"Flight of steps" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ship, the bearers amused themselves by racing with each other, a proceeding far from agreeable to us who were carried, particularly when we came to the flight of steps, which they descended at full speed, shaking the chairs to such a degree that we had some trouble in keeping our seats. On arriving at the bottom we were most hospitably received by ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... themselves being borne up a short flight of steps and down a long hall. Then came more steps. This time it was a long flight of stairs, the kidnappers getting their burdens up ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... a door leading into a sort of cistern, invited Morgan to enter, closed it as carefully as he had the outer door, touched with his foot a stone which seemed to be accidentally lying there, disclosed a ring and raised a slab, which concealed a flight of steps leading down to a subterraneous passage. This passage had a rounded roof and was wide enough to admit two ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... flight of steps, Smith moved with certainty, and a moment later Madden saw they were entering a great machine shop. A full complement of men worked at every lathe, table, drill or saw. The clang of hammers, the guttering of drills, the whine of ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... Carlton, she turned into Pall Mall, continuing along that thoroughfare without once looking back. Opposite the United Service Club she crossed the road, and passing across the square in front of the Athenaeum, descended the long flight of steps ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux
... marble entrance was crowded with departing guests. She edged her way to one of the pillars at the head of the long flight of steps, watching party after party descend to the waiting carriages. The dancing had not yet ceased, and strains of waltz-music came to her where she stood, fitful, alluring, plaintive. They were playing ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... sunk to nothing, made a quiet whisper along the feet of the precipices and tinkled on the little beaches that here and there broke the cliff line. The tide was just making and midnight had struck when Bendigo Redmayne, in rough-weather kit, stumped down his long flight of steps and went to sea. Brendon and Jenny stood above under the flagstaff, and soon they heard the launch purr away swiftly ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... in the reign of Stephen, stands on the bank of the river, and on that side is still tolerably perfect. Of the interior nothing remains except the foundations of a great hall, probably built in later times than the rest of the fortress. A flight of steps leads from the hall to the crypt beneath, which has loop-holes looking towards the river. The eastern wall has disappeared, but those remaining are fairly intact. The architecture of the castle varies, ...
— What to See in England • Gordon Home
... the forest hill, with a splendid prospect in every direction, stood the new baronial hall, large and magnificent, with panes of glass so clearly transparent, that it looked as if there were no panes there at all. The grand flight of steps that led to the entrance looked like a bower of roses and broad-leaved plants. The lawn was as freshly green as if each separate blade of grass were cleaned morning and evening. In the hall hung costly pictures; silken chairs and sofas stood there, so easy that they looked almost as if they ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... I am a man with five poor motherless children. My wife died of falling down a flight of steps ten years agone—praise the Lord for His mercies. For He is ever mindful of us, the sinful children ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... flight of steps to the story above. He found his acquaintance in, and at once broached the subject of his errand. Doctor Knox promised the matter his attention. The two men then embarked on a long discussion of Professor Schermerhorn's discovery of super-radium, and the ...
— The Sign at Six • Stewart Edward White
... village was a-foot. The people of Borth, of every age and degree, from the first householders and yeomen of the place to the fishermen's boys and girls, had come to wish us God speed. Reaching the school quarters they halted, the boys lining the roadway on each side of them, and filling the broad flight of steps before the hotel doors. When the cheers for "Uppingham" and our answering cheers for "Borth" had rung out across the sands to seaward, there was an interval, filled up with songs by the children, while they waited the arrival of the spokesmen, whom they had charged ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... stream. But that is of no moment. On the other side, within a biscuit's toss, so narrow is it, there are two boats; and on the landing-wharf, which is only a few planks wide, supporting a tumble-down flight of steps leading to a vine-covered ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... the iniquitous jugglery of the heathen priests. The statue of Isis, was, it seems, oracular, and stood on a very high pedestal, or kind of altar in the temple of the goddess. Within this pedestal a flight of steps has been discovered, ascending to a metal tube or pipe; which, fixed in the hollow body of the statue, and attached to its lips, the priest of Isis was enabled by speaking through this tube, to make the poor deluded multitude believe that their idol gave articulate answers to their anxious ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 367 - 25 Apr 1829 • Various
... street extending north and south. The stately mansions are placed each on its carpet of verdant grass, and a long flight of steps descends from every door to the pavement. Ornamental trees—the broadleafed horse-chestnut, the elm so lofty and bending, the graceful but infrequent willow, and others whereof I know not the names—grow thrivingly among brick and stone. The oblique rays of ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... narrow street leading down to the canal a thirteen-year-old girl placed herself provocatively in his way. "Mother's ill," she said, pointing up a dark flight of steps. "If you've got any money, come along!" He was actually on the point of following her, when he discovered that the old women who lived in the street were flattening their noses against their windowpanes. "One has to be on one's guard here!" he told himself, at least ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... at the station to carry Ernest up to the castle; and as he reached the front door, Lady Hilda Tregellis strolled up the broad flight of steps from the garden to meet him. Lady Hilda was tall and decidedly handsome, as Ernest had rightly told Edie, but not pretty, and she was also just twenty. There was a free, careless, bold look in her face, that showed her at once a girl of spirit; indeed, if she had not been born a Tregellis, ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... stepped sedately and quietly in his boots on the close, fine grass. Everything about Bowshott looked stately and beautiful in the clean, sharp air of the morning, when Peter drove up to the entrance after a long night journey and ascended the flight of steps ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... upon the pitched court, and in that court was the main entrance: naturally that was the one to be used. But in front of it was a great flight of steps, the whole depth of the ditch, with the marble gate at the foot of them; and not knowing the carriageway, he feared both suspicion and loss of time, where a single moment might be all that divided failure from success. Also at this gate were a ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... was everywhere well received by the peasant women, because he gave to them and their children these strange toys. One day, when he was returning to Odense, I heard the boys in the street shouting after him; I hid myself behind a flight of steps in terror, for I knew that I was of his flesh ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen
... the hospital door, that morning. Exhausted with the excitement of the battle, stiff with his half-dressed wounds, soiled and untidy and haggard, he had paused beside the ambulance while the attendants had lifted the stretcher and borne the Captain up the low flight of steps. Then, like a man in a dream, he had followed along behind them until, on the very threshold, he had raised his heavy eyes to see Ethel standing before him, a broad shaft of sunshine pouring down upon her to rest in the locks of sunshiny hair which straggled out from ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... past rush and sedge and weeping willow, by roaring weir and cavernous lock, into the shadow of grim stone bridges and out again into the sunshine, past shady woods and green uplands until at length we "cast anchor" before a flight of steps leading up to a particularly worn stone gateway surmounted by a crumbling ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... their inside shutters carefully closed. The stone pavement of the spacious courtyard was in some places partly covered with moss, and a few weeds had sprung up in the corners, and along the edges by the walls. At the foot of a broad, easy flight of steps, leading up to a covered porch, two majestic Egyptian sphinxes lay keeping guard; their huge rounded flanks mottled here and there with patches of moss and lichens. Although the large chateau looked lonely and deserted, ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... they seem to have been taken from the tree scarcely a day ago." And then he praises in a pompous fashion the folds of the Virgin's and the Angel's drapery, the silk veil over a chalice, and the perspective of a flight of steps which support the feet of the Madonna, &c. One of his first works was done for S. Mark's, Venice, in 1450. His reputation was much increased by the stalls of the Cathedral of Modena, made in 1472 ...
— Intarsia and Marquetry • F. Hamilton Jackson
... ornamented from space to space with huge grotesque figures of animals seated upon their haunches, among which the favourite bear was repeatedly introduced. Placed in the middle of the terrace, between a sashed door opening from the house and the central flight of steps, a huge animal of the same species supported on his head and fore-paws a sundial of large circumference, inscribed with more diagrams than Edward's ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... breaking ever and anon into crystal cascades. On the opposite side she soon struck into the mountain road that had been graded and tamed and improved by the hotel management into the aspect of a sophisticated driveway, as it swept up to the great flight of steps at the main entrance ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... on January 18, 1810, so that I am now nearly seventy-seven years old. The house still stands where I was born, little if at all changed. It is the first house on the left-hand side of the Market Hill, after ascending a short flight of steps. My father, at the time of my birth, was curate to his brother-in-law, Mr Wyatt, who was then rector of Framlingham. I was the younger of two sons, my brother Hindes being thirteen months ...
— Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome
... of a few minutes only he appeared again, on the top of the flight of steps which led into the garden from the house. He held by the iron rail with one hand, while with the other he beckoned to Mrs. Lecount to join ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... trouble nor expense to make his home comfortable. In the great garden were fruit trees from almost every clime; little channels of solid masonry led water from the well to all parts of the garden. Leading down to the lake was a broad flight of steps, guarded on the one side by an immense peepul tree, whose hollow trunk and wide stretching canopy of foliage had braved the storms of over half a century, on the other side by a most symmetrical almond tree, which, when in blossom, was the most beautiful object for miles around. A well-kept ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... a little late to dinner. Some dozen of us were already assembled on a flight of steps at the bottom of the garden when he appeared. He spied me at once [a woman speaks!] across the green lawn and a vase of tall fuchsias, and called out ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... old enough to crawl, he would watch to see that I did not get hurt, and if I got too near a flight of steps, he would stand between me and them, and pull my dress to get me away. If I went to crawl under him, he would lie down, and over him, he would stand up, and so guarded me safe till my nurse came, and she often found me ...
— Harper's Young People, April 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... feet high in the centre. What do you think of that for a room? It has a fire-place, and wide verandah, which is nearly 6 feet above the ground, so that I am high and dry, and have all the better view too, quite a grand flight of steps—a broad ladder—up into my house. The Mahaga lads and I ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... woman-like she went forward. Then the sweet, clinging scent of a rose bed drew her like a magnet. She descended a flight of steps and gained the second terrace. She thought of Trenholme and the picture, and the impulse to stroll as far as the lake seized her irresistibly. Why not! The grass was short, and the dew would not be heavy. Even if she wetted her feet, what ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... long steep flight of steps, and soon found herself in the street. The fog had grown thicker than ever. It was very dense indeed now. It was so full of sulphuric acid that it smarted the eyes and hurt the throats and lungs of the unfortunate ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... the shock. A thick fume of sulphur took his breath away. He sprang to the nearest window to obtain fresh air. The workmen farther from where it had struck had not been stunned, but stood motionless with fright on the topmost flight of steps. "Come!" cried Apollonius. "Quick! the water! The sprinkler! It must have struck on this side—that's where the pressure and the smell of sulphur came from. Quick, water and the sprinkler at the door!" The ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... (or Prater), "which was begun in 1246, on the site of the Norman one destroyed to make room for it, was a great hall over 130 feet long and nearly 40 feet wide. It was reached by a broad flight of steps, beginning in the cloister and passing up through the frater door. The steps did not open directly into the frater, but ended in a vestibule screened off from the rest of the hall, and covered by a loft or gallery. ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Gloucester [2nd ed.] • H. J. L. J. Masse
... and slippery as they proceeded. Shortly it became channelled with slime, and absolutely loathsome. The bloated reptile crawled across their path; and De Poininges beheld stone coffins piled on each side of the vault. Passing these, another flight of steps brought them to a low archway, at the extremity of which a grated door, now unbarred, led into a cell seemingly contrived as a place of punishment for the refractory or sinning brethren, who might be doomed to darkness and solitude as an expiation of their offence. The only furniture it ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... of their surroundings developed an unsuspected vein of curiosity in Cowlik, who pushed the companion-door open, and, seeing a flight of steps with some degree of light below, she began to descend. Whether Nootka's surprise at this sudden act of self-assertion, or her curiosity, was the stronger, it would be hard to say, but she immediately went after Cowlik. The ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... for part of the tackle had fouled, Bob and Jerry succeeded in lowering over the ship's side an accommodation ladder, somewhat like a short flight of steps. It hung above the Ripper's deck, and when some ropes had been strung for hand rails, Mr. De Vere was able to ascend, holding on by one hand, and was soon on the ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young
... there once. Unless the cramped stair that reaches it has been repaired you will find it something rickety. The newspapers, writing fifty-five years ago in the heat and haste of the moment, must have erred as to heavy pieces of furniture being carried up this last cramped flight of steps to be cast out of the windows into the street far below. Besides, the third-story windows are high enough for the most thorough smashing of anything dropped ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... at Colebrooke Row, it should be said, stands to this day (1911); but the New River has been covered in. There is, however, no difficulty in reproducing the situation. One descends from the front door by a curved flight of steps, a little path from which, parallel with the New River, takes one out into Colebrooke Row (or rather Duncan Terrace, as this part of the Row is now called). Under the front door-steps is another door from which Dyer may possibly have emerged; if so it would be the simplest thing for him ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... convenient and well-furnished little apartments, enjoying dormer-windows that opened on the meadows and forest, and possessing a very tolerable elevation, for rooms of that particular construction. Here Mr. Woods lodged and had his study. The access was by a convenient flight of steps, placed in the vestibule that communicated with the court. A private and narrower flight also ascended ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... acacias, and the lovely pepper tree. Standing out from a wealth of blossom and verdure was an old well, surmounted by some ancient and picturesque ironwork. Beyond it was a yet more ancient and picturesque house of grey stone, an equally venerable flight of steps leading up to the front entrance. The house was large, and whatever it might be now, must once have fulfilled some ecclesiastical purpose. It occupied the whole length of the large garden, the remainder being closed in by high walls. Opposite, to the right, uprose the ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... presides over all sacred days; (or, He that overwhelms Indra himself with His own excellent attributes), He that showers all objects of desire upon His worshippers, He that walks over all the universe, He that offers the excellent flight of steps constituted by Righteousness (unto those that desire to ascend to the highest place); He that has Righteousness in His abdomen; (or, He that protects Indra even as a mother protects the child in her womb); He that aggrandises (His worshippers), He that spreads Himself out for becoming ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... plates and dishes in the next room, and Marchas said to me, smiling in a con tented manner: "This is famous; I found the champagne under the flight of steps outside, the brandy—fifty bottles of the very finest in the kitchen garden under a pear tree, which did not seem to me to be quite straight when I looked at it by the light of my lantern. As for solids, we have two fowls, a goose, a duck, and three pigeons. They are being cooked at this moment. ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... A narrow flight of steps, hewn out of the rock, led up to the little cliff. At the top, and almost hidden by bushes, stood a low gate. Thence the path wound for a space between walls of budding hazel, and at its end quite unexpectedly a tiny cottage ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... at the magnificence which every where met his view. As he arrived at the far-famed Temple of the Sun, and was told to what deity it was dedicated, he bared his head, flung himself from his horse, and on foot, followed by an innumerable company of Romans, ascended its long flight of steps, and there within its walls returned solemn thanks to the great God of Light, the protecting deity of his house, for the success ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... Xystus, or garden. N. Piscina, with a jet d'eau. O. Enclosure covered with a trellis. P. Door to the country and towards the sea. Q. This enclosure, about fifteen feet wide, appears to have been covered with a trellis, and must have been much frequented, since there is a noble flight of steps leading down to it from the upper garden. It fronted the south, and must have been a ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... of whom he approved. His face was radiant with pleasure, and you might have supposed that he had already received a large return of profit. The excellence of his work would bear comparison with that of the best printers of Venice and Rome. Six years before his death he slipped down a flight of steps on to a brickwork floor, and injured himself so severely that he never properly recovered: but he always pretended that the effects had passed away. Last year he was seized with a serious pain in ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... fountains and jets of water poured into one large basin, in which were gold and silver fish. Beyond this were shady walks, which led to a lake on which floated water-lilies and swans. From the top of the topmost flight of steps you could see the blazing gardens one below the other, the fountains and the basin, the walks and the lake, and beyond these the trees, and the smiling country, and the blue ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... has the principal front of the main building opening upon a vast, so-called court of honor, inclosed by deep ditches, bordered by a magnificent stone balustrade. Nothing could be more noble in appearance than the forecourt of the middle, raised upon the flight of steps, like a king upon his throne, having around it four pavilions forming the angles, the immense Ionic columns of which rose majestically to the whole height of the building. The friezes ornamented with ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... time a cry, which must have made an impression. The whole court-yard had a striking air of cleanliness. The grass was weeded from between the stones; all was swept and arranged in its appointed order. Before the principal flight of steps grew four large lime-trees; their tops, from youth bent together and then clipped short, formed in spring and summer two large green triumphal arches. On the right stood upon an upright beam, which was ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... he ran the launch alongside a flight of steps on the mole, and helping Clare to land went with her to her house. They said nothing on the way, but she gave him her hand when he left ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... notice, instead of terrifying, could draw any body thither. They tell me the ceilings were dropping with wet—but can you believe me, when I assure you the Duke of Cumberland was there?—Nay, had had a levee in the morning, and went to the Opera before the assembly! There is a vast flight of steps, and he was forced to rest two or three times. If he dies of it—and how should he not?—it will sound very silly when Hercules or Theseus ask him what he died of, to reply, "I caught my death on a damp staircase ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... disappointed, unless his foible is to be disappointed—as, in fact, occasionally happens. Except for the miserly splitting, here and there in the older edifices, of an inadequate ground floor into a mezzanine and a shallow box (a device employed more frankly and usefully with an outer flight of steps on the East Side), there is nothing mean in the whole street from the Plaza to Washington Square. A lot of utterly mediocre architecture there is, of course—the same applies inevitably to every long ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... men. The noble embattled tower, forming the west front, with its two minor square towers, serve as appendages to the north and south wing, and are united by low walls. Within the courtyard, a noble flight of steps leads to the middle quadripartite, similar in aspect to Stonyhurst College, the ancient residence of the Sherbornes. This middle pile contains large staircases, branching out to long galleries, into which the several chambers open. One chamber, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... of the most beautiful spots in Bedfordshire. "In Bunyan's time," Mr. Foster writes, "we may suppose the northern slope of Houghton Park was a series of terraces rising one above another, and laid out in the stiff garden fashion of the time. A flight of steps, or maybe a steep path, would lead from one terrace to the next, and gradually the view over the plain of Bedford would reveal itself to the traveler as ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... a very mixed and motley crew they pushed their way up the long flight of steps. A collector stood at the top, and just as they were nearing their goal, he slammed the gate and refused further admission to the platform. They could hear the whistle, and the general bumping of chains that betokened the starting of the carriages. They ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... to the centre, though kept duly subordinate to it both in size and decoration, and crowned with stone cupolas. A low balustrade, of later date than that which adorned the roof, relieved by vases and statues, bordered the terrace, from which a double flight of steps descended to a smooth lawn, intersected by broad gravel-walks, shadowed by vast and stately cedars, and gently and gradually mingling with the wilder scenery of the park, from which it was only divided ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... musicians, clad in red trousers, black waistcoats heavily embroidered in sombre colors, and round fur caps, played odd airs upon the deck; while bevies of laughing women, almost all pretty in their light summer gowns, alighted from coupes and barouches, descended the flight of steps leading to the river, and crossed the plank to the boat, with little coquettish graces and studied raising of the skirts, allowing ravishing glimpses of pretty feet and ankles. The defile of merry, witty Parisiennes, with their attendant ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... as with Scheff he pursued the gravel path leading to the porter's lodge of Illowski's house. In Auteuil it overlooked the Seine which flowed a snake of sunny silver between its green-ribbed banks. Together the pair entered, mounted a low flight of steps and rang the private bell. Neshevna opened the door. In the flood of a westering sun the accents of her fluid Slavic face and her mannish head set upon narrow shoulders—all the disagreeable qualities ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... Ascending a broad flight of steps, as clean as it was possible for human hands to make them, we came to a long wide gallery, separated at either end by large folding-doors, the upper part of which were of glass; those to the right opening into the ward set apart for male patients, who were ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... them. Once with this concept of action clear in his brain, without timidities of hesitation and irresolution, he trotted aft down the long hall. Going around the right angle in which it ended, he encountered a narrow flight of steps. Among many scents, he recognized those of Kwaque and Steward and knew they had passed ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... designed by the High Priests of the Communist faith to instruct the people. It was played on the steps of an immense white building that was once the Stock Exchange, a building with a classical colonnade on three sides of it, with a vast flight of steps in front, that did not extend the whole width of the building but left at each side a platform that was level with the floor of the colonnade. In front of this building a wide road ran from a bridge over one arm of ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... Captain Harlow came and took his guests to visit the ballroom. From the garden they ascended a short flight of steps, and entered a spacious hall, lined with mirrors. Never had the little girls seen anything so wonderful. Wherever they looked they saw Betty, Ruth, and Winifred all smiling with delight. Captain Harlow called a servant, and in a few moments the man returned with a silver tray ...
— A Little Maid of Old Philadelphia • Alice Turner Curtis
... as a general rule that every work of architecture, of whatever style, should have somewhere about it something fixed and enduring to relate it to the human figure, if it be only a flight of steps in which each one is the measure of a stride. In the Farnese, the Riccardi, the Strozzi, and many another Italian palace, the stone seat about the base gives scale to the building because the beholder knows instinctively that the height of such a seat must have some relation to the length ...
— The Beautiful Necessity • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... moonbeams lay like silver on the stone terrace, and the shadow of the peacock fell from the balustrade like a second bird, Lady Hope complained of fatigue, and retreated into her own room, leaving Hepworth and Clara sitting upon a flight of steps which led down to a flower-garden, somewhat neglected of late years, which lay beneath the stone terrace and brightened the grounds nearest to the lady's apartments. Not far from these steps was a noble old cedar of Lebanon, rooted deep, where ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... the top of a flight of steps, was placed so near the gable angle of the house that it gave the impression of but one wing of a mansion originally designed to be twice ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... the stream wherefrom Hapi maketh his appearance; "'Abu'[FN176] was its name in the beginning; it is the City of the Beginning, and it is the Nome of the City of the Beginning. [It reacheth] to Uaua,[FN177] which is the beginning of the land. There is too a flight of steps,[FN178] which reareth itself to a great height, and is the support of Ra, when he maketh his calculation to prolong life to everyone; 'Netchemtchem Ankh'[FN179] is the name of its abode. 'The two Qerti'[FN180] is the name ...
— Legends Of The Gods - The Egyptian Texts, edited with Translations • E. A. Wallis Budge
... was until Richard had topped the first flight of steps. But then he came down to meet him in too much of a hurry, tripping, blundering the degrees, nodding and poking his head, with hands stretched out and body bent, like his who supplicates ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... when the front porch fell in with a crash, and was pulled out with a broken leg an hour later. But enough remained. Varney was instantly lost in a struggling and kicking hurly-burly of arms and legs, and was borne with them in a rush down the short flight of steps to the lawn. All, of course, could not reach him. So it happened that two or three, on the outskirts of the tossing group, heard the feet of reinforcements in the hallway and wheeled at that sound. Even in the faint light, ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... "it's better for me to go first." And Angela followed, with Nick close behind her, down a narrow flight of steps, more a ladder than a stairway, which descended abruptly from the threshold. One, two, three flights there were, so steep that you had to go slowly or tumble on your nose, and then down at the bottom of the third ran a long passage, ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... curving lobby, hung with pictures and furnished with velvet-covered benches where several unrecognised persons of both sexes looked at them without hostility, and arrived at an opening, on the right, from which, by a short flight of steps, there was a descent to one of the wings of the stage. Here Miriam paused, in silent excitement, like a young warrior arrested by a glimpse of the battle-field. Her vision was carried off through a lane of light to the point of vantage from which the actor held the house; ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... there is, within a mile or two of this village, a well which some former king made hundreds of years ago. It is, they say, great and inexhaustible, covered in by heavy stone-work and with a flight of steps leading down to the water in the very bowels of the earth; but no man ever goes near it because it is haunted by evil spirits, and it is known that whoso disappears down the well ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... New York, perhaps you would like to know just where this pool was—and still is. Well, then—go to the northwest corner of Central Park and go in by the little gate at the right of the carriage-drive. Then you will have to go down a flight of steps. Keep to the right, along the west side of the Park, and you will have to go only a few steps till you come to the pool, which is a little way up the bank, on the left, with the rocks behind it and the trees around it, as I have described it to you before. Then ...
— Fairies and Folk of Ireland • William Henry Frost
... an agonising king, I verily believe to be genuine. It is a dismal chamber, almost at the top of the house, quite detached, and to be approached only by a kind of footbridge, and from that descends a large flight of steps that terminates on strong gates, exactly a situation for a corps de garde." And speaking of Edward's imprisonment here, may be mentioned the pathetic story told by Sir Richard Baker, in his usual odd, circumstantial manner: "When ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... had his book. He lifted it out, placed it upon his knees, and rested his forehead upon it. And the next moment, as if whisked to him by a genie all his own, Cathay was about him; and he was with the boy, Aladdin, plunging down a flight of steps on his way to a garden that yielded fruit which was all ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... After a day or two at Spillman's Hotel, we moved into lodgings in the Via Porta Pinciana, the Palazzo Larazani. The street extended just below the ridge of the Pincian Hill, and was not far from the broad flight of steps mounting upward from the Piazza d' Espagna, on the left as you go up. In spite of its resounding name, our new dwelling had not a palatial aspect. It was of no commanding height or architectural pretensions; a ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... a sharp sound as of dissent, but he did not openly contradict her. They were nearing the opening, and the ground was rough and broken. She stumbled once or twice, and each time he held her up. Finally they came to a flight of steps that were little more than notches cut ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... were not aware of it at the time. Near the lake there is a stone quarry, and a cavern of some extent, artificially formed, probably, by taking out the stone. Above the shore of the lake, not a great way from Wordsworth's residence, there is a flight of steps hewn in a rock, and ascending to a seat, where a good view of the lake may be attained; and as Wordsworth has doubtless sat there hundreds of times, so did we ascend and sit down and look at the hills and at the flags on the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... out over the great front door, with its portico, its terrace and flight of steps beyond, and, further still, the broad sweep of the well-timbered park to close the view. The morning mist nestled lightly about the distant trees; and the cows were feeding sociably, close to the iron fence which railed off the ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... they followed to the door, through the arched corridors, up a short flight of steps, past a big room. Rollo and Jan waited impatiently while Brother Antoine unfastened three doors, one after the other, and then as the last one opened, the two dogs dashed out ...
— Prince Jan, St. Bernard • Forrestine C. Hooker
... view, and of the sweet subtlety of colouring which gives to them a magic all their own. One represents some Roman girls bathing in a marble tank, and the colour of the limbs in the water is very perfect indeed; a dainty attendant is tripping down a flight of steps with a bundle of towels, and in the centre a great green sphinx in bronze throws forth a shower of sparkling water for a very pretty laughing girl, who stoops gleefully beneath it. There is a delightful sense of coolness about the picture, and one can almost imagine ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... and the end wall on the right, supported on corbels of stone, was a narrow gallery, built of oak, the front carved in a series of open interlacing arches. Inside this were suits of costly armor, and weapons of especial value, which the armorer kept for sale. A flight of steps closed in by a paneled oaken partition descended from this gallery to the ground, and on each step was the straight demure figure of a carved saint in a pointed arch like a shrine. At the foot the stairway was closed ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... precious letter. The house presented an imposing chocolate-colored expanse, relieved by facings and window cornices of florid sculpture, and by a couple of dusty rose trees which clambered over the balconies and the portico. This last-mentioned feature was approached by a monumental flight of steps. ...
— An International Episode • Henry James
... clouds casting their slow shadows on the broad lawn, the dark spreading cedars of Lebanon standing on the edge of the bright flower-garden,—the old house itself, with its quaint gables and oriels, the broad flight of steps leading to the wide door,—the cheerful reception from the prim, but good-natured housekeeper,—her pride in the great hall, and in the pleasant, home-like rooms, in Vandyck's portrait of the beautiful ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... by, which I soon discovered to be the common prison of the town, but in which an apartment was assigned me separate from the other prisoners. The room contained a bed, table, and chairs, also a fireplace and a washing-stand. There was another door, which opened on to a balcony, with a flight of steps descending into a walled garden of some size. The man who conducted me into this room made signs to me that I might go down and walk in the garden whenever I pleased, and intimated that I should shortly have something brought me to eat. I was allowed to retain ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... loud coughing, and the voice of the man himself overhead. I ascended the stairs, and, as I did so, the girl began her song again, as if she had suffered no interruption. I gathered from a crone whom I encountered at the top of the first flight of steps, that the person of whom I was in quest lived with his family in the back room of the highest floor; and thither, with unfailing courage, I proceeded. I arrived at the door, knocked at it briskly without ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... other halls of the baraduree with grape; and after six or seven rounds, a party of the 35th Regiment, under Major Marshall, was ordered to storm the halls. With muskets loaded and bayonets fixed they rushed first through a narrow covered passage; then up a steep flight of steps, and then into the throne-room, firing upon the affrighted crowd as they advanced, and following them up with the bayonet as they rushed out over the two flights of steps on the north side, and through the courtyard which separates the baraduree from the palace. Other parties ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... formerly used by the Free Grace Believers as a place wherein to celebrate certain obscure mysteries appertaining to their belief. The upper story, devoted to the more ordinary worship of their Sunday meetings, was reached by a tall, steep flight of steps that led from the ground to a covered porch ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... door that might stand a siege admitted us to a small vestibule, and from this we passed into a paved court with a moss-grown fountain in the centre. Around this court ran a gallery, its heavy arches and columns supporting a second, to which we ascended by a broad flight of steps. A double door admitted us to the wareroom, where, tolerably secure from fire (the doors alone were of wood), were stored Turkish and Persian rugs of all sizes and colors. The Turkish were far handsomer than ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... of St. Mark— in the background is a gothic chapel, to which is a flight of steps; adjoining is the cemetery of the Ursuline convent, and several tombs are visible through a large ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... passed through a gate, crossed a lawn, and reached a long, steep flight of steps leading straight up the face of a cliff, to the grounds attached to a villa. With her hand clasped tightly in his, Mr. Dunbar and Beryl slowly mounted the abrupt stairway, and when they gained the ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... upon a stone in the wall, which gave way, leaving a space sufficiently large for him to insert his hand and pull upon some hidden mechanism with all his force. Thereon a piece of the wall swung outward as though upon a pivot, revealing a flight of steps, beyond which ran a narrow passage. Soa descended first, bearing the light, which she was careful to hold in such a way as to keep the figure of Leonard, and the burden that he bore, in comparative darkness. After her ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... and descending a flight of steps, we reached a part of the palace which I had not visited before, and were met by M. Corveau, who was really in command of the stables, though most of the fees went to a much ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... stopped at the foot of the flight of steps leading to the terrace, and when they had dismounted her father led her to the little room he had been in before, where they found a splendid fire burning and the table daintily ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... this episode we came to the city of Phutra. The entrance to it was marked by two lofty towers of granite, which guarded a flight of steps leading to the buried city. Sagoths were on guard here as well as at a hundred or more other towers scattered about ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... surround the city completely, and form, in a certain sense, the proudest and most admirable promenade that the world affords anywhere. From it are obtained the best views of the Cathedral and of the country around. The ascent to it is made by a flight of steps on the north side of the East-gate. A ditch or canal about twenty-five feet wide, runs all around the wall and used to render the battering of the wall a matter of extreme difficulty before the invention of powder and the introduction of fire-arms. The ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... his hand a pot of paint he had been mixing for the goal-posts, which were just being put up. On reaching the paling he suddenly ejaculated, "Bother! I've forgotten the brush;" and resting the can on the top of the little gate-post, hurried back up the short flight of steps, and disappeared through the ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... no further pause here, but led his friend up another flight of steps—while, at every stage, the windows and narrow loopholes afforded Kenyon more extensive eye-shots over hill and valley, and allowed him to taste the cool purity of mid-atmosphere. At length they ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... true," she assented, and then she kissed him again and let him go; he stood a step below her, and she had to stoop a good deal; but she went in doors, looking up to him as if he were a whole flight of steps above her, and saying to herself that he had always been so good and wise that she must now simply trust ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... full of perplexing turns and varied by many a little flight of steps, the two young women made their way to the principal parlor of the inn, where they found Mistress Burton standing expectantly ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... gained the end of the corridor, unmolested. There he found a short flight of steps, which he descended and came to a second corridor forming a right angle with the first. A lamp was hung at the foot of the steps, and by its light he discerned a shadowy figure standing at the further end of this ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... a handsome, well-built white mansion, giving the promise of desirable rooms inside, whose chimneys did not smoke or their windows rattle, and where there was sufficient space to turn in. The lower windows opened on a gravelled terrace, which ran along the front of the house, a flight of steps descending from it in its midst. Gently sloping lawns extended from the terrace, on either side the steps and the broad walks which branched from them; on which lawns shone gay parterres of flowers already scenting the air, and ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... attributed to Giotto; a fresco of the Holy Trinity, with Madonna and St. John, by Masaccio, that rare strong master; the altar, the fourth in the right aisle, dedicated to St. Thomas of Canterbury,—almost nothing beside. It is in the south transept, where a flight of steps leads to the Rucellai Chapel, that we came upon one of the most beautiful and mysterious things in the city, the Madonna, so long given to Cimabue, but now claimed for Duccio ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... to stand on stilts, holding their draggled skirts out of the mud of their untidy yards: some sagged on rotting sills, leaning shoulder to shoulder as if to prop one another up. From each front door a shaky flight of steps ran down to the unpaved sidewalk, where pigs and children and hens, and the daily tramp of feet to and from the Maitland Works, had beaten the earth into a hard, black surface—or a soft, black surface, when it rained. These little huddling houses called ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... Tenth Avenue. There was the old Colonial house, with its broad porch and wide flight of steps. It was country then with its garden and fields, its spreading trees and ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... yet speaking, the marshals brought forward the Disinherited Knight to the foot of a wooden flight of steps, which formed the ascent from the lists to Prince John's throne. Still discomposed with the idea that his brother, so much injured, and to whom he was so much indebted, had suddenly arrived in his native kingdom, even the distinctions pointed out by Fitzurse did not altogether ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... one was laid out, there could possibly have been a laboratory in the back. A narrow walk led in that direction and, instead of climbing the front steps, King followed it around the corner and found a basement door at the foot of a flight of steps. ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... of dignity from two small terraces, one above the other, in front of it, while the triple flight of steps was supported by balusters of granite. Two animals, which had once, perhaps, resembled lions, were placed one upon each side of the balustrade at the platform of the highest terrace; and they had been staring there for more than a hundred and fifty years. Behind the house ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... aware of it at the time. Near the lake there is a stone-quarry, and a cavern of some extent, artificially formed, probably by taking out the stone. Above the shore of the lake, not a great way from Wordsworth's residence, there is a flight of steps hewn in a rock and ascending to a rock seat where a good view of the lake may be attained; and, as Wordsworth has doubtless sat there hundreds of times, so did we ascend and sit down, and look at the hills and at the flags on the ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... lost itself in a fit of trembling, and her teeth chattered so that she could not speak as he led her up the broad flight of steps. They were all in the hall—Mr. Hastings, hat in hand, just departing for the stables; Mrs. Hastings, in a state of transit from dining-room to drawing-room; and Pliny lounging on a sofa, his head done up in wet bandages. He sprang to his feet, however, when Theodore advanced still supporting ...
— Three People • Pansy
... steps on the entrance side. Mrs. Cortlandt and King turned the corner of the piazza and walked that way. On the back seat were Mrs. Benson and Mrs. Simpkins. The gentleman holding the reins was just helping Irene to the high seat in front. Mr. King was running down the long flight of steps. Mrs. Benson saw him, bowed most cordially, and called his name. Irene, turning quickly, also bowed—he thought there was a flush on her face. The gentleman, in the act of starting the horses, raised his hat. King was delighted ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... of St. Roch, of which Louis XIV. laid the foundation- stone in 1633, replacing a chapel built on the site of the Hotel Gaillon. The church was only finished, from designs of Robert de Cotte, in 1740. The flight of steps which leads to the entrance has ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... Friday evening, we sought shelter under its ample roof from an impending thunder storm, of very threatening appearance, rapidly approaching from the west. We had scarcely passed the northern entrance, and reached the gallery by the nearest flight of steps, when the torrent—it was not rain, but an avalanche of water—struck the building; the gutters were filled on the windward side in a moment, and poured over an almost unbroken sheet of water, which was driven through the ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett
... scrutiny could barely make out the bygone plan of the Paradou. In the foreground, in a sort of immense amphitheatre, must have lain the flower garden, whose fountains were now sunken and dry, its stone balustrades shattered, its flight of steps all warped, and its statues overthrown, patches of their whiteness gleaming amidst the dusky stretches of turf. Farther back, behind the blue line of a sheet of water, stretched a maze of fruit-trees; farther still rose towering woodland, ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... then I resolved I would go out and see if I could not find a place where I could be by myself; for in the house there was no chance of it. I took Mr. Dinwiddie's Bible and stole downstairs. From the piazza where we had sat last night, a flight of steps led down. I followed it and found another flight, and still another. The last landed me in a gravelled path; one track went down the steep face of the bank, on the brow of which the hotel stood; another track crossed ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... the Frangipani, now in the possession of Count Nugent, and completely restored. In the castle is a collection of statues from Minturnum, a gift of Ferdinand I. of Naples to Field-Marshal Nugent. From it a flight of steps conducts to a pleasant field-path which rounds the shoulder of the next hill and brings one back to the steps by which the church is reached. The view from the plateau is very extensive, the islands of Veglia and Cherso, in conjunction with the spurs of Monte Maggiore, seeming almost to ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... church was as old-fashioned as its exterior. It was furnished with square box pews; the pulpit was a "wine-glass" one, and was reached by a steep, narrow flight of steps. Uncle Alec's pew was at the top of the ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... where it says that he glides downwards on a shaft of light radiating from a star. As a matter of fact he walks down the main staircase to the ground floor. Approaching Joseph he takes him by the hand and "leads him heavenwards" by the same flight of steps; and we are to understand that, in the opinion of Herr Strauss, the boy's subsequent career, as recorded in the Hebraic Scriptures, may be ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, July 1, 1914 • Various
... lower halves of the windows and hints of chintz at the upper portions; the door was open and revealed a tall clock in the hall, a stand of flowers, and a cat asleep in a large round chair; at one side a flight of steps led down to the kitchen door at which a buxom maid in bare arms stood in a pink gown and a pinker face, and at the other side was the boarded square that held the pump—the village pump—around which were gathered five or six bare-footed children, the hostler of the Inn, the village butcher, tailor, ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... Then affecting to whistle a hunting-air carelessly, he ran up the next flight of steps. Sir John was frankly waiting for him in the hall. He went ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... skinny girl was sitting about a third of the way up the carpeted flight of steps. Her face was drawn out to a point by a long, thin nose. "Here they are," she called up the stairway, showing braces on her teeth. She stood up and came down the hall. She was clad in a shortie wrapper that ...
— Card Trick • Walter Bupp AKA Randall Garrett
... distance they came to another strong oaken door. This, like the last, yielded to the efforts of the crowbars of the foresters, and they again advanced. Presently they came to a flight of steps. ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... dim-looking place enough, where the yellow blinds were nearly always drawn over the front windows, and the summer's dust collected in the corners of the high flight of steps, and was blown round and round in little eddies, along with bits of string and snippings of patterns or shreds of silk and cotton. The front door stood open every day from ten till five, to give buyers ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... Ducal Palace. Porch and entrance of Chapel, R. A semicircular balcony, L., with balustrade and marble seats, and an opening whence a flight of steps leads down to the city. The city lies out of sight below the terrace; from which, between its cypresses and statuary, is seen a straight stretch of a canal; beyond the canal are sand-hills and the line of the open sea. Mountains, ...
— The Vigil of Venus and Other Poems by "Q" • Q
... freedom of attitude expressed in this, the mainly interesting figure of the composition, show that Signorelli might have been a great master of realistic painting. Nor are the accessories less effective. A wide-roofed kitchen chimney, a page-boy leaving the room by a flight of steps, which leads to the house door, and the table at which the truant monks are seated, complete a picture of homely Italian life. It may still be matched out of many an ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... recently erected. It was a spacious house of the type usually affected by men of new wealth in those days—a structure four stories in height of yellow brick and white stone built after no school which one could readily identify, but not unattractive in its architectural composition. A broad flight of steps leading to a wide veranda gave into a decidedly ornate door, which was set on either side by narrow windows and ornamented to the right and left with pale-blue jardinieres of considerable charm of outline. The interior, divided into twenty ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... promptly, "Yes; in China." And that roof—if it was coming into Baerlaere that we saw it—is all that I can remember of Baerlaere. There was, I suppose, the usual church with its steeple where the streets forked and the usual town hall near it, with a flight of steps before the door and a three-cornered classic pediment; and the usual double line of flat-fronted, grey-shuttered houses; I do seem to remember these things as if they had really been there, but you couldn't see the bottom half of the houses for the ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... announce to the impatient Fathers the completion of the picture. The subject was the patron of the church, St. Francis Xavier, the great Jesuit missionary, baptizing the people of Japan. He is represented standing on a lofty flight of steps; behind him, in the distance, is a party of zealous converts pulling down the images of their gods, and beneath in the foreground, kneels St. Francis Borgia in the attitude of prayer. The picture was executed with such boldness and freedom, and excellence ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... against the place, and carried it in a few minutes; the garrison flying, as soon as the assailants gained the ramparts, to a pagoda standing on a very steep hill, defended by guns, and assailable only by a very steep flight of steps. The troops, however, pressed up these fearlessly; and the garrison, discouraged and shaken by the reports of the fugitives from the lower fort, had fled as soon as the British arrived at the ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty |
