"Floor" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... like a tower with many stories; some people inhabit the lower, others the higher ones. The inhabitants of the cellars and ground floor may, in their way, be good, decent, praiseworthy people, but they can never enjoy the same amount of light, the same pure air and wide view as those who live on the upper stories. Now you, my dear young friend, live several floors higher up than our good Paul Haber, ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... from the wall, and through the one small window in the west end of his room he saw the fading light of day outside. It was morning when he had fought Brokaw; it was now almost night. The wash-basin was where it had fallen when Henry struck him. He saw a red stain on the floor where he must have dropped. Then again he looked at the window. It was rather oddly out of place, so high up that one could not look in from the outside—a rectangular slit to let in light, and so narrow that a man could not have wormed his way through ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... recently to re-arrange my books, they lay in bewildering jumbled heaps upon my study floor; and, having in vain puzzled over this plan and that which should give the little collection a continuity such as it had never attained before, I at length gave it up in despair, and sat, with my head in my hands, hopeless. Presently I seemed to hear small voices talking in whispers, a curious ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... to learn how to talk, so't I wouldn't haf to. I guess he represents my idees purty well, though, all except this political idee. I don't know about that. I aint quite made up my mind on that point. I guess I'd better leave the floor for ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... across the floor, Turned amber from a yellow tree,— And there are yellow cups for four, And ...
— Ships in Harbour • David Morton
... This famous coffee-house was No. 1 Bow Street, Covent Garden, on the west side corner of Russell Street. It derived its name from Will Unwin who kept it. The wits' room was upstairs on the first floor. Some of its reputation was due to the fact that it was ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... had travelled with me. I farther added, it was my intention at present to travel peaceably through his kingdom into Bambarra; and that as a mark of my regard for his name and character, I had brought a few articles which my guide would present to him. Here Isaaco spread out on the floor the articles before mentioned. The King looked at them with that sort of indifference which an African always affects towards things he has not before seen. However much he may admire them, he must ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... what followed. Expected that stupendous occasion would be marked by dramatic scenes, possibly by outbreak of disorder. Nothing of that kind happened. Scene was indeed impressive by reason of Chamber being crowded from floor to topmost bench of Strangers' Gallery. Also, whilst PREMIER in unusually low-spoken, comparatively halting voice, delivered critical passages of his speech, there was movement marking intense interest. Multitude on floor of House bent forward to catch ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 18, 1914 • Various
... his arms by stretching. Released from his pressure, the table flew up upon two legs with remarkable swiftness, and then turned over upon Mr. DIBBLE and Mr. E. DROOD; bringing the two latter and their chairs to the floor under a shower of plates and crackers, and resting invertedly upon their prostrate forms, like some species of four-pillared ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various
... head upon his knee and wept like a child. "Never," said Douglas, "was I so determined to effect a result as then. Had Smith been taken from my protection, it would have been only when I lay dead upon the floor." The fact that he had no right to appoint a sheriff was not one of the "points of consideration." "How shall I execute my will?" was probably the only question that suggested itself to his mind at the time, and the logic of the answer in no way troubled him. The ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... that which he was merely entrusted to serve out. However, it rushed so fast into his mouth, and was so hot, that he was afraid of being strangled. It happened that he had bitten his cheek that morning, and the liquor bathing the sore place made it smart so that he put down the bottle on the floor, when, in stamping about, it rolled downstairs and made a fine clatter. His father ran out on hearing the noise, but was stopped in the way by seeing the young lady almost gasping for breath, and it was some minutes before she could say that he had ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... parties can be brought face to face. I can differ with a man much more radically when he isn't in the room than I can when he is in the room, because then the awkward thing is that he can come back at me and answer what I say. It is always dangerous for a man to have the floor entirely to himself. And, therefore, we must insist in every instance that the parties come into each other's presence and there discuss the issues between them, and not separately in places which have ...
— In Our First Year of the War - Messages and Addresses to the Congress and the People, - March 5, 1917 to January 6, 1918 • Woodrow Wilson
... connected him fearfully with her. That, however, which you may suppose the most potent to arrest my imagination, is actually the least: for what is not connected with her to me? and what does not recall her? I cannot look down to this floor, but her features are shaped in the flags! In every cloud, in every tree—filling the air at night, and caught by glimpses in every object by day—I am surrounded with her image! The most ordinary faces of men and women—my own features—mock me with a resemblance. ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... Chang Ku a messenger on horseback met us. He had evidently been on the watch, for after kneeling he galloped back with the news of our approach. Soon a dozen soldiers in scarlet uniforms appeared, saluted, wheeled and marched before us to an inn where we found rugs on the floor and kangs, a cloth on the table and two elevated seats covered with scarlet robes. Attendants from the yamen with their red tasselled helmets were numerous and attentive. Basins of water were brought ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... decency of tone which the Abstract affected; the other, an editorial comment upon the facts. Ricker read the first through without saying anything; when he saw what the second was, he pushed up his green-lined peak, and said, "Hello, young man! Who invited you to take the floor?" ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... one would ever know. But the house knew; the library in which she spent her long, lonely evenings knew. For it was here that the last scene had been enacted, here that the stranger had come, and spoken the word which had caused Boyne to rise and follow him. The floor she trod had felt his tread; the books on the shelves had seen his face; and there were moments when the intense consciousness of the old, dusky walls seemed about to break out into some audible revelation of their secret. But the revelation never ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... his hand—it was no more novel and amusing, as it used to be—and he was quite indifferent as to which he put on. He dressed himself in his brushed clothes which lay on the chair and went out, though not quite refreshed, yet clean and fragrant. In the oblong dining-room, the inlaid floor of which had been polished by three of his men the day before, and containing a massive oaken sideboard and a similar extension table, the legs of which were carved in the shape of lion's paws, giving it a pompous appearance, breakfast ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... to the shed with the little girls, and looked with troubled eyes at the cherished pieces of polished wood, and the fine tools scattered about the floor. ...
— A Little Maid of Old Philadelphia • Alice Turner Curtis
... they had, but Judith found them ill-provided, and set to work for them at once. Being a capable needlewoman she soon had them apparelled more to her liking, and the labour physicked pain. Sitting in the porch sewing, with the baby tumbling about the floor at her feet and Mart and Lucy building play-houses in the yard under the trees, Judith began dimly to realise that life, somewhere and at some time, might lack all she had so passionately craved, all she so piercingly regretted, and yet hold some peace, ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... down, and on his hands and knees struggled to collect them. One rolled away, and he had some trouble to get it, for it had lodged underneath the dresser. Chauvelin quietly waited while the old man scrambled on the floor, to find ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... Times," had expressed his tastes. Here in the almost severe wainscoting, in inglenook and chimney-corner, one found the index to his fancy. It was his fancy which had dictated that the broad windows, with sills at the level of the floor, should not command the formal terraces and lawns of a landscape-gardener's devising, but should give exit instead upon a strip of rugged nature, where the murmur of the creek came up through ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... away. Frank re-entered the hut. As he did so his foot kicked some object, and it jangled across the rough board floor. ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... great explosion as though the world had gone to pieces, and Ferragut felt the floor vanishing from beneath his feet. He looked around him. The prow no longer existed; it had disappeared under the water, and a bellowing wave was rolling over the deck crushing everything beneath its roller ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... have been the first to treat. The poem likewise possesses some antiquarian interest, owing to a description of a wild-beast show in an amphitheatre in which the animals were brought up in lifts through the floor of the arena. Calpurnius is sometimes supposed, on account of a dedication to Nemesianus found in some manuscripts, to have lived at the end of the third century, but even supposing the dedication to be genuine, which is more than doubtful, it does not follow that the person referred to is that ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... at the house. To completely verify my suspicions that I was being shadowed, I went the next day into the "F and F," a well-known caterer on Prince's Street. In the writing-room I wrote some letters, one of which I purposely dropped on the floor. I withdrew to the washroom and returning in about fifteen minutes noticed that the letter had disappeared. Making inquiries of "buttons" and of the "desk girl" I learned that a gentleman had quietly picked up the letter and without reading it had put it ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... Speaker's chair to the floor of the House to plead his policy of home production and home consumption, a principle for which he had fought a duel in his early Kentucky days, when he had been pronounced a demagogue for advocating dressing ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... was settled in my apartment, which was on the same floor with that of the Queen, she condescended to relate to me every particular of her unfortunate journey. I saw the pain it gave her to retrace the scenes, and begged her to desist till time should have, in some degree, assuaged the poignancy of her feelings. 'That,' cried she, embracing ...
— The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete • Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe
... She, accustomed to all the luxury that wealth could procure, no longer had any home except a poor thatch-covered hovel, whose walls were not even whitewashed, whose only floor was the earth itself, dusty as the public highway in summer, frozen or ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... in all cases decorated with a large number of holy pictures or icons, arranged in formal rows one above the other. It is a solid erection from side to side, from floor to roof, and in the centre are the royal doors, through which none may pass but the consecrating priest, or the emperor: and the last once only, at the time of his coronation. At no time is any woman permitted to enter ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... measuring 8 feet by 18 or 20 are not uncommon. These occur principally in the central and southwestern part of the cluster, while in the northern and northeastern part the rooms are uncommonly large, one of them measuring about 40 feet in length by nearly 15 feet in width and presenting a floor area of 600 square feet. Rooms approaching this size are more common, however, in the northern and northwestern clusters. In these latter clusters long narrow rooms are the exception and a number of almost square ones are seen. The smallest room in the village is in the center of the southern cluster, ...
— Aboriginal Remains in Verde Valley, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff
... broom that Hansel had thrown upon the floor, the mother started to punish him, but the boy was too ...
— Story Hour Readers Book Three • Ida Coe and Alice J. Christie
... such wonderful thoughts, and dreaming such wonderful wide-eyed dreams. At such times Myles saw again the dark mystery of the castle chapel; he saw again the half-moon gleaming white and silvery through the tall, narrow window, and throwing a broad form of still whiteness across stone floor, empty seats, and still, motionless figures of stone effigies. At such times he stood again in front of the twinkling tapers that lit the altar where his armor lay piled in a heap, heard again the deep breathing of his companions ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... oily men were still toiling in the fading light over the establishing of the old STAR press. Sashes had been taken from one of the big windows to admit the entrance of the heavier parts; thick pulley ropes dangled at the sill. Great unopened bundles of gray paper filled the center of the floor, a slim amused youth was putting the finishing touches to a telephone on the wall, and Sidney, bare-headed, very business-like and keenly interested, was watching everybody and making suggestions. She greeted Barry with a cheerful wave ...
— The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne • Kathleen Norris
... years later there was a famine in the land. Lelsing foresaw it and he dug a large hole in the floor of his house and buried in it all the grain on which he could lay his hand. The famine grew severe, but Lelsing and his mother always had enough to eat from their private store. But his brothers were starving and their children cried from want of food. Lelsing had pity on them and sent his ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... midst a couch of ivory plated with gold glittering sheeny, to which two dogs were made fast with chains of gold. Then Abdullah set down the tray in a comer and tucking up his sleeves, loosed the first dog, which began to struggle in his hands and put its muzzle to the floor, as it would kiss the ground before him, whining the while in a weak voice. Abdullah tied its paws behind its back and throwing it on the ground, drew forth the whip and beat it with a painful beating and a pitiless. The dog struggled, but could not get ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... the General in a state of extraordinary agitation, pacing up and down the three salons which formed the ground floor of the hotel. The moment he perceived the young man entering—"Ah, it is you!" he cried, darting a ferocious glance upon him. "By my faith, your ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... floor for yours. All the rest of the berths are occupied, unless the Boss is going to let you sleep in the office ...
— The Circus Boys on the Plains • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... own mind. They should certainly involve the acceptance of citizenship by the Indians and a representation in Congress. These Indians should have opportunity to present their claims and grievances upon the floor rather than, as now, in the lobby. If a commission could be appointed to visit these tribes to confer with them in a friendly spirit upon this whole subject, even if no agreement were presently reached the feeling ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... escape me this time," and rising, he began to stride up and down the floor, his eyes flaming ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... who, throwing himself with all his force against it, cried out, "They'm comin'! they'm after 'ee—close by—the sodjers. You'm trapped!" And, exhausted and overcome by exertion and excitement, his tall form swayed to and fro, and then fell back in a death-like swoon upon the floor. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... a smoke-stained fireplace beside which was strewn an armful of faggots. There was before it a number of broken and greasy dishes, filled with fragments of food. And all about on the floor lay the ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... he, dunting the floor with his rattan, "I see through you now; you think you'll get him put off on me. I suppose if I refused to take him in, you would be the first ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... Joseph sat with folded hands, and demurely Listened, or seemed to listen, and in the silence that followed Nothing was heard for a while but the step of Hannah the housemaid Walking the floor overhead, and setting the chambers in order. And Elizabeth said, with a smile of compassion, "The maiden Hath a light heart in her breast, but her feet are heavy and awkward." Inwardly Joseph laughed, but governed his tongue, and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... practised the dance under the tuition of her friend, the beautiful but ill-fated Hopoe. When banteringly invited to dance, to the surprise of all, Hiiaka modestly complied. The wave-beaten sand-beach was her floor, the open air her hall; Feet and hands and swaying form kept time to ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... born in a strange way, he very soon displayed a magic power. No baby ever grew so rapidly: when four months old he wrestled with the Bear and threw him easily upon the floor. And so the mother saw that he would be a warrior, and the ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... somebody is to throw a pistol through a window, they set the window in a convenient and emphatic place; they determine how many chairs and tables and settees are demanded for the narrative; if a piano or a bed is needed, they place it here or there upon the floor-plan of their stage, according to the prominence they wish to give it; and when all such points as these have been determined, they draw a detailed map of the stage-setting for the act. As their next step, most playwrights, with ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... matter he was of the opinion that there was no other youngster alive to whom such a thing could happen. That was very possible, for there was perhaps no other at whom the cousins of the nut-cracker had made faces from the floor and from the walls in the evening when he was just going to sleep. This very night the activity of my seething imagination culminated in a dream, which was so monstrous and left such an impression upon me that for that very reason it returned seven times in succession. It seemed to me as though ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... hammering the ends of their strands upon the stone floor, and I followed their example, and, having secured a hold for the finger-tips, went ahead with the work. I may say that until a man of delicate fingers has tried this occupation he can have no idea of the long-drawn and ...
— The Making Of A Novelist - An Experiment In Autobiography • David Christie Murray
... fine. Gentlemanly —that's his way, you know. High-toned friend that just happens to know of a good thing and thinks enough of you in a sort of reserved way to feel like it's a pity not to give you a chance to come in on the ground floor, if you've got the sense to see the favor he's friendly enough to do you. It's such a favor that it'd just disgust a man if you could possibly turn it down. But of course you're to take it or leave it. It's not to his interest to push it. Lord, no! Whatever ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... table, the protector had a bottle of wine brought him, of a kind which he valued so highly, that he must needs open the bottle himself; but in attempting it, the corkscrew dropped from his hand. Immediately his courtiers and generals flung themselves on the floor to recover it. Cromwell burst out a laughing. "Should any fool," said he, "put in his head at the door, he would fancy, from your posture, that you were seeking the Lord; and you are ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... astonishment, the window-sash was violently forced down; and, without a 'by your leave' or any word of warning, a strange uncouth figure, so it seemed to their startled gaze, came squeezing through the opening and fell on the floor of the carriage at their feet in ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... facade, only just commenced, differs from the others; instead of a pavilion in the centre, it will have a tower or campanile 160 feet high, flanked by two projections. The ground floor of this tower will show a stately entrance to the halls of Assembly of both branches of the Legislature, accessible ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... of the storm came the thud of torn branches striking the house and the sharp crack of breaking glass. In three minutes every pane in the west and north windows was broken and the hail poured in through the apertures covering the floor with stones, the smallest of which was as big as a hen's egg. For three quarters of an hour the storm raged unabated and no one who underwent it ever forgot it. Marilla, for once in her life shaken out of her composure by sheer terror, knelt ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... us as we climbed the stairs to the low-roofed room on the second floor where the creator of Shylock and Juliet was born—or was not born, if you believe what Ignatius Donnelly had to say on the subject. But would it not be interesting and valued information if we could only ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... years a woman lived in this dungeon. Under the creeper on yonder wall you can see the stone slab which was her bed. The floor of the hall shut her up almost in darkness, and from the hour she stepped down into this room she saw no human face, heard ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... Scouts in the Northwest; or, Fighting Forest Fires 5. Boy Scouts in a Motor Boat; or Adventures on Columbia River 6. Boy Scouts in an Airship; or, the Warning from the Sky 7. Boy Scouts in a Submarine; or, Searching an Ocean Floor 8. Boy Scouts on Motorcycles; or, With the Flying Squadron 9. Boy Scouts beyond the Arctic Circle; or, the Lost Expedition 10. Boy Scout Camera Club; or, the Confessions of a Photograph 11. Boy Scout Electricians; or, the Hidden Dynamo 12. Boy ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton
... manner, the poetry of this man is always on the stretch to be grand. He has been allowed to look for a moment from the anti-chamber into the saloon, and mistaken the waving of feathers and the painted floor for the sine qua non's of elegant society. He would fain be always tripping and waltzing, and is sorry that he cannot be allowed to walk about in the morning with yellow breeches and flesh-coloured ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... mused Sir John. "But if you're already up to the first floor, how can you be laying ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... Vandermaclin, who was sitting in the warehouse on the ground-floor of his tenement, "you come to purchase the famous bell of Utrecht; with the intention of fixing it upon that rock, the danger of which we have so often talked over after the work of the day has been done? I, too, have suffered from that same rock, as you well ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... opened by an old woman who had had the care of it since Mrs. Tracy had given it up. She threw open the shutters, and the slanting rays of the evening sun shone, through the casement on the dusty brick floor. When we followed her into the back parlour, she opened the door into the little garden, the neat and gay appearance of which contrasted with the dirty and forlorn aspect of the cottage. A spade and a rake were lying on the grass-plot in front of it. Mr. Middleton inquired of the ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... is 'aughty—'e draf's from Gawd knows where; They bid 'im show 'is stockin's an' lay 'is mattress square; 'E calls it bloomin' nonsense—'e doesn't know, no more— An' then up comes 'is company an' kicks 'em round the floor! ...
— The Seven Seas • Rudyard Kipling
... around the column of crystal. The Schrees attached a loop of rope to the top, pulled it carefully from the base. When it was stretched out horizontal upon the floor, the two Jivros set to work with little spinning metal disk-saws, cutting a line entirely around it lengthwise. Then they tapped it with small hammers, and the cut cracked through. Lifting off the top section like the ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... us as to allow him to enjoy the comforts of splendid club-houses, which are open to many persons with not a tenth part of his pecuniary means, he meets his friends in the cosy tavern parlour, where a neat sanded floor, a large Windsor chair, and a glass of hot something and water, make him as happy as any of the clubmen in ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... said anything. It is the better way, generally, with The Mysterious Person. We were beginning to feel as if he were through, when his eye fell on a copy of The ——, lying on the floor. It was open ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... brought them back to the hut. It was rather a run than a walk—Karl going in the lead, and arriving before either of the others. The bean-sacks were flung upon the floor—as if they had been empty and of no value—and then the strings and lines that had been spun by Ossaroo were pulled out of their hidden places, ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... James replied; "yes, perhaps it would. It was a first-floor window, and it looks over the roof and skylight of the billiard-room. I built the billiard-room myself—built it out from a smoking-room just at this corner. It would be easy enough to get at the window from the billiard-room ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... could not afford one of the best lodgings in Burcliff, and were well contented with a floor in an old house in an unfashionable part of the town, looking across the red roofs of the port, and out over the flocks of Neptune's white sheep on the blue-gray German ocean. It was kept by two old ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... unceremoniously in, delighted at the idea of the surprise we should give our friends. Proceeding to the parlour, or usual sitting-room, we found it empty, with, to our great surprise, the table and one or two chairs capsized, a torn scarf lying on the floor, and other evidences of a struggle of some sort. The sight brought us abruptly to a stand-still on the threshold—Smellie and I looking at each other inquiringly, as though each would ask the other ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... the habit of clumping through the morning in flat, heavy shoes, Miss Harrison's small heels beat a busy tattoo on the tiled floor. With the rustling of her starched dress, the sound was essentially feminine, almost insistent. When he had time to notice it, it amused him that he did not find ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... conscience so easily; and he, the priest, has pronounced absolution, has received his fee for so doing, therefore his duty is over, and he comes forth from the confessional box, grossly expectorating on the Cathedral floor—even this action showing how little he respects his calling, and the place which he above all others should honour. This to me has been utter desecration of soul and temple, and I have gone away sick at heart. ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... to the man who held that mind and character alone were the qualifications by which men and women were to be weighed in the social balance. If, therefore, the young ladies talked or showed inattention during their lessons, he became furious, and would tear up the music and scatter it over the floor. His rage, indeed, seems to have been quite ungovernable at times. On one occasion he was playing a duet with his pupil Ries when his ear caught some fragments of a conversation which a young nobleman ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... a little. The bracelet suddenly slipped from her hand and fell to the floor. Cheveril stooped and picked it up. He held ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... sheath, is almost a little fortune in itself. Content in his dwelling to sit on a bullock's skull, on horseback his saddle must be mounted in silver. His own beard and hair he seldom trims, but his horse's mane and tail must be assiduously tended. The baked-mud floor of his abode is littered with filth and dirt, while he raves at a speck of mud on his embroidered ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... paper quietly but with a swift, repressed passion, tore it across, folded the pieces together, rent them again, and tossed the fragments through the window to the floor. ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... no sympathy or mercy for the frail and famous beauty; for here she is tumbling out of bed in nightcap and nightdress, from which a huge foot protrudes, while she waves her fat arms in despair. A flask of Maraschino is on the dressing-table near the rouge pot; on the floor lie broken antiques; and a work on Studies of Academic Attitudes, with scarcely academic illustrations, lies near the window, through which is seen a line of British battleships ...
— The Eighteenth Century in English Caricature • Selwyn Brinton
... Time, O raging Bear; Take Bald-head, and the children spare! Lie still, O Serpent, nor let one breath Stir thy pool and stay Time's death! Steady, Hands! for the noon is nigh: See the silvery ghost of the Dawning shy Low on the floor of the level sky! Warn for the strike, O blessed Clock; Gather thy clarion breath, gold Cock; Push on the month-figures, pale, weary-faced Moon; Tick, awful Pendulum, tick amain; And soon, oh, soon, Lord of life, and Father of ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... Methodists at a cost of about $40,000, could not without a severe struggle get even the $16,000 which were directed to be paid over to it by Lord Glenelg. The matter had to be contested with Sir F. B. Head on the floor of the House of Assembly before he could be induced to obey the Royal ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... sailor, he returned below and was helped up with his sea-chest by the steward. In turn, he helped the steward up with the Ancient Mariner's sea-chest. Next, aided by anxious sailors, he and Daughtry dropped into the lazarette through the cabin floor, and began breaking out and passing up a stream of supplies—cases of salmon and beef, of marmalade and biscuit, of butter and preserved milk, and of all sorts of the tinned, desiccated, evaporated, and condensed stuff that of modern times goes ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... housekeeping," said the Doctor. "Some of the ladies say they prefer high apartments in a tree-top, while others like one-story bushes the best; but all agree that the ground floor is too damp for the health of their families. In a few days, or a week at most, this merry flock will have parted company, and two by two the ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... the well-known stairs, he received his first indication of life in the appearance of a cat from the second-floor rooms. At sight of him, the animal came forward, rubbed demonstratively against his legs, and with ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... condition, driven by registered, tested drivers at speeds not less than one hundred and twenty-five miles an hour—flashed his registry number at the control station, and shoved his right foot down to the floor. ...
— The Vortex Blaster • Edward Elmer Smith
... father has been kind to my boy, wounded and a prisoner in the midst of enemies, I ought to do something for you, Christy," continued Colonel Passford, looking on the floor. ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... had been run together, and a hall now comprised the whole ground floor of both. Wooden joists of the floors above made parallels down the ceiling, and it was still lit through the small-paned windows of the original cottages, through the squares of which the landscape outside climbed up and down over the ridges of the glass. At one end was the fireplace, ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... generation, legs appeared, but it was a long time before they became accustomed to legs and able to use them in moving about. A survival of this awkwardness, so say the Kayans, is still noticeable in the way in which children crawl about the floor, and in their clumsy walk when first they learn to stand upright. The heads of these first people were, furthermore, much larger than the heads of the present generation, and, since it was the ...
— Folk-lore in Borneo - A Sketch • William Henry Furness
... look round him, he found himself sprawling on the floor, knocked by the angry Briton into what is commonly called 'a cocked hat.' Not a word was spoken. A. wiped his face, led his partner to a seat and came straight to me, putting his arm in mine and leading me into the verandah. The Brazilian picked himself ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... six feet high by eight to ten feet wide by ten to twelve feet long, and one may be constructed in a month. An excavation is made in the earth, which forms the floor of the house; then the walls are built up solidly with stones chinked with moss; long, flat stones are laid across the top of the walls; this roof is covered with earth, and the whole house is banked in with snow. The construction of the arched roof is on the ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... remarkable from its size and perfect condition. Its summit is 1,200 feet above the level of the sea, and the interior hollow is 600 feet deep. Its external sloping surface presented a curious appearance from the smoothness of the wide layers of tuff, which resembled a vast plastered floor. Brattle Island is, I believe, the largest crater in the Archipelago composed of tuff; its interior diameter is nearly a nautical mile. At present it is in a ruined condition, consisting of little more than half a circle open to the south; its great size is probably due, in part, to internal ...
— Volcanic Islands • Charles Darwin
... turned to the left; and after a brief walk, mounted the rickety steps to the floor of the hut where dwelt old man North, and the winch for operating the swinging boom. Old man North was short, dark, heavy and bearded; he smoked perpetually a small black clay pipe which he always held upside down in his mouth. His conversation was not extensive; ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... as I breathe, support me by your presence, and do not draw down upon you the wrath of God by bringing such evils upon me who have given you no offence." This singularly tender petition was granted, but Chrysostom turned his home into a monastery, slept on the bare floor, ate little and seldom, and prayed much by day and ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... When the ship rocks violently, people who are standing up are thrown to the floor, but those who are sitting down ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... a description of the ball room, but the editors have requested me to the contrary. Some secrets of gorgeous splendor there are which are wisely concealed from the general gaze. But a floor three hundred feet square, and walls as high as the mast of an East Boston clipper, confer ample room for motion; and the unequalled atmosphere of the saloon is perhaps unnecessarily refreshed by fountains of rarest distilled waters. This is also my picture ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... inside, into a big living-room beyond. It was civilized all right enough, pleasantly so to a man stepping out of two days of desert and Mexican adobes. At a glance I saw the rugs on the polished floor, and the Navajo blankets about, and a big table in the centre with a shaded lamp and magazines in rows; but the man in riding-clothes standing before the empty fire-place wasn't civilized at all, at least not at that moment. I couldn't see the woman, only the top of her head above the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... gaping at a huge hole in the middle of the room. The wooden floor was splintered around the edges of the opening and several pieces of the chemical feed-line equipment lay close to the edge, with trailing lines leading down into the hole. They heard a low moan and rushed up to the hole, flashing their lights ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell
... minutes later, Angelica, kneeling on the attic floor beside Beth, cried aloud in horror, "Why, she ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... disinclination to each other of two boarders that meet together, but are not on the same floor. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... o'clock a. m. Following the Senate's example, it resolved to remain in session without any interval until a vote was taken. There was a strong band of pacifists in the House, some with pronounced pro-German sympathies, and they occupied much of the day with their outgivings. The House floor leader, Representative Kitchin of North Carolina, was one of their number. The debate extended through the night without cessation until 3.15 the next morning, April 6, 1917, when, after a wearisome discussion exceeding seventeen hours, the resolution passed amid ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... with an incomparable homeliness: but as things were I must either take or leave, and necessity made me enter, where we got eggs and ale by measure and by tail. At last to bed I went, my man lying on the floor by me, where in the night there were pigeons did very bountifully mute in his face: the day being no sooner come, and having but fifteen miles to Edinburgh, mounted upon my ten toes, and began first to hobble, and after ...
— The Pennyles Pilgrimage - Or The Money-lesse Perambulation of John Taylor • John Taylor
... broke from Christie like an involuntary cry of pain; then she hid her face by stooping to gather up the avalanche of hosiery which fell from her lap to the floor. ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... information was supplied to that worthy man by his valet, who went out and foraged knowledge for him. Indeed, what more effectual plan is there to get a knowledge of London society, than to begin at the foundation—that is, at the kitchen floor? ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... house, which Sulla inhabited when a young man, he paid for the ground-floor a rent of 3000 sesterces, and the tenant of the upper story a rent of 2000 sesterces (Plutarch, Sull. 1); which, capitalized at two-thirds of the usual interest on capital, yields nearly the above amount. This was a cheap dwelling. That a rent of 6000 sesterces ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... Well, let me tell you, Katharine Maitland, that house is a good one. Spriggs, he had it built first-class, with a room finished off in the roof—attic, he called it—three good rooms on the ground floor, white-painted clapboards an' reg'lar blinds, green blinds with slats turnin' easy as nothin'. Not like the old-fashioned wooden shutters, so clumsy 't you can't see out to tell who's comin' along the road without openin' the hull ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... my trust must be, My gentle guide, in following thee!'— He crossed the threshold,—and a clang Of angry steel that instant rang. To his bold brow his spirit rushed, But soon for vain alarm he blushed When on the floor he saw displayed, Cause of the din, a naked blade Dropped from the sheath, that careless flung Upon a stag's huge antlers swung; For all around, the walls to grace, Hung trophies of the fight or chase: A target there, ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... Maxwell admitted, and he began to walk the floor, with his head fallen, and his fingers clutched together behind him. The sight of his mute anguish wrought upon his wife and goaded her to ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... as he was alone he could hear it moaning, and for this reason he avoided solitude. He persisted in not returning to St. Prix, where the family usually stayed in summer, and reinstalled himself in his apartment at Paris, on the fifth floor in the Rue d'Assas. He would not wait a week, or go back to help in the moving. He craved the friendly warmth that rose up from Paris, and poured in at his windows; any excuse was enough to plunge into it, to go down into the streets, ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... he spied it on the floor of the sitting-room, near his wife's feet, and then hints that she strangled Lady Rachel to get it and turn it into money as she was desperately in need of cash for Maud. Mrs. ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... Rita! She's up-stairs in your wife's room! Something must have happened. Oh—" On the instant he was quite beside himself, terrified, shaking, almost useless. Cowperwood, on the contrary, without a moment's hesitation had thrown his coat to the floor, dashed up the stairs, followed by Sohlberg. What could it be? Where was Aileen? As he bounded upward a clear sense of something untoward came over him; it was sickening, terrifying. Scream! Scream! Scream! came the sounds. ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... that splintered more every moment in the cracked woodwork, and to watch the high wall and turret solemn and strong against the stars, and bright here and there at the edges with the light from the torches beneath. The guest-house opposite them was dark, except for one window in the upper floor that glowed and faded with the light of the fire that had been kindled within ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... given and obeyed, with Leonard Holt's assistance-for Blaize, who had crept into a corner, in extremity of terror, was wholly incapable of rendering any help-he conveyed his son to the adjoining room, on the ground floor, where there was a bed, and placing him within it, heaped blankets upon him to promote profuse perspiration, while ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... he, "Let him enter!" whereupon he came in and after kissing ground offered the salutation, "Peace be upon thee, O Commander of the Faithful!" at this Abu al-Hasan rose and descended from the couch to the floor; whereupon the official exclaimed, "Allah! Allah! O Prince of True Believers, wottest thou not that all men are thy lieges and under thy rule and that it is not meet for the Caliph to rise to any man?" Presently the Eunuch went out before him and ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... himself up to his full height, as if fighting for breath, and falls heavily upon the floor at Erminie's feet. Nelson's voice is heard ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... Little Luxembourg, the apartments on the ground floor which lie to the right on entering from the Rue de Vaugirard. His cabinet was close to a private staircase, which conducted me to the first floor, where Josephine dwelt. My ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... them to slay each other unintentionally on the island of Naxos, where they were afterwards worshipped as heroes. In punishment for their offences they were bound back to back with snakes to a pillar in the lower world (Hyginus, Fab. 28). The Aloidae (here connected with aloe, threshing-floor) represent the spirits of the fertile earth and agriculture, conceived of by the Greeks as engaged in combat with the Olympian gods. In contrast to these legends, Pausanias tells us that they were regarded as the first to worship the Muses on Mt. Helicon, while Diodorus represents them as historical ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... something appeared from the girl's pocket; he lifted one huge paw to beat her down; but a clenched hand, protected by a corded buckskin glove, thudded against his jaw; his knees weakened, and he sprawled upon the floor. ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... the Spaniards as had been the case hitherto, the inhabitants were all seated in their houses, hanging down their heads with their hair before their eyes, and all their goods in a heap in the middle of the floor, presenting all they possessed to the strangers. These natives were well shaped and industrious, and their language easily comprehended. The women and such men as were unfit for war were dressed in mantles made of deer skins. After remaining two days among these Indians, who directed ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... is pretty clear that two ladies were the chief 'agents'. The process was conducted thus: a 'chain' of eight or ten people surrounded a table, lightly resting their fingers, all in contact, on its surface. It revolved, and, by request, would raise one of its legs, and tap the floor. All this, of course, can be explained either by cheating, or by the unconscious pushes administered. If any one will place his hands on a light table, he will find that the mere come and go of pulse and breath have a tendency to agitate ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... the leadys had come out and were standing silently, watching, too. The gray sky turned to white and the hills appeared more clearly. Light spread across the valley floor, moving toward them. ...
— The Defenders • Philip K. Dick
... earthquake, which followed each other at the interval of fifteen seconds. The people ran into the streets, uttering loud cries. M. Bonpland, who was leaning over a table examining plants, was almost thrown on the floor. I felt the shock very strongly, though I was lying in a hammock. Its direction was from north to south, which is rare at Cumana. Slaves, who were drawing water from a well more than eighteen or twenty feet deep, near the river Manzanares, heard a noise like the explosion of a strong ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... in accordance with Article 76, paragraph 8, of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea; record summer melting of sea ice in the Arctic has restimulated interest in maritime shipping lanes and sea floor exploration ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... prim-looking, three-story house, such as might be supposed to belong to a maiden lady. He was ushered into a sitting-room on the second floor, where Miss Norris soon ...
— Driven From Home - Carl Crawford's Experience • Horatio Alger
... unhooked from without by inserting a hand through a slit in the fabric. An uncarpeted pocket of hall lay deep in absolute blackness. Miss Hoag fumbled for the switch, finally leaving the Baron to the meager comfort of his first-floor back. ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... and the Settlement thereof cost much Money." Chancel and nave are separated by a screen of carved oak; the font (Norman) was discovered during the restoration of the church; there is a piscina in the S. aisle. The clerestory was added and the chancel restored in 1884; on the chancel floor is a brass to Lady Margaret Denny (d. 1648), "a maid of honour in ordinary for five years to Queen Elizabeth of blessed memory". There is also a memorial to Sir George Duckett, Bart. (d. 1822), who increased the facilities ...
— Hertfordshire • Herbert W Tompkins
... the little hut, whose floor was nothing but solid, trampled-down earth, and began to examine a rude-looking cot that ran along all one side ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler
... wainscotted with oak, with plain chairs of the same, covered with dark blue damask. Everywhere else the chairs are of blue cloth. The simplicity and extreme neatness of the whole house, which is vast, are very remarkable. A large apartment above (for that I have mentioned is on the ground-floor), consisting of five rooms, and destined by Louis Quatorze for Madame de Maintenon, is now the infirmary, with neat white linen beds, and decorated with every text of Scripture by which could be insinuated that the foundress was a Queen. The hour of vespers being ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... that overset his brains, certain it is that when the pirates left the Belle Helen, carrying with them the young lady and Barnaby and the traveling trunks, those left aboard the Belle Helen found Sir John Malyoe lying in a fit upon the floor, frothing at the mouth and black in the face, as though he had been choked, and so took him away to his berth, where, the next morning about ten o'clock, he died, without once having opened his eyes or spoken ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... the cabin of the negro-hunter. So far as external appearance went, the shanty was a slight improvement on the 'Mills House,' described in a previous chapter; but internally, it was hard to say whether it resembled more a pig-sty or a dog-kennel. The floor was of the bare earth, covered in patches with loose plank of various descriptions, and littered over with billets of 'lightwood,' unwashed cooking utensils, two or three cheap stools, a pine settee—made from the rough log and hewn smooth on the upper-side—a full-grown blood-hound, two ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... a pretty fox terrier who lived on the fourth floor of a big apartment house, and the four kittens were her adopted family. For when the kittens' mother died and left them wee, helpless babies, Blanca at once proved the kindness of her heart by taking and caring for them as if they had been her ...
— Dew Drops, Vol. 37, No. 7, February 15, 1914 • Various
... hereupon he frowned a great frown, and let his sword-sheath strike heavily upon the floor. All the company looked sharply round; but seeing it was by hazard, they took no notice of ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... direction, that he might have greater scope for his weapon. I was soon convinced that he was not mistaken in his supposition that treachery was intended, for three of the Patriot officers by this time lay stretched on the floor, stabbed to the heart! The rest had endeavoured to rally near Captain Pinson, who called to them to make for the door and cut their way out. The Pastucians, who were mostly powerful men, set so fiercely on us, however, that I saw there was but ...
— In New Granada - Heroes and Patriots • W.H.G. Kingston
... say that we had nothing in the United States at that time, nor have we now, that will compare with them either for beauty or convenience. The playing field, with its covering of green turf, was as level as a floor and was surrounded by sloping lawns that were bright with flowering shrubs, while the club houses were models of their kind. The great annual foot-races at Botany that afternoon, and the horse-races elsewhere proved to be strong rival attractions, but in spite of them, and of the threatening weather, ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... hardly glanced after the retreating couple. He stepped across the threshold of the disused farm-kitchen, holding the little wooden box carefully in both his dogskin-gloved hands. He crossed to the hearth, stubbing his toe against a jutting floor-brick, and as he did so he caught his breath. Then he stepped down under the yawning gape of the chimney, and seemed to grope and fumble at the back of the hearth. He raised himself then, stepped back, and called out sharply in ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... surprised, but made no remark, and mounting the steps, led the way to a spacious though not very lofty chamber, with huge uncovered rafters, and a floor of polished oak. Over a great fireplace at one side, furnished with immense andirons, hung a noble pair of antlers, and similar trophies of the chase were affixed to other parts of the walls. Here and there were likewise hung rusty skull-caps, breastplates, two-handed ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth |
