"Stairs" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sight of her house. How feeble he is! Another day, walking her way, but not so far; and the next, and the next, walking; but the last day he goes scarce beyond his own threshold. And now he can not go down the stairs; now he is in his own lonely room, alone. He sees death camping in his silent chamber, but feels no fright. No, ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... puts out her hand with a very awkward affectation of indifference. He gives it a gallant squeeze, and away they walk, arm in arm, the girl just looking back towards her 'place' with an air of conscious self-importance, and nodding to her fellow-servant who has gone up to the two-pair-of- stairs window, to take a full view of 'Mary's young man,' which being communicated to William, he takes off his hat to the fellow- servant: a proceeding which affords unmitigated satisfaction to all parties, and impels the fellow-servant ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... They started for the stairs (there was no elevator, as in all better-class hotels), and were soon comfortably seated in Andrew Dilks' room, an apartment on the ...
— Young Auctioneers - The Polishing of a Rolling Stone • Edward Stratemeyer
... re-entry into Old Place, it was odd how the thought of Betty's twin haunted him as he followed his little guide upstairs. Odd? No, in a sense very natural, for he and George often raced each other up these very stairs. They had been such pals in spite of the four years' difference ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... fast, or rather the fast was continued, the cold having abolished her appetite. It went on until the fifteenth day, with increasing general strength and diminishing weight. The last days before hunger came she was able to go up a long flight of stairs without the aid of the railing and without marked loss of breath, the heart-murmur had nearly disappeared, and water by the gallon seemed ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey
... fast as I could, but my hands trembled so from excitement, that I could scarcely fasten a string. A cold chill was creeping through my whole frame, and, in spite of the joy I felt, I involuntarily burst into tears. Dashing away the unwelcome drops with the back of my hand, I bounded down the stairs, unlocked the back-door that led into the alley, and in another moment ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... seen the torch-flames, high-leaping, Painting the front of that church,— And, under the dark, whirling laughter, I have looked back over the stream and seen the high building, Seen the long minarets, the white shafts. I have gone in Ribeyrac, and in Sarlat. I have climbed rickety stairs, heard talk of Croy, Walked over En Bertran's old layout, Have seen Narbonne, and Cahors and Chalus, Have seen ...
— Ezra Pound: His Metric and Poetry • T.S. Eliot
... stormy nights the cessation of that faint twinkle will awaken me, while the crash of the elements or even the fall of a tree would not in the slightest disturb my tired slumbers. So now, although the songs and stamping and racket of the revellers below stairs in McCloud's bar did not for one second prevent my falling into deep and dreamless sleep, Brower's softest tread would ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... grew older I had a cart and a ball, and when I was five or six years old, two boxes of well-cut wooden bricks. With these modest, but I still think, entirely sufficient possessions, and being always summarily whipped if I cried, did not do as I was bid, or tumbled on the stairs, I soon attained serene and secure methods of life and motion, and could pass my days contentedly in tracing the squares and comparing the colors of my carpet; examining the knots in the wood of the floor or counting the bricks in the opposite houses; ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... have skeletons, large or small, in some cupboard of our lives, but a well regulated skeleton that will stay in its cupboard quietly does not much matter. There are skeletons, however, which can never be quite trusted not to open the cupboard door at some awkward moment, go down stairs, ring the hall-door bell, with grinning face announce themselves as the skeleton, and ask whether the master or mistress is at home. This kind of skeleton, though no bigger than a rabbit, will sometimes ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... Stamp office at Edinburgh in Mr. William Law, Jeweller, his hands, off the Parliament close, down the market stairs, opposite to ...
— A Hundred Years by Post - A Jubilee Retrospect • J. Wilson Hyde
... first of them the singing upstairs ceased. For a moment there was something almost oppressive in the sudden change from noise to silence. I suppose my nerves must have been overwrought. The next sound in the house—nothing more remarkable than the creaking of a man's boots descending the stairs—made me shudder all over. The man was no doubt the singing-master, going away after giving his lesson. I heard the house door close on him, and started at the familiar sound as if it were something terrible which I had never heard before. Then there was silence again. I roused ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... very well, this talk about the poets, but climbing "break-neck stairs" on our way thither had given the guest an appetite, and the host as well; and these appetites had to be appeased by something less transcendental than a feast of reason. Scarcely interrupting his engaging monologue, Mr. Burroughs went about his preparations for dinner, doing things deftly and quietly, ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... down the stairs and bought a paper and read out the paragraph to Villiers as the uproar in the street rose and fell. The window was open and the air seemed ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen
... she was busy, and would be down stairs after a while. Would Mr. Martin please sit down and wait. So he sat down on the front piazza ...
— Harper's Young People, June 8, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... is an ancient private school whose usefulness was immensely enhanced when it was converted into a public high school. When Mr. W. F. H. Breeze took over the principalship he made no particular objection to the old class rooms and wooden stairs, but he was very insistent upon discovering, first, what the community needed, and second, whether or not the ...
— The New Education - A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) • Scott Nearing
... to follow their aunt, in perfect good humor with each other and the world. On ascending the stairs to the place of deposit for Miss Peyton's articles of domestic economy, she availed herself, however, of an opportunity to inquire of her nephew, whether General Montrose suffered as much from the gout as he had done ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... most crowded part of Holborn, within a door or two of the Bull and Mouth Inn, we pulled up at the entrance of a large building used for lawyers' chambers. I followed by a long flight of stairs to an upper story, and was ushered into an uncarpeted and bleak-looking room, with a deal table, two or three chairs and a few books, a small boy and Mr. ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... waiting, after this, we were all marched out into the dungeon and joined there by all manner of vagrants and vagabonds, of all shades and colours and nationalities, from the other cells and cages of the place; and pretty soon our whole menagerie was marched up-stairs and locked fast behind a high railing in a dirty room with a dirty audience in it. And this audience stared at us, and at a man seated on high behind what they call a pulpit in this country, and at some clerks and other officials ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... about at different tables, variously engaged in getting rid of time at the smallest possible cost of reflection. The dwarf sauntered through the room, whispered a waiter, and, beckoning me to follow, led the way up-stairs to a lesser apartment, where we ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... more than many dealers do nowadays. Brown took his seat just under the pulpit. Robinson, not knowing this, sat near the porch, intending to intercept the Vicar as he went out. The sermon ended, Brown waited till the Vicar descended from the pulpit; as he reached the bottom step of the stairs, Brown went to him and said, “That was a good sermon, but your reverence has not yet sold that mare; the fair is over, and I am leaving in the afternoon. Won’t you take the £35? You’ll never get a better bid.” The Vicar thought for a moment, and then ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... her go down the stairs. It was pitch dark, but the clock struck one quite a long time afterward. I did not think anything about it then, because she often gets up in the middle of the night and goes down to sit in the kitchen. ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... said he had had stolen from him. Father had never seen him before, but he knew he had the name of being half silly, and question him as much as he liked, he could make nothing of him. The daughter said that they had gone to bed at dark the night her father was robbed. She slept up stairs, and he down below. About ten o'clock she heard him scream, and running down stairs, she found him sitting up in bed, and the window wide open. He said a man had sprung in upon him, stuffed the bedclothes ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders
... For some purpose of consultation he required the presence of Hamilton, who was detained from keeping the appointment on the instant, for it appears to have been a delay of but a few moments. Washington, however, was impatient, and meeting Hamilton at the head of the stairs, angrily exclaimed, "Colonel Hamilton, you have kept me waiting at the head of the stairs these ten minutes; I must tell you, sir, you treat me with disrespect." Hamilton firmly replied, "I am not conscious of it, sir; but since you have thought it necessary ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... the Rajah, we heard, had yesterday performed the most sacred of all the ceremonies under conditions of considerable popular excitement. The sacred well, the stairs leading from it to the river, and the bathing place at the river, were all covered in; the crowd could only see the sedan chair which carried the queen to the well, but the spectacle attracted great numbers. This well is simply a trench about twenty-five feet long and not more than three feet ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... was notorious for his pugnacious propensities; had been in the Infirmary more than once for the tokens he had received of the prowess of his opponents. In his battles he always came off second best, and was now in the "accident ward" in consequence of a broken leg, having been kicked down stairs by a gang of rowdies whom he ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... that he did not give definite suggestions for the improvement of the age which he rebuked. "Here," said he, "is a man who beats a big drum under my windows, and when I come running down stairs has nowhere for ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... entered the house, the door was softly closed, and the gentleman, whose name we may here mention was Harrenburn, conducted Conrad across the hall, and up stairs to an apartment on the second storey, having a southern aspect. The proportions of the house were noble. The wide entrance-hall was boldly tesselated with white and black marble; the staircase was large enough for a procession of giants; the broad oaken stairs were partly covered ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 454 - Volume 18, New Series, September 11, 1852 • Various
... along a passage to a mean staircase. The reception room, however, is bright, clean, and spacious, and is lined with redwood and metal- work. But the scullery you would not care to see; it is greasy, dirty, and odoriferous, while the stairs are in rags, and the walls so covered with filth that the hand sticks fast wherever it touches them. Also, on each landing there is a medley of boxes, chairs, and dilapidated wardrobes; while the windows have had most of their panes shattered, and everywhere stand ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... themselves being borne up a short flight of steps and down a long hall. Then came more steps. This time it was a long flight of stairs, the kidnappers getting their burdens up this ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... reached an open space where stood a great church, the cross upon whose spire seemed bejewelled with the stars upon which it dwelt. And in my soul I said, O Lord Jesus! and went up to the base of the tower, and found the door thereof open to my hand. Then with my staff I ascended the winding stairs, until I reached the open sky. And the stairs went still winding, on and on, up towards the stars. And with my staff I ascended, and arose into the sky, until I stood at the foot of the cross ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... the diahbeeah, accompanied by the hoarse wild snorting of a furious hippopotamus. I jumped up, and immediately perceived a hippo which was apparently about to attack the vessel. The main deck being crowded with people sleeping beneath their thick mosquito curtains, attached to the stairs of the poop-deck, and to the rigging in all directions, rendered it impossible to descend. I at once tore away some of the ties, and awakened the sleepy people. My servant, Suleiman, was sleeping next to the cabin door. I called to him for a rifle. Before the affrighted Suleiman could bring the ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... city, not far-distant from the shipping. Turning down a narrow alley, and crossing a low dirty-looking court, Martin's guide stopped before a door, which he pushed open and mounted by a flight of rickety wooden stairs to a garret. He ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne
... his pipes in it, but I got him to flip the combination on 'em for to-night. Well, here goes!" And a few minutes later as he descended the stairs, I, with repressed excitement, stepped back to the cockpit, taking a chair where I could see ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... found no difference between the result of their perceptions and those of a quicker nature; and hence it is that slow-minded men are not, as men of the world imagine, always the dullest. NICOLLE said of a scintillant wit, "He vanquishes me in the drawing-room, but surrenders to me at discretion on the stairs." Many a great wit has thought the wit it was too late to speak, and many a great reasoner has only reasoned when his opponent has disappeared. Conversation with such men is a losing game; and it is ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... had gone to bed, the little boy got up quietly, took his shoes in his hand, and slipped softly down the back stairs. Silently he unlocked and opened the kitchen door, and went out ...
— The Magic Speech Flower - or Little Luke and His Animal Friends • Melvin Hix
... wall part at the ceiling, open and shut twice, like a mouth, and then-drop the end of a brick on the floor like a tooth. She was a woman easily disgusted with foolishness, and she arose and went out of there. One lady who was coming down stairs was astonished to see a bronze Hercules lean forward on its pedestal as if to strike her with its club. They both reached the bottom of the flight at the same time,—the woman insensible from the fright. Her child, born ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... south rooms full of shadows and ladders and ghostly pails of painters' mess, and humming a tune to make myself believe I liked it, go rather slowly across the brick-floored hall, up the creaking stairs, down the long whitewashed passage, and with a final rush of panic whisk into my room and double lock ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... thinking what a sad journey its occupant must have had. Their aunt stood at an upper window watching it also, and as it disappeared round the corner she beckoned Fred to come up to her in his room. He came running up the stairs. ...
— Gritli's Children • Johanna Spyri
... Kennedy still had a headache. She had complained of a headache ever since she had been at Loughlinter, and Dr. Macnuthrie had been over more than once. "I wonder what it is that ails you," said her husband, standing over her in her own sitting-room up-stairs. It was a pretty room, looking away to the mountains, with just a glimpse of the lake to be caught from the window, and it had been prepared for her with all the skill and taste of an accomplished upholsterer. She had selected the room for herself soon ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... perceptive hostess, came to her husband's rescue by saying with equal rapidity, "Top of the stairs, end of ...
— What's He Doing in There? • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... he found the place congenial enough, was rather for the pursuit of his own affair. Before leaving the house, Tompkins led the way up a flight of stairs to a little office wherein sat the foreign old woman who conducted this tavern of the muses. He thought that she, who was on chaffing and money-lending terms with so much talent in the shape of her customers, ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... the King's daughter was sitting at table with her father and all his courtiers, and was eating from her own little golden plate, something was heard coming up the marble stairs, splish-splash, splish-splash; and when it arrived at the top, it knocked at the door, and a voice said, "Open the door, thou youngest daughter of the King!" So she rose and went to see who it was that called her; but when she opened the door and caught ...
— The Frog Prince and Other Stories - The Frog Prince, Princess Belle-Etoile, Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp • Anonymous
... Saniel mounted the stairs and rang the bell. A long time passed, or at least it seemed long to him, before there was an answer. At last he heard a slow and heavy step on the tiled floor and the door was opened, but held by a hand ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... big main house on the seaward side of the island, Dr. Hartson Brant, director of the world-famous Spindrift Scientific Foundation, walked to the foot of the stairs and called ...
— The Egyptian Cat Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... runs with the grain, a dado across it, so that the bottom of a drawer is inserted in a groove while the back of the drawer is inserted in a dado. Where the whole of the end of one member is let into the other, such a dado is also called a housed dado. Treads of stairs are housed ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes
... staircase. It was far from a handsome house in which they had thus far made their home. The wall-paper was torn from the walls in places, revealing patches of bare plastering; there was a faded and worn oil-cloth upon the stairs, while outside the rooms at intervals, along the entry, were buckets of dirty water and rubbish, which had been temporarily placed there by the occupants. As it was Monday, washing was going on in several ...
— Rufus and Rose - The Fortunes of Rough and Ready • Horatio Alger, Jr
... breathing heavily. "He waited until I had busted the thing open and was on my way out in the dark hall, and then pounced on me with his butler and valet. I bowled the butler down the kitchen stairs, and sent the valet holing into the dining-room with an appendicitis jab in the stomach and had the pleasure of blacking both of ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... had come from the picture room, stood invisible at the top of the stairs, watching Irene sort the letters brought by the last post. She turned back into the drawing-room; but in a minute came out, and stood as if listening. Then she came stealing up the stairs, with a kitten in her ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... be done that way. There's a rat of a clerk there for copying letters who does nothing but scribble all the time—tr, tr—They even wanted to make me a college assessor, but I think to myself, "What do I want it for?" And the doorkeeper flies after me on the stairs with the shoe brush. "Allow me to shine your boots for you, Ivan Aleksandrovich," he says. [To the Governor.] Why are you ...
— The Inspector-General • Nicolay Gogol
... between our houses is very thin and many a time when I want to finish my morning sleep or take an afternoon nap, if Mrs. Harcourt is not at home, Annette will sing and recite at the top of her voice and run up and down the stairs as if a regiment of soldiers ...
— Trial and Triumph • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... and the tendons moving back and forth, even into the back of the hand. These sensations ordinarily escape our attention, but they occupy a prominent place in the control of our actions. For example, when ascending familiar stairs in the dark, they notify us when we have reached the top. We are still further impressed with their importance when we are deprived of them; when we try to walk upon a foot or a leg that has gone "to sleep"; that is, when the kinaesthetic nerves are temporarily paralyzed we find it difficult ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... the last put there and drank a deep, long draught with his mouth down to it, then licked the cream from his lips and remembered that he had come without a pail. But he knew where to get one. He went gently up the stairs, avoiding steps Nos. 1 and 7 because they were "creakers," as he found out long ago, when he used to 'hook' maple sugar from the other side of the house. The door at the top was closed and buttoned, but he put his jack-knife ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... the battered tray with its suggestion of sordid festivity had been removed. Even here the electric air of the morning had made entry, and, yielding to its seduction, the boy gave rein to his eagerness as he hurried forward to the head of the stairs and laid his hand upon ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... from her brother's apartments to her own, hearing so much jollity below stairs, rung up her fille de chambre to ask about it; and, hearing it was the English gentleman's servant, who had set the whole house merry with his pipe, she ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne
... fluid runs out of it, which is good and healthful. There are certain canes [i.e., bamboos], some of which are as thick as one's thigh, and others smaller, and five or six brazas long; of these the poor Indians construct their houses, without other material—walls, floors, roofs, posts, and stairs. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Emma Helen Blair
... default. As I had been assured that her Majesty would be attended by her Chamberlain, yet was not, I had no glove ready when I received her at the step of her coach: yet she honoured me with her hand to lead her up stairs; nor did I recollect my omission when I led her down again. Still, though gloveless, I did not squeeze the royal hand, as Vice-chamberlain Smith[2] did to ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... is softer and gayer than that of Funchal. It has been well sketched in 'Views in the Madeiras,' and by the Norwegian artist Johan F. Eckersberg in folio, with letterpress by Mr. Johnson of the guide-book. The 'Falcon' anchors close to the landing-stairs, under a grim, grey old fort, O Desembarcadouro, originally a tower, and now apparently a dwelling-place. The debarcadere has the usual lamp and the three iron chains ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... small to be called a bay, and there, to my intense astonishment, I discovered a small villa. It looked exactly like the houses one sees in a toy-shop, and where you take off the roof to peep in and see how neatly the stairs are made and the rooms divided; but there was a large garden at one side and an orangery at the other, and it all looked the neatest and prettiest little thing one ever saw off the boards of a minor theatre. I drew my boat on shore and strolled into the garden, but saw no one, not even ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... sleeve of his coat, just missing his arm. He swung the briefcase at the man with the automatic, catching him across the forehead with the metal edge. As the doors opened, he ran past a popeyed subway guard, up the stairs and ...
— Forever • Robert Sheckley
... only six feet and a half spread of wings should possess a power of soaring equal to that of vultures and eagles. Even the vulture with its marvellous wing power soars chiefly from necessity, and when its crop is full finds no pleasure in "scaling the heavens by invisible stairs." The chakar leaves its grass-plot after feeding and soars purely for recreation, taking so much pleasure in its aerial exercises that in bright warm weather, in winter and spring, it spends a great part of the day in the upper ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... the stairs leading to her son's room, softly opened the door, and looked in. He was so engrossed in his gloomy revery that he had heard nothing, and did not even suspect the presence of the anxious mother who was ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... with him and waited downstairs at the street entrance for him while he was standing there. Manson, whose name had been forged to the check which Fred had been instrumental in stopping, came down the stairs, accompanied by ...
— Halsey & Co. - or, The Young Bankers and Speculators • H. K. Shackleford
... you, Cecilia," said Mrs. Villars, as she was crossing the hall. "Good night to you, madam," said Cecilia; and she ran up stairs to bed. ...
— The Bracelets • Maria Edgeworth
... little shuffles exposed her to be, not worse. It was her sex that made her one of the gliders in grasses, some of whom are venomous; but she belonged to the order only as an innocuous blindworm. He could pronounce her small by-play with Morsfield innocent, her efforts to climb the stairs into Society quite innocent; judging her, of course, by her title of woman. A woman's innocence has a rainbow skin. Set this one beside other women, she comes out well, fairly well, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... began to perspire all over. The skein fared badly. At this moment some slight diversion was made in his favour by a servant appearing with a message regarding somebody in the back-parlour; whereupon Mrs Blackmore went hastily down stairs; and Harry's eyes followed her wistfully: he thought he should like to ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal Vol. XVII. No. 418. New Series. - January 3, 1852. • William and Robert Chambers
... the occultist was one of a long row, all alike, which reminds the observer of an exercise in perspective, as one glances down the stretch of balustraded piazzas. Amidon walked straight across the street from the hotel, and counted the flights of stairs up to the fourth floor. There was no elevator. The denizens of the place gave him a vague impression of being engaged in the fine arts. A glimpse of an interior hung with Navajo blankets, Pueblo pottery, Dakota beadwork, and barbaric arms; the sound of a soprano ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... engaged in deliberations with regard to this expedient. Cromwell in a rage immediately hastened to the house, and carried a body of three hundred soldiers along with him. Some of them he placed at the door, some in the lobby, some on the stairs. He first addressed himself to his friend St. John, and told him that he had come with a purpose of doing what grieved him to the very soul, and what he had earnestly with tears besought the Lord not to impose ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... story, the gardener stopped, and pointing to a door, said, "There." And without adding a word he turned about and went down stairs. The Count opened the door and found himself in a dark ante-chamber. The light from the stairway was sufficient, however, for him to distinguish a second door, which he opened, and through which he went into the apartment lighted from ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... many of Jim's own manufactured ideas—his "contraptions," Brownie used to call them. There was a telephone he had rigged up when he was twelve, communicating with Norah's room by the balcony; and outside was a sort of fire escape, by which he could—and generally did—descend without using the stairs. There were various pieces of bush carpentry—a table, a candlestick and a book-case of his own construction, which in Norah's eyes were better than beautiful. There was an arrangement by which he could open his door or his windows without getting out of bed—which was ingenious, ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... themselves into one of the old garrets,—shrieking dismally when they had done so, by way of rendering their place of refuge perfectly secret and secure. These two females did afterwards depone that Mr Willet in his consternation uttered but one word, and called that up the stairs in a stentorian voice, six distinct times. But as this word was a monosyllable, which, however inoffensive when applied to the quadruped it denotes, is highly reprehensible when used in connection with females of unimpeachable character, ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... from it a lesson;" So made the neighbor reply. "When a boy I once stood of a Sunday Full of impatience, and looking with eagerness out for the carriage Which was to carry us forth to the spring that lies under the lindens. Still the coach came not. I ran, like a weasel, now hither, now thither, Up stairs and down, and forward and back, 'twixt the door and the window; Even my fingers itched to be moving; I scratched on the tables, Went about pounding and stamping, and hardly could keep me from weeping. All was ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... James had a greater depth of mental capacity than he was himself aware of, and he began to feel a sort of electric affinity for the mind that had touched him in a way so new; and when he saw the mild minister standing at the foot of the pulpit stairs, he made directly ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... descended the stairs slowly, and paused to look out of one of the big windows at a landing, which offered nothing in the way of a view but an almost blank wall on the other side of the narrow street. He did not know what to do next, and yet, being eminently a man of action, rather than ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... met at the gate by Mrs. Gough, with a face of great concern; she begged him to come and see the Dame; she had slipped on the oak stairs, poor soul, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... sidewalk a prolonged stare. Lastly, he threw around him a comprehensive glance (as though to fix in his mind the general topography of the place) and betook himself home. There, gently aided by the waiter, he ascended the stairs to his bedroom, drank a glass of tea, and, seating himself at the table, called for a candle; which having been brought him, he produced from his pocket the notice, held it close to the flame, and conned its tenour—slightly contracting his right eye as he did ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... a dinner in Camden. Before dinner, he mentioned how he had been treated by the lieutenant, and it was agreed among them, that, as that officer was to be present at the dinner, Smith should be at liberty to treat him as he thought fit. Accordingly Smith kicked him down stairs; and as he did not resent it, ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James
... her out from all your little confidences, you will find that the curiosity so natural to her age will be sure to burst out, after such bottling, in alarming effervescence. As soon as Hardy's unmistakable footsteps were heard on the stairs, she had left the drawing-room on a hint from Audrey. In her room above she had heard the alternate booming and buzzing of their voices prolonged far into the night, but could make out no intelligible sounds. To ears tingling with prophetic apprehension ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... that at first one could not find a place; that there was available only a building in course of construction, intended to be the Pasteur School at Neuilly. This building was far from completion; it lacked doors and there were no stairs. I know that in three weeks your generosity, your energy, and your quick intelligence has made of this uncertain shell a modern military hospital, with white walls, electric light, baths, rooms for administering anaesthetics, ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... awoke to the realization of that illusive thing, the mirage, a beautiful lie, false as stairs of sand. Far northward a clear rippling lake sparkled in the sunshine. Tall, stately trees, with waving green foliage, bordered the water. For a long moment it lay there, smiling in the sun, a thing almost tangible; and then it faded. I felt a sense of actual loss. So real had been the illusion ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... for something else! Never! That means all the horrors I went through, before I came here, over again! No! no! no! Never! Looking for work means trailing through the mud, toiling up stairs, ringing bells, being told to call again, calling again to get more snubs. And then when one thinks one's found something one comes up against a door guarded by a man who's watching you, and who's got to be satisfied ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux
... she said, picking them up in a thousand flights and funny little passionate pounces, the makings of a final nest. He recognised in an instant that there really, there only, he should find the boon with the vision of which he had first mounted Chad's stairs. He might have been a little scared at the picture of how much more, in this place, he should know himself "in" hadn't his friend been on the spot to measure the amount to his appetite. Her compact and crowded little chambers, almost dusky, as they at first struck him, with accumulations, ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... In fact, he counted on it for what he was about to do. No sooner had the storekeeper started down the cellar stairs than Bob pulled from his pocket a long, stout piece of cord. He quickly fastened one end of it to the spigot of a molasses barrel, which stood about half way back in the store. Then he ran the cord forward and across the doorway, about six inches from the floor, and ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster
... the delight the princess had taken in beholding the monkeys, thought of nothing now but to get a little repose, which he greatly wanted. He stayed some time in the great gallery; afterwards, going down a pair of stairs, and finding a door open, he entered into an apartment the most delightful that ever was seen. There was in it a bed of cloth of gold, enriched with pearls, intermixed with rubies and emeralds; for by this time there appeared daylight sufficient for him to view and admire the magnificence of this ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... him, that is very likely," Zebede answered, winking. At the foot of the stairs he drew me aside and whispered, "Look inside my cap, Joseph; all the soldiers have got ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... carpenter who has been giving us voluntary help in the evenings after his day's work. He thought that as it was the dinner hour, and the man worked in the dock close by, I might find him at home. I went off to the model lodging-house where I was told to look for him, mounted the common stairs, and knocked at his door. Nobody seemed to hear me, and as the door was ajar I ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a caretaker, who certainly must be in the depths of despair. Heedless of the fact that my presence might be resented, I opened the kitchen door, crossed the stone-paved passage, and going up a few stairs, came to a fair-sized hall. Here there were four doors, one leading out to the porch where I had found shelter yesterday afternoon, one to a room right at the back, and two which apparently opened respectively ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... stood over six feet high and had to be wound up every night by hauling on a rope, was noisily getting ready to strike two. But for Mrs. Lessways' disorderly and undesired assistance, Hilda's task might have been finished a quarter of an hour earlier. She passed quietly up the stairs. When she was near the top, her mother's voice, at once querulous and amiable, came from ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... advantage of seeing by degrees all the distinguished persons in the French army, and especially of beholding close at hand the leaders whose names had already been made known to us by reputation. Thus we looked from stairs and landing-places, as if from galleries, very conveniently upon the generals who passed by. More than all the rest do I remember the Prince Soubise as a handsome, courteous gentleman; but most distinctly, the Marechal de Broglio, who was a younger man, not tall, but well built, lively, ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... the shadow, or rather out of my corner—for it was all shadow alike—and called out Lancelot's name. Lancelot called back to me, and then I heard Jensen wish him good-night and turn and tramp heavily down the stairs that led below. He seemed to tramp very heavily, heavier than was his wont, for he was a light, alert man, even when his biggest sea-boots were on him, as I make no doubt they now were. Lancelot joined me, and I drew him with me into the place where ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... three o'clock in the morning he awoke and dressed himself, the latter operation occupying not more than twenty seconds, for his toilet consisted only in putting on his trousers, shoes and hat. He went down stairs, and, as boys of his age are always hungry, his first objective point was the pantry, between the dining-room and kitchen, where he found and ate an abundance of cold roast beef, biscuits, and apple pie. Being a provident youth, he transferred a ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic
... replied Morgiana haughtily; whereupon the youth opening the second door, and seeing Mr. Bendigo in a flowered dressing-gown descending the stairs, exclaimed, "Papa, here's a lady for the Captain." "I'm come to free him," said she, trembling, and holding out a bundle of bank-notes. "Here's the amount of your claim, sir—two hundred and twenty guineas, as you told me last night." The Jew took the notes, ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and began to play. He had a tolerable knack of fiddling, which all appreciated save the First Mate, who sprang from the sofa as if he had been shot, emitted a shriek of protest, and fled wildly up the stairs. ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... to tell it all on the stairs; how there was a Swedish timber ship whose skipper's wife was taken with childbirth out at sea, and how the cook had to deliver her; of a Russian vessel which had run into port with a mutiny on board; and anything else that might have happened. To-day ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... piers. The passage way was not very wide, and the piers rose like high walls on each side of it; but the water was calm and smooth within, and the boats glided along one after another in a row, in a very calm and peaceful manner. At length they reached the landing stairs, which were built curiously within the pier, among the piles and timbers, and ...
— Rollo in Holland • Jacob Abbott
... fanatics seized him, dragged him out of the Temple, and set about to kill him. But the Roman authorities interfered, and rescuing him from the hands of the infuriated mob, bore him to the castle, the tower of Antonia. When they arrived at the stairs of the tower, Paul begged the tribune to be allowed to speak to the angry and demented crowd. The request was granted, and he made a speech in Hebrew, narrating his early history and conversion; but when he came to his mission to the Gentiles, the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... I should ask her more, but it's a bad idea to set natives up with any notion of consulting them, so I went to Case. It was dark, and he was sitting alone, as he did mostly, smoking on the stairs. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... passed the plate and took their seats in the cock-loft. But when the bell had done jowing, and we heard by the sounds of their feet that the elders had gone in to the kirk, we slipped down the stairs and out of the side door. We were through the churchyard in a twinkling, and hot-foot on the road to the Dyve Burn. It was the fashion of the genteel in Kirkcaple to put their boys into what were known as Eton suits—long ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... with the deepest earnestness and even eloquence; others gathered round, and some took his tickets. I refused them, saying, "No. The question of all questions to me is whether slavery or freedom is to rule this Republic,'' and, having taken a Republican ticket, I went up-stairs to the polls. On my arrival at the ballot-box came a most exasperating thing. A drunken Irish Democrat standing there challenged my vote. He had, perhaps, not been in the country six months; I had lived in that very ward since my childhood, knew and was known by every other person present; and ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... alone in a house one night with her sick husband. She heard a knock at the door. And when she went and opened it there was nothing there—nothing that could be seen, at least. But when she opened the door a deadly cold wind blew in and seemed to sweep past her right up the stairs, although it was a calm, warm summer night outside. Immediately she heard a cry. She ran upstairs—and her husband was dead. And she always believed, so Gertrude said, that when she opened that door she let ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... auburn hair, and a harp, the soft solace of her solitary hours, which she fortunately finds always the means of transporting from castle to cottage, although she herself be sometimes obliged to jump out of a two-pair-of-stairs window, and is more than once bewildered on her journey, alone and on foot, without any guide but a blowzy peasant girl, whose jargon she hardly can understand? Or again, if my WAVERLEY had been entitled ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... Seth, through the doorway, up the narrow stairs which led to the rooms above. "Come right down. Guess I've kind o' got ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... down the stairs and out of the house, and placed her with care, but a bit unceremoniously, in the tonneau of a waiting motor-car. He jumped in beside her, and pulled the lap robe over her. The car started at once, and was well under way by ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... prevented him. He knocked again, and louder, but still there was no response. Then he became uneasy. He was a brave man when he knew what was to be met, but now all sorts of uncomfortable suspicions crossed his mind; the rascals might be up-stairs waiting for a quiet opportunity to shoot down at him, or they might be under the small stoop on which he stood, and preparing to fire up at him. They might be quietly burning their spurious money up-stairs, so as to destroy the evidence against ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... education had been received in grandmother's kitchen. The other rooms of the house comprised a sitting-room—used only when there was company—a parlour, four bedrooms, and the room reserved for the old people. Up-stairs were the sleeping and store-rooms. In the hall stood the tall old fashioned house clock, with its long pendulum swinging to and fro with slow and measured beat. Its face had looked upon the venerable sire ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... and call me gossip Quickly? Coming in to borrow a mess of vinegar; telling us she had a good dish of prawns, whereby thou didst desire to eat some, whereby I told thee they were ill for green wound? And didst thou not, when she was gone down stairs, desire me to be no more so familiarity with such poor people; saying that ere long they should call me madam? And didst thou not kiss me, and bid me fetch thee thirty shillings? I put thee now to thy book-oath: ...
— King Henry IV, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Chiswick edition]
... noticed by everybody but himself. At that moment he was too elated, too self-satisfied to notice anything. He held his head very high as he went out by the crowded doorway, and through the crowd which had gathered on the stairs; he might have been some general returning to be publicly feted as he emerged upon the broad steps under the Town Hall portico and threw a triumphant glance at the folk who had gathered there to hear the latest news. And there, in the open air, and with all those ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... Cheeryble Brother asking me kindly if I thought I could do with thirty shillings a week as a beginning; but the next I recalled my usual fate, and considered whether it was even worth while to climb the stairs, go through what to me was a painful ordeal, merely to be impressed again with the sense of ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... tears and bitterness to the dregs and then to die with her. In short, I abhorred her and I idolized her; I felt that her love was my ruin, but that to live without her was impossible. I mounted the stairs like a flash; I spoke to none of the servants, but, familiar with the house, opened the door of ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... crowded to excess, the bar-room was full of noisy revellers, the landlord was in bed, and there were no rooms to be had. We waited at the head of the narrow flight of stairs, while a sleepy porter roused five men from their slumbers in the sitting-room, and heard a very grumbling discussion going on behind a half-open door near us, a woman in an injured tone protesting that, "It weren't no good wakin' her! She couldn't help the house not bein' big ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... titbits. The pigs and fowl were out of the earth by the day of the feast, and Haamoura and Tatini set the table, a real one on legs. The veranda was elegantly decorated with palms, but the table was below stairs in the cooler, darker, unwalled rooms, on the black pebbles brought from a far-away beach. The pillars of the house were hung with banana-leaves and ferns, but the atmosphere was not vividly gay because of the high estate and age of ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... swarming with boys, who were beguiling the rainy twilight with all sorts of amusements. There were boys everywhere, "up-stairs and down-stairs and in the lady's chamber," apparently, for various open doors showed pleasant groups of big boys, little boys, and middle-sized boys in all stages of evening relaxation, not to say effervescence. Two large rooms on the right ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... with a good appetite; then he went up stairs and remained there for an hour. When he came down, he had a letter in his hand, which he gave to Michael, our tenant's son, and told him to carry it to Sauveterre, to ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... Tindal's Christianity as Old as the Creation to Bishop Gibson, by whom it was destroyed. The scandal caused by these transactions ruined him. On the 4th of May 1737, after filling his pockets with stones, he took a boat at Somerset-stairs, and while the boat was passing under the bridge threw himself into the river. On his desk was found a slip of paper with the words—"What Cato did, and Addison approved, cannot be wrong." Besides the works mentioned above, he wrote ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... pen, picked up his cap from the chair and, with a guilty backward glance, stole out of the room. He felt very much as though he was playing hookey, a feeling which perhaps naturally increased his pleasure as he ran down the stairs and issued ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... them up two flights of narrow stairs, and showed them the room, at the same time lighting the gas. He had brought a pitcher of water with him, and placing this on the washstand, he left, closing the ...
— The Young Bridge-Tender - or, Ralph Nelson's Upward Struggle • Arthur M. Winfield
... unknown had seated himself; there was the table on which he had leaned; there was the peg on which he had hung his hat; and there was the door, locked precisely as he himself had locked it, with the chair placed against it. He hastened down-stairs and examined the doors and windows; all were exactly in the same state in which he had left them, and there was no apparent way by which any being could have entered and left the house without leaving some trace behind. "Pooh!" said Dolph to himself, "it was all a ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... winters in Germany since then. Now when she feels like passing through a door that is standing wide open just in front of her, and which leads to just the place she wants to get to, and an official shakes his head at her, and explains that she must not, but must go up two flights of stairs and along a corridor and down another flight of stairs, and so get to her place that way, she apologises for her error and trots off ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... Sculloge, there's a young lady here to see you." "Bedad, it's the vanithee [129] herself," said Sculloge; and getting up in a hurry, he spent three quarters of an hour in dressing himself. At last he went down stairs, and there on the sofa was the prettiest lady ever seen in Ireland! Naturally, Sculloge's heart beat fast and his voice trembled, as he begged the lady's pardon for this Druidic style of wooing, and besought her not to feel obliged ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... and, in consequence of this constant pressure, they give way. Another cause is too early exercise after childbearing. Flooding and leucorrhoea, or whites, if allowed to continue for a long time, will produce it; in delicate females, continued running up and down stairs, also tight lacing, dancing, leaping, and running, particularly during the period of menstruation, when the womb is increased in weight by the blood contained in it. The use of medicines ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... the shoulder of the Prince, for I was bruised and breathless, I walked with him a hundred paces or more to the steps of the great temple where we climbed to the platform at the head of the stairs. After us came the prisoner, and after him all the multitude, a very great number who stood upon the steps and on the flat ground beyond. The Prince, who was very white and quiet, sat himself down upon the low granite base of a tall obelisk ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard
... fighting all is done, And you're all at home with medals on your chest, And you've learnt to sleep so soundly that the firing of a gun At your bedside wouldn't rob you of your rest; As you lie in slumber deep, if your wife walks in her sleep, And tumbles down the stairs and breaks her crown, Oh, it won't awaken you, for you'll say, 'It's nothing new, It's another blessed horse ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... sheltered from breeze, and could see in every direction each pursuing his or her favourite occupation, and yet losing none of the beauties and wonders of the ocean; near the deck house were two berths, one for Captain MacNab, the other for Mr. Austin; down stairs we had a saloon, the length of which was the width of the vessel, and about twelve feet across; on the upper end a smaller saloon, or drawing room, the sofas of which made up four berths; the three girls used this room, and it opened into the stern cabin, where ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... Tiber, so rich in heirlooms of antiquity and art, none can boast such various wealth as this. The moment one leaves the centre of the town, which is built on a table of rock, the narrow streets plunge down on every side like dangerous broken flights of stairs: they disappear under deep cavernous arches, so that if you are below they seem to lead straight up through the darkness to the soft blue heaven, while from above they seem to go straight down into deep cellars, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... to go by the second cabin, where at least I should have a table at command. The advice was excellent; but to understand the choice, and what I gained, some outline of the internal disposition of the ship will first be necessary. In her very nose is Steerage No. 1, down two pair of stairs. A little abaft, another companion, labelled Steerage No. 2 and 3, gives admission to three galleries, two running forward towards Steerage No. 1, and the third aft towards the engines. The starboard forward gallery is the second cabin. Away abaft ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... their towers or to meet Fastolfe I cannot tell." As she came to the full command of her faculties her trouble grew. "The blood of our soldiers is flowing," she said; "why did they not tell me? My arms, my arms!" Then she rushed down stairs to find her page amusing himself in the tranquil afternoon, and called to him for her horse. All was quiet, and no doubt her attendants thought her mad: but D'Aulon, who knew better than to contradict his mistress, armed her rapidly, and Luis, ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant |
