"Desk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... up an' picks up a' orange an' a' apple off the teacher's desk, an' says he, "This orange is the earth, an' this here apple is the sun." An', with that, he explained all they is to total eclipses. I can't begin to tell you thess how he expressed it, because I ain't highly edjercated myself, an' I don't know ...
— Sonny, A Christmas Guest • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... to the man of keys; that functionary takes his seat at a small desk, while Marston stands by its side, watching the process of his prison reception, in silence. The gaoler reads the commitment, draws a book deliberately from off a side window, spreads it open on his desk, and commences humming an air. ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... two thirds of its space were crowded benches. At the upper end of the room was a dais, a schoolmaster's desk. Flanking it on one hand were forms occupied by the men Sabre had seen shuffling out of the mortuary. On the other hand a second dais stood. Facing the central dais was a long table at which men were seated on ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... to his desk and write his story (he was on an evening paper and so had no deadline staring him in the face) but to a quiet corner in his club, where he ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... much, that he had left off growing, and was free to pursue his own course of study, which was chiefly to write long letters to himself from persons of distinction, addressed "P. Toots, Esquire, Brighton," to preserve them in his desk ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... Compton received it the same afternoon. He smiled as he broke the seal, but ceased to smile when he read the note. It happened to fit a certain vague feeling of uneasiness that possessed him. He laid it down on his desk, walked up and down behind his counter, and then returned and read it again. The sprawling words seemed to possess a fascination for him. He read them again and again, and turned them over and over in his mind. It was characteristic of his simple nature that he never once attributed the ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... to inform me of the chapel being got in tolerable order; and said, it looked very well; and against he came down next, it should be all new white-washed, and painted and lined; and a new pulpit-cloth, cushion, desk, etc. and that it should always be kept in order for the future. He told me the two Misses Darnford, and Lady Jones, would dine with him on Sunday: And, with their servants and mine, said he, we shall ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... sparingly employed. A spray of trumpet flowers, plucked from the vine that grew outside the window, had been draped over the framed steel engraving of President Davis and his Cabinet upon the wall; and on the top of the big square desk in the middle of the room, where a small section of cleared green-blotter space formed an oasis in a dry and arid desert of cluttered law journals and dusty documents, the morning's mail ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... salesmen, and small shop-keepers, while it is understocked in all the higher walks of hand-craft. Some men can only get on by force of arms, lifting, pounding, heaving, or by power of sitting at counter or a desk ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... college, despite an ample patrimony, he had curiously enough entered the lists as a newspaper man. From the sporting page he was graduated to police news, then the city desk, at last closing his career as the genius who invented the weekly Sunday thriller, in many colors of illustration and vivacious Gallic style which interpreted into heart throbs and goose-flesh the real life romances and tragedies of the preceding six ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... desk, which was hidden behind a screen of elm-trees, he had to face a true aristocrat—and not in muslins, either. If the others were the daughters of earls, this was the authentic countess ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... partly describe the effect of this sermon on Calvary Church to say what was a fact that when Philip ended and then kneeled down by the side of the desk to pray, the silence was painful and the intense feeling provoked by his remarkable statements was felt in the appearance of the audience as it remained seated after the benediction. But the final ...
— The Crucifixion of Philip Strong • Charles M. Sheldon
... Iliad is the story of a quarrel. What do men really quarrel about? Is there any more distinctive mark of human quarrels than the eternal triviality of the immediate cause? The insulting removal of a memorial emblem from an Italian city; the shifting of a reading-desk from one position to another in a French church; the playful theft of a lock of hair by an amorous young English nobleman—these were enough, in point of fact, to set whole communities by the ears, and these are the events ...
— Romance - Two Lectures • Walter Raleigh
... was done. They drove back to the hotel to lunch. Elodie lounged for the rest of the afternoon in her room, with a couple of love-birds for company—the rest of the aviary in the Saint-Denis flat being under the guardianship of Bakkus; and Andrew, with his cleared dressing-table for a desk, brought up-to-date the autobiographical manuscript which for the past few months had solaced so many hours of enforced leisure. Then they dined and proceeded to the music-hall, Elodie defiant, with a flush on her cheek, Andrew with his jaw set in ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... from Ortensia. She had told him of the step Cucurullo had taken, and he had not blamed his man; on the contrary, the thought that the two Bravi were perhaps near her now was comforting, and he wished that he were quite sure of having seen them. As he took his place at the desk to direct, he glanced to his right again, but the singing men close to him hindered him from seeing the body ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... you get done there," said Quinlan, letting himself flop down into a chair across the desk from Drayton. "Go ahead and get through. I've got nowhere to come but in, and nowhere to go ...
— The Thunders of Silence • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... fatuously supposing he resembled a City Editor, "In me you behold an embryo Richard Harding Davis, or Ty—no, I mean Irvin Cobb. I shall first serve my apprenticeship as a 'cub,' but ere many years, I shall sit at a desk, run a newspaper, and tell the world ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... have a place in the Custom House from the first of next month. My name has been forwarded for the appointment of Superintendent, which, if I do not get, will not probably be filled at all. In that case there is a vacant desk which I may get that pays $1200 per annum. The other will be worth from $1500 to $1800 and will ...
— Letters of Ulysses S. Grant to His Father and His Youngest Sister, - 1857-78 • Ulysses S. Grant
... teacher and the big boy who, despite resistance, was soundly thrashed. Those were the days of physical rather than moral argument, of punishment before judicial inquiry. Once young Carleton had marked his face with a pencil, making the scholars laugh. Called up by the man behind the desk, and asked whether he had done it purposely, the frightened boy, not knowing what to say, answered first yes, and then no. "Don't tell a lie, sir," roared the master, and down came the blows upon the boy's hands, ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis
... the temperature of the swimming-hole. On such a morning he was to be found somewhere near the center of the school-room, this being the point most remote from the distraction of open windows and hence selected for him by the teacher. He was seated at a small desk whose top was deeply scored by carven initials and monograms of rude design, all inked in to give them the boldness of touch necessary when one would have his art impress the beholder. An open book lay on that desk-top but the eyes of the Individual ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... teacher, he must begin by being a schismatic. His choice is soon made. He harangues on Tower Hill or in Smithfield. A congregation is formed. A license is obtained. A plain brick building, with a desk and benches, is run up, and named Ebenezer or Bethel. In a few weeks the Church has lost forever a hundred families, not one of which entertained the least scruple about her articles, her liturgy, her government, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... with his hand, striking off nails as fast as he can." But I should like to compare his writing with the writing of any little boys and girls of his age, that meet in our school-room. He has no nice desk to write on; his pens and ink are such as he can get. There were no pen and ink in his father's house three years ago; for no one could make letters there when you sent Josiah to school. You see ...
— Jemmy Stubbins, or The Nailer Boy - Illustrations Of The Law Of Kindness • Unknown Author
... his flat-top desk, and evidently reading some communication or other. He looked up, and on seeing who his caller was, smiled amiably; for Frank Bird was a favorite of his, and possibly the best liked boy ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... not that his lips were pressed quite close together, he would have appeared to have heard the verdict without emotion. Not so Father John; he had been leaning back, anxiously waiting till the one fatal word met his ear; and then his head fell forward on the desk, and ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... frankly curious about what was in store for me, but I knew better by now than to ask questions. Presently there entered a tall, thin, iron-gray gentleman, the very type of a Prussian bureaucrat. Walking with quick nervous steps to his desk he acknowledged our bows with a curt nod and turning to Stammer ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... house coat with a belt and in chamois leather shoes, was sitting in an armchair, and with a pince-nez with blue glasses he was reading a book that stood on a reading desk, while in his beautiful hand he held a half-burned cigarette daintily away ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... man turned to his desk again and the two younger clerks continued the conversation: "Degenhart appears to be a hard man," said Fritz, "but he's the best and kindest person I know, and he's dead right in what he says. It was ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner
... He don't do nothing but lounge on the front of his desk, and be too lazy to keep up 'Amen,' while I at my time of life go about, from Absolution to the fifth Lord's prayer, with a stick that makes my rheumatics worse, for the sake of the boys with their pocket full of nuts. When I was ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... tones were low and cautious. 'Pardon me, but—don't speak too loud, my friend—the mere mention of money is likely to attract some sharper to you. No, they refused me there. You see, I anticipated some difficulty inside the gates, so I had tried just before entering; but the man at the desk refused, and very curtly, too. I wanted to enter at once in order to meet half a dozen young men from my town who are ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... end. Five o'clock came, and my friend, with his daughters, and his handsome young son, who, though fairly buckled to the desk, is every now and then looking over his shoulder at a smart uniform, set seriously about satisfying the corporeal wants of nature; I, stimulated by a nobler appetite after fame, wished that the touch of a magic wand could, without all the ceremony of ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... to pray, and bowed his head upon his desk and waited in an agony of hope—waited while the darkness deepened and the splendid eternal song of the river proclaimed the futility and folly of man. A cricket sang with heart-piercing cheer, as if to say, "I die to-morrow, but I never despair." But no silken ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... in the schoolroom with Henry Sympson, whose amiable and affectionate disposition had quickly recommended him to her regard. The boy was busied about some mechanical contrivance; his lameness made him fond of sedentary occupation. He began to ransack his tutor's desk for a piece of wax or twine necessary to his work. Moore happened to be absent. Mr. Hall, indeed, had called for him to take a long walk. Henry could not immediately find the object of his search. He rummaged compartment ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... young girls about her own age, and one of them smiled at her. It seemed an invitation. She smiled back, and went on to the doorway reassured. When she entered the room, she found them pointing to a seat near a window, behind a small desk. ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... time to write any book reviews, but she had enjoyed herself over the answers to correspondents. She had posted up a notice inviting letters when first the scheme for the Magazine was accepted, and quite a budget had been delivered at the "editorial office"—otherwise her school desk. Some were couched in rather a facetious vein, but she answered them as if they were intended to be serious, sometimes with a comic result. A correspondent who signed herself "Honeysuckle" had enquired: "Can you tell me how to stop my feet from ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... and laid the note on Corliss's desk. The rancher, busy running up totals on the pay-roll, glanced at the sweat-stained piece of paper. He read it and pushed it from him. ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... too— of that he was quite certain— but ignored him completely. After one sharp, comprehensive glance around, as though he were seeking some one who was not visible, the little man went to a desk, scribbled a note, handed it in at the inquiry office, walked swiftly in the direction of an anteroom ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... desk, and as Roddy spoke regarded him sternly and with open suspicion. In concluding his story Roddy said: "We have no other object in saving General Rojas than that he's an old man, that he's dying, and that Peter and I can't sleep of nights for thinking of him lying in a damp cell, not three hundred ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis
... Mr. Thaddler have a good deal to say to each other, motherkins. I believe you enjoy that caffeteria desk, and all the compliments ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... covering all the grades of belief or non-belief between the two. She was asked to contribute to a symposium on "The Ideal Man," to write an account of "The Underground Railroad," and to give so many written opinions on current topics of discussion that to have complied would have kept her at her desk from early morning until the ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... any church of the Church of England in Canada. Exteriorly, it is 135 feet in length and 73 in breadth, while the height of the spire above the ground is 152 feet, the height from the floor to the centre arch, within, being 41 feet. The communion plate, together with the altar cloth, hangings of the desk and pulpit of crimson velvet and cloth of gold, and the books for divine service, was a private present from George the Third. There was then also a Rector of Quebec, having a salary, from the British Government, of L200 a year, such ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... forth, and, as he spoke of drawing the line, he drew an imaginary one with his fingers on the green baize of the flat-topped desk. ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... finding in the barracks a second document almost identical with the first, except that it contained the words, "Second warning," and the dirk had been driven half its length into the lid of the desk. At first he thought it was the same parchment and dagger, but the different wording showed him that at least the former was not the same. He called Gottlieb, and demanded to know who had been allowed to pass the guards and enter that room. The honest ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... o'clock he desired Mr. Lear to call Mrs. Washington to his bedside; when he requested her to bring from his desk two wills, and on receiving them, he gave her one, which he observed was useless as being superseded by the other, and desired her to burn it, which she did, and put the ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... occasion of the great actor Sadovsky's coming from Moscow. Rusakov, one of the characters in the play, was known to be one of his favourite parts. Just before dinner on that day, Nejdanov went down to the theatre to book a ticket, but found a large crowd already waiting there. He walked up to the desk with the intention of getting a ticket for the pit, when an officer, who happened to be standing behind him, thrust a three-rouble note over Nejdanov's head and called out to the man inside: "He" (meaning Nejdanov) "will probably want change. I don't. ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... Writing-desk, their Travelling-bag with the opening as large as the bag, and the new Portmanteau containing four compartments, are undoubtedly the best articles of the kind ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 236, May 6, 1854 • Various
... dozing on a chair in the beer-shop, which was almost deserted. Three men were drinking and smoking with their elbows on the oak tables; the book-keeper in her desk was reading a novel, while the master, in his shirt-sleeves, lay sound asleep ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... like them for opening your chest. And do get a high desk made, and stand to your writing instead of sitting." And Tom actually made Vavasour promise to do both, and bade ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... the Cowntess of Cumberland, her deputy Mistres Davis; and the Cowntess of Essex, her deputy Mistres Bele. Barthilmew Hikman cam to Mortlak on his own busines. Sept. 2nd, the spider at ten of the clok at night suddenly on my desk, and suddenly gon; a most rare one in bygnes and length of feet. I was in a great study at my desk. Sept. 6th I gave Richard 2s. 6d. part of his wagis, when he went to his grandfather. Sept. 13th, I dyned with the Erle of Derby at Russell ...
— The Private Diary of Dr. John Dee - And the Catalog of His Library of Manuscripts • John Dee
... Mary Gray on Friday morning, as she entered the school at an early hour. She waited only to place her books in neat order in her desk, ere she approached the teacher, and whispering in a voice that laughed in spite of her efforts to ...
— The King's Daughter and Other Stories for Girls • Various
... built his life upon the memory of Alice Yorke. Deep down under everything that he had striven for had lain the foundation of his hope to win her. It went down with a crash. He went to his room, and unlocking his desk, took from his drawer a small package of letters and other little mementos of the past that had been so sweet. These he put in the fire and, with a grim face, watched them blaze and burn to ashes. She was dead to him. ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... Well, then, all I've got to say is to steer clear of him, my boy. Don't have anything to do with him," and, with something of a return of his usual energy Mr. Damon banged his fist down on his desk. "Give him a wide berth, Tom, and if you see him coming, turn your back. He'd talk a miser into giving him his last cent. Keep away from Shallock Peters, Tom. Bless my necktie, he's a scoundrel, that's what he is!" and again Mr. ...
— Tom Swift and his Photo Telephone • Victor Appleton
... straight to the Navy Department. They passed through a room filled with waiting persons having business there, and were at once admitted to the office of the Secretary of the Navy, a dignified looking man with gray hair and mustache, who sat ensconced behind a large desk littered with ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... he could write a sheet of dictionary with as much pleasure as a sheet of poetry. He acknowledged, indeed, that the latter was much easier than the former. For in the one case, books and a desk were requisite; in the other, you might compose when lying in bed, or walking in the fields, &c. He did not, however, descend to explain, nor to this moment can I comprehend, how the labours of a mere Philologist, in the ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... my young friend," said Mr. Vanderpool, reaching forward to some loose sheets of manuscript upon the desk before him, "did you ever consider the question whether the ...
— Rufus and Rose - The Fortunes of Rough and Ready • Horatio Alger, Jr
... to sit at his desk for fifteen hours a day, writing and studying. The sedentary habit grew upon him; the vital organs got clogged with adipose tissue. The doctor told him that "his diaphragm was too close to his lungs"—a cheerful proposition, well worthy of a small, mouse-colored medicus who dare not ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... three of the other towers have four lodgings in height; the fourth containeth the buttery, pantry, pastry, lardery, and kitchen. In one of the towers a study called Paradise, where was a closet in the middle of eight squares latticed; about and at the top of every square was a desk lodged to set books on, &c. The garde robe in the castle was exceeding fair, and so were the gardens within the mote and the orchards without; and in the orchards were mounts opere topiario writhen about with degrees like turnings of a cockle-shell, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... something as she followed Miss Brooks up the soft, carpeted stairs. At the first landing the woman opened a door, and motioned Tavia to step in. The room was large and well-furnished after the regulation boarding-house plan—dressing-table, desk, couch-bed, and curtained bookcase, but no article of furniture indicated any line of business that might be carried on ...
— Dorothy Dale's Queer Holidays • Margaret Penrose
... with music, which was one of the greatest passions and inspirations of his life. This alone would be sufficient to account for their intimacy. Perhaps she merely stimulated his literary activity, and kept him at his desk; for, like all authors except Anthony Trollope, he hated regular work. His definition of happiness is not only a self-revelation, it will appeal to many humble individuals who are not writers at all. Being asked ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... On my desk is a contract waiting to be signed for another four years at the school. Beside it is a letter from Brother, begging me to drop everything and come home at once. Can yon guess what the temptation is? On the one hand ceaseless ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... cried Elnora. "I will have them to-morrow," and gripped her desk for support for she knew that was not true. Four books, ranging perhaps at a dollar and a half apiece; would her mother buy them? Of ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... who seemed to regard the events of the past few minutes as nothing short of a cataclysm, flutteringly leafed over her book, and just as Amidon began wondering what he could think of to put into a letter, she burst into tears. Amidon closed his desk with a bang, and giving Alderson orders covering his absence, walked out into the streets, full of the joy of gratified destructiveness. He met Alvord, and temerariously agreed to go with him to the lodge ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... coughing. I was afraid my friend might be ill; so I stepped out of my room and went to his study. Not wanting, however, to disturb him, if he was at work, I cautiously opened the door just a little, and peeped in. I saw my friend intent in writing at his high desk, with his nose almost touching the paper. Leaf after leaf he wrote on. In a while he held up his head, and what did I see! It was not the Hearn I was familiar with; it was another Hearn. His face was mysteriously white; his large eye gleamed. He appeared ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... Phoebe slowly, "he is six years older than I am and that makes him thirty-two. I have earned my living for ten years and a man five years younger who sits at a desk next to mine at the office is taking care of his mother and educating two younger brothers on a salary that is less than mine—but David is a dear! Did you see the little coats Polly sent the babies?" she asked quickly to close the ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... contrary, he was short and somewhat deformed, with the left shoulder higher than the right, and a worn, ashen face with lifeless eyes. To Pierre he looked like some old clerk of seventy, half stupefied by fifty years of office work, dulled and bent by incessantly leaning over his writing desk ever since his youth. And indeed that was Sarno's story. The puny child of a petty middle-class family, he had been educated at the Seminario Romano. Then later he had for ten years professed Canon Law at that same seminary, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... Present, and sigh for opportunities of action which they know not where to seek. Old men mourn over the folly and recklessness of the Young, who, in the fresh and balmy spring-time of life, recoil from the confinement of the desk or the study, and long for active occupation, in which all their beating energies may find employment. Subjection is the consequence of civilized life; and self-sacrifice is necessary in those who are born to toil, before they may partake of ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... an armchair at his desk, smoking a cigar and reading one of several letters that were lying before him. At the back was a large unframed photograph of the size known as half-plate of the interior of some building. At another desk, or rather table, at the other side of the office, ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... himself into the cottage, fully determined to go through with the task there and then, to write the letter almost before he had time to think, and to post it immediately. Yet dawn found him still sitting at his desk with a pile of cigarette ends and an empty decanter on the tray, and a blank sheet of paper in front of him. At last, he got up with a sigh, extinguished the lamp, and stumbled wearily to bed. It was not that the spirit had affected him—he felt he would have given anything to have ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... Schiller's dramatic skit, entitled 'Koerner's Forenoon'. It belongs apparently to the year 1787, but was not published until 1862. The busy councillor of the Dresden Consistory sees a little leisure before him and squares off at his desk for a solid forenoon's work. He begins by ordering his man to shave him. Then he is interrupted by a procession of callers,—Schiller, in various roles, and Minna, and Dorchen, and Professor Becker and others—who keep the stream of babble flowing until one o'clock. ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... said. He set his brief case on Malone's desk and pulled a sheaf of papers from it. "Do you see these?" he said, waving them. "Inquiries. Complaints. Demands. From everybody. I've been ...
— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett
... was that, seated beside his desk, in an easy chair, was a striking looking woman, not exactly young, but of an age that is perhaps more interesting than youth, certainly more sophisticated. She, too, I noticed, had a tense, excited expression on her face. ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... match to light the cigar. Bat was clicking his cigar case open and shut. This editor was all nerves too. Nerves seemed to go with the job; but these nerves were not jangled. He leaned back in his swing chair with one boot against the desk. "What makes a man successful, anyway? It isn't ability. Your news-man across the way could buy our office out with brains; but gee whitaker, he's worse than a dose of bitters! Now take your Senator, he hasn't either the ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... had entered the doctor's office a few moments before in obedience to the invitation sank into a luxurious chair. The doctor looked at him casually, and, touching an indicator at the side of his desk, said: ...
— Best Short Stories • Various
... God! Can't you leave that letter alone, or, at least, can't you refrain from reading it aloud? I've been through it once. Put it back on the desk. Do you hear me? ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... went quietly to the precentor's desk and mounted it, much to the surprise of its proper occupant, a man with a voice like a brass trumpet, who thereupon took his seat on a chair below ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... diagrammed in figures sufficiently large and clear in Plates VII, VIII, and IX that a detailed explanation is not necessary. Step 1 shows the position of the first four straws as they are placed upon the table or desk; steps 2, 3, 4, and 5, continued additions and weaving; steps 6, 7, and 8, turning the edge a on the end of the mat; step 9, turning the opposite edge c; step 10, the double turn of the corner straw; step 11, the corner turn woven in the mat at corner No. 1, lapping over the straw already ...
— Philippine Mats - Philippine Craftsman Reprint Series No. 1 • Hugo H. Miller
... letter came. The post used to arrive just before first school. I opened the letter in the class-room and sat down at my desk, sick with horror. The awful wholesale destruction of my relatives paralysed me. My form must have seen by my ghastly face that something had happened, for, contrary to their usual practice, they sat, thirty of them, in stony silence, waiting for me to begin the lesson. As far as I remember ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... which is found in St. John's Hospital at Rye. The Corsham Almshouses in Wiltshire, erected in 1663, are most picturesque without, and contain some splendid woodwork within, including a fine old reading-desk with carved seat in front. There is a large porch with an immense coat-of-arms over the door. In the region of the Cotswolds, where building-stone is plentiful, we find a noble set of almshouses at Chipping Campden in ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... grassy flat round which the river bends; tresses of luxuriant ivy conceal its walls, in which are found sections of a Roman arch and a sculptured Roman column, part of the spoil of the city of Uriconium. Among its relics is a reading-desk, carved, it is supposed, by Albert Durer, with panels representing passages in the parable of the ...
— Handbook to the Severn Valley Railway - Illustrative and Descriptive of Places along the Line from - Worcester to Shrewsbury • J. Randall
... pardon! pardon!" said Mr. Gusher, rising from his desk at the announcement and advancing to the railing. "I shall do myself ze pleazure, and ze honor of receiving such commands as you shall confide to ze firm," he continued, smiling and ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... perfect scenes that even the Wizard of the North has ever conjured; the scene in the tent of Richard Lion-Heart, when the disguised slave saves the life of the king, and Richard first suspects his identity. As he read on, his arms resting on the high desk in front of him, and his eyes, full of infectious enjoyment, travelling from the book to his audience, surrounded by human beings whose confidence he had won, and whose lives he was brightening from day to day, ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of a laboring man sweet. Weariness is the best friend of labor, just as the toothache is the best friend of sound teeth. Weariness is an angel. When the proper end of your day has come, she hovers over your desk, and, if you are careless of the time, she breathes a misty breath upon your eyelids, and loads your pen with an invisible weight; the shadow of her gray wings dims your page, and her throbbing hand upon your forehead admonishes you of her presence. Let her visits be few and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... his riding-clothes, Gregory Jessup discovered a business letter, the back of which provided ample writing space, and the stub of a red-ink pencil. "We use 'em in the drafting-room," he explained. "If these will do—here's a desk," and he raised the end of his saddle, supporting it with a ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... joke she was playing on Mr. Homos, and I noticed that she put herself rather defiantly en evidence in his company whenever she could in the presence of these reluctant ladies. She told me she had not the courage to ask the clerk how many of the tickets he had sold out of those she had left at the desk. ...
— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells
... her best brown silk dress, with a lace collar and cuff set contributed the Christmas before by her Aunt Kate from Ontario, and at her waist, one of the doctor's roses. The others had been brought over by Mary, and were in a glass jar on the tidy desk, where they attracted much attention and speculation as to where they had come from. They seemed to redeem the bare school-room from utter dreariness, and Pearl found herself repeating the phrase in the doctor's letter, "Like a ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... game of polo, and was a good shot. Possessing as he did sufficient money to prevent the necessity of working, he had not taken the something he was supposed to be doing in the City very seriously. He had put in a periodical appearance at a desk and drawn pictures on the blotting paper; for the remainder of the time he had amused himself. He belonged, in fact, to the Breed; the Breed that has always existed in England, and will always exist till the world's end. You may meet its members in London and in Fiji; in the lands that lie beyond ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... stood in a small room that might have been the office of an up-to-date physician anywhere in the world. Across the polished top of a mahogany desk Dr. Semple stared at us, his eyes, like the eyes of our guide and Fraser, polished and expressionless. But now we understood. Those eyes were expressionless because there was nothing to give them expression. I tried to force my mind to comprehend the almost incomprehensible. ...
— The Floating Island of Madness • Jason Kirby
... seven, so we'll make ourselves into a society. We'll have a star with seven rays for our secret sign. It has a nice occult kind of smack about it. When we chalk that mark upon anybody's desk, it means we've got to reform her, whether she likes ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... desk, and began at once to do her bidding. The ragged school was the one in which he was so much interested, and that he ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... well off where you are," remarked Stephen, "and I would advise you to stick to the desk till you have gained a thorough knowledge of mercantile affairs. You may then have an opportunity of turning them to good account, whereas at present you scarcely know enough to be of much ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... built by the Hope-Jones Organ Company. The position of the swell shutters is brought under the control of the organist's fingers as well as his feet. Each balanced swell pedal is provided with an indicator key fixed on the under side of the ledge of the music desk, where it is most conspicuous to the eye of the performer. As the swell pedal is opened by the organist's foot, the indicator key travels in a downward direction to the extent of perhaps one inch and a quarter. As the organist closes his pedal, the indicator key again moves upward into ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... the family really lived, and an inner room which contained a large picture of the Royal Family, all in uniform, and very gorgeous uniforms, too. Even the young daughter had a uniform which looked warlike enough for a Lieutenant-Colonel's. There was also a desk in this room, where the father of the family—for the old man who brought me in was the grandfather—conducted his business. He was some sort of a clerk, probably the reeve of the municipality, and did not work on the farm at all. There was a fine home-made carpet on the ...
— Three Times and Out • Nellie L. McClung
... carving, his feet on a pile of books which had been unpacked, but for which there was as yet no place, Winthrop Laine leaned back, partly relaxed, partly tense, and with half-shut eyes looked at a picture on the wall opposite. For an hour, two hours, he had sat like this. On his desk was an unfinished article, but "The Punishments of Progress" did not interest to-night, and after vain effort to write he had thrown the pages aside and yielded to ...
— The Man in Lonely Land • Kate Langley Bosher
... trial in the House. He was doubtful about its passage, and some ten days or two weeks before it came up for consideration in the House, I received a note from him, written in pencil on a card, while sitting at my desk in the House, stating that he wished to see me, and asking that I call on him at the White House. I responded that I would be there the next morning ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... told Markham,' said he presently, 'to send you my desk. There are all sorts of things in it, just as I threw them in when I cleared out my rooms at Oxford. I had rather nobody but you saw some of them. There is nothing of any importance, so you may look at them when you please, or not ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... should never use sealing-wax of any colour but red, nor paper of any hue but white. Fancy papers, fantastic borders, dainty coloured wax, and the like elegant follies, are only admissible in the desk of a lady. ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... Henry, the eldest lad, was missing. We supposd he was only gone out on a morning's stroll, and that he would return, but he did not return & we discovered that he had opened your desk before he went, & I suppose taken all the money he could find, for on diligent search I could find none, and on opening your Letter to Anderson, which I thought necessary to get at the key, I learn that you had a ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... glimmer in his bean an' goes back. Thin-lips ain't in sight. Yer Uncle Hunch softly heel-taps it upstairs an' finds the darkish guy adoptin' a paper with a fatherly pat, which he slips in his coat pocket. Whereupon—whiles he's lockin' the desk drawer ag'in, aforesaid uncle slips downstairs an' out. By'm'by, Thin-lips trots out with an ugly grin on his mug—an' Uncle Hunch, gettin' soberer an' soberer by the minute, trots after him with his ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... sneered. "All the letters you have written since you came to Muanza lie in a drawer in the commandant's desk! I ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... first of the Christian sciences: division of land rightly, and the general law of measuring between wisely-held compass points. The type of mensuration, circle in square, on his desk, I use for my first exercise in the ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin
... fashion. It took him half the week to get through one missive, and by that time another had arrived. But I fear he did not make much out of them. Still, they gave him one pleasure. He endorsed them carefully with the name of the writer, and the date of receipt, and then he laid them away in his desk, as neatly as he had filed his business letters in his old ...
— The Story of a New York House • Henry Cuyler Bunner
... anything like it," concluded Jonah. "Within three minutes four of the police were crying, and the head bottle-washer was beating his breast and imploring me in broken accents to explain away my guilt. I threw five hundred francs on his desk and covered my eyes. With tears rolling down his cheeks, he pushed the notes under a blotting-pad and wrote laboriously upon a buff sheet. Then a woman was produced. Between explosions of distress she made us some tea. In common decency we couldn't push off for a while. Besides, I wasn't quite sure ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... a sickening suddenness and then rushed madly on again. He had a new and dreadful duty to perform. All his mother's counsel, all his father's precepts told him that it was his duty. Yet fear held him in his little seat behind his little desk, while his conscience insisted on this unalterable decree of the social code: "So somebody's clothes is wrong it's polite you says 'scuse' ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... diffidence, and from the first made no concealment of his own views upon any of the subjects we discussed together. It is true that when I took him down to the Mercury office that evening, and wrote my leader whilst he sat at my desk beside me, he regarded me with the admiring eyes of the novice; but he had, even then, his own ideas as to how leaders ought to be written and newspapers edited, and he did not affect to conceal them. There was something that was irresistible in ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... central figure thereof, the majestic form of Jove himself, clad in imperial splendor. But it was the unexpected that happened, for, as the door closed behind me, I found myself in a plain sort of workshop, such as an ordinary man would have in his own house, at one end of which stood a rolling-top desk, and, instead of the dazzling throne I had expected to see, there stood in front of it an ordinary office-chair that twirled on a pivot. Books and papers were strewn about the floor and upon the tables; the pictures on ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... means to ruin Mackenzie, to revenge the death of a son, Heaven-forsaken from the beginning of his days, and whose maturest acts (he died at nineteen) were robbing his mother's jewel-case and stealing money from his father's desk. My nephew is acting as Mackenzie's counsel, and his wife, a Roman wife and mother, is a friend ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... fell in my factor-days. Desk-drudge, slaving at St. David's, one must game, or drink, or craze. I chose gaming: and,—because your high-flown gamesters hardly take Umbrage at a factor's elbow if the factor pays his stake,— I was winked at in a circle where the company was choice, Captain ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... Governor and the Lieutenant-Governor adjoined. Each had its ante-room, in which a private secretary wrote eternally at a roll-top desk, an excessively plain-featured stenographer rattled the keys of his typewriter, and a smug-faced page yawned over a newspaper, or scanned the cards of visitors with the air of an official censor. At intervals, an electric bell whirred once, twice, ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... years and three months before his [Bellamy's] death he was disabled by a paralytic Shock, we impaired his Intellect as well as debilitated his Body. Few were equal to him in the Desk & he was Communicative and instructive in Conversation upon religious Subjects." The passage closes with the prophecy, "His numerous noisy Writings have blazed their day, and one Generation more will put them to sleep."—Stiles Diary, March 16, 1790 (on hearing the news of Bellamy's ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.
... were some stags' heads on the walls, and a fox's brush with a label; a coloured print of Harrow, and engravings of one or two Generals whom Grey had specially honoured as masters of the art of war; the book-case, the writing-desk, the rather stiff furniture, were just as he had left them. Philip flung open the door with a passionate cry of "Arthur! Arthur! At last! Thank God——" But the words died on ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... length he begins to see harmony in those results where before there was but discord. Gradually the clouds disperse, and he discerns with a certainty little short of actual vision the planet glittering in the far depths of space. He rises from his desk and invokes the aid of a practical astronomer; and lo! there is the planet in the indicated spot. The annals of science present no such spectacle as this. It was the most triumphant proof of the law of universal ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... medicines for a number of years, and know that they do for me all that is claimed for them. I am employed mostly at my desk, and not infrequently have an attack of the headache. It usually comes on in the forenoon. At my dinner I eat my regular meal, and take one or two of Doctor Pierce's Pleasant Pellets immediately ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... swung shut behind him, and he walked into the foyer, then turned left into the receptionist's office. The woman behind the desk smiled her eager smile and said, "Good ...
— What The Left Hand Was Doing • Gordon Randall Garrett
... to dip the house-flag when outward bound, and discovered that, whether The Laird sat at his desk in the mill office or watched from the cliff, they ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... self-sufficing. A little obscure here and there, perhaps, and in need of amplification or explication for inferior intellects—a half-finished manuscript commentary on one of the super-commentaries, to be called "The Garden of Lilies," was lying open on Reb Shemuel's own desk—but yet the only true encyclopaedia of things terrestrial and divine. And, indeed, they were wonderful books. It was as difficult to say what was not in them as what was. Through them the old Rabbi held communion with his God whom he loved with all ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... followed. From a screened window in the king's building two men had witnessed the exciting scene near the jail. One of these men was Strang. The other was Arbor Croche. At another window a few feet away, hidden from their eyes by a high desk and masses of papers and books, Winnsome Croche was crumpled up on the floor hardly daring to breathe through fear of betraying her presence. From these windows they had seen the girl run from behind the jail; they had watched her struggle through ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood
... personage, whose cheek and nose displayed the result of many a libation to the jolly god. Short-legged, short-breathed, and full-paunched, he strode, quick and laborious, like a big-bellied cask set in motion, as if glad to escape, into a small back chamber, furnished with two stools, a desk, and sundry big books—implements in use only as touching his ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... of memory, Alwin saw again Brother Ambrose's cell, and his rebellious self toiling at the desk; and he marvelled that in this far-off place and time that toil was to ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... written as they so often were in a moment of feverish enthusiasm, frequently gave offence to foreign monarchs and statesmen, and were more than once nearly the cause of war. It was remarked of him that "the desk was his place of peril, his pen ran away with him. His speech never made an enemy, his writing has left many festering sores. The charm of manner and urbanity which so served him in Parliament and in society was sometimes wanting on paper, and good ...
— Queen Victoria • E. Gordon Browne
... She drew her desk toward her, and wrote to Mr. Coventry. It took her some little time. She handed Henry the letter to read. He took it in his hand; but hesitated. He inquired what would be ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... the check for the stored car to her, with a note—written standing before a hacked wall-desk in a branch post-office—which said only, "Here's check for the boat. Did not know whether you would have room for it at house. Tried to get you on phone, phone again just as soon as rent room etc. Hope ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... inferior to the "Rape of the Lock," a composition of a similar kind. The occasion of this poem was a frivolous dispute between the treasurer and the chapter of a cathedral concerning the placing of a reading-desk (lutrin). A friend playfully challenged Boileau to write a heroic poem on the subject, to verify his own theory that the excellence of a heroic poem depended upon the power of the inventor to sustain and enlarge upon a slender ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... windows of the library, a shrill telephone call rang out. It came from the instrument on Buntingford's desk, and the two outside could see him take ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Mrs. Tolbridge, who had turned toward a desk at which she had been writing. "The doctor is a man I can recommend, and I hope you may get a husband as good as he is. And by the way, if you ever do get such a one, I also hope you will be able to find some one who will cook his meals ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... crowded that morning when Martha arrived. She looked around in vain for some sight of Madison, but she could see nothing of him, and so she sank into her seat with a sigh. She could just see the new minister drooping in his seat behind the reading desk. He was evidently deep in meditation, for he did not get up ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... though I know not if that were the name of the round-faced, round-bodied little Marseillais who took toll at the desk. But all men knew the fame of its gumbo and its stuffed crabs, and that its claret was neither very bad nor very dear. And if the walls were dingy and the odors from the grille pungent and penetrating at times, there went with the white-sanded floor, and the marble-topped tables ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... night reflecting on his embarrassing position, searching his imagination to secure some means of obtaining the sum necessary to satisfy those creditors who were most importunate, the new spendthrift sought distraction in work, and went to his desk at five o'clock in the morning in order to drive away his painful thoughts; not thinking that at this hour any one would hear him, and while working began to whistle La Linotte with all his might. Now, this morning, as often before, the Emperor had already been working a whole hour ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... desperate glance, trying to select a face to which she might appeal. There wasn't one. Estabrook was filling with its usual week-end scum; crafty faces, hard faces, faces shallowly good-natured, and therefore doubly treacherous. Even the pimply clerk at the desk, discerning her unescorted state, had changed subtly in voice ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... a Chinaman must see only a single spray at a time. The poorly paid clerk will bring with him to his office in the morning some trifling bud, which he will stick into a tiny vase of water, and place beside him on his desk. The owner of what may be a whole gallery of pictures will invite you to tea, followed by an inspection of his treasures; but on the same afternoon he will only produce perhaps a single specimen, and scout the idea that any one could call ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... down outside, stopping now and then to peer through the keyhole to see if I had gone away. But in each instance he was gratified to find that I had not. Lest any one should imagine that I took advantage of his absence to peruse his private correspondence, I will say here that I did not do so, as his desk ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... be still worse. If he were very good and loving, could I live a moment away from him? And then, as most likely he would be obliged to stay all day, either at the desk, manufactory, or shop, I should be like a poor restless spirit during his absence. I should invent a thousand chimeras; imagine that others loved him, and that he was with them. Heaven only knows what I might be tempted to do in my despair! Certain it is, ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... the office and took from a desk a little order book. I opened it: there were some orders, hastily written, no doubt, but in a hand ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... take care to keep the shoulders well back and the chest well expanded, so that we may not grow misshapen and deformed. Many boys and girls have ugly curves in their backbones which have been caused by sitting at high desks with one elbow on the desk, thus raising the shoulder of that side so high that the spine becomes crooked. The illustrations on this and the following page show good and bad positions and also the effects of ...
— First Book in Physiology and Hygiene • J.H. Kellogg
... exists in making the man merchandise, reducing him to an abject being, without the protection of common law. Presently the tears began to flow down Marston's cheeks, as he unbuttoned his shirt-collar with an air of restlessness, approached a desk that stood in one corner of the room, and drew from it a somewhat defaced bill of sale. There was something connected with that bit of paper, which, apart from anything else, seemed to harass him most. "But a minute before you entered I looked upon that paper," he spoke, throwing it upon the table, ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... the teachers in an adjoining room, leaving the school alone for half an hour, and I should be confident, that at such a time order, and stillness, and attention to study would prevail as much as ever. The scholars would not look to see whether I was in my desk, but whether the Study Card was up. The school was left in this way, half an hour every day, during a quarter, that we might have a teachers' meeting, and the school went on, generally quite as well, to say the least, as when the teachers ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... head of the couch stood a reading desk, on a movable pivot, with candles, and a book lying open, bearing this title, in large red letters, ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo |
