, and then ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower
... more than read and write; but she was susceptible of development, and at times apparently conscious of the need of it and desirous for it. Once he had carried her a handful of violets, and thereafter an old pitcher that stood on a shelf blossomed every day with wild-flowers. He had transplanted a vine from the woods and taught her to train it over the porch, and the first hint of tenderness he found in her nature was in the care of that plant. He had taken her a book full of pictures and fashion-plates, and he had ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.
... the process of soap-making, the cost of materials, the care necessary in the making of soap, and the importance of its use. Get ready the other materials, and a box for moulding the soap, and let the pupils work together. After the soap has hardened and been cut, have it put away on a shelf to dry. ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Science in Rural Schools • Ministry of Education Ontario
... rabotajxo. Shawl sxalo. She sxi. Sheaf garbo. Shear tondi. Shears tondilo. Sheath ingo. Shed budo. Shed tears plori. Sheep sxafo. Sheepish embarasita. Sheepfold sxafejo. Sheet drapo. Shelf breto. Shell sxelo. Shell sensxeligi. Shell, bomb bombo, kuglego. Shelter (to screen) sxirmi. Shelter (refuge) rifugxejo. Shelve (slope) deklivo. Shepherd pasxtisto. Shield sxildo. Shield sxildi, sxirmi. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... day in a hamlet of German Switzerland; and the earliest writers of Greek chronicles may have held a position among the other senators similar to that of the farmer in the fens of Holstein who has been a student and in the evening, when he comes home from the plough, takes down his Virgil from the shelf. A man who assumed airs of greater importance by reason of his Greek, was reckoned a bad patriot and a fool; and certainly even in Cato's time one who spoke Greek ill or not at all might still be a man of rank and become ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... Queensberry. Dowagers as plenty as flounders inhabit all around, and Pope's ghost is just now skimming under my window by the most poetical moonlight.... The Chevenixes had tricked it out for themselves; up two pairs of stairs is what they call Mr Chevenix's library, furnished with three maps, one shelf, a bust of Sir Isaac Newton and a lame telescope without any glasses. Lord John Sackville predeceased me here and instituted certain games called cricketalia, which has been celebrated this very evening in honour of him ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... it out of the inside pocket of your coat, when I help you here in the snow," replied Albert. "I put it on a shelf and in the strain of your illness forgot ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... composedly, as if it had been a canister full of black-rapee or black-guard, that he had just lifted down from his top- shelf, "it's just Doctor Blister's saws, whittles, and big knives, in case any of their legs or arms be blown away, that he may cut them off." Little would have prevented me sinking down through the ground, had I not remembered at the preceese moment, that ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... she limped away. Poor girl! That's why she's left on the shelf and the others did a sprint. Thought something was wrong by the cut of her jib. Jilted beauty. A defect is ten times worse in a woman. But makes them polite. Glad I didn't know it when she was on show. Hot little devil all the same. I wouldn't mind. Curiosity like a nun or a ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... lawyer friend o' mine told me to come here and I'd find all the maps in the Century Dictionary. The man at the desk out there told me to come in this room and look in the shelves on the left and take it right out. Gee, the place is so big, I get all rattled. I found the Century Dictionary on that shelf——" ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... the foot, on either side, stand the Captain and the Colonel, like sentries. We have reached a shelf of rock, and we may rest. Here we perch ourselves, like sea-birds on a ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... screen near one of the many lounges, and I was on the point of approaching this place of concealment when Sinclair drew me toward a tall cabinet upon whose glass doors the firelight was shimmering, and, pointing to a shelf far above ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... confining his associations to one person, who, to all appearances, was a fellow passenger, and not a member of the tribe. He had learned to pitch his own igloo and hers. Not five hours before he had hewn away a hard bank of snow and built there a shelf for his bed. When his igloo was completed he had erected a second not many feet away. This was for his fellow passenger. In case anything should happen he felt that he would like to be near her, and she had shown by many little signs that she shared ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell
... fate reached the miller by way of Hazlan before the next noon. Several men in the Brayton cabin had recognized the boy in the moonlight. At daybreak they found bloodstains on the ledge and on a narrow shelf a few feet farther down. Isom had slipped from one to the other, they said, and in his last struggle had rolled over into Dead Creek, and had been ...
— The Last Stetson • John Fox Jr.
... (that is to say, ours), and the other one Karl's own. Upon ours were heaped all sorts of books—lesson books and play books—some standing up and some lying down. The only two standing decorously against the wall were two large volumes of a Histoire des Voyages, in red binding. On that shelf could be seen books thick and thin and books large and small, as well as covers without books and books without covers, since everything got crammed up together anyhow when play time arrived and we were told to put the "library" (as ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... was given over to a few well-polished kitchen utensils, a churn, and a bread-trough. The floor was of mother earth alone, but a strip of handmade carpet was laid down before the fireplace, and there was another at the opposite end. There were also a table, a spinning-wheel, and a shelf ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... and walked across to the hearth; then, cautiously resting his shoulder-blades against the mantel-shelf jammed with miscellaneous specimens, he bent ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... sitting room, after supper, Galusha was idly turning the pages of Camp, Battlefield and Hospital, a worn book of Civil War sketches, printed immediately after that war, which he had found upon the shelf of the closet in his room, along with another volume labeled Friendship's Garland, a Nosegay of Verse. Of the two, although a peace-loving individual, he preferred the camp and battlefield to the Nosegay; the latter's fragrance was ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... stock that dining-room out there. It was a hospital for decayed furniture, and it was in a worse condition when I got through with it. I went on and on, and at last got to a place where I could feel my way up, and there was a shelf. I knew that wasn't in the middle of the room. Up to that time I was afraid I had gotten out ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... were necessary. But the wheelwright managed to send the boy six florins, and that sum was immediately expended on Fux's Gradus ad Parnassum and Mattheson's Volkommener Capellmeister—heavy, dry treatises both, which have long since gone to the musical antiquary's top shelf among the dust and the cobwebs. These "dull and verbose dampers to enthusiasm" Haydn made his constant companions, in default of a living instructor, and, like Longfellow's "great men," toiled upwards in the night, ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... cannot go yourself, To win the berries from the thickets wild, And housewife skill, instead, has filled the shelf With blackberry jam, "by best receipts compiled,— Not made with country sugar, for too strong The flavors that to maple-juice belong; But foreign sugar, nicely mixed 'to suit The taste,' spoils not the fragrance ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... ropes to the heavier pieces of iron sections, and we saved several tons of her cargo, which we placed upon the steamer and upon my diahbeeah. This lightened the wreck, and we then prepared a bed for her by cutting away the abrupt bank, and forming a shelf on the flooded shore in a depth of three feet of water, upon which we might be able to haul her when floated to the surface. We laid out the steamer's purchase with an anchor secured upon the shore, and the day ended successfully by hauling the wreck exactly parallel to the bank, with ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... quarters of the workmen, but in one of the rooms was a desk, and from it a ladder led to an unfinished attic. Boldly climbing the ladder and flashing their torch about they quickly located a high-powered wireless outfit. It was mounted on a sliding shelf by which it could be quickly concealed in a secret cupboard, but evidently the plotters had felt so secure from intrusion in their retreat that they had been in the habit ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... counting-house, and on my first appearance in it, before any of the other clerks had arrived, he was there to receive me. He took me round to the different desks, and explained the business transacted at each of them. "And there, Mr James, look there," he said, pointing to a line of ponderous folios on a shelf within easy distance of where he himself sat: "see, we have Swift's works, a handsome edition too, eh!" and ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... towns on Corpus Christi Day. For furniture it boasted a vast four-post bedstead with canopy, valances and quilt of crimson serge, a couple of worm-eaten armchairs, two tapestry-covered chairs in walnut wood, an aged bureau, and a timepiece on the mantel-shelf. The Seigneur Rouzeau, Jerome-Nicolas' master and predecessor, had furnished the homely old-world room; it was just as ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... should go a step further; I should give the boy one of the White Cross papers, "A Strange Companion."[14] It is impossible to lay down hard and fast rules; it is impossible to make so many jam-pots of even young humanity, to be tied up and labelled and arranged upon the same shelf. Each individuality has to be dealt with in all its mysterious idiosyncrasy. One boy may be so reserved that it is better to write to him than to talk face to face; another may find the greatest possible strength and comfort in freedom ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... a big rock-sink or round, deep basin, with, a pool of water at the bottom, and a cave that extended under a shelf. ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin
... and you see a farmhouse kitchen, just as Mother Goose promised. At the back, opposite to you, is a fire-place, with a mantel shelf over it. A bright fire is burning. On the mantel is a lamp, lighted, and an unlighted candle; also some other things that you'll hear about later. There is a cupboard against the back wall. At one side ...
— The Christmas Dinner • Shepherd Knapp
... plays and poems are included in only six volumes of ideally handy and convenient size, neither too large for the pocket nor too small for the shelf. Each volume contains an artistic coloured frontispiece and a decorative title-page. The binding is specially neat and tasteful, and there is a choice of three distinct styles of cloth and leather bindings, at from ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... Italian departed, giving one last lingering glance at his precious violin, as Eliakim took it roughly and deposited it upon a shelf behind him. But he thought of his little daughter at home, and the means of relief which he held in his hand, and a smile of joy lightened his melancholy features. The future might be dark and unpromising, but for three days, at any rate, she ...
— Paul the Peddler - The Fortunes of a Young Street Merchant • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... almost as though it had never been. To remember that we did know once is not a sign of possession but a sign of loss; it is like the number of an engraving which is no longer on its nail, the title of a volume no longer to be found on its shelf. My mind is the empty frame of a thousand vanished images. Sharpened by incessant training, it is all culture, but it has retained hardly anything in its meshes. It is without matter, and is only form. It no longer has ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... as for Julius and Skirrl, the draw-in test was made by putting food on a shelf outside the cage, beyond the reach of the animal, and placing in the cage with the animal one or two sticks long enough to be used for drawing in ...
— The Mental Life of Monkeys and Apes - A Study of Ideational Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... His diction—in prose, at least—is almost perfect, and his poetical style not unpleasing. His industry, his learning, and his care in production must be acknowledged; but his poems are very little read, and, in spite of his own prophecies, are doomed to the shelf rather than retained upon the table. Like Wordsworth, he was one of the most egotistical of men; he had no greater admirer than Robert Southey; and had his exertions not been equal to his self-laudation, he would have ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... across the lawn and entered the house by way of the dining-room window. She went very quietly to her bedroom. Before undressing she opened her wardrobe, lifted out two dresses which lay folded on a shelf and took out the store of provisions which she had secured at dinner time. She wrapped up the duck and the fish in paper, nice white paper taken from the bottoms of the drawers in her dressing table. The herrings' roes on toast, originally a savoury, she ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... the whole course, hand in hand with piece playing; technic for its own sake, outside the playing of compositions. And why not? Is the technic of an art ever quite finished? Can it ever be laid away on the shelf and considered complete? Must it not always be kept in ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... herself, let alone speaking it out; and I'd a got up and obeyed her if I'd a been dead. As we was passing through the setting-room the old man he took up his hat, and the shingle-nail fell out on the floor, and he just merely picked it up and laid it on the mantel-shelf, and never said nothing, and went out. Tom see him do it, and remembered about the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... human. Eva shut the door on them, quickly. Some bottles on the dresser. A jar of pomade. An ointment such as a man uses who is growing bald and is panic-stricken too late. An insurance calendar on the wall. Some rhubarb-and-soda mixture on the shelf in the bathroom, and a little ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... said to live for more than a hundred years. I am, however, not prepared to say that it was the same pair of birds that used, year after year, to build on the same rock-shelf among the precipices of Navity, from the times of my great-grandfather's boyhood ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... enthroned still upon that funeral couch, as upon a velvet armchair; he had not abdicated one title of his majesty. God, who had not punished him, cannot, will not punish me, who have done nothing." A strange sound attracted the young man's attention. He looked round him, and saw on the mantel-shelf, just below an enormous crucifix, coarsely painted in fresco on the wall, a rat of enormous size engaged in nibbling a piece of dry bread, but fixing all the time, an intelligent and inquiring look upon the new occupant of the cell. The king could not resist a sudden impulse ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... and took their leave. Hsi Jen retraced her steps into the house to fetch a tray in which to place the presents intended for Shih Hsiang-yn, but she discovered the shelf for trays empty. Upon turning round, however, she caught sight of Ch'ing Wen, Ch'iu Wen, She Yeh and the other girls, seated together, busy with their needlework. "Where is the white cornelian tray with twisted threads gone to?" ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... for such refinements in the way of wine. Yet the total had mounted up in spite of all forbearance, and Miss Joliffe was at this moment reminded of its gravity by the gold-foil necks of three bottles of the universally-appreciated Duc de Bentivoglio brand, which still projected from a shelf above her head. Of Dr Ennefer's account she scarcely dared even to think; and there was perhaps less need of her doing so, for he never sent it in, knowing very well that she would pay it as she could, and being quite prepared to remit it entirely if she ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... that, by half-past two o'clock next morning, wearing cotton gloves and dark spectacles to hide the glare from the jet, they stood together before the great safe at the back of Matheson and Wilson's, the well-known jewellers, and while Ansell put up his hand and cleared shelf after shelf of magnificent ornaments, Adolphe expertly packed them away into the small black canvas ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... restored sufficient leaping power to my weary legs to leave me head down and only my racquets out of the snow—all for a covey of white partridges on which I had nearly trodden. At length we made a tiny winter cottage. The nurse slept on the bench, the doctor on the floor, the driver on a shelf. Our generous host had almost to hang himself on a hook. The dogs went hungry. But as we boiled our kettle, all agreed that we would not have exchanged the experience for ten rides in ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... literature when money was expended and pains taken with these hopeless ventures. The change in popular taste, moreover, must not mislead us into supposing that writings which are arid to us now were necessarily devoid of interest to contemporary readers. We take down from the shelf the solitary volume which contains the "American Magazine," and its reading-matter looks as faded to our eyes as the leather upon the covers, but it was once the latest publication of the day. We can with little difficulty imagine that the monthly report of Warren Hastings' ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... broad sky, Giant, Is the shelf of a cupboard; I make bean-stalks, I'm A builder, like yourself, But bean-stalks is my trade, I couldn't make a shelf, Don't know how they're made, Now, a bean-stalk is more ...
— Second April • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... "Tick-a-tock, tick-a-tock!" And I've not forgotten yet quite, How once, on a very still night, I was sitting just over the clock, When it gave such a terrible knock, With a whirring and whizzing, And buzzing and fizzing, That I tumbled headlong from my perch on the shelf, And, scampering wildly, I crowded myself Right under the door, through such a small crack, That I scraped all the hairs off the top of ...
— The Nursery, January 1877, Volume XXI, No. 1 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... left alone she began to feel hungry. So she went to the cupboard and cut herself some bread, which she spread with butter. She gave some to Toto, and taking a pail from the shelf she carried it down to the little brook and filled it with clear, sparkling water. Toto ran over to the trees and began to bark at the birds sitting there. Dorothy went to get him, and saw such delicious fruit hanging from the branches that she gathered some of ...
— The Wonderful Wizard of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... gentleman stopped at the hotel selling wire stove-pipe brackets. They were so constructed as to fasten around the pipe of the cook-stove, and make a very convenient shelf to set the cooking ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... that's just what I have come way down here to try to do for my sweet niece," ended Mrs. Stewart smiling with would-be fascinating coyness. The smile would have been somewhat less complacent could she have heard old Jerome's comment as he placed upon the pantry shelf the fingerbowls which he had just removed from ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... bow and quiver of arrows strapped to his back during their retreat, and now they lay on a shelf in the cave. Robert looked at them doubtfully and the eyes ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler
... grand-father's flight unlocked the door of a tolerable library; and I turned over many English pages of poetry and romance, of history and travels. Where a title attracted my eye, without fear or awe I snatched the volume from the shelf; and Mrs. Porten, who indulged herself in moral and religious speculations, was more prone to encourage than to check a curiosity above the strength of a boy. This year (1748), the twelfth of my age, I shall note as the most propitious to the growth ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... of the chair from its nail over the footman's shelf, and led the child by the hand up to the hall, having a lighted candle in her other hand. She stopped at a distance from the chair, and placed the candlestick in ...
— Green Tea; Mr. Justice Harbottle • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... points of their bayonets, the Republican sailors had found a very different use for the edge of their cutlasses. "The sight of my own and of the Accountant's offices almost sickened me. Every desk, and every drawer, and every shelf, together with the printing and copying presses, had been completely demolished in the search for money. The floors were strewed with types, and papers, and leaves of books; and I had the mortification to ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... rocky strata were strangely and fantastically displayed. On the further side the banks rose up precipitously, consisting for the most part of bare cliffs, though now and then a tree would root itself in some crevice. Below this the stream sank over a wide shelf of rock, in a broad full cascade, and boiled and foamed in the stony basin that received it, after which, grown less impetuous, it ran tranquilly on for a couple of hundred yards, and was then artificially restrained by a dam, which, diverting ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... man took the two candles from the mantel-shelf, lifted one high in each hand, and looked up toward the cornice of the room, above the chimney-piece. This latter feature of the apartment was of white marble, and in the familiar rococo style of the last century; but above it was a paneling of an earlier date, quaintly ...
— The American • Henry James
... rich; he was even poor. The price to be paid for Margaret's liberty was a bitter one, but it was that or nothing. Sydney faced it. He looked about the room. To him the walls lined with the dull gleams of old books were lovely. There was an oil portrait of his mother over the mantel-shelf. The weather was warm now, and there was no need for a hearth fire, but how exquisitely home-like and dear that room could be when the snow drove outside and there was the leap of flame on the hearth! Sydney was a scholar and a gentleman. He had led a gentle ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... up from table, and basket in hand followed him, to where he was busy with a big knife in the midst of her stores. Slices of bread were in course of buttering, and lay in ominous number piled up on the yellow shelf. Hard by stood a bowl of cold boiled potatoes. He was at work with dexterity as neat-handed and as quick ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... at Mathilde. His manner, always grave and attentive, was that of a reader who has found an interesting book on a dusty shelf. ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... in her confidence. It clothed her about like armour. Not for a moment would she doubt—she dared not! Harry was coming back to the house that afternoon. Would he break something—some little china ornament upon the mantel-shelf? He generally knocked over something. What would it be to-day, the mandarin with the nodding head, or the funny little pot-bellied dwarf which she had picked up at Christie's the day before? Stella smiled delightedly as she ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... get round this corner; but it is very sharp. Bravo, mare! And now we've a mile of level Macadam. I go to a circulating library and order home forty novels—any novels that are sleeping on the shelf. That is a hundred and twenty volumes—or perhaps, making allowance for the five-volume tales of former days, a hundred and fifty volumes altogether. From each of these novels I select one chapter and a half, that makes sixty chapters, which, at twenty chapters to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... again, with some noble savages, both in the live and dead state.—The dead one on the high shelf was killed in a Fratricidal Struggle.—They are always having Fratricidal Struggles out in that line of country.—It would be a good place for an ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 6 • Charles Farrar Browne
... observed some little specimens in Paris, on the Boulevard, in a shop of which they constitute the specialty. There is always a crowd about the window. They form a very pleasing ornament for the mantel-shelf of a gay young bachelor, for the boudoir of a pretty woman. You couldn't make a prettier present to a person with whom you wished to exchange a harmless joke. It is not classic art, signore, of course; ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James
... young charge, who seemed not exactly indignant but perceptibly disappointed, at her ladyship's slowness of apprehension. He plunged afresh into his elucidation of the subject. There was a water-cart with four horses, to grind the flour to make the bread, behind a glast on the chimley-shelf. He knew he was right, and appealed to Europe for confirmation, more to reinstate his character for veracity than to bring the details ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... two little volumes of my spare hours. They are of all sorts, there is a methodist hymn for Sundays, and a farce for Saturday night. Pray give them a place on your shelf. Pray accept a little volume, of which I have duplicate, that I may return in an equal number to your ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... room itself, which was but a shell for holding the great treasure of valuable books ranged along every shelf. As Violet's eyes sped over their ranks and thence to the five windows of deeply stained glass which faced her from the southern end, Mrs. ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... corner, we suddenly came in sight of a little settlement that lay half-way down the cliff. There was a bit of a cottage or two, two or three boats drawn up on a strip of yellow sand, a crumbling smithie, and above these things, on a shelf of rock, a low-roofed, long-fronted inn, by the gable of which rose a mast, wherefrom floated a battered flag. At the sight of this I saw a gleam come into my companion's eye, and I was ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... wear the backboard and faceboard, so often recommended by us, for an hour every day while reading or learning her lessons. The book could be set on a stand or shelf, and she could learn ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 353, October 2, 1886. • Various
... shrewd, sharp-eyed, little old dame, with whom * * * * fell into a confabulation, while I went into the next room with the labourer himself. The house was neatly furnished—with little ornaments and photographs on the mantel-shelf, and nothing of the happy-go-lucky look so common about the houses of the working people in Ireland, as well as about the houses of ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... bottom of the deed. Jack, being called upon by the justices to show cause, pulled out of his pocket an old memorandum-book—very greasy, musty, and ill-flavoured—and which, from the quantity of dust and cobwebs with which it was overlaid, had obviously been lying on the shelf for half a century at least. This he placed in the hands of his friend Snacks the attorney, pointing out to him a page or two which he had marked with his thumb nail, as appropriate to the matter in hand. And there, to be sure, was to be found, among a quantity ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... know them?" said the General. "Ach! Himmel! How they laugh. That work of yours (I think I see it on the shelf behind you), The Elements of Political Science, how the Kaiser has laughed over it! And the Crown Prince! ...
— Moonbeams From the Larger Lunacy • Stephen Leacock
... Los Angeles was not due till that evening at six. Never mind. The station was a secure place to deposit the twins and the baggage in till she came. He wished he could deposit the twins in the parcel-room as easily as he could their grips—neatly labelled, put away safely on a shelf till ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... indulgence of her mood by losing the spirit entirely. At night she was a spent rocket. What had gone she could not tell: her very soul she almost feared. Her glorious walk through the wood seemed burnt out. She struck a light to try her poet on the shelf of the elect of earth by her bed, and she read, and read flatness. Not his the fault! She revered him too deeply to lay it on him. Whose was it? She had a vision of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... once more, this time to replace the glass upon the shelf, his thin blond hair falling over his eyes as he did so. Markheim moved a little nearer, with one hand in the pocket of his greatcoat; he drew himself up and filled his lungs; at the same time many different emotions were depicted together on his face—terror, horror, and resolve, fascination, ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... school and the library, and says in a letter: "I read a paper some time ago which was published in a teachers' magazine, and have addressed our Cincinnati teachers. We purchased a number of the catalogues of the Young Men's Library of Buffalo, and have written in our corresponding shelf numbers. A few of our teachers have also obtained these catalogues. I judge that the children are beginning to take out better books than formerly. The celebration of authors' days in the schools has been very beneficial in making the children acquainted with some of the best literature in ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... road was blasted from the granite. It was widened to hang like a shelf over sickening depths or built up with concrete to withstand the wash from some menacing gorge, or tilted to cling desperately to a blank wall that offered not even claw hold for the eagles. And always it must drop with a grade that took no account ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... their approach. The road, accommodating itself to circumstances, allowed the towering wall to drive it three miles out of the way. Uncle Jake Norris, turning readily to reminiscences, connected the precipitous shelf with many of the mysterious disappearances that had at various times occurred in army ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... picked at random. Although there is no continuity, we hope that they will give you some idea of the style in which the books are written and perhaps the character of the subject from which you may form an opinion as to its place on your personal book shelf. ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... at a table and playing a game kind of like pushpin told me to go into a closet that she called Number 3. I went in and shut the door, and the blamed thing lit itself up. I set down on a stool before a shelf and waited. Thinks I, 'This is a private dining-room.' But no waiter never came. When I got to sweating good and hard, I goes ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... his work-room was that of color—color unlike that of pictures, flowers, gems, or sunsets, and yet of extraordinary richness and variety. Low bookcases, running round the room, offered on the broad shelf forming the top space for many specimens of that potter's art on which the old man had made himself an authority. Jars and vases stood on tables, plaques and platters hung on the walls, each notable for some excellence ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... of my heart and the delight of my eyes is my garden. Our house, which is in dimensions very much like a bird-cage, and might, with almost equal convenience, be laid on a shelf, or hung up in a tree, would be utterly unbearable in warm weather, were it not that we have a retreat out of doors,—and a very pleasant retreat it is. To make my readers fully comprehend it, I ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 265, July 21, 1827 • Various
... Feet-in-the-Ashes they would help him to find what he had come to seek—the three teeth out of the head of the King of Ireland. They searched and they searched all over the Castle. At last one of them opened an iron press and there on a shelf was a silver cup and in the cup were three teeth. Feet-in-the-Ashes knew they were what he had come for. He left the ...
— The Boy Who Knew What The Birds Said • Padraic Colum
... one. I knew that I could not pass him without being heard, and I knew that pass him I must. In fact, I could not have gone back had I wished it; for I had already entered upon the ledge, and was riding along a narrow shelf where my horse could not ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... breakfast, for the cookery was their usual part; but, one of them stepping to the battlements, our flight was observed before we were twenty fathoms from the rock; and the three of them ran about the ruins and the landing-shelf, for all the world like ants about a broken nest, hailing and crying on us to return. We were still in both the lee and the shadow of the rock, which last lay broad upon the waters, but presently came forth ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... old, but in a dry, smooth way, as fruits might shrivel on a shelf instead of ripening on the tree. Mrs. Lombard was still knitting, and pausing now and then to warm her swollen hands above the brazier; and Miss Lombard, in rising, had laid aside a strip of needle-work which might have been ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... is rather a puzzling question. But we may suppose that, when all were at home, each of the two box-beds would be made to hold three, that a smaller bed in the closet would account for two more, and that for the accommodation of two of the younger children a sliding shelf would be inserted transversely across the foot of one of the box-beds. Certainly, an arrangement of this kind would fail to be approved by a sanitary inspector in our times; and even during the day, when all the family were on the floor together, there was manifest overcrowding. But the life was ...
— Principal Cairns • John Cairns
... shelf on which the weights slide (see fig. 8) is graduated into equal divisions, and the weight is provided with a sharp tongue of metal in order that its position on the shelf may be accurately determined. Since the current passing through the balance when equilibrium is obtained ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... insects in either situation. They are a familiar, confiding, and gentle bird, attached to localities, and returning to them year after year. Their nests are found in sheltered situations, as under a bridge, a projecting rock, in the porches of houses, etc. They have been known to build on a small shelf in the porch of a dwelling, against the wall of a railroad station, within reach of the passengers, and under a projecting window-sill, in full view of the family, entirely unmoved by the presence of ...
— Birds, Illustrated by Color Photography, Vol. II, No 3, September 1897 • Various
... river of British Columbia. A few good furs checkered the spruce twigs which served as a carpet, and the canvas dwelling was both commodious and comfortable. A bright brass lamp hung from the ridge pole, a nickeled clock ticked cheerily upon a hanging shelf behind the neat camp cot, while the rest of the well-made furniture betokened a degree of prosperity. One of Savine's junior assistants, sent up there in an emergency to replace an older man, sat close by, and, because he dwelt in a bark shanty, ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... as it is justly called—a poor, insipid, not overclean curd cheese. The curds are often merely squeezed in a cloth, then turned out and placed upon an upper shelf to dry, where they look like the back portions of gigantic skulls until damp and mould somewhat destroy the resemblance. The kind called fat cheese is not much better. It is, however, made with greater ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... accustomed to offer, almost by heart. So after Mrs. Bell had gone home, as described in the last chapter, and after she herself had undressed the children and put them to bed, and had finished all the other labors and duties of the day, she took the bible down from its shelf, and seating herself upon the settle, so as to see by the light of the fire, as Albert had been accustomed to do, she opened the book, and then began to repeat such verses as she could remember. At length she closed the book, and laying it down ...
— Mary Erskine • Jacob Abbott
... give it up just yet, Lady Jocelyn," he said, cheerfully; "there's a couple of shelves still to examine. Suppose we try shelf number one, and see if we can find ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... again, and books once more! These are our theme, which some miscall Mere madness, setting little store By copies either short or tall. But you, O slaves of shelf and stall! We rather write for you that hold Patched folios dear, and prize "the small, Rare volume, black with tarnished gold." ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... interest and cunning. After a moment's hesitation he stole cautiously to the window, and seeing Frost was engaged in conversation with Jesse, he sprang back with quick steps to the cabinet. He hastily ran the tips of his fingers along the beveled edges of the wide shelf from end to end several times, each time the expression of alertness deepening into one of disappointment. He stopped for a moment and listened. All was quiet. Again with quick motions he felt beneath the edges. Suddenly his eyes brightened and he breathed ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... party, and not of the country and the people at large. It has the cabinet of the President, three members of which are from the slave States, and one who wrote a book in favor of Southern slavery, but which fell dead from the press, a book which I have seen, in my own family, thrown musty upon the shelf. Here then is a decided majority in favor of the slave interest. It has five out of nine judges of the Supreme Court; here, also, is a majority from the slave States. It has, with the President ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... work is considerably abridged: she throws open the windows of the several rooms not occupied as bedrooms, that they may receive the fresh morning air before they are occupied; she prepares the breakfast-room by sweeping the carpet, rubbing tables and chairs, dusting mantel-shelf and picture-frames with a light brush, dusting the furniture, and beating and sweeping the rug; she cleans the grate when necessary, and replaces the white paper or arranges the shavings with which it is filled, leaving ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... one minute, sir!" exclaimed Arthur, coming in, apparently much excited, just as Guly replaced the box on the shelf. ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... a low-roofed room, with a box bed and some pieces of humble furniture, fit only for a labouring man. But the choice treasures of Greece and Rome lay on the table, and on a shelf beside the bed College prizes and medals, while everywhere were the roses he loved. His peasant mother stood beside the body of her scholar son, whose hopes and thoughts she had shared, and through the window came the bleating ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... hoss, like arrows. Thinks I, "That's a hoss thief gettin' away with some stock"; an', allowin' Jack Moore'll be hard on his neefarious hocks, I'm lookin' back to see can I raise Jack's dust. The next I knows, an' all as sudden as a pan of milk from a top shelf, I hears a silv'ry voice remarkin': "Set your brake!" an' turnin' my head I finds a winchester p'intin' as squar' between my eyes as you-all could lay your finger. Gents, thar's something mighty cogent about a winchester that ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... call him—met with a civil and courteous reception from Bunyan; but he found the contents of his study hardly larger than those of his prison cell. They were limited to a Bible, and copies of "The Pilgrim's Progress," and a few other books, chiefly his own works, "all lying on a shelf or shelves." Slight as this sketch is, it puts us more in touch with the immortal dreamer than many longer ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... always an interesting curiosity, and for that reason alone well worth the little attention they require. The low-growing sorts, among which some of the most curious are to be found, may be given a narrow shelf or the edge of the plant shelf in ...
— Gardening Indoors and Under Glass • F. F. Rockwell
... on very good terms with a couple of jolly sea-urchins, whose round, prickly bodies were half hidden in the little holes which they had bored in the rock. The sea-urchins made him acquainted with some relations of theirs, a family of star-fish living on a flat shelf of rock near by. The star-fishes proved very agreeable companions, being both polite and pretty. They had lovely orange colored backs, out of which protruded their five arms, or rays, giving them the star-like appearance from which they get their name. Under these rays were rows of tiny feelers, ...
— How Sammy Went to Coral-Land • Emily Paret Atwater
... to The Woodman Inn he remembered, what he had forgotten in the morning, that he had left his cigar-case on the dining-room mantel-shelf. He pulled up, and giving Adonis to the hostler, who rushed forward promptly, he went into the inn. There was no one in the hall, and knowing that he should be late for luncheon, he opened the dining-room door and walked in, and straight up ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... feed dowgs wi'? Stan' there and dinna stir." She put a bit of carpet under the small, dirty boots, and as she grumbled she wiped her hands on a coarse towel that hung behind the door, and reached up for a tin box from the top shelf of the press beside ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... ran home, put his spelling-book on the shelf in his little room, took out his shovel from the box where he kept his playthings, and went ...
— Harper's Young People, March 2, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... dignity) That does not apply to me.... I was saying, you will no longer hear me speak, no longer see me in my living form.... Your eyes are about to close to the invisible life of the Things; but I shall always he there. In the bread-pan, on the shelf, on the table, beside the soup, I who am, if I may say so, with Water and Fire, the most faithful companion, the oldest ...
— The Blue Bird: A Fairy Play in Six Acts • Maurice Maeterlinck
... didn't know what they were, and then they seemed like some kind of Sparrows; so I went to the wonder room and looked at some of the books that you left out on the low shelf for us. I couldn't find any picture that matched, but then I began to read about Sparrows, and when I came to Chippy Sparrow I was sure it matched; for the book said it was a clever little fellow with a jaunty red cap that came with his mate to the very door and that children ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... trump!—There, two of 'em!— Two? A quintette at least. Mosquito chorus! A—ah! my cheek! And oh! again, my eyelid! I gave myself a stunning cuff on the ear And all in vain. Flap we our handkerchief; Flap, flap! (A smash.) Quick, quick, bring in a lamp! I've switched a flower-vase from the shelf. Ah me! Splash on my head, and then upon my feet, The water poured;—I'm drowned! my slipper's full! My dickey—ah! 't is cruel! Flowers are nonsense! I'd have them amaranths all, or made of paper. Here, wring my neckcloth, and rub down my hair! Now Mr. Brackett, punctual man, is ringing ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... with half a loaf of pound-cake,—the kind that keeps for years. Just at the same instant I had climbed up on a shelf and captured two glass tumblers whose contents seemed promising. Sure enough,—their labels bore the fascinating words: "Raspberry Jam." Jimmy Toppan presently discovered a can of soda- crackers. Mr. Daddles plunged once more into a cupboard and ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... in a moment. The old woman took down a black bottle from a high shelf, and set out with Cicely across the ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... little cakes which cook made particularly nice, and with them she ate part of a jar of marmalade which she opened for the purpose; next she took a tart or two, and then turned her attention to the row of pies on another shelf. Looking them over carefully, she chose her favorite, a custard pie. "Now I won't eat any old crust, as mother makes me," she said. So she took a spoon and began on the contents of the pie, thus demolishing, I regret to say, a whole pie. Then, calmly dipping into a pan of milk, ...
— Kristy's Rainy Day Picnic • Olive Thorne Miller
... not lying down: he was standing up with one hand grasping the edge of the bookshelf and the other holding open before his face a thick volume. The lamp wriggled in the gimbals, the loosened books toppled from side to side on the shelf, the long barometer swung in jerky circles, the table altered its slant every moment. In the midst of all this stir and movement Captain MacWhirr, holding on, showed his eyes above the upper edge, ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... dinner, but he did not wish his niece to go galloping around the country with him. To quiet walks in the woods, and through the meadows, he could, of course, have no objection. A good many of Mr Brandon's principles, like certain of his books, were kept upon a top shelf, but Miss Roberta always liked to humor the few which the old gentleman was wont to have within ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... no picture torn from an illustrated paper adorning the place, as in Verhaeren's abode, but on a rudely constructed shelf there lay just the same stack of "official letters," some of these two years old, some of last month, all dealing ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... could not get along Without their laughter and their song. Joy is not bottled on a shelf, It cannot feed upon itself, And even love, if it shall wear, Must find its happiness in care; Dull we'd become of mind and speech Had we no little ones to teach. No children in the house to play! Oh, we could never live ...
— When Day is Done • Edgar A. Guest
... bluff, and that abrupt angle had brought them to a point where the road dipped sharply down and lost itself in the rapidly running waters of a narrow creek. On the opposite shore the road came out again with a right-angle turn to thread its course along a shelf of higher ground as a narrow cornice might run along a wall. Below was a drop to the creek; above the perpendicular ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... an equal amount of manganese dioxide and place the mixture in a strong test tube. Close the mouth of the tube with a one-hole rubber stopper in which is fitted a long, narrow tube, and clamp the test tube to an iron support, as shown in Figure 22. Fill the trough with water until the shelf is just covered and allow the end of the delivery tube to rest just beneath the hole in the shelf. Fill a medium-sized bottle with water, cover it with a glass plate, invert the bottle in the trough, and then remove the glass plate. Heat the test tube very gently, and when gas bubbles out ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... the room from cupboard to cupboard, from shelf to shelf, in search of some new oddity. His eyes fell at last on an odd chest, pleasantly and quaintly carved, which stood in a dark corner ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen
... the boy sadly. "My father gave me some before he went away, but my cousin said I should only spend it foolishly, and she took it from me, and put it up on the shelf in a box where I cannot ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... the window into the lane, as if expecting to see some one. She listened as if for a footstep; but all was silent. She read again for about ten minutes longer, and then closing the Sacred Volume, rose, and, having laid the Book carefully on a shelf, opened the door, and went out into the garden, whence she could see farther into the lane, and remained for a considerable time leaning over the little wicket gate, in ...
— The Apricot Tree • Unknown
... expedition; namely, to help a lucrative client take the poor debtor's oath, and so avoid a partially unjust debt. On his return home he stopped at a country store to make a small purchase, and there at the end of the shelf he saw a cheap dingy copy of Carlyle's "Sartor Resartus." He purchased it, and read it in his wagon by the evening light. He had tried to read it before, but failed to make his way in it. It was the first clear ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... anything about Stoke Newton and old Crawley's resignation," said Rendel, quite prepared to follow her advice. "I don't suppose he takes a very jovial view of life just now, poor old boy. Oh, how I should hate to be on the shelf!" ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... now go to school, yet reading can hardly be considered one of the amusements of the habitant. In the neighbourhood of Malbaie, at least, rarely does one see other than books of devotion in a habitant household; the book-shelf is conspicuous by its absence. Of course newspapers are read but many of the habitants are still illiterate, or nearly so, and read nothing. Not less gay are they for this deprivation. They are endless talkers, good story tellers, and fond of song ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... before—and over I went full on my face. Terrible crash! Terrible crash! Paralysis now, I expect, in addition to everything else. Just my luck! A wreck, sir—a wreck! And I used to be the strongest man in the regiment. Ah, well, well, that's all over! I must be content to be on the shelf now." ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... Benedict the farmer, "welcome, Basil, my friend. Come and take thy place on the settle close by the chimney-side. Take thy pipe and the box of tobacco from the shelf overhead. Never art thou so much thyself as when through the curling smoke of the pipe or the forge thy friendly and jovial face gleams as round and red as the harvest moon through the mist ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... an Elbow-Chair, when the Author of a Duo-decimo has, out of a just Deference to his superior Quality, seated himself upon a Squabb. In a word, Authors are usually ranged in Company after the same manner as their Works are upon a Shelf. ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... door-post; coagulated on the lintel. She herself was smeared with it from the things she had come in contact with in the dark, and the slaves seemed to have been sitting in pools of it. The things she picked up off the table and shelf left rims of it behind them; there was more in the skillets, and the oil in the open palm- oil lamps had a film of it floating on the oil. Investigation showed that the whole of the rest of her house was in a similar mess. The good lady gave a complete catalogue of the household furniture and ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... on the high mantel-shelf and her head against her hand, Celia stood looking down on the vacant hearth. There was something of weariness in the attitude. What a delicate bit of porcelain she seemed! Allan had a sudden, illogical vision of a ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard
... absurd linen bag, which contains my valuables, I lift my head from the pillow gazing round for any glimpse of that much-desired brother. Now they've popped me onto the upper-shelf of a waiting ambulance; I can see nothing except what lies out at the back. I at once start explaining to the nurse who accompanies us that I've lost a very valuable brother—that he's probably looking ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... and a villain; A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe Of your precedent lord; a vice of kings; A cutpurse of the empire and the rule, That from a shelf the precious diadem stole And put it in ...
— Hamlet, Prince of Denmark • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... bit," said Mr. Marks, "don't you be too fast. Mother, give us down that tin box on the shelf over against the ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... neither studs nor watch-chain should offer offensive matter of comment, he took his way towards the dreary little den, which, filled with old top-boots, driving-whips, garden-implements, and fishing-tackle, was known as 'the lord's study,' but whose sole literary ornament was a shelf of antiquated almanacs. There was a strange grimness about his father's aspect which struck young Kearney as he crossed the threshold. His face wore the peculiar sardonic expression of one who had not only hit upon an expedient, but ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... a dive for the cake, which was on the lower shelf of the sideboard, and took it into the parlor to eat it. He got the crumbs all over the sofa and ...
— Good Stories from The Ladies Home Journal • Various
... Their floors may rest on the keelson, but should not come below it. Their height should be equal, only, to an exact number of times the height of a powder-tank when lying on its side, in addition to the thickness of the shelving. An additional inch for each shelf should be allowed for play or spring. The whole height in the clear should be limited by the condition that a man standing on the floor may reach the upper tier of tanks with ease. Four tiers of 200-lb. ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... inadequacy of the present system of defence, that we have not the heart to break the sleep of the great public by the repetition of these details. When children come into the library we put the inkstand and the watch on the high shelf until they be ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... floor, sir? No. On the shelf at the far end, with the can of whitening what I use for marking out ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... man had prepared his guests room as though for a visit of several months. He had put a bowl of roses on the table and a branch of laurel. He had put fresh blotting paper on the bureau. During the morning he had had an upright piano carried up. On the shelf by the bed he had placed books chosen from among his most precious and beloved. There was no detail that he had not lovingly thought out. But it was a waste of trouble: Christophe saw nothing. He flung himself on his bed and ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... methodism, but also with the situation of the Chapel in the middle of the village. On the dark December evenings there would be perhaps not more than half a dozen worshippers, each one of whom would have brought his own candle and stuck it on the shelf of the pew. The organist would have two candles for the harmonium; the choir of three little boys and one little girl would have two between them; the altar would have two; the Vicar would have two. But when all the candle-light was put together, it left most of ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... ran for the kitchen-door; Bauld Redrigs hard at his heels, be sure, He's wallop'd him roun' and roun' the floor, As wha but Redrigs can? Then Sam he loups to the dresser-shelf— "I daur ye wallop my leddy's delf; I daur ye break but a single skelf Frae ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... we are all with our own hands shaping our character not only for this world, but much more for the world to come, by every act we perform, by every word we speak, almost by every breath we draw. Butler is one of the most terrible authors in the world. He stands on our nearest shelf with Dante on one side of him and Pascal on the other. He is indeed terrible, but it is with a terror that purifies the heart and keeps the life in the hour of temptation. Paul sometimes arms himself with the same terror; only he composes in another style than that of Butler, ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... interval of recreation that had followed the evening meal Dave had missed his home chum and roommate, but had thought nothing of it. Nor was Dave now really disappointed over the present prospect of having an hour or two by himself. He went to a one-shelf book rack high overhead and pulled down one ...
— Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... aloud, as he set his teeth in dogged determination, and for another hour he struggled on, till, feeling utterly exhausted, he seated himself at the edge of the precipice at a point where he could divide the bushes and look down. Here, only a few yards away, he saw that there was a broad shelf some fifty feet below, and along it a mere thread of water trickled to a lower edge and disappeared, leaving among the stones amidst which it had meandered patch after patch of richest ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... planks beneath, that you would almost fancy you trod some old craft's cockpits, especially of such a howling night, when this corner-anchored old ark rocked so furiously. On one side stood a long, low, shelf-like table covered with cracked glass cases, filled with dusty rarities gathered from this wide world's remotest nooks. Projecting from the further angle of the room stands a dark-looking den —the ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... a steep black mass of stone, standing about two miles out to sea, off the coast of Berwickshire. The sheer cliffs, straight as a wall, are some four hundred feet in height. At the top there is a sloping grassy shelf, on which a few sheep are kept, but the chief inhabitants of the rock are innumerable hosts of sea-birds. Far up the rock, two hundred years ago, was a fortress, with twenty cannons and a small garrison. As a boat can ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... a small one, half filled with the bulk of a grand piano. About the walls ran shelf after shelf of music; opera scores and presentation copies in manuscript. A bust of Wagner stood in the corner, and on the wall behind the pianoforte was a large painting in sepia, dim, ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... be," said Mrs. Briggs grimly. "And I wasn't minded to let myself in for any questions. Yer see, my dear, 'e'd told me 'isself as the pore creature couldn't last the week. Well, I stuck the bottle on the shelf, and went to meet 'im. 'She's gone, sir,' I says. He come right past me without a word and stoops over the bed. And then, sure enough, quite sharp and sudden says 'e, 'You give 'er the pain-killer?' 'Just as you ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... their faces. How white the stars, and calm and true! How they blazed their single task! A coyote yelped off on the south slope, dark now as midnight. A bit of weathered rock rolled and tapped from shelf to shelf. And the wind moaned. Helen felt all the sadness and mystery and nobility of this lonely fastness, and full on her heart rested the supreme consciousness that all would some day be well with the ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... this time if he opens his eyes upon a gilt book, placed with other books on a shelf about the height of his eye, the gilt book seems to recede in the contrary direction; though his eyes are at this time kept quite still, as well as the gilt book. For if his eyes were not kept still, other books would ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... think there are none that can pretend even remotely to that distinction, but the Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors, and the Anecdotes of Painting, in each of which are Scottish authors or artists. If these should be thought worthy of a corner on any shelf of the society's library, I should be proud sending, at your lordship's command, the original edition of the first. Of the latter I have not a single set left but my own. But I am printing a new edition in octavo, with many additions and corrections, though without cuts, as the former ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... bit of bread from the cupboard shelf. He slipped it into a bag, caught up the lantern with his hook, and left the scow. He halted in front of Scraggy's dark hut and pounded on the door. The cat, scrambling to the floor inside, was Lem's ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... saving of energy is more sensible than faithful adherence to form. The soiled dishes, as they are removed from the table, may be placed upon the serving table. By the use of the latter, the dining table can be kept free from an overcrowded appearance and the hostess saved many steps. The lower shelf of the serving table is the most desirable place for ...
— School and Home Cooking • Carlotta C. Greer
... that Inverted Bowl of Skyblue Delf That helpless lies upon the Pantry Shelf— Lift not your eyes to It for help, for It Is quite as empty as ...
— The Rubaiyat of a Persian Kitten • Oliver Herford
... in London, only I was worried because my bonnet seemed to be too large for me. A loud crash in the kitchen disturbed my dream, and Temperance rushed in, dragging my sister Veronica, whose hair was streaming with milk; she had pulled a panful over her from the buttery shelf, while Temperance was taking up the supper. Father laughed, but ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... my dinner? I can't—shall I sleep? Then I don't get away from myself! Shall I think what a beau I have once been, and weep Like a belle, that is laid on the shelf? Shall I write? shall I read? ah, yes, that will do, But an old book is terrible stuff: Boy, get the new novel, stop, reading's so new, That a book ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 397, Saturday, November 7, 1829. • Various
... his pictures (Praise and no strictures) 'Ere this day week; Yet I can't speak Of them in print (I might give a hint) Till each on its shelf I've seen for myself. I've no one to send. Now I must end. None I can trust, So go I must. Yours most trulee V'la F.C.B. All well here, All send love. Likewise misses Lots of kisses. From all in this 'ere shanty To you ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... transferred a pile of paperbound books from a shelf to her desk. Sylvia recognized these as college catalogues and noted bits of paper thrust into the leaves ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... of our old pulpits built during the seventeenth century, when hour sermons were the rule, and thirty minutes the exception, the shelf on which the glass used to stand may still be seen. If I recollect rightly, that of Miles Coverdale was thus furnished, as stated in the newspapers, at the time the church of Bartholomew was removed. Perhaps this emblem was adopted on gravestones as ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 195, July 23, 1853 • Various
... and their children's children. Customs grew up slowly, and for some reason. Furniture, collected as wanted, found its place; all the routine went as by clockwork. Saturday's baking of bread and pies went each on to its own shelf, as the cows went each to her own stall. If the duties were physically ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards
... unconsidered trifles of the pillage, of which the destruction was being completed by the dissolving rain. Through the breach in a shattered house-front a clock was visible, securely fastened high up on the wall above the mantel-shelf, that had ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... not because she loved little, but much. The page of her life is one of unsullied dignity. Her appeal to posterity is one against the injustice of those who committed such crimes in the name of Liberty. She makes it in behalf of herself and her husband. I would put beside it, on the shelf, a little volume, containing a similar appeal from the verdict of contemporaries to that of mankind, made by Godwin in behalf of his wife, the celebrated, the by most men detested, Mary Wolstonecraft. In his view, ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... whilst, on looking across to the eastern valley, a much higher, but less distinctly marked one appeared on it. The road to the pass lay west-north-west up the north bank of the Yangma river, on the great terrace; for two miles it was nearly level along the gradually narrowing shelf, at times dipping into the steep gulleys formed by lateral torrents from the mountains; and as the terrace disappeared, or melted, as it were, into the rising floor of the valley, the path descended upon ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... need to be kept pretty. And then there will be heaps of cupboard-room and heaps of shelf-room—only all the shelves will be narrow, so that nothing can be put behind ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... which was youthful, yet very carefully adapted to her person, showed that she was by no means as yet "laid on the shelf," as Raoul Wermant elegantly said of her. She stood up, leaning over a table covered with toys, which it was her duty to sell at the highest price possible, for the place of a meeting so full of emotions for ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... irrigation. One of the features of the terraces is that the rains are saved by the walls that sustain the soil, and the gutters that guide the water conserve it, because paved with pebbles and carried down by easy stages, irrigating one shelf after another of rice or vegetables, whatever is grown, until the whole slope not irreclaimable is made to blossom and the mountain torrents saved in their descent, not tearing away the made ground, out of which the means ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... in charge and hurried down to the room, where Dermot was leaning over the mantel-shelf, with his head against his arms, in a sorrowful attitude, as if he could not bear to turn round and face me, I flew up to him, crying out that I knew he was come to fetch me to Harold; Dora was so much better that I ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... it, chile," said Aunt Judy, rising, and taking from a shelf a large piece of cold apple pie, "an' bressed be de foots ob ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... Berry and L. Lack, Journ. Anat. & Phys. vol. H. p. 247). Guarding the opening of the ileum into the caecum is the ileo-caecal valve, which consists of two cusps projecting into the caecum; of these the upper forms a horizontal shelf, while the lower slopes up to it obliquely. Complete absence of the valve has been noticed, and in one such case the writer found that no abdominal inconvenience had been recorded during life. The caecum is usually completely covered by peritoneum, three ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... dress that I have not worn since my husband died?' She looked at me in a queer way and said: 'Madame is laughing at me. Madame knows quite well that she wore the red dress last night.' Then she recalled everything in detail, how I sent her to a particular shelf where this dress was folded away and got her to freshen up a ribbon and press the skirt where it was wrinkled. Jeanne is also positive that I put on my black hat. Then, she says, I went out; I left ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... books she read, in the plays she saw, in the chance words she heard spoken by friend or stranger—always there was something to feed her fears in one way or another. Even in a yellowed newspaper that had covered the top shelf in her closet she found one day a symposium on whether or not an artist's wife should be an artist; and she shuddered—but she read every ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... enabled us once more to lie our course, and we gradually crept to the northward, until twelve o'clock in the forenoon, after which time it fell calm again. I went down to the cabin; Bang had been overhauling my small library, when a shelf gave way (the whole affair having been injured by a round shot in the action, which had tom right through the cabin), so down came several scrolls, rolled up, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott |
