"Sconce" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... anybody. I was overdone," she said, and rose. Sister Tobias picked up the letter, and gave it to her. There was a Boer mutton-fat candle flaring draughtily in an iron sconce upon the wall. The Mother moved across the little room, and burned the letter to the last blank corner, and trod the fallen ashes into impalpable powder. Then she helped Sister Tobias to remove every trace ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... see of the house with the help of the light from a solitary candle hanging in a sconce upon the wall, it had once been a handsome building. Now, however, it had fallen sadly to decay. The ceiling of the hall had at one time been richly painted, but now only blurred traces of the design remained. Crossing the hall, my guide opened a door at ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby
... and lent a fierce, congested glare to his eyes. He felt how woeful and irretrievable a thing it would be for him just then to lose his countenance, and at the thought the flush burned deeper and merged higher. It overspread his high, bald, intellectual forehead, and incarnadined his sconce up to the very top of it. At this moment it was that Mrs. Kilgore broke off her narrative with the exclamation, "Why, Joseph, ...
— Two Days' Solitary Imprisonment - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... cui dictavit Angelus, &c. What shall become of humanity? Ars stulta, what can she plead? what can her followers say for themselves? Much learning, [720] cere-diminuit-brum, hath cracked their sconce, and taken such root, that tribus Anticyris caput insanabile, hellebore itself can do no good, nor that renowned [721]lantern of Epictetus, by which if any man studied, he should be as wise as he was. But all will not serve; ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... ground-floor or basement, much as a mast goes down through a ship's decks into the hold. It was slowly revolving, being worked by some simple, not very strong mill-contrivance downstairs. A shelf had been fixed up inside the pipe. On the shelf (as I could see by looking in) was a tallow candle in a sconce. Two oval bits of red glass, let into the wood, made the eyes of this lantern-devil. The mouth was a smear of some gleaming stuff, evidently some chemical. This was all the monster which had frightened me. The clacking noise was made ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... ignoble; it was not so once; as is plain from its occurrence in the Prayer Book Version of the Psalms (Ps. vii. 17); as little was 'noddle', which occurs in one of the few poetical passages in Hawes. The same may be said of 'sconce', in this sense at least; of 'nowl' or 'noll', which Wiclif uses; of 'slops' for trousers (Marlowe's Lucan); of 'cocksure' (Rogers), of 'smug', which once meant no more than adorned ("the smug bridegroom", Shakespeare). 'To nap' is now a word without dignity; while yet in Wiclif's Bible ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... the termes of my honor precise: I, I, I my selfe sometimes, leauing the feare of heauen on the left hand, and hiding mine honor in my necessity, am faine to shufflle: to hedge, and to lurch, and yet, you Rogue, will en-sconce your raggs; your Cat-a-Mountaine-lookes, your red-lattice phrases, and your boldbeating-oathes, vnder the shelter of your honor? you will ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... With all the various materials used by them in building their different domiciles, the Bishop is as familiar as with the sole material of his own wig—though, by the by, last time we had the pleasure of seeing and sitting by him, he wore his own hair—"but that not much;" for, like our own, his sconce was bald, and, like it, showed the organ of constructiveness as fully developed as Christopher or a Chaffinch. He is perfectly well acquainted, too, with all the diversities of their modes of building—their orders of architecture—and ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... one, and as I did so, I saw the candle in the right sconce of one of the mirrors wink and go right out, and almost immediately its companion followed it. There was no mistake about it. The flame vanished, as if the wicks had been suddenly nipped between a finger and a thumb, leaving the wick neither glowing nor smoking, but black. ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... Jack's, who was singing the "Bay of Biscay O," at the same time. Gortz and Fips were all the time lunging at each other with a pair of single-sticks, the barrister having a very strong notion that he was Richard the Third. At last Fips hit the West Indian such a blow across his sconce, that the other grew furious; he seized a champagne-bottle, which was, providentially, empty, and hurled it across the room at Fips: had that celebrated barrister not bowed his head at the moment, the Queen's Bench would have lost one of its most ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... show them my unbarbed sconce? Must I With my base tongue, give to my noble heart A lie that it must bear? Well, I will do't: Yet were there but this single plot to lose, This mould of Marcius, they, to dust should grind it, And throw it against the wind;—to the market-place; You have put me now to such a part, which ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... you will keep away from Tattah all the morning, I will give you some candy directly after dinner. You will find it on the sconce just where I ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... of the maxim, cherished by all true knights, that "fair play is a jewel," hastened to take advantage of the hero's fall; but, as he stooped to give a fatal blow, Peter Stuyvesant dealt him a thwack over the sconce with his wooden leg, which set a chime of bells ringing triple bob majors in his cerebellum. The bewildered Swede staggered with the blow, and the wary Peter seizing a pocket-pistol which lay hard by, discharged it full ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... killed for food Bartramian pectoral red-breasted. Sandwichmen employed in London. Sanford, L.C. Saskatchewan. Sauter, Frederick. Scab in Mountain Sheep. "Scatter" rifle for ducks. Schlemmer, Max. Sconce, Harvev J. Scott, Thomas H. Sea-lion accepts protection. Seal, California Elephant West Indian, in New York Aquarium. Sea otter. Seaman, Frank, phoebe birds of. Sentiment in preservation of game. Sequoia Park. Seton, Ernest T. map of elk by. Sharp-shinned hawk. Shea plumage ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... kind of fortification, and to plot the making of a Bridge on barges ouer that strait, for inhibiting the enemies accesse by boates and Gallies, into the more inward parts of the hauen. But it may be doubted, whether the bridge would haue proued as impossible, as the Sconce ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... mirrors, instead of seeing his own face he will perceive the object that is in the front of the other; so that, if two persons present themselves at the same time before these mirrors, instead of each one seeing himself, they will reciprocally see each other. There should be a sconce with a candle or lamp placed on each side of the two glasses in the wainscot, to enlighten the faces of the persons who look in them, otherwise this experiment will have no remarkable effect. This recreation ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... happen among you Englishers at this distance, but I vaticinate a row in Italy; in whilk case, I don't know that I won't have a finger in it. I dislike the Austrians, and think the Italians infamously oppressed; and if they begin, why, I will recommend 'the erection of a sconce upon ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... engaged until fatigue at length drove the old man to seek his bed. The town was wrapped in darkness as they passed through its quiet streets, and the ancient Spanish lantern, hanging crazily from its moldering sconce on the corner of Don Felipe's house, threw the only light into the black mantle that lay upon ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... I know of, is the way some folks have got of laughing out, yaw-haw! when they see a gentleman ketching a reg'lar hyst; a long gentleman, for instance, with his legs in the air, and his noddle splat down upon the cold bricks. A hyst of itself is bad enough, without being sniggered at: first, your sconce gets a crack; then, you see all sorts of stars, and have free admission to the fire-works; then, you scramble up, feeling as if you had no head on your shoulders, and as if it wasn't you, but some confounded disagreeable feller in your clothes; yet the jacksnipes all grin, as if the misfortunes ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... same with them of the time of Themistocles, (they were not then very tractable, by the by,) and at the difficulty of disciplining them; but he is a 'bon homme' and a tactician, and a little like Dugald Dalgetty, who would insist upon the erection of 'a sconce on the hill of Drumsnab,' or whatever it was;—the other seems ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... And now he signs John Smith, J.P. We'll hold our inquest NOW, we three; I'll be your coroner for once; I think old Oswald ought to be Our foreman—Jones is such a dunce,— There's more brain in the bloodhound's sconce. ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... of the farther end of a small plain, or square, at the outskirts of the town, close to some extensive bleaching fields. It was a long low building of one room, with no upper story; on the top was a kind of wooden box, or sconce, which I at first mistook for a pigeon-house, but which in reality contained a bell, to which was attached a rope, which, passing through the ceiling, hung dangling in the middle of the school-room. I am the more particular in mentioning this appurtenance, as I had soon occasion to ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... bauble, turning to examine it at the nearest candle sconce, even as I thrust the dainty little slipper of white satin again into the pocket of my coat. I was uncomfortable. I wished this talk of Elisabeth had not come up. I liked very little to leave Elisabeth's property ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... for all worldly purposes, when the head is brought into the state whereinto I am accustomed to bring a marrow-bone, when it has been set before me on a toast, with a white napkin wrapped round it. Nothing trundles along the high road of preferment so trimly as a well-biassed sconce, picked clean within and polished without; totus teres atque rotundus. The perfection of the finishing lies in the bias, which keeps it trundling in the given direction. There is good and sufficient reason for the fig being barren, but it is ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock
... the outer side of the Elbe when this dreadful piece of butchery was done. The city of Magdeburg had a sconce or fort over against it called the toll-house, which joined to the city by a very fine bridge of boats. This fort was taken by the Imperialists a few days before, and having a mind to see it, and the rather ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... in desperation inserted his fingers in the opening and tore at it. Through the aperture O'Connell saw Maruffi run to an open window at the rear, then pause long enough to snatch the taper from its sconce at the foot of the little shrine and, stooping, touch its flame to the long lace curtains. They promptly flashed into a blaze. Parting them, he bestrode, the sill, lowered himself outside, and disappeared. It was an old but effective ruse ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... hundred demagogues who are known to be demagogues. They have fed like buzzards upon the rotting offal of politics and the people continue to vote for them. Every now and then the ICONOCLAST reaches out and whacks one of them a fell blow upon his sconce, but, having tied up his head, he once again returns to his business of craving alms at the ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... if the others dreamed— 'Cos why, they never tell— But in a little bit it seemed I knew the tune quite well; It seemed to me I'd heard it once In woods away and dim, Where someone with a horned sconce Came ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 29, 1914 • Various
... ceiling of this chamber depended an octagonal symbol in polished metal, and close by the door eight wax candles flickered slightly in the faint stir of air. But his astonished and inquisitive eyes had barely become aware of these details when Andrew Henderson turned towards the circular sconce in which the candles were set and began to extinguish them one by one. As the light died, he stepped forward and John drew back sharply; but at his movement a stone, loosened by his heel, went rolling down into ...
— The Mystics - A Novel • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... pretending to think. He waited a moment, then drew out his latch-key and opened the door very softly. A single sconce-candle flared in the hall; he lifted it from the gilded socket and passed into the state drawing-room, holding the light above his head, and searching over table and cabinet for the ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... was fairly brought to bay, Padella turned and dealt Prince Giglio a prodigious crack over the sconce with his battle-axe, a most enormous weapon, which had cut down I don't know how many regiments in the course of the afternoon. But, Law bless you! though the blow fell right down on His Majesty's helmet, it made no more impression than if Padella had struck him with a pat of butter: ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... way past Kitty's barricade, stared at her doubtfully. This was a clever girl; she had proved her cleverness frequently. She might have some reason other than fear in keeping him out. So he put a fresh candle in the sconce and began to prowl. He pierced the attic windows with a ranging glance; no one was in the yard or on the Street. The dust on the windows had not ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... showering from it with every blow, well-nigh blinded his adversary, whom he drove to the very edge of the table. At this critical juncture Will managed to bring down his bag full upon his opponent's sconce, and the force of the blow bursting it, Patch was covered from crown to foot with flour, and blinded in his turn. The appearance of the combatants was now so exquisitely ridiculous, that the king leaned back in his chair ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... A sconce is a candlestick holder, so made that it has a reflector of brass or copper and is to hang upon the wall. The tools necessary are a riveting hammer, file, metal shears, rivet punch, flat and round-nosed pliers, screwdriver and sheet brass or ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... may not that be the skull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddits now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks? why does he suffer this rude knave, now, to knock him about the sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his action of battery? Humph! This fellow might be in's time a great buyer of land, with his statutes, his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... it, and a friend not; and that telling the author would make both change their opinions. Why did you not tell Griffyth(39) that you fancied there was something in it of my manner; but first spur up his commendation to the height, as we served my poor uncle about the sconce that I mended? Well, I desired you to give what I intended for an answer to Mrs. Fenton,(40) to save her postage, and myself trouble; and I hope I have done it, if ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... finished Mr. Newville took his gold-headed cane from its place in the hall, adjusted his wig at the mirror under the sconce, put on his gold-laced hat and walked leisurely, as became his majesty's commissioner of imposts, along Tremont Street to Queen, thence past the jail, the Town House, the pillory and the stocks, to his office in the ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... Braggot. This drinke is of a most hot nature, as being compos'd of Spices, and if it once scale the sconce, and enter within the circumclusion of the Perricranion, it doth much accelerate nature, by whose forcible atraction and operation, the drinker (by way of distribution) is easily enabled to afford blowcs to his brother. ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... a darkness, as if from the branch of a sconce, over the forehead of a fair girl.—They are not married yet, and I do not think they will be. But I loved the youth who loved her. How he started! It was a revelation ...
— Cross Purposes and The Shadows • George MacDonald |
