"Mantelpiece" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... were mine also! I shot a swift glance at the mantelpiece, irresistibly moved by some mysterious force. There were two bowls of orchids there. I couldn't help thinking of the meddling, over-zealous geni that served the hero of Anstey's "Brass Bottle" tale. He was being outdone by ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... a moment. The rose of sunset burned to ashes-of-rose. A small clock on the mantelpiece mentioned in a discreet voice that it was a quarter to eight. Nick got up, rather heavily for a ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... rose. Her eyes vaguely turned toward the hearth on which the fire was dying, and beside the upright of the large sculptured mantelpiece she beheld for a moment a tiny shoe, belonging to the child which she loved to see in her dreams. Then the vision vanished, and there was nothing left but the lonely hearth. A sharp pain tore her swollen heart; a sob rose to her lips, and, slowly, two tears rolled down her cheeks. Michel, quite ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... am boring you," said Marigny, leaning back in the chair and laying the cigarette on the mantelpiece. "Yet bear with me a little while, I pray you; these explanations are necessary. A sane man acts with motive, and it is only reasonable that you should understand my motive before you hear ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... little while after. The room is empty when the curtain goes up. SOLLERS runs in and paces about, but stops short when he catches sight of a pot dog on the mantelpiece.] ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... head and a slight frown marred his usually amiable features. He got up and, turning his back on them, filled his pipe from a jar on the mantelpiece. ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... at the fireplace, with a foot on the fender and an arm on the mantelpiece, as her grandfather had done when he came in that night of the opera. She was too near a breakdown to care what she ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... struck a light in the front room. A wood fire was smouldering on the andirons in the wide brick chimney place. An open book, face downward, was on the centre table. Two embroidered slippers lay as though hurriedly kicked off, one under the sofa beyond the mantelpiece, the other half way across the worn carpet. Striking another match at the doorway, Ray passed on to the little inner room,—the bed chamber. On the bed, carelessly thrown, were the young officer's best and newest forage cap, undress uniform coat and trousers. He ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... Clock, thy grave tick tock I heard in my childhood days, In the solemn night, when the fire burned bright, And the lamp cast feeble rays; When grandmother close by the mantelpiece, Sat dozing or knitting, or carding fleece, Or watching the dying blaze; When mother was young and her beautiful hair Had never a silver thread; When her life was fair as her love was rare, In the years that have ...
— The Loom of Life • Cotton Noe
... upon the blue, No ship contained a better crew Than that of worthy CAPTAIN REECE, Commanding of The Mantelpiece. ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... looked into a garden, as I caught a glimpse or two of the leaves of trees through a small uncovered part at the side. For some time I felt uneasy and anxious, my spirits being in a strange fluttering state. At last my eyes fell upon a small row of tea-cups, seemingly of china, which stood on a mantelpiece exactly fronting the bottom of the bed. The sight of these objects, I know not why, soothed and pacified me; I kept my eyes fixed upon them, as I lay on my back on the bed, with my head upon the pillow, till at last I fell into a calm ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... afternoon for two hours, and was quite rested and alert by dinner time. It was an interesting group of men that stood around the little figure in the drawing-room after dinner. He himself stood almost always leaning against the mantelpiece. Prince Orloff, Russian ambassador, was one of the habitues of the salon, and I was always delighted when he would slip away from the group of men and join the ladies in Madame Thiers's salon, which was less interesting. ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... and returned to his own apartment. With the help of a candle which he stuck upon the mantelpiece, and a cracked mirror, he first of all shaved, then disappeared for a few minutes behind a piece of faded curtain and washed vigorously. Afterwards he changed his clothes, putting on a dress suit produced from the trunk. ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Mabel apparently thought discretion the better part of valor. She rose, put on her dressing-gown, and took the seat indicated. Her inquisitors grouped themselves opposite, placing their candles in a row upon the mantelpiece. Their spokeswoman, unfolding a large sheet of paper, proceeded to ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... not a sound in the inner room. Candle in hand, she opened the door and went in. She put the candle on the mantelpiece, and then going to the bed, bent over it and looked ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... from her drive shortly after the Ogden disaster and had instantly proceeded to the boarding-house, had been shown into the parlour. Jimmy found her staring in a rapt way at a statuette of the Infant Samuel which stood near a bowl of wax fruit on the mantelpiece. She was feeling aggrieved with Fate and extremely angry with Jerry Mitchell, and she turned at the sound of the opening door with a militant expression in her eyes, which changed to one of astonishment on perceiving who it was ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... Clotilde was agitated by an ever-increasing impatience. At every instant she looked at the clock on the mantelpiece of her room; an Empire clock of gilded bronze, representing Love leaning against a ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... thinking that he had been the victim of a prank, and had not noticed the loss of his silver sailing trophy until he had turned on the electric lights and had seen that the place where it stood on the mantelpiece was vacant. He had then dashed out of the dormitory in the hope of intercepting the fugitive as he crossed the campus, but no one was in sight except his schoolmates returning from Lincoln Hall. To these he ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... take her out," said her Grandpa. So Sarah took the young lady out, and then took up the chairs and sofa, one by one, and smoothed the velvet, and looked at the little clock on the mantelpiece, and opened the little drawers of the bureau; and then putting them down, she began to ...
— Aunt Fanny's Story-Book for Little Boys and Girls • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... up the room. He looked thoroughly ill-at-ease. Coming back, he halted by the mantelpiece and began to drum a difficult tattoo upon ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... served by a French chef. The surprise and delight of it in that wilderness—but the crowning delight was the guestroom. As we entered, it was a wealth of colour in Japanese effect, soft glowing lanterns, polished floors, fur rugs, silk-furnished beds and a crystal mantelpiece (brought from Japan) which reflected the fire-light in a hundred tints. Beyond, through an open door, could be seen the tiled bath-room. It was a room that would be charming anywhere, but in that region a veritable fairy's chamber. Truly it is a canny Host who can thus blend harmoniously ...
— A Woman Tenderfoot • Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson
... on me pretty often then! No one's ever called neatness my strong point. Are those photos on the mantelpiece your home folks? I'm going to look at them. What a lot of things you've got: books, and albums, and goodness knows what! I'll enjoy turning them ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... old carcass is all right, but inside—way down where a man lives—I'm sick unto death. Take a look at the mantelpiece. You see my best miniature's ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... ever left our cozy little flat to enter this desolation of riches and false luxury at all. The unsightly picture of the late Samuel Franklyn, Esq., stared down upon me from the farther end of the room above the mighty mantelpiece. ...
— The Damned • Algernon Blackwood
... and gave me warning that Love and Comus were calling me to bestow new delights upon me. With my pockets full of gold and silver, I left the ridotto, hurried to Muran, entered the sanctuary, and saw my divinity leaning against the mantelpiece. She wore her convent dress. I come near her by stealth, in order to enjoy her surprise. I look at her, and I ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... since he left Fontainebleau, that his Majesty had eaten nothing since morning. The Emperor was exceedingly fatigued; I had opportunity to mark this each time his door was opened. He was seated on a chair in front of the fire, with his feet on the mantelpiece. ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... gleam of suspicion; then his features softened, and, with a side-glance at the young woman who called herself Eunice (perhaps, because she was worth looking at, perhaps because she had partly risen at my words), he slipped toward a door I had before observed in the wainscoting on the left of the mantelpiece, and softly opened it upon what looked ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... drinking his perfectly made black coffee, Sir John would idly turn over the invitation cards on the mantelpiece—the carriage was always in readiness—but of late the invitations had not proved very tempting. There was no doubt that society was not what it used to be. The summer was not what it used to be, either. The evenings ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... am a son of the people. I hold by my own. No doubt, if I had blue blood to boast of, I should keep a vial of it in a prominent place on the drawing-room mantelpiece. As it is, I confess my desire is to carve for myself a name in art that shall be independent of all adventitious support; to answer to my ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... in it to look up at her; but if he had done so, he would have been startled by the fearful capacity of passion which changed, for the moment, that gay Queen Whims into a terrible Roxana, as she stood, leaning against the mantelpiece, but drawn up to her full height, her lips tight shut, eyes which gazed through and through him in awful scrutiny, holding her very breath, while a nervous clutching of the little hand said, "If you have tampered with my sister's heart, better for ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... bound to say That a bank of tin is far the best, And I know of one that has stood for years In a pleasant home away out west. It has stood for years on the mantelpiece Between the clock and the Wedgwood plate— A wonderful bank, as you'll concede When you've heard ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... cream-colour, and a few chairs of like pattern were scattered about. Curtains of cream-coloured cheesecloth, with a stencilled design of pine cones in shaded browns, draped the windows, and in the wide fireplace a fire was laid ready for lighting. The low mantelpiece above it held only three brass candlesticks with bayberry candles, and above it, beautifully lettered in ...
— The Torch Bearer - A Camp Fire Girls' Story • I. T. Thurston
... divan as she spoke and went to the mirror over the mantelpiece. There was something in the action that suddenly recalled Rosina to her senses, and she sprang to her feet and disappeared into the sleeping-room beyond, returning in two or three minutes bearing evidence of Ottillie's deft touch. She found ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... eye glued to the money on the mantelpiece and such was the steady pertinacity of his gaze that the coins seemed to ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... a small one, and a glance sufficed to show that, as the secretary had said, it offered no hiding-place. It was heavily carpeted, and over-full of Burmese and Chinese ornaments and curios, and upon the mantelpiece stood several framed photographs which showed this to be the sanctum of a wealthy bachelor who was no misogynist. A map of the Indian Empire occupied the larger part of one wall. The grate was empty, for the weather was extremely warm, and a green-shaded lamp on ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... teeth, "Is that so?" Unhooking his sword from a peg near the door, he buckled it on carefully and left the company without another word. He walked home with measured steps, struck a light with his flint and steel, and lit his tallow candle. Then, snatching an unlucky glass tumbler off the mantelpiece, he dashed it violently on ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... door with something akin to a thrill. This part of the house was unfamiliar to me. The room was certainly a small one, but there was no little round picture over the mantelpiece. It was a square picture, and rather ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... mantelpiece, in a large gilded frame, was a written document, entitled in flamboyant Gothic lettering, Tableau d'Honneur, with a long array of names underneath, among which I did not have the pleasure of finding that of Jeanne Alexandre. ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... leaped and crackled in the wide chimney, and leaning forward to rest her turbaned head against the mantelpiece, while she spread her hands toward the blaze, stood a much ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... began business in Manchester were made by his own hands in his father's little workshop at Edinburgh, He was on one occasion "hard up" for brass with which to make a wheel for his planing machine. There was a row of old-fashioned brass candlesticks standing in bright array on the kitchen mantelpiece which he greatly coveted for the purpose. His father was reluctant to give them up; "for," said he, "I have had many a crack with Burns when these candlesticks were on the table." But his mother at length yielded; when the candlesticks were at once recast, and ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... unmistakable movement under her pillow. Thoroughly scared, she switched on the light, only to find nothing. When this happened a third time she no longer dared remain in the dark, so lighted a candle which fortunately stood on the mantelpiece, and placed it on a table not far from her bed. She could not see everything in the room, and lay watching with wide-open eyes. For a few minutes all was absolutely still; then came a slight noise, and along the rail ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... bed," added the figure with a sound that was like the falling of an executioner's axe. And, as if to emphasise the arrival of the remorseless moment, the clock just then struck loudly on the mantelpiece—seven times. ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... which were appended a number of spiral, slim, curling branches, like vine tendrils, each sustaining a socket for a candle. The rest of the furniture was good; dark and old and comfortable; painted vases were on the mantelpiece, and an old portrait hung over it. The place made a peculiar agreeable impression upon any one entering it; ease and comfort and good living were so at home in it, and so invited one to take part in its advantages. Esther had hardly been in the house since the death of her mother, ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... the broad hearth, and that, with the tallow candles on the mantelpiece, made quite an illumination in the room, and enabled the boys, who were mostly on one side of the room, to see the girls, who were on the other, quite plainly. How sweet and demure the girls looked, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... come home after accompanying my Father and Lusia to their starting place in the City: they are off for Suffolk for some days. I should have written to you by them: but I only just now found your letter on the mantelpiece: there it has lain some days during which I have been ruralising in Bedfordshire. Delicious has it been there: such weather, such meadows, to enjoy: and the Ouse still wandering along at his ease through pretty villages and vales of his own beautifying. I am much in love with Bedfordshire: it beats ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... a corner of the sofa, I nodded to the men to sit down also, but that which they had been discussing while I was out of the room still held, and, returning to it, they stood awhile longer, one on either side of the mantelpiece, and, hands in my lap, I watched them with hope in my heart of which they did ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... which I uttered this desire died upon my lips when Simon, with the aspect of a wild beast, glared at me savagely, and, rushing to the mantelpiece, where some foreign weapons hung on the wall, caught up a Malay creese, and ...
— The Diamond Lens • Fitz-James O'brien
... then! Now then! How it gleams! He's stopped! He's looking at his letters! He's coming in! He is—ah, he's passed; he's gone; it's over; nothing... nothing for here.... Rat-tat! That's next door. The party wall shakes. The lustres on the mantelpiece shake. Mr. Simcox's hands shake. He sits down, ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... not forget to say, had entered with hearty abandon into the spirit of the day. She had dressed the tall china vases on the mantelpiece, and, departing from the usual rule of an equal mixture of roses and asparagus bushes, had constructed two quaint and graceful bouquets where garden flowers were mingled with drooping grasses and trailing wild vines, forming a graceful combination ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... gentleman had gone up to the mantelpiece, right in front of the fire, and had laid his forehead against the mantelpiece (which it is a low one, and brought him into the attitude of leap-frog), and had heaved a tremenjous sigh. His hair was long and lightish; and when he laid his forehead against ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens
... ways, either suspended from the mantelpiece or mounted as shown in illustration No. 573. The banner is 23 inches long, 19 inches wide, lined with coloured glace silk, and edged with a lace border of guipure d'art. The design for the banner is given in page 554. Work the netting for the groundwork ...
— Beeton's Book of Needlework • Isabella Beeton
... he raised his glance and encountered the clock face on the mantelpiece. He held to it like a hand that was dragging him out of an abyss; watched it grow from a circular object to a white dial crossed by black hands and edged by a ring of numerals. The hour marked slowly penetrated to his consciousness—a quarter to four. He drew himself up ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... room to the glowing fire and the black marble mantelpiece, which had supplanted the delicate Adam one of a less resplendent period, he wore an air that was at once gentle and haughty—the expression of a man who hopes that he is a Christian and knows ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... very well," said the doctor; and he and the ladies left the room. In a little time, however, they came back and called me out, telling Jane to go and sit with my wife. The doctor showed me some physic bottles on the mantelpiece, and, saying that Jane knew what to do with them, he began to make inquiries about the wreck and the little boy, and how I had ...
— The Loss of the Royal George • W.H.G. Kingston
... rising to his feet and standing with his elbow upon the mantelpiece, gazing down at her. "But then you are wonderful, aren't you, Maggie? You know I ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... two screams from Val and Fergus, a buffeting of paws, a couple of wild bounds, first on a chair-back, then on the mantelpiece, where, between the bronze candlestick and the vase, the Persian philosopher stood hissing and swearing, while Kunz ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... would come to a great deal, I am afraid. Even if Dick's are considerably cheaper than Boon's or Samuel's. And, my dear, we must have some ornaments on the mantelpiece. I saw some very nice vases at eleven-three the other day at Wilkin and Dodd's. We should want six at least, and there ought to be a centre-piece. You see how it ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... determined that the clever boy should have a chief hand in its production. A few days later he returned again with a valuable old Italian print. "I want you to make a bas-relief in baked clay," he said to Gibson, "from this print for the centre of my mantelpiece." Gibson was overjoyed. The print was taken from a fresco of Raphael's in the Vatican at Rome, and Gibson's work was to reproduce it in clay in low relief, as a sculpture picture. He did so entirely ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... do: she remembered that she had noticed a lantern hanging on the wall near the door; and now something impelled her to get it. In the stifling darkness of the shack she felt her way to it, held its oily ring in her hand, thought, frantically, of matches, groped along toward the mantelpiece, stumbled over a chair—and clutched at the match box! Something made her open the isinglass slide, strike a match, and touch the blackened wick with the sulphurous sputter of flame,—the next moment, with the ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... smell, impossible to discover in food—a poison that would kill slowly or quickly as the poisoner willed and would leave no trace behind; he knew the secret of the poisoned key that lay always on the pope's mantelpiece, so that when His Holiness wished to destroy some one of his intimates, he bade him open a certain cupboard: on the handle of the key there was a little spike, and as the lock of the cupboard turned stiffly ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... although its uses were evidently multifarious,—partly kitchen, and dining-room, and sitting-room. Its furniture consisted of several plain wooden chairs, a table and crockery, a few books on a shelf, a lounge in the corner, and a rifle, after the manner of the mountaineers, over the mantelpiece. Upon the shelf a cheap clock ticked away the weary minutes of the lonely hours of the long empty days while the valley man abode here, exiled from home and friends and his accustomed sphere, and fought out that ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... wanted. One of 'em put me up on his knee an' asked me if I'd ever seen Marster wid any little bright 'roun' shiny things. (He held his hand up wid his fingers in de shape of a dollar.) I, lak a crazy little Nigger said, 'Sho', Marster draps 'em 'hind de mantelpiece.' Den, if dey didn' tear dat mantel down an' git ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Mississippi Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... Near the junction of East Street with South Street there still exists at the back of the second shop, in the former street (a repository for fancy needlework), a room lined with good oak wainscoting, with finely carved mantelpiece, over which is an inscription, richly carved in relief, with the letters "Ao Di" to the left, and to the right the date "1573;" while above, in the centre, are the initials "J H" and "M H;" separated by a floriated ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... recess beside the great mantelpiece, and in it hung Regnault's famous picture, "The Dancer," all scarlet frock and white flesh against ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... and the windows curtained with heavy tapestry silk of the same rich hue. There were low bookcases on two sides of the room, with pictures above them; several marble statuettes on the bookcases; and a little jade Buddha beside a two-foot bronze god of terrifying aspect on the mantelpiece. In the middle of the apartment stood a solid library table, of which the cover was a curious strip of faded yellow silk embroidered with a dragon in green, a fragment ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... perhaps they are never so delightful as when they are telling their little bits of falsehoods. They speak the truth, but they do lie—truth and lie, lie and truth—the truest truth, the most lying lie;" and Mr. Montgomery took up a couple of wax ornamental apples which were on the mantelpiece and tossed them up alternately with one hand with the greatest dexterity, replacing them on the mantelpiece ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... as though the whole business were far from herself. She sat there, her hands folded on her lap, looking at the mantelpiece with the ugly marble clock, the letter clip with old soiled letters in it, the fat green vase with dusty everlastings. Just as on the night when her uncle had come into her room she had fancied that some one spoke to her, so now she seemed ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... was real, not part of a dream. It was at her door, and jumping out of bed she could hardly believe a clock on the mantelpiece which said half-past ten. ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... was not listening. She leaned her head against the mantelpiece. Suddenly she began to walk again, her eyes wild, ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... not know this; and, while the old dame was spinning her yarn, Bob employed the time by looking at the model of a ship over the mantelpiece, which brought back to his mind all about the Bembridge Belle, making him feel on tenter-hooks lest they should be late for dinner, and so be unable to go down afterwards and see the wreck, as ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... for the match-box with glances distraught indeed, but exhibiting, I am ready to swear, no signs of a fine frenzy. I was composed enough to perceive after some considerable time the match-box lying there on the mantelpiece right under my nose. And all this was beautifully and safely usual. Before I had thrown down the match my landlady's daughter appeared with her calm, pale face and an inquisitive look, in the doorway. Of late it was the landlady's daughter who answered my bell. I mention ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... fire. Then, raising her face from the flame, she looked around with the air of one seeking for some topic of conversation. At that moment she caught sight of the corner of a letter lying on the mantelpiece. Reaching forth her hand, she took it. It was addressed ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... upstairs room, whilst Caddy took undivided possession of the little parlour, which she soon brought into an astonishing state of cleanliness. The ornaments were arranged at exact distances from the corners of the mantelpiece, the looking-glass was polished, until it appeared to be without spot or blemish, and its gilt frame was newly adorned with cut paper to protect it from the flies. The best china was brought out, carefully dusted, and set upon the waiter, ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... about it. At that time I was—as I am still—fond of lying at full length on a thick hearthrug before a good fire. One evening as I was lying in this way and we were alone, A. crossed the room to reach a bangle from the mantelpiece. Instead of reaching over me, she playfully stepped upon my body, saying that she would show me how the hay and straw felt. Naturally I fell in with the joke and laughed. After standing upon me a few moments she raised her skirt slightly and, holding on to the mantelpiece for support, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... letter to its envelope and resealed it, now set it against the diving-girl on the mantelpiece. "What you doin'?" she inquired; ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... opened neatly, to permit the elegant but dusty figure of Carlos Hernando, Duke of Alva, to step to the mantelpiece and leap clumsily to ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... voice once or twice before she could speak. At last she said, "I should like to keep this pudding under a glass shade, my dear!" and the notion of the lion couchant, with his currant eyes, being hoisted up to the place of honour on a mantelpiece, tickled my hysterical fancy, and I began to laugh, which ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... cigarettes must be here," said Tussie, going over to the mantelpiece and throwing a look ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... in amazement at the lovely tracery which incrusted the ceiling, at the carving of the doors, at the stately mantelpiece, with its marble caryatides, and at the Chinese wall-paper which covered the walls, its mandarins and pagodas, and its branching trees. "I never saw such a place. But what is my patient to do with ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... beautifully furnished and filled with works of art; china, choice pictures, and old silver abounded on every side; on the hearth burned a bright fire; on the mantelpiece was a very handsome looking-glass framed in oak. My companion, having lit six candles, went to the windows to draw down the blinds. I interposed and saved her this ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... with bright, cheerful-looking paper. A handsome carpet covered the floor, while curtains of corresponding beauty shaded the windows. The furniture, tastefully arranged, was nearly all new, and in the waxen flowers, which filled the vases on the mantelpiece, Julia recognized the handiwork of ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... the bell tinkled, and the maid came running up. She carried a jug of hot water and flannels in her hand, and pushing past him she declared that she hadn't a moment. The door of the bedroom was ajar; a fire burned, candles flared on the mantelpiece, a basin stood on the floor, and at times nothing was heard but a long moan, mingling with the murmuring voices of the ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... coming in on them once during a thunder-storm. The family were sitting in the big hall; the ladies with their feet up on chairs to insulate them from the lightning; young Vincent Ezekiel teasing them by putting his on the mantelpiece. At one point in the storm came a terrible crash, and Auber jumped up, starting toward the door. Then he came back and sat down quietly. They laughed, and asked if he ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... a tolerably large one, furnished with two heavy tables, some stools, a counter decorated with rows of bottles of syrup and alcohol. Three windows looked out on to the road. A coloured advertisement lauded the many merits of a new vermouth. On the mantelpiece was arrayed the innkeeper's collection of figured earthenware ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... father was absent, notwithstanding I had thought it proper to rebuke James for having so contrived it, I disarranged my books, to give them the appearance of a graceful confusion on the table, and laying my foils (useless since your departure) across the mantelpiece, that the lady might see I was TAM MARTE QUAM MERCURIO—I endeavoured to dispose my dress so as to resemble an elegant morning deshabille—gave my hair the general shade of powder which marks the gentleman—laid my watch and seals on the table, to hint that I understood the value of time;—and ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... visited by the masters. It disclosed the usual state of grime and confusion. His fishing-rod and tackle were there. There had been no attempt to pack his few belongings, which lay scattered about in dismal disorder. The photograph of the pleasant, homely-looking woman on the mantelpiece, with the inscription below, "Alfred, from Mother," stood in its usual place. His Aristophanes lay open in the window-sill at the place for to-day's lesson. Everything betokened ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... or that he was less equal to the veiling of his feelings in dignified indifference. He was annoyed that his daughter should recognize an alteration in him, and, turning away, leaned his head on the hand whose arm was already supported by the mantelpiece, and took no further notice of her presence; but perhaps conscience also had something to do with this behaviour. Ginevra knew from experience that the sight of tears would enrage him, and with all her might repressed those she felt beginning to rise. She went up to him timidly, and took the hand ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... returned from the stroll on the Promenade which she always took after leaving the mont-de-piete, with a feeling of irritation towards things in general, this feeling was not diminished by the sight of Mr Vince, very much at his ease, standing against the mantelpiece ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... sitting one on each side of the fire, I with my feet on the mantelpiece, Margery curled up in the blue arm-chair, both of us intent on the morning paper. To me, by good chance, has fallen the sporting page; to Margery the foreign, political, and financial intelligence ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... were high. The room was brown with time, dark in spite of two windows that opened on Union Square, with dull curtains and carpet, and heavy, respectable-looking furniture in somber colors. The place was saved from utter dismalness by a coal fire under the black marble mantelpiece,—brilliantly reflected in a long mirror that hung between the two windows. This was the first time Fred had seen the room, and he took it in quickly, as he put down his hat ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... covered with the man's clear, deliberate handwriting lay thickly on the desk. A table in the centre of the room was strewn with volumes, some of a secret character, opened for reference. On the tops of two bookcases and on the mantelpiece were prints representing scenes from the oldest known art of the East. These and other prints hanging about the walls, however remote from each other in the times and places where they had been gathered, brought together in this room of a quiet Kentucky farmhouse evidence bearing upon ...
— Bride of the Mistletoe • James Lane Allen
... the time-honoured tradition of the family, it was served at the early hour of seven o'clock in the big dining-room, an ancient chamber panelled with oak to the ceiling, with a carved buffet, an open fireplace, Jacobean mantelpiece, and old family portraits on the walls. There were sconces on the walls, and a crystal chandelier for wax candles was suspended from the centre of the ceiling above the table. The chandelier was never lit, as the moat-house was illuminated by electric light, but it looked very pretty, and was the ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... the best kind,—lumps of real, fine alabaster. Alabaster is so soft as to be easily worked. Even a finger-nail will make a mark upon it. Everybody knows how beautiful vases and little statues, well wrought in alabaster, look on a mantelpiece, or a drawing-room table. Oliver had seen such in France, where they are very common: and his father had carried one or two ornaments of this kind into Holland, when he had to leave France. It was a great delight for Oliver to find, on settling ...
— The Settlers at Home • Harriet Martineau
... Cameron Winslow; a shoe worn by Dan Patch when he paced a mile in 1:59, sent me by his owner. There is a picture of a bull moose by Carl Rungius, which seems to me as spirited an animal painting as I have ever seen. In the north room, with its tables and mantelpiece and desks and chests made of woods sent from the Philippines by army friends, or by other friends for other reasons; with its bison and wapiti heads; there are three paintings by Marcus Symonds—"Where Light and Shadow Meet," "The Porcelain Towers," and "The Seats of the Mighty"; ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... costume was sent him, and, on Hart's suggestion, the famous Yellow Jacket was added. Gordon afterwards had his portrait painted in the full regalia, and, like a glorified Chinese Field-Marshal in his quaint garb, he still looks down from over the mantelpiece in the Royal Engineers' ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... and he pointed his finger to a letter lying on the mantelpiece. I arose and picked it up. It bore Cynthia's seal and ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... rival had been here," and, picking it up, Charlie amused himself with putting it on the head of a little Psyche which ornamented the mantelpiece, softly singing as he did so, another verse ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... Mary Anne Waller, and Louisa, motionless too, their heads bent. There was an end of candle in a basin behind the bed, which threw circles of wavering light over the coarse whitewash of the roof and on the cards and faded photographs above the tiny mantelpiece. ...
— Bessie Costrell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... leaded windows which looked out on the Bourg du Four were still rain-proof; the light which they admitted still found something garish in the portrait of the Syndic—by Schouten—that formed the central panel of the mantelpiece. New and stately, the room had not its pair in Geneva; and dear to its owner's heart had it been a short, a very short time before. He had anticipated no more lasting pleasure, looked forward to no safer gratification for his declining years, than to sit, as he now sat, surrounded ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... a rat!" Hume's fist came crashing down upon the mantelpiece. "By God, somebody's ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... was in a thick wall of the chimney behind a finely inlaid and carved mantelpiece. They could not well take the carving down without risk of breaking it. Broken, however, it would have been, and that into a thousand pieces, had they any conception that I could be concealed behind it. But knowing that there were two flues, they did not think that there could be room enough there ...
— Secret Chambers and Hiding Places • Allan Fea
... artist too, highly distinguished by his ill-success—which had never been made the subject of an article in the illustrated magazines. No wood-engraver had ever reproduced "a corner in the back drawing-room" or "the studio mantelpiece" of No. 7; no young lady author had ever commented on "the unaffected simplicity" with which Mr. Pitman received her in the midst of his "treasures." It is an omission I would gladly supply, but our business ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... side to side of the library, he presently found himself standing still before the mantelpiece and studying a photograph in a silver frame which occupied the centre of the shelf. It was the photograph of an unusually pretty girl; that is to say, of a girl whose beauty was undeniable, but who belonged to a type widely removed from that of ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... picture to her somewhat bleak possessions. "Oh, I don't care a rap who he is," she interrupted briskly. "But he's sort of cute-looking, and I've got an empty frame at home just that odd size, and Mother's crazy for a new picture to stick up over the kitchen mantelpiece. She gets so tired of seeing nothing but the faces of people she knows ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... and Reuben had settled to his pipe, with the old hound at his feet, Molly took down a bunch of keys from a nail in the wall, and lit a lantern with a taper which she selected from a china vase on the mantelpiece. Once outside she walked a little ahead of Gay and the yellow blaze of the lantern flitted like a luminous bird over the flagged walk bordered by gooseberry bushes. Between the stones, which were hollowed by the tread of ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... for a private reason; but Pym, misunderstanding, thought he did it to fly the more readily if anything was flung at him, and so concluded that he must be a printer's devil. Pym had a voice that shook his mantelpiece ornaments; he was all on the same scale as his ink-pot. "Your Christian name, boy?" he roared hopefully, for it was thus he sometimes got ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... coming out, something within her was playing, sweetly insistent to be heard. Philomela, at the first sound of her nightingale self, must have stood thus, trembling with melody. Opposite her, above the crowded mantelpiece and surmounted by a raffia wreath, the enlarged-crayon gaze of her deceased maternal grandparent, abetted by a horrible device of photography, followed her, his eyes focusing the entire room at a glance. Impervious to that scrutiny, Miss Coblenz moved a tiptoe step or ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... see Mr Abney becoming one of the busiest persons on record in his endeavour to hush the thing up and prevent it getting into the papers. The man with the pistol spoke. He sighted me—I was standing with my back to the mantelpiece, parallel with the door—made a sharp turn, ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... peppers; and a door left ajar gave him a peep into the best parlor, where the claw-footed chairs and dark mahogany tables shone like mirrors; andirons, with their accompanying shovel and tongs, glistened from their covert of asparagus tops; mock-oranges and conch-shells decorated the mantelpiece; strings of various-colored birds eggs were suspended above it; a great ostrich egg was hung from the centre of the room, and a corner cupboard, knowingly left open, displayed immense treasures of old ...
— The Legend of Sleepy Hollow • Washington Irving
... drew out a drawer full of letters. No! he could not take all his life away with him: He laid the drawer on the desk, then went into the drawing- room. A jug of milk and some bread stood on an album-table. The Prince lighted the fire, burnt some papers, and stood by the mantelpiece drinking his milk and eating the bread, for he had grown hungry during the day.... The milk was sour, the ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... room was panelled and furnished with the plainest wood. His bed was in the alcove at the back; the only ornament was the portrait of his wife, a dark, Italian-looking woman, which hung surrounded by guns, pistols, and swords, over the low stone mantelpiece. It was just midnight, but Monsieur Joseph was not in bed. He looked a quaint figure, in a dressing-gown and a tasselled night-cap, and he sat at the table writing a long letter. He started when Riette touched the door, and Angelot saw that his hand moved mechanically towards a ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... away the match, Regina had risen from her chair. She leaned against the little marble mantelpiece, looking down ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... stamped a small foot encased in a red shoe with an impatient movement, and turned once more to contemplate herself in the glass. Miss Winstead, the governess, resumed her letter, and a clock on the mantelpiece struck ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... It had been foolish modesty in him hitherto to conceal the fact that a branch of the Freelys held a manor in Yorkshire, and to shut up the portrait of his great uncle the admiral, instead of hanging it up where a family portrait should be hung—over the mantelpiece in the parlour. Admiral Freely, K.C.B., once placed in this conspicuous position, was seen to have had one arm only, and one eye—in these points resembling the heroic Nelson—while a certain pallid insignificance ...
— Brother Jacob • George Eliot
... sir." He looked past me at the mantelpiece. "That is an excellent likeness of Lady Florence Craye, sir. It is two years since I saw her ladyship. I was at one time in Lord Worplesdon's employment. I tendered my resignation because I could not see eye to eye with his lordship in his desire to dine in dress trousers, a flannel ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... picture on, nor a shelf to receive the bust of a hero or a saint. When I consider how our houses are built and paid for, or not paid for, and their internal economy managed and sustained, I wonder that the floor does not give way under the visitor while he is admiring the gewgaws upon the mantelpiece, and let him through into the cellar, to some solid and honest though earthy foundation. I cannot but perceive that this so-called rich and refined life is a thing jumped at, and I do not get on in the enjoyment of the fine arts which adorn it, my ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... sarcastically, "particularly when he is getting over a jag. The keenest sense of duty is that possessed by a man who has broken the law and has not been found out. I think I will go to bed," he added, looking at the clock on the mantelpiece. "I am going up to town to-morrow. I want to ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace |
