"Floor" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and gold. About the same time primroses and auriculas begin to tuft the dripping rocks, while frail white fleur-de-lis, like flakes of snow forgotten by the sun, and golden-balled ranunculuses join with forget-me-nots and cranesbill in a never-ending dance upon the grassy floor. Happy, too, is he who finds the lilies-of-the-valley clustering about the chestnut boles upon the Colma, or in the beechwood by the stream at Macugnaga, mixed with garnet-coloured columbines and fragrant white narcissus, which the people of the villages call ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... you have done. Yet I have this power with my message. If you can find one that believes before the hour's end, you shall come to Heaven after the years of Purgatory. For, from one fiery seed, watched over by those that sent me, the harvest can come again to heap the golden threshing floor. But now farewell, for I am weary of the weight ...
— The Unicorn from the Stars and Other Plays • William B. Yeats
... it through the rushing Of the city's restless roar, And trace its gentle gushing O'er ocean's crystal floor; We should hear it far up-floating Beneath the Orient moon, And catch the golden noting From the busy Western noon; And pine-robed heights would echo As the mystic chant up-floats, And the sunny plain resounds again With the myriad ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon
... hand: This, they build to such an height from the level of the ground, that a vessel may stand a little lower than the hearth, to receive the tar as it runs out: But first, the hearth is made wide, according to the quantity of knots to be set at once, and that with a very smooth floor of clay, yet somewhat descending, or dripping from the extream parts to the middle, and thence towards one of the sides, where a gullet is left for the tar to run out at. The hearth thus finish'd, they pile the knots one upon another, ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... mother; and they were all so dark. I remember thinking I had never seen girls so dark, they were like foreigners. And do you remember how your father scolded Sally for carrying me round the garden on her back, and she used to wake me up in the mornings by rolling croquet balls along the floor into my room. Oh, what good, dear days those were, and to think they are dead and gone, and that the house is going to be pulled down; and the garden—oh! the moonlights in that garden, where I ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... unpardonable of course; but it was an accident. No, what I refer to, Mr. Chelm, is the marvellous invention by which you sought to conceal it. I fully expected to see the floor open, and some demon carry you off amid ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... she invested her first money by popping it down the chimney of the scarlet mansion, and peeping in with one eye to see if it landed safely on the ground-floor. This done, she took a long breath, and looked over the railing, to be sure it was not all a dream. No; the wheel marks were still there, the brown water was not yet clear, and, if a witness was needed, there sat the big frog again, looking so like the old gentleman, with his ...
— Marjorie's Three Gifts • Louisa May Alcott
... floor, hastening along the dimly lighted corridors, turning several corners, she reached the spacious hall outside the Senate lobby. She paused for a moment. From the hall she could look down the broad, main stairway which conducted ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... of its five front windows the house gave back darkness to the dark. One, on the ground floor, showed a golden oblong, skirted with watery gray where the lamp-light thinned the solid blackness ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... girl, who told him to dress in women's clothes in the future, as he no longer had the courage of a man, left the village and remained away for some time. When he returned, he entered his sweetheart's hut, carrying a sack on his shoulders. He opened it, and four human heads rolled upon the bamboo floor. At the sight of the trophies, the girl at once took him back into her favour, and flinging her arms round his ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... blocked with snow, and the drifts whirling about in all directions. My aunt, who is a werry feeling woman, insisted on my staying all night, which only made the matter worse, for when I came to look out in the morning I found the drift as high as the first floor winder, and the street completely buried in snow. Having breakfasted, and seeing no hopes of emancipation, I hangs out a flag of distress—a red wipe—which, after flapping about for some time, ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... baseball mitt is this anyway?" And following this question, the mitt came sailing through the air, to land on the floor of the Brill carryall. ...
— The Rover Boys in Business • Arthur M. Winfield
... mood, threw open an inner door of the cabinet, and applying the old-fashioned key at his watch-chain to a hole in the mimic pavement within, pressed one of the mosaics, and immediately the whole floor of the apartment sank, and revealed a receptacle within. Alice had come forward eagerly, and they both looked into the hiding-place, expecting what should be there. It was empty! They looked into each other's faces with blank astonishment. Everything ...
— The Ancestral Footstep (fragment) - Outlines of an English Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the midst of all these joyous sights and sounds, was heard a dolorous voice repeating, 'three and four are—three and four are—oh dear! they are—seven, no, but I do not think it is a four after all, is it not a one? Oh dear!' And on the floor lay Phyllis, her back to the window, kicking her feet slowly up and down, and yawning ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the floor, tacking down a bedroom carpet, hammered away without an answer. After waiting a minute, she dropped down on the floor beside him, upsetting a saucer full of tacks as she did so. "Say, Alec," she began, in a confidential tone, "what did the man at the hotel say last night? Is ...
— Flip's "Islands of Providence" • Annie Fellows Johnston
... shoulder in its place. Katharine was not crying now, but her anxiety altered her appearance strangely, and Moses was wholly past speech. Every nerve of his tortured body was strained to reach a spot where he could sink down and yield to the dreadful weakness which assailed him. Even the hard floor of the barn seemed a paradise of rest, and he fixed his eyes upon the wide doorway with a last effort of ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... enterprise in which many of great wealth had been ruined, but whence he himself had emerged with millions. And it was in part for this reason that Orlando, sad and silent, had obstinately restricted himself to one small room on the third floor of the little palazzo erected by Luigi in the Via Venti Settembre—a room where he lived cloistered with a single servant, subsisting on his own scanty income, and accepting nothing but that ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... raise the tumbler to his lips.—Did you see it? I saw his face turn white in an instant.—Did you? I saw the glass fall from his hand on the floor. I saw him stagger, and caught him before he fell. Are these things true? For God's sake, search your memory, and ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... moment a portion of the boasted wool was lying on the floor, or being shaken from the thick, red fingers of the cook, while Irish blood was flowing freely from the nose which Polly, in her vengeful wrath, had wrung. Further hostilities were prevented by Robin, who screamed that ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... pile of mouldy hay, she dragged a ladder which she reared to a small hatch or trap in the floor above and bade me mount. This I did, though very clumsily and presently found myself in an upper chamber or loft, illuminated by a small, unglazed window that opened beneath the eaves at one end. Scarcely was I here than she was beside me and brought me to an adjacent corner where was a ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... therefore, but with little success, to improve it by making two windows in the middle of the eastern side of the Hall, and four on the western side. After this, in order to give it its final completion, they made on the level of the brick floor, with great rapidity, being much pressed by the citizens, a wooden tribune right round the walls of the Hall, three braccia both in breadth and height, with seats after the manner of a theatre, and with a balustrade in front; ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... our surprise on opening the door. The floor was covered over with mattresses on which the giants lay in rows stretched out and sleeping. The single sentinel at his post looked wonderingly at us; but we, in the cool way young men do things, strode quietly on over the outstretched boots, without disturbing ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... glass and hardly knew myself, my eyes peering at me, through the curling atmosphere, like those of a poodle. I then retired to the opposite end, and surveyed the furniture; nothing retained its original form or position;—the tables and chairs seemed to loom from the floor, and my grandfather's picture to thrust forward its nose like a French-horn, while that of my grandmother, who was reckoned a beauty in her day, looked, in her hoop, like her husband's wig-block stuck on a tub. Whether this was a signal for the fiends within me to begin their operations, I ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... set like the top bar of a T-square at the end of a long, door-lined corridor. The walls were of white, plain plaster, innocent of paper and in some places darkly blotched with damp and mildew. The floor, though solid, was uncarpeted. Near at hand a flight of steps ran down to the ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... three rooms on a floor: two of them handsome; and the third, she said, still handsomer; but the lady ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... while, the writing told, she lay still, till a sense that something was wrong awoke her thoroughly, when she lit the candle which she kept by her berth, and, rising, peeped out into the saloon to see that water was washing along its floor. Presently she made another discovery, that she was alone, utterly alone, even her father's ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... American, who had reversed the usual order of things by coming to Europe to seek his fortune. Our next abode was the Hotel Jumilliac, in a small garden of a remote part of the Faubourg St. Germain. This was a hotel of the smaller size, and our apartments were chiefly on the second floor, or in what is called the third story in America, where we had six rooms besides the offices. Our saloon, dining-room, &c. had formerly been the bed-chamber, dressing-room, and ante-chamber of Madame la Marquise, and gave one a very respectful opinion of the state ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... to London in February, and found Dr. Johnson in a good house in Johnson's Court, Fleet-street[9], in which he had accommodated Miss Williams with an apartment on the ground floor, while Mr. Levett occupied his post in the garret: his faithful Francis was still attending upon him. He received me with much kindness. The fragments of our first conversation, which I have preserved, are these: I told ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... ourselves on to them, and separated them in a moment. She was shouting and laughing, and he seemed to have the death rattle. All this took place in the dark. Two of us held her, and when a light was struck, a terrible sight met our eyes. The captain was lying on the floor in a pool of blood, with an enormous wound in his throat, and his sword bayonet that had been taken from his rifle, was sticking in the red, gaping wound. A few minutes afterwards he died, without having been ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... suspiciously as I made my way upstairs. They were dark and airless. There was a foul and musty smell. Three flights up a Woman in a dressing-gown, with touzled hair, opened a door and looked at me silently as I passed. At length I reached the sixth floor, and knocked at the door numbered thirty-two. There was a sound within, and the door was partly opened. Charles Strickland stood before me. He uttered not a word. He evidently ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... because his name never turned up in news dispatches any more?" I grinned sourly, seeing my image dissolve in blurring shadows, and feeling the long-healed scar on my mouth draw up to make the grin hideous. "I'm Cargill, all right. I've been up on Floor 38 for six years, holding down a desk any clerk could handle. ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... round a curve at thirty miles an hour, and when Donald stretched out his neck to find out whether Gum was killed, it was with small hope of ever seeing him more. For two minutes the miner gazed at the receding distance, then, without uttering a word, turned round and felled the conductor to the floor. ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond
... Paris, Charles Peguy, myself, and a few others, used to meet in a little ground-floor shop in the rue de la Sorbonne. We had just founded the "Cahiers de la Quinzaine." Our editorial office was poorly furnished, neat and clean; the walls were lined with books. A photograph was the only ornament. It showed Tolstoy and Gorki standing side by side in the garden at Yasnaya ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... now passed between Booth and his wife, in which, when she was a little composed, she related to him the whole story. For, besides that it was not possible for her otherwise to account for the quarrel which he had seen, Booth was now possessed of the letter that lay on the floor. ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... petit juries occasionally retire, and adjoining it is the room where the grand jury assemble. The quarter sessions for the county are also held in this hall, and in it all county meetings are convened. During the races there is a temporary boarded floor laid down, and the hall is converted into a ball-room, the two recesses being fitted up for card parties: the pillars with which it is ornamented are encircled with wreaths of lamps, and what was before the solemn court of ...
— A Description of Modern Birmingham • Charles Pye
... you!" said the emperor. "Who told you to ask me that? It must surely have been that witch of a Birscha. Are you crazy? Fifty years have passed since I was young, who knows where the bones of the horse I rode then are rotting? It seems to me that there's one strap of the bridle lying on the stable floor. It's all I have ...
— Roumanian Fairy Tales • Various
... me go," shouted the boy, and pushed rudely past Anderson and raced out of the store. Anderson and the old clerk looked at each other across the great advertisement which had fallen face downward on the floor. ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... to empty his washbowl. He has also thrown the towel on the floor. Put Mr. Darrin on the ...
— Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... overpowered Hake and me before we knew where we were. We struggled hard, but what could two unarmed men do among fifty? The noise we made, however, roused the village and prevented the vikings from discovering our father's room, which was on the upper floor. They had to fight their way back to the ship, and lost many men on the road, but they succeeded in carrying us two on board, bound with cords. They took us over the sea to Norway. There we became slaves to King Olaf Tryggvisson, ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... wood-sled and hauled them home. They lay in a pile of hay on the stable floor all night, without a sign of waking up; and the next morning we hauled them to the cellar of the west barn. Under this barn, which was used mainly for sheep and young cattle, there were several pigsties, now empty. The dormant young bears were rolled into one of these sties and the sty ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... commending to your favorable consideration the interest of the people of this District. Without a representative on the floor of Congress, they have for this very reason peculiar claims upon our just regard. To this I know, from my long acquaintance with ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... must have an end, the old butler with the white-fringed head came at last to show him the way to his luxurious lodgings on the second floor of the mansion. With a touch of hospitality which carried Blount back to his one winter in the South, the hostess went with him as far as the stair-foot, and her "Good-night" was still ringing musically in his ears when the old negro lighted the candles in the guest-room, put another stick of wood ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... a big pippin, and bit the finger presump- tuously poked into the little mouth to arrest the peel! Then he was caught walking! one, two, three steps,— and papa knew that he could walk, but grandpa was [20] taken napping. Now! baby has tumbled, soft as thistle- down, on the floor; and instead of a real set-to at crying, a look of cheer and a toy from mamma bring the soft little palms patting together, and pucker the rosebud mouth into saying, "Oh, pretty!" That was a scientific [25] baby; and his first sitting-at-table on Thanksgiving Day— yes, ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... the chief said, and left the hut with his followers. The lads poured calabashes of water over each other, and felt wonderfully refreshed by their wash, which was accomplished without damage to the floor, which was of bamboos raised two feet above the ground. When they were dressed they fell to at their breakfast, and then went out of doors. Hassan had evidently been watching for them, for he came out of his house, which ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... suddenly rolled back in her head, she stretched out her hands, and fell over on the floor. Once ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... did not consider himself beaten at the first rebuff. Although the old woman grumbled and complained as much as she could, he was just as persistent as ever, and went on begging and praying like a starved dog, until at last she gave in, and he got permission to lie on the floor for the night. ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... he was an almost daily visitor at the Hall. We found him in his study; a small dusky chamber, lighted by a lattice window that looked into the church-yard, and was overshadowed by a yew-tree. His chair was surrounded by folios and quartos, piled upon the floor, and his table was covered with books and manuscripts. The cause of his seclusion was a work which he had recently received, and with which he had retired in rapture from the world, and shut himself up to enjoy a literary honeymoon ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... Great Scot, what a relief! But, Reggie, old fox, it couldn't have been them really. The last time was at Louis Martin's, and the fellow I mistook for Edwin was dancing all by himself in the middle of the floor." ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... our party returned to the house—which put me very much in mind of the farm-houses of the substantial yeomen of Cornwall, particularly that of my friends at Penquite; a comfortable fire blazed in the kitchen grate, the floor was composed of large flags of slate. In the kitchen the old lady pointed to me the ffon, or walking-stick, of Huw Morris; it was supported against a beam by three hooks; I took it down and walked about the kitchen with it; it was a thin polished black stick, with a crome cut in the shape of an ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... furnished, though it consisted of two rooms. In the one, which was used almost solely as a sleeping apartment, there was no furniture to speak of, beyond two closet beds, and its bumpy earthen floor gave it a cheerless look. The other, which had a single bed, was floored with wood. It was not badly lit by two very small windows that faced each other, and, besides several stools, there was a long form against one of the walls. A bright fire of peat and coal—nothing in the ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... long time he could think of no way. At last he noticed a small wooden building adjoining the garden, the door of which stood half open, revealing ears of corn from the preceding season lying in a heap upon the floor. He resolved to enter this rude corncrib knowing it would contain many apertures, and see and hear what was being done. He told the others his plan. They tried to dissuade him from it but he persisted, being sure that he ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... entering into this house? Whom speaking to, or by whom addressed,[42] can I have joy in entering? Whither shall I turn me? For the solitude within will drive me forth, when I see the place where my wife used to lie, empty, and the seat whereon she used to sit, and the floor throughout the house all dirty, and when my children falling about my knees weep their mother, and they lament their mistress, thinking what a lady they have lost from out of the house. Such things within the house; but abroad the nuptials of the Thessalians and the assemblies ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... the Wheat. "Once on a time while the men were knocking us out of the ear on a floor with flails, which are ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... of her cell there was a crack low down by the floor, through which she could see the light from Wolfe's. She had discovered it days before. She hurried in now, and, kneeling down by it, listened, hoping to hear some sound. Nothing but the rasping of the tin on the bars. He was at his old ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... reason why you shouldn't come in on the ground floor in this proposition, Randolph," he was urging in continuance of the conversation begun over a table in the cafe. "No reason why you shouldn't do it, my boy. Why, are you still a child, or are you really a man? You have now drafts ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... a small country wagon to which an enormous horse was harnessed. No one was as yet up in the high seat, but Sami was seated with his bundle back in the empty space on the floor. Then two big, stout men climbed up on the high seat, and they started away. After a short time Sami's eyes closed involuntarily, he slipped off on the floor of the wagon, his head fell over on his bundle, and he sank into a deep sleep. When he woke again, ...
— What Sami Sings with the Birds • Johanna Spyri
... pilgrimage to Mecca. His grandson, Almamon, gave in alms, on one single occasion, two and a half millions of gold pieces, and the rooms in his palace at Bagdad were hung with thirty-eight thousand pieces of tapestry, over twelve thousand of which were of silk embroidered with gold. The floor carpets were more than twenty thousand in number, and the Greek ambassador was shown a hundred lions, each with his keeper, as a sign of the king's royalty, as well as a wonderful tree of gold and silver, spreading into eighteen large, leafy branches, on which were many ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... sprang for the entrance on the cove. The floor of the cave was sloping, and the water deepened swiftly as I advanced. Soon I was floundering to my knees, and on the instant a great wave rushed in, drenching me to the waist, dazing me with its spray and uproar, and driving me back to the far ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... the scrubbing of the studio knocked at her door: "Beg y' pardon, miss, but in cleanin' of a floor there's two, not to say three, kind of soap, which is yaller, an' mottled, an' disinfectink. Now, jist before I took my pail into the passage I though it would be pre'aps jest as well if I was to come up 'ere an' ask you what sort of soap you was wishful that I should use on ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... had possessed when a Caliph, however, and freeing himself from the Vizier's bill, he hurried to the room whence came the pitiful sounds. The moon shone through a barred window and showed him a screech owl sitting on the floor of the ruined chamber, lamenting in a hoarse voice. The Vizier had cautiously stolen up beside the Caliph; and at sight of the two storks, the screech owl uttered a cry of pleasure. To their astonishment it addressed them in ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... the caretaker, and the two left behind began going through the ground floor of the great empty house. Their progress gave Betty an eerie feeling. She felt as if she was in a kind of dream; the more so that this was quite unlike any country house into which she ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... the Abbey were arranged for the members of the House of Commons, the foreign ambassadors, the judges, Knights of the Bath, members of the Corporation, &c. &c. The floor of the transepts was occupied by benches for the peers and peeresses, who may be said to be in their glory at a coronation; the space behind them ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... the window of her sitting-room, on the upper floor, Lady Howel perceived that the delicate generosity of her conduct had been gratefully felt. The interview in the library barely lasted for five minutes. She saw Mrs. Evelin leave the house with her veil down. Immediately afterward, Beaucourt ascended to his ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... kind suggestion, and Spira was thankful to accept my offer; as by the time she had driven her mule to our door it rained in torrents. The Montenegrin standard of cleanliness being very low, I gave them an unoccupied room on the ground floor, and carried some food to them there. Spira scarcely tasted it, but crumbled some bread into a cup of milk and water for little Nilo, and coaxed him to swallow a mouthful or two. By degrees her shyness ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... took refuge in hysterics, and her husband rang violently for her maid, and then locked himself up in his library, where he walked the floor for many an hour. The next morning he tried to make overtures to his son, but he found the young man deaf and stony in his despair. "It's too late," was all ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... to the suite of rooms I had prepared for them, and which I judged most suitable for my designs. It was on the ground floor, opposite to my room. The bedroom had a recess with two beds, separated by a partition through which one passed by a door. I had the key to all the doors, and the maid would sleep in a ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... wear it. Jean with the red blood coursing through her veins, her glow of health, and the sparkle of her eyes—McNabb's own daughter. "And, yet, I can't suggest it because—" Hedin muttered aloud and scowled at the floor. "I'd have asked her before this," he went on, "if that Wentworth hadn't butted in. Who knows anything about him, anyway? I'll ask her this afternoon." He stopped abruptly and smiled into the eyes of the girl who was hurrying toward him ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx
... for a moment to survey the scene. All the dormitory doors were wide open; the sheet which had formed the stage curtain lay torn on the floor of No. 7; the beds in all the adjoining rooms were in the strangest positions; and half-extinguished wicks still smouldered in several of the sconces. Every boy was in bed, but the extraordinary way in which the bed clothes were huddled ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... Princess of entrancing beauty, and of inordinate extravagance. Her little retinue was composed of one hundred and fifty cavaliers, all Persians, who lived on the ground floor; with them she hunted and rode in the broad day—rather contrary to Arab notions. The Persian women are subjected to quite a Spartan training in bodily exercise; they enjoy great liberty, much more so than Arab ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... the library and alone. Everything was as she had left it that morning two weeks ago; she saw the same solid floor and ceiling, the same faded Persian rugs, the same yellow pale busts on their tall pedestals, the same bookshelves, wing after wing and row upon row. The south lattice still showed through its leaded lozenge panes the bright green lawn, the beech tree and the blue sky; the west lattice held ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... that the verdict of Funafuti is clearly and unmistakeably in favour of Darwin's theory. It is true that some zoologists find a difficulty in realising a slow sinking of parts of the ocean floor, and have suggested new and alternative explanations: but geologists generally, accepting the proofs of slow upheaval in some areas—as shown by the admirable researches of Alexander Agassiz—consider that it is absolutely necessary to admit that this elevation is balanced by subsidence ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... premises may be said here. The printing-house had been established since the reign of Louis XIV. in the angle made by the Rue de Beaulieu and the Place du Murier; it had been devoted to its present purposes for a long time past. The ground floor consisted of a single huge room lighted on the side next the street by an old-fashioned casement, and by a large sash window that gave upon the yard at the back. A passage at the side led to the private office; but in the provinces the processes ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... length shrank back with an unrecognizing face; but her movement made her opera-glass slip to the floor, and her neighbour bent ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... be Clifford." She was walking up and down the floor as she uttered the words again and again. Suddenly she paused, and held out her hand to Peggy: "Come!" she said. "I am going ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... and intangible. Nothing could be less substantial. And we find further that, inconceivably minute as they are, they act of themselves under the mutual influence of one another. The electrons are not like shot which have been heaped together by some outside agency, and which roll about the floor if someone outside gives them a push, but which will otherwise remain immobile. They congregate together of their own inner prompting. They are like a swarm of midges or bees in which each individual acts on its own impulsion, and, in the case of bees, all together ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... might, and that Mr. Johnson would take it as a compliment. So upon Tuesday the 24th of May, after having been enlivened by the witty sallies of Messieurs Thornton, Wilkes, Churchill and Lloyd, with whom I had passed the morning, I boldly repaired to Johnson. His Chambers were on the first floor of No. 1, Inner-Temple-lane, and I entered them with an impression given me by the Reverend Dr. Blair, of Edinburgh, who had been introduced to him not long before, and described his having 'found ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... kin see Braxton Wyatt an' his band stalkin' us," resumed Shif'less Sol, having the floor, or rather the earth, again to himself. "Braxton's heart is full o' unholy glee. He is sayin' to hisself that we can't git away from him this time, that he's stretched 'bout us a ring, through which we'll never break. He's laughin' to hisself jest az we laugh to ourselves, though with less cause. ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... low, as to one for whom first-floor rooms and a salon had been bespoken, and waved his hand towards the stairs, where stood a couple ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... his promise, for there were many German wounded, and we took them all in. Ah, this room, which you see so clean and white now, ran blood. We had to sweep blood into the hall, and so out at the front door, where at least it washed away the German footprints from our floor! For days we worked and did our best, even when we knew of the murders committed: innocent women with their little children. And the fifteen old men they shot for hostages. Oh, we did our best, though it was like acid eating our hearts. But our reward came ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... her book to floor, springs up and paces the room.] Oh! If only I might change places with Oceana! If I could get away to some South Sea island, and be my own mistress and live my own life. [Takes photograph.] Oceana! I'm wild to see you! I want ...
— The Naturewoman • Upton Sinclair
... Never knew what it was to be sick, young man.' And so the party separated; Robert admiring the stalwart muscular frame of the Canadian as he strode before him up the stairs towards their sleeping-rooms. As he passed Mr. Holt's door, he caught a glimpse of bare floor, whence all the carpets had been rolled off into a corner, every vestige of curtain tucked away, and the window sashes open to their widest. Subsequently he learned that to such domestic softnesses as carpets and curtains the sturdy settler had invincible objections, ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... none the less interested and absorbed because it was known that he had been the cause of the great breach between the Queen and the favourite. Ere he had spoken far, flippant gallants had ceased to flutter handkerchiefs, to move their swords idly upon the floor. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... accustomed to see here; exhibiting the same strange contrast of ancient taste and magnificence, with present meanness and poverty. We were ushered into a lofty room of noble size and beautiful proportions, with its rich fresco-painted walls and ceiling faded and falling to decay; a common brick floor, and sundry window panes broken, and stuffed with paper. The room was nearly filled by the audience, amongst whom I remarked a great number of English. A table with writing implements, and an old shattered jingling piano, occupied one side of ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... the blaze Weatherby brought alive they found an old bedstead backed against the wall, a tangle of filthy quilts cascading from it. One look at them assured Drew that Boyd would be far better left in his blankets on the floor itself. ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... come," he said. "They have to row him out every day and back in the evening. He's investigating the sea-floor." ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun
... cathedral has been so raised that there is not a vestige now of the twelve steps which formerly led up to it. To-day the base of the columns of the porch is on a level with the pavement; consequently what was once the ground-floor of the house of which we speak is now its cellar. A portico, reached by a few steps, leads to the entrance of the tower, in which a spiral stairway winds up round a central shaft carved with a grape-vine. This style, which ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... was a large high tower in the midst of the sea, built of shells of all shapes and colours. The lower floor was like a great bathroom, where the water was let in or off at will. The first floor contained the princess's apartments, beautifully furnished. On the second was a library, a large wardrobe-room filled with beautiful clothes and every kind of linen, a music-room, a pantry ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... into a small bedroom on the second floor, very plainly furnished, but the train boy was not accustomed to luxurious accommodations, and found it satisfactory. He indulged himself in a thorough ablution, then sat down at the window, which was in the front of ...
— The Erie Train Boy • Horatio Alger
... about this time. A congregation of Catholic people had heard mass upon an old loft, which had for many years been decayed—in fact, actually rotten. Mass was over, and the priest was about to give them the parting benediction, when the floor went down with a terrific crash. The result was dreadful. The priest and a great many of the congregation were killed on the spot, and a vast number of them wounded and maimed for life. The Protestant inhabitants of Dublin sympathized deeply with the sufferers, whom they relieved and succored ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... a sound... as the riving of wood... a sound as of thunder coming up from the ground. A cleft will run like a mouse across the floor. There will be a red light, and then no light at all, and in the ...
— Plays of Gods and Men • Lord Dunsany
... as if she would be very much obliged to the nursery floor if it would open like a trap-door and let her fall through, out ...
— Dotty Dimple At Home • Sophie May
... little one threw her arms around my neck, and pressed her lips to my cheek. 'Will you be my papa?' said she. 'I will love you so dearly! You are like papa. He was very good. Are you good, too?' My only answer was to unclasp her arms somewhat roughly from my neck, and set her down upon the floor. She cast upon me a glance of mingled surprise, disappointment, and fear, and a tear rolled slowly down her cheek. Her silent sorrow worked the miracle that her pretty, fond prattle had failed to effect. As by an enchanter's wand, the ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... rolls of paper with the measured plans and the signs and drawings which he had had made from his own and Corbeck's rough notes. As he had told us, these contained the whole of the hieroglyphics on walls and ceilings and floor of the tomb in the Valley of the Sorcerer. Even had not the measurements, made to scale, recorded the position of each piece of furniture, we could have eventually placed them by a study of ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... On we lap, and awa' we rade, Till we came to yon bonny ha', Whare the roof was o' the beaten gould, And the floor ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick
... coal tar. If you are acquainted with a village tinker, one of those all-round mechanics who still survive in this age of specialization and can mend anything from a baby-carriage to an automobile, you will know that he has on the floor of his back shop a heap of broken machinery from which he can get almost anything he wants, a copper wire, a zinc plate, a brass screw or a steel rod. Now coal tar is the scrap-heap of the vegetable kingdom. It ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... himself up abruptly into a sitting posture, stretched out his arm and felt of his knapsack, which he had thrown down on a corner of the alcove; then he hung his legs over the edge of the bed, and placed his feet on the floor, and thus found himself, almost without knowing it, seated on ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... Eastern Jew prefers to die on the floor, not in bed, as was the case with the late Mr. Emmanuel Deutsch, who in his well-known article on the Talmud had the courage to speak of "Our Saviour." But as a rule the Israelite, though he mostly appears ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... they quit mourning, when they have either killed a man or taken captive a woman. They cut their hair. In time of mourning, they withdraw into the house of the principal and nearest relative; and there, covered with old and filthy blankets, they crouch on the floor and remain in this position without talking or eating, for three days. During this time they only drink. After the three days, they eat nothing which has come in contact with fire until they have taken vengeance or observed their custom [S: ceremony]. They place on their feet and wrists ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair
... the A.P. man, and they scrambled from the room and slammed the door. The doctor's coat was burning in two or three places, and he was retching feebly on the corridor floor. They tore his coat off and flung ...
— The Adventurer • Cyril M. Kornbluth
... had seven towers, including the keep. Jeanne was placed in a tower looking on to the open country.[2129] Her room was on the middle storey, between the dungeon and the state apartment. Eight steps led up to it.[2130] It extended over the whole of that floor, which was forty-three feet across, including the walls.[2131] A stone staircase approached it at an angle. There was but a dim light, for some of the window slits had been filled in.[2132] From a locksmith of Rouen, one Etienne Castille, the English had ordered an iron ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... Scala: a perfectly lone house, where the family were sitting round a great fire in the kitchen, raised on a stone platform three or four feet high, and big enough for the roasting of an ox. On the upper, and only other floor of this hotel, there was a great, wild, rambling sala, with one very little window in a by-corner, and four black doors opening into four black bedrooms in various directions. To say nothing of another large ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... control lever just as a brick crashed into his head. His hand completed its motion with more force than he had intended as he sank unconscious to the floor and the machine was set for a thousand years in ...
— Benefactor • George H. Smith
... no sort of furniture either in the messroom or the anteroom. If you wanted to sit down, you did so on the floor. We each got hold of a large tin mug, and dipped it into a large tin saucepan of soup and drank it, spoons not existing. A large lump of salt was passed round, and every one broke off a piece with his fingers. Next you clawed ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... come in, my dear; you are just in time for a hot muffin and a fried chicken wing!" he exclaimed as he rose and drew her to the table. The old volume crashed to the floor unheeded. ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... scattered village. But across this dusty space there was carried the head of the upstart Maximinus who murdered Alexander Severus, and later Aquileia brought Attila near to despair. Our party alighted; we inspected a very old mosaic floor which has been uncovered since the Austrian retreat. The Austrian priests have gone too, and their Italian successors are already tracing out a score of Roman traces that it was the Austrian custom to minimise. ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... evidently only just completed his toilet: the shirt he had thrown aside was still on the floor, in company with his bath towels; and something in his appearance made Michael say: 'You were just going out. I hope I am not ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... old tin lard-pail they no doubt used for a water-pail," said Rob, kicking about in the heavy covering of grass which lay on the floor. "Now, I tell you, I'll go get some water; you clean the hut, Jess; and, John, you go to the boat and bring over the ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough
... the property was fought for to a finish. Poppas out of the way, Horace and Brown and the Garnets quarrelled over her personal effects. They went from floor to floor of the Tenth Street house. The will provided that Cressida's jewels and furs and gowns were to go to her sisters. Georgie and Julia wrangled over them down to the last moleskin. They were deeply disappointed that some of the muffs and stoles which they remembered as very large, proved, ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... at the end of which was a metallic ball. The ball struck the table as it fell, and rolled to the floor, but the stranger held the other end ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... of talk that it is said there is at this hour, in the Exchequer, as much money as is ready to break down the floor. This arises, I believe, from Sir G. Downing's late talk of the greatness of the sum lying there of people's money, that they would not fetch away, which he shewed me and a great many others. Most people that I speak with are in doubt how we shall do to secure our seamen ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... there is a little ceremony. The babe is brought and laid upon the hearth or floor before the household gods for the father to inspect it. As has been said already, if it is a monstrosity, he may order it to be made away with. Otherwise it is still open to him either to acknowledge ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... into the study and left there with a lighted lamp. The room was lined with books from floor to ceiling. Chayne mounted a ladder and took down from a high corner some volumes bound simply in brown cloth. They were volumes of the "Alpine Journal." He had chosen those which dated back from twenty years to a quarter of a century. He drew a ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... supplied the time?-A part of it may be; but the place where the cash is kept, and the place where the goods are sold, are two separate places, so that the things must be kept quite distinct. The shop is on the ground floor opening from the street, and the office is up a lane on the second floor, where we have also a warehouse or general store for drapery goods. A man, when he gets his money in the office, may go and buy drapery goods on the second floor, or he may go down stairs and buy provisions. ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... house obligingly Led him to two large rooms on the first floor, Where he would have more light and liberty, With a good walk along the corridor; Besides which, they expected one or more Nice gentlemen to-morrow afternoon. The gentleman who left the day before— Poor man! he had a cough would kill him soon— Ten months he had been with ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... travelled down by the Great Western, with a ghost as fellow passenger, and hadn't the slightest suspicion of it, until the inspector came for tickets. My friend said, the way that ghost tried to keep up appearances, by feeling in all its pockets, and even looking on the floor for its ticket, was quite touching. Ultimately it gave it up, and with a loud ...
— The Ghost of Jerry Bundler • W. W. Jacobs and Charles Rock
... a row of piazzas, the whole length of which are shops, and over it a gallery to see the bull-fights; the east side has some large houses belonging to people of distinction, and in the middle is a large fountain with a brass bason. The houses have, in general, only a ground floor, upon account of the frequent earthquakes; but they make a handsome appearance. The churches are rich in gilding as well as in plate: That of the Jesuits is reckoned an exceeding good piece of architecture, but it is much too high built for a country ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... in the little parlor of a four-room New York flat. The room was furnished sparsely: a table and a few chairs of bamboo, a long row of books on the yellow floor along one wall, some Chinese ornaments and plants, a few Russian embroideries, a rich Persian covering on the couch, and candles—many candles burning and flickering on their rest of saucer or glazed clay candlestick. ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... of the Baltic Sea from October to June; clockwise warm-water gyre (broad, circular system of currents) in the northern Atlantic, counterclockwise warm-water gyre in the southern Atlantic; the ocean floor is dominated by the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a rugged north-south centerline for the entire ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... stroll along the ground-floor rooms, Colney Durance found himself beside Dr. Schlesien; the latter smoking, striding, emphasizing, but bearable, as the one of the party who was not perpetually at the gape in laudation. Colney was heard to say: 'No doubt: ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... them, as in the catacomb of S. Priscilla. In one of these, the stone corbel, with the hole for the pivot to work in, remains in its place; the lower stone, with the corresponding hole, has been moved, but is lying on the floor in an adjoining chapel. Another door has been made to slide up and down like a portcullis or a modern sash-window, as we see by the groove remaining on both sides. This is close to a luminaria, or well for admitting light and air, and it seems ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... "Has this floor ever been taken up and a new one laid down?" he inquired, apparently of Victoria Drew, who chanced to be standing nearer than ...
— The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest • Margaret Vandercook
... his future. He once sought, as we have seen, to practise turning with him, but of this nothing further is related. He loved, too, to joke with him in his own hearty manner. When, in 1534, Wolf built a fowling-floor or place for catching birds, he reprimanded him for it in a written indictment, making the 'good, honourable' birds themselves lodge a complaint against him. They pray Luther to prevent his servant, or at least to insist upon Wolf (who was a sleepy fellow), strewing grain ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... to everything but said little, and when she was ordered off to bed she silently followed Emily up to the attic, where Mrs. Rowles had already contrived to make a second little bed on the floor. ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison
... in the darkness loomed a single figure. Legrand sprang, and the two disappeared in a heap upon the floor. I had leapt to one side and was feeling in the air for my enemy, but my hands took nothing, nor could my eyes make out any other figure in the gloom. Presently something rose from the floor, and I heard ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... He made his horse a consul, though only for a day, and showed it with golden oats before it in a golden manger. Once, when the two consuls were sitting by him, he burst out laughing, to think, he said, how with one word he could make both their heads roll on the floor. ...
— Young Folks' History of Rome • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... a forward stride in our intercourse and made me, as I met him, catch my breath and turn cold. He was the same—he was the same, and seen, this time, as he had been seen before, from the waist up, the window, though the dining room was on the ground floor, not going down to the terrace on which he stood. His face was close to the glass, yet the effect of this better view was, strangely, only to show me how intense the former had been. He remained but a few seconds—long enough to convince me he also saw and ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... there had been awakened. Some one was crossing the floor toward the door. Who? I waited in anxious expectancy for the word which was to enlighten me. Happily it came soon, and from the old ...
— The House in the Mist • Anna Katharine Green
... comprehension of a dweller in civilization by its sun having risen for us over the unbroken wilderness of the Adirondack, a mountain-land in each of whose deep valleys lies a blue lake, we, a party of hunters and recreation-seekers, six beside our guides, lay on the fir-bough-cushioned floor of our dark camp, passing away the little remnant of what had been a day of rest to our guides and of delicious idleness to ourselves. The camp was built on the bold shore of a lake which yet wants a name worthy its beauty, but which we always, for want of such a one, call by that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... Antonio Rossellino at S. Miniato. Desiderio has not the energy of Rossellino or the passionate ardour of Verrocchio. He searches for a quiet beauty full of serenity and delight. His work in the Bargello is of little account. The bust of a girl (No. 198 in the fifth room on the top floor) is but doubtfully his: Vasari speaks only of the bust of Marietta Strozzi, now in Berlin. He died in 1464, and his work, so rare, so refined and delicate in its beauty, comes to its own in the perfect achievement of Benedetto da Maiano, born in 1442, who made the ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... dream-struggle with the absurdly impossible Buskin-Lubin who had attempted to pitch him into the dark water? Clearly not; for that would not account for the sheet and blanket being dragged so carefully out of the range of his hands, and hung over the foot-rail so that they touched the floor. ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... and an overcoat, and a house and lot, I suppose, and please don't call me 'sport' again. Sit down—not oh the floor; on that chair over there. I'm going to search you. Maybe you've got something I need." Mr. Quentin turned on the light and proceeded to disarm the man, piling his miserable effects on a chair. "Take off that mask. Lord! put it on again; ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... was full of chairs and benches, a large room with few windows and dark corners. There were three hymn books on the table, and a dusty Bible. The clock ticked on, five minutes passed, ten minutes, and one timid woman entered, took no notice of me, but sat with her eyes fixed on the floor, a sad faced woman I saw as I looked more closely, a tired, hopeless expression in the droop of her figure. Five minutes more and two busy women came in with a rush. "What! nobody here? I wish people would be punctual," said one, "I can only stay half an hour," "I have another meeting," said the ...
— Why and how: a hand-book for the use of the W.C.T. unions in Canada • Addie Chisholm
... churches were despoiled of their ornaments within sight of the garrison, who could not be induced to march against the Iconoclasts. As the latter had been told that the gold and silver vessels and other ornaments of the church were buried underground, they turned up the whole floor, and exposed, among others, the body of the Duke Adolph of Gueldres, who fell in battle at the head of the rebellious burghers of Ghent, and had been buried herein Tournay. This Adolph had waged war against his father, and had dragged the vanquished old man some miles barefoot to prison—an ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... lying in an obscure corner of the room, and, struck with an horrible conviction, she became, for an instant, motionless and nearly insensible. Then, with a kind of desperate resolution, she hurried towards the object that excited her terror, when, perceiving the clothes of some person, on the floor, she caught hold of them, and found in her grasp the old uniform of a soldier, beneath which appeared a heap of pikes and other arms. Scarcely daring to trust her sight, she continued, for some moments, to gaze on the object of her late alarm, ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... astounding. Within half an hour of the coming of these Morris-men we saw the Bean-setting—its thumping and clashing of staves, its intricate figures and steps hitherto unknown—full swing upon a London floor. And upon the delighted but somewhat dazed confession of the instructor, we saw it perfect in execution to the least particular. Perfect, yet in a different order of perfection from that attainable by men. It ...
— The Morris Book • Cecil J. Sharp
... see the Deep's untrampled floor With green and purple sea-weeds strown; I see the waves upon the shore Like light dissolved in star-showers thrown; I sit upon the sands alone; The lightning of the noon-tide ocean Is flashing round me, and a tone ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... old love would burst forth with fearful power, and then I wished that I might die. These were my moments of temptation which I struggled to overcome. Sometimes a song, a strain of music, or a ray of moonlight on the floor would bring the past to me so vividly that I would stagger beneath the burden, feeling that it was greater than I could bear. But God was very merciful and sent me work which took up all my time, leaving little leisure for regrets, and driving me ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... painted with the same pigment, the whole had a very yellow appearance. The front and back of the edifice were formed of long laths, bent like a bow, and thatched with cocoa-nut leaves, something like the front of some bathing-machines in England. Under the roof, supported by beams, was a floor of lattice-work, which seemed to be the store-room of the house, as bundles of cloth and articles of various sorts were piled up there; while on the ground were scattered different utensils for cooking or eating from— such as bowls of glazed ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... analysed it, what a totally inexplicable pleasure it was. Part of it, the orderly and rhythmical beat of metre, such as comes from striking the fingers on the table, or tapping the foot upon the floor; how deep lay the instinct to bring into strict sequence, where it was possible, the mechanical movements of nature, the creaking of the boughs of trees, the drip of water from a fountain-lip, the ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... school, when he snores in the dormitory? The Boh was sleeping in a bedful of swords and pistols, and Hicksey came down like Zazel through the netting, and the net got mixed up with the pistols and the Boh and Hicksey, and they all rolled on the floor together. I laughed till I couldn't stand, and Hicksey was cursing me for not helping him; so I left him to fight it out and went into the village. Our men were slashing about and firing, and so were the dacoits, and in the thick of the mess some ass set fire to a ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... Gotthard. And yet thou art peaceful and hast taught me that it is better to dwell in thee than in the bustling world, and hast taught me that I do not need many men to make me happy in thee.... From the writing table there is every few minutes a call to the dining rooms on the ground floor, where the author is metamorphosed into a victualler. Many persons shake their heads at this transformation. To me the profession of my father is an object of affection; I owe it an assured livelihood. Who knows but that the author in me also owes it much ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... appearance. Her thin little legs emerged from the shortest of skirts, while her small body was well pinned up in a great blanket shawl, the point of which trailed fully a quarter of a yard on the floor behind her. She wore a woman's hood on her head, and from its cavernous depth, where there gleamed a pale, malignant small face, a voice issued—the far-reaching voice ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... the sergeant, paying me a compliment on my beautiful clerkly handwriting, asked me to fill in the particulars for them. This ceremony over, we were shown into our bedrooms, and told to give ourselves "a good wash." My room was on the ground-floor, out in the yard: and I hope I may never be shown into a worse. It was not large, being about eight feet square, nor was it very high. The walls were whitewashed, and the floor clean. A single small window, deep set in the thick ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... these, when he couldn't have his little game because he couldn't keep the checkers from hopping off the board, Nelson liked to lie in his bunk, within range of the big, square, sawdust-filled box which set just forward of the cheerful stove. With eyes mostly on the oil-clothed floor, the light-keeper would smoke and yarn unhurriedly. "No, no," Nelson would repeat. "For nineteen year now she ban here, yoost like you see now. No drift for ol' 67. ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... of the mansion partook of the rude simplicity of the Saxon period, which Cedric piqued himself upon maintaining. The floor was composed of earth mixed with lime, trodden into a hard substance, such as is often employed in flooring our modern barns. For about one quarter of the length of the apartment, the floor was raised by a step, and this ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott |
