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Shelf   Listen
noun
Shelf  n.  (pl. shelves)  
1.
(Arch.) A flat tablet or ledge of any material set horizontally at a distance from the floor, to hold objects of use or ornament.
2.
A sand bank in the sea, or a rock, or ledge of rocks, rendering the water shallow, and dangerous to ships. "On the tawny sands and shelves." "On the secret shelves with fury cast."
3.
(Mining) A stratum lying in a very even manner; a flat, projecting layer of rock.
4.
(Naut.) A piece of timber running the whole length of a vessel inside the timberheads.
To lay on the shelf, to lay aside as unnecessary or useless; to dismiss; to discard.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Shelf" Quotes from Famous Books



... conversation, and solemnly assures them that such an accident is not to be thought of at all; that it is a natural impossibility—a thing that could not happen without an actual miracle; and since it becomes increasingly evident that thirty ladies cannot all sleep on the lowest shelf, there is some effort made to exercise faith in this doctrine; nevertheless all look on their neighbors with fear and trembling; and when the stout lady talks of taking a shelf, she is most urgently pressed to change places with her alarmed neighbor below. Points of location being ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn

... of ingenious stories, as a record of folly and wickedness, as a curious and valuable old literary work, keep the Bible in the library. But put it on the top shelf—or just behind it, and don't let the children see it until they are old enough to read it with discrimination. As a mythological work it is no worse than several others. As a divine ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener

... and shocked, he had gone directly to her dressing-room when the curtain was rung down, had tapped and gone in. She was sitting wearily in a chair, a cigarette between her fingers. Around was the usual litter of a stage dressing-room after the play, the long shelf beneath the mirror crowded with powders, rouge and pencils, a bunch of roses in the corner washstand basin, a wardrobe trunk, and a maid covering with cheese-cloth bags ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... first consideration, and he hurried to the sheet-iron stove, with its pile of wood stacked behind, noticing, as he built the fire, cans and packages of provisions upon the shelf over the small wooden table, evidence that some one other than the woman herself had looked after the details of stocking the cabin with food and of providing against emergencies. At least a portion of ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper

... a large, open-fronted box lined with blue silk and fluffy lace, in a desirable but not too conspicuous (Win had seen to that!) corner of a shelf devoted entirely to dollhood. There she stood now, the sweet, smiling child, the image of the ideal two-year-old baby which every girl would like to have for ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson

... representing Victor Hugo's Esmeralda in prison with her pet goat; the other, Lamartine's Laurence with her fawn. Both are very old and stained and bitten by the bte—ciseau, a species of lepisma, which destroys books and papers, and everything it can find exposed. On a shelf are two bottles,—one filled with holy water; another with tafia camphre (camphor dissolved in tafia), which is Cyrillia's sole remedy for colds, fevers, headaches—all maladies not of a very fatal description. There are also a little woollen monkey, about ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn

... never been upstairs in that house, and yet a house it isn't. There's just two sleeping-rooms, that's all; it's shameful, it isn't decent. Well, that gal, she goes away to service. Maybe, sir, them premises at the farm are also unbeknown to you. In the back kitchen there's a broadish sort of shelf as Jim climbs into o' nights, and it has a rail round it to keep you from a- falling out, and there's a ladder as they draws up in the day as goes straight up from that kitchen to the gal's bedroom door. It's downright disgraceful, and I don't believe the Lord A'mighty ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford

... you them there pies on the shelf, and leave 'em there a little, and they'll come again."—She meant, you know, the crust would ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)

... thing f'r a counthry to have th' likes iv thim ar-round to direct manoovers that'd be gatherin' dust on th' shelf if th' gin'rals had their say, an' to prove to th' wurruld that th' English ar-re not frivolous, excitable people like us an' th' Frinch, but can take a batin' without losin' ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne

... bottom of some prehistoric mountain lake, the eyes of two of the three silent occupants of the cab were strained along the gleaming rails ahead, and almost at the same instant the same thought sprang to the lips of each—Big Ben, with his left hand at the throttle, hunched up on his shelf, his cap pulled down over the bushy brows, and Geordie, across the cab on the fireman's seat, clinging to the window-frame to withstand the lurching of the throbbing monster, while between them, on the coal-blackened floor, Toomey, with his big shovel ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King

... in f, change the f into v and assume es for the plural: sheaf, sheaves; leaf, leaves; loaf, loaves; leaf, beeves; thief, thieves; calf, calves; half, halves; elf, elves; shelf, shelves; self, selves; wolf, wolves. Three others in fe are similar: life, lives; knife, knives; wife, wives. These are specific exceptions to the general rule for plurals, and not a series of examples coming under a particular rule; for, contrary to ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... flood, which runneth up and down, Is far more sweet than is the standing brook: If long unworn you leave a cloak or gown, Moths will it mar, unless you thereto look: Again, if that upon a shelf you place or set a book, And suffer it there still to stand, the worms will soon it eat: A knife likewise, in sheath laid up, the rust will mar ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley

... not merely with the popularity of methodism, but also with the situation of the Chapel in the middle of the village. On the dark December evenings there would be perhaps not more than half a dozen worshippers, each one of whom would have brought his own candle and stuck it on the shelf of the pew. The organist would have two candles for the harmonium; the choir of three little boys and one little girl would have two between them; the altar would have two; the Vicar would have two. But when all the candle-light was put together, it left most of the church in shadow; indeed, ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie

... seven by eleven inches in size. The normal entry gives the name of the author (for perhaps three-fourths of the entries), the short title, the format, the place and date of publication, and sometimes the publisher. And finally, after most of the items appears the "Theca" or shelf number—one of 33 shelves on which Congreve arranged his books at his lodgings in Surrey ...
— The Library of William Congreve • John C. Hodges

... caught Mademoiselle de Verneuil's hand, drew her under the mantel-shelf to the back of the hearth in a way to avoid disturbing the fire, which covered only a small part of it; then he touched a spring; the iron back was lifted, and when their enemies returned to the kitchen the heavy door of the hiding-place had already fallen noiselessly. Mademoiselle de ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac

... rocky shelf—a ledge some twenty feet square that jutted out from the canon wall. They gathered upon it, and took enough of the diminishing drug to stop their growth. Then the Chemist again started forward; but, very soon after, a cry of alarm from Aura ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings

... marched directly to the stone table, the executioner tramping with a measured tread immediately ahead of the victims. The people did not go near the rocky shelf, but circled about at ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Treasures of the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay

... very act of taking out the bottle from the shelf, and his curious glance went over the face of Pierre le Rouge. He decided, apparently, that it was foolish to hold suspicions against so ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick

... the shelf before him and ran a quick eye through its pages. After a brief pause he put the volume back and joined the ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... retired into the parlour, continuing in the same state of abstraction, which was a burden intolerable to her. Then he went to the book-shelf and took down books to look at, that she ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

... have an open fireplace. It makes a room so cheery and 'comfy' when the weather gets colder, on long winter evenings, to have a fire in the grate. I saw some lovely, old brass andirons and fender in the attic, and some brass candlesticks there also, which will do nicely for the mantel shelf over the fireplace. I'll shine 'em up, and instead of this hideously-ugly old wall paper with gay-colored scrawley figures, Aunt Sarah, suppose we get an inexpensive, plain, tan felt paper for drop ceiling and separate it from the paper ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas

... chocolate for us down stairs at half past four," said Dorothy, jumping up and looking at a clock that was ticking industriously on a shelf. "Let's go down and get it, and we'll ask Mother to sing the funny old song of 'The ...
— Ethel Morton's Enterprise • Mabell S.C. Smith

... this time to replace the glass upon the shelf, his thin blond hair falling over his eyes as he did so. Markheim moved a little nearer, with one hand in the pocket of his greatcoat; he drew himself up and filled his lungs; at the same time many different emotions were depicted together on his face—terror, horror, and ...
— Short-Stories • Various

... went to bed that summer evening, on a sloping shelf in the bank, a couple of rods from our boat, which was drawn up on the sand, and just behind a thin fringe of oaks which bordered the river; without having disturbed any inhabitants but the spiders in the grass, which came out by the light ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau

... say, in the waning day, When the vessel is crack'd and old, To cherish the battered potter's clay As though it were virgin gold? Take care of yourself, dull, boorish elf, Though prudent and sage you seem; Your pitcher will break on the musty shelf, And mine by ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin

... she, as with a smile, he laid the wonderful old instrument upon the shelf again, "it is your life, your soul—you put ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey

... although it was an extremely bright and interesting production. When William Mason was in Leipsic in 1850 he sent home a score and parts to the orchestra in Boston. They held two rehearsals of this symphony and then laid it upon the shelf in the belief that the composer must have been crazy, and it was only five or six years later that they mustered up nerve to produce the work and were astonished to find that it ...
— The Masters and their Music - A series of illustrative programs with biographical, - esthetical, and critical annotations • W. S. B. Mathews

... place on the same shelf with Stanley's 'Life of Arnold', and Carlyle's 'Stirling'. Dr. Vaughan has performed his painful but not all unpleasing task with ...
— MacMillan & Co.'s General Catalogue of Works in the Departments of History, Biography, Travels, and Belles Lettres, December, 1869 • Unknown

... and they resumed their journey, climbing more steeply now, until, when the sun was low, they quit the stream-bed and made through the forest towards the shoulder of an untimbered ridge that ran down into the valley. And there, high up on the edge of the spruce, they selected a mossy shelf ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach

... cannot imagine, but, instead, I began to tax my brains anew for some means of gaining further time; and, as I looked about the place, the shopman very patiently awaiting my departure, I observed an open case at the back of the counter. The three lower shelves were empty, but upon the fourth shelf ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer

... of hard, black rubber, and are honeycombed with innumerable holes, each of which is connected with a subscriber. Below the switchboard is a broad shelf in which are set the miniature lamps and from which project the brass plugs in rows. The flexible cords containing the connecting wires are weighted and hang below, so that when a plug is pulled out of a socket and dropped it slides back automatically to its proper ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday

... about fifteen feet long, from closet to window, by some twelve feet wide. A brown grass rug filled most of the floor space. The wainscoting, of clean white pine, ascended four feet and ended in a narrow ledge or shelf, devised, as they afterwards discovered, to hold photographs or small pictures which the rules prohibited them from placing on the walls. The walls were painted a light buff. The furniture consisted of two single-width beds, two chiffoniers, a study table ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour

... dexterously as a rodent will get the meat of a nut out of its shell.... He handled his rapidly acquired knowledge so like an adept in book-lore that one might have thought he was born in an alcove and cradled on a book-shelf." Dr. Bigelow was so frequently in Dr. Holmes's thought in the latter days that one can hardly give a picture of his later life without rehearsing something of his expression with regard to him. He says ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields

... replied, cloaking himself with wonderful celerity, and taking a lantern from the shelf. "You can wait here, till ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz

... troops on Sunday and led them right along the road we are on—to the pine wood yonder—just north of us. We won't go through there, because we ain't making a flank movement," and he laughed pleasantly. They drove on at a rapid rate as they came upon the southern shelf of the Manassas plateau. ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... straw hat, newly moistened the damp sponge in it at a neighboring washstand, and replaced both on the aching head; and, finally, placed in one of his tremulous hands a few cloves from a saucer on the mantel-shelf. ...
— Punchinello Vol. II., No. 30, October 22, 1870 • Various

... the plants are large enough to handle they are pricked out an inch or two apart into 3-inch or 5-inch pots; when a little more advanced they are potted singly. They should be wintered in a greenhouse with a night temperature of about 40 deg., occupying a shelf near the light. By the end of February they should be moved into 8-inch or 10-inch pots, using a compost of three parts good turfy loam, one part leaf-mould, and one part thoroughly rotten manure, with a fair addition of sand. They need plenty of light and air, but must ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... decoration, or of relics of olden times; either of ten thousand characters of happiness or of ten thousand characters of longevity. The various kinds of designs had been all carved by renowned hands, in variegated colours, inlaid with gold, and studded with precious gems; while on shelf upon shelf were either arranged collections of books, or tripods were laid out; either pens and inkslabs were distributed about, or vases with flowers set out, or figured pots were placed about; ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... flocks the nests must be clean, secluded and plentiful. Boxes under the roost-platform will answer, but a better plan is to have the nest upon a shelf along a side wall so arranged as to allow the hen to enter from the rear side. Nests should be constructed so that all parts are accessible to a white-wash brush. The less contrivances in a ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings

... a herd boy found a flycatcher's egg and he brought it home and asked his mother to cook it for him, but she put it on a shelf and forgot about it. His mother was a poor woman and had to go out all day to work; so before she started she used always to cook her son's dinner and leave it covered up all ready for him. No sooner had she gone to work than a bonga girl used to come out of the flycatcher's ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas

... to the ship, we put ashore at a place where, in the corner of a house, we saw four wooden images, each two feet long, standing on a shelf, having a piece of cloth round their middle, and a kind of turban on their heads, in which were stuck long feathers of cocks. A person in the house told us they were Eatua no te Toutou, gods of the servants or slaves. ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook

... for the road, or rather pathway, which passes through these defiles, follows generally the course of a mountain torrent, which flows through a succession of frightful ravines and chasms, and often passes along on a shelf or projection of the rock, hundreds and sometimes thousands of feet from the bed of the stream, which foams and roars far below. There could, of course, be no hope of passing safely by such a route without ...
— Hannibal - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... work—had taken the opportunity to strike, refusing to bake another dish except under permanently improved conditions, necessitating weary days with plumbers. Fat cookery books, long neglected on their shelf, had been consulted, argued with and abused; experiments made, failures sighed over, successes noted; cost calculated anxiously; means and ways adjusted, hope finally ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome

... into the booth and sat down. The emergency control unit rested on a shelf at his side; he took it in his hands. He leaned back and waited for the semi-hypnotic effect to take hold. Dulaq's choice of this very city and the stat-wand were known. But beyond that, everything was locked and sealed in Dulaq's subconscious mind. Could the machine reach into that ...
— The Dueling Machine • Benjamin William Bova

... quarters and inches. This was his counter, and held a clumsy pair of scales. On the other side was a rude table containing boxes of cotton cloth, cambrics or checked goods, sewing cotton, buttons, thimbles, scissors, jack-knives, needles, and pins. On the mantel-shelf stood a pile of white, blue-edged plates, and mugs, and pitchers, from which projected sticks of red and white candy, like miniature barber's poles, and heaps of "gibraltars," hard and solid, sweet and brittle, and honest. Every child knew that they were ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various

... Cide Hamete to his pen, "Rest here, hung up by this brass wire, upon this shelf, O my pen, whether of skilful make or clumsy cut I know not; here shalt thou remain long ages hence, unless presumptuous or malignant story-tellers take thee down to profane thee. But ere they touch thee warn them, and, as best thou canst, say ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... at the west end of the room, on the third shelf from the bottom, behind the bust of Hadrian, above Apollonius Rhodius and Callimachus, and below Lucan and ...
— Romola • George Eliot

... chemical experiments, the little girl, who was proud of having arranged it neatly, ran on before him, and showed him the places where all his things were put. "The writing and the figures are not rubbed off your slate—there it is, sir," said she, pointing to a high shelf. "But whose handkerchief is this?" said Henry, taking up a handkerchief which was under the slate. "Gracious! that must be the good gentleman's handkerchief; he missed it just as he was going out of the house. He thought he had left it at the washerwoman's, where I met him; and he's gone back to ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth

... taking a phial from its shelf, "this is a precious beverage, that lulls one to sleep or to death, as ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach

... it, Vincent thought; the shinily varnished cheap furniture had almost disappeared, and the excellent proportions of the old rooms could be seen. Lamps glowed from every shelf, their golden light softened by great sprays of green branches with tender young leaves, which were fastened everywhere over the doors, the windows, banked in the corner The house smelled like a ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... bore Mrs. Baines's bunch of keys at her girdle, a solemn trust, moved a little fearfully to a corner cupboard which was hung in the angle to the right of the projecting fireplace, over a shelf on which stood a large copper tea-urn. That corner cupboard, of oak inlaid with maple and ebony in a simple border pattern, was typical of the room. It was of a piece with the deep green "flock" wall paper, and the tea-urn, and the rocking-chairs with their antimacassars, and the harmonium ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... the room, and the door was panelled and flanked by fluted doorposts of the same dark wood, on which rested corbels fashioned into curling acanthus leaves, to hold up the cornice, which itself made a high shelf over the door. Three painted Italian vases, filled with last summer's rose leaves and carefully sealed lest the faint perfume should be lost, stood symmetrically on this projection, their contents slowly ripening for future use. The heap of white ashes, under which the wood coals were still ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford

... by side. Their accommodations were the reverse of luxurious. A wooden bench, destitute of back, and shiny from the friction of dear knows how many restless sitters; a sloping desk, cut and carved by careless knives, and having underneath an open shelf upon which the books, slate, cap, and lunch might be put—that was the sum total. Yet, after all, what more do schoolboys really need, or ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley

... to say, these clefts and ravines and gorges all send their streams into a little valley which is several feet below the level of your plain. To-day I have discovered the reason of this phenomenon: from the Roche-Vive to Montegnac, at the foot of the mountains, runs a shelf or barricade of rock, varying in height from twenty to thirty feet; there is not a break in it from end to end; and it is formed of a species of rock which Monsieur Bonnet calls schist. The soil above it, which is of course softer than ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac

... responded, rising from her chair and fumbling along the mantel-shelf for matches. "I'm sorry I forgot the candles." The mere sound of his voice had made her heart ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed

... emerged from the green oblong, bordered by low yew edges, from which as from a flat and spacious shelf carved out of the hill, Monk Lawrence surveyed the slopes below it, the clustered village, the middle distance with its embroidery of fields and trees, with the vaporous stretches of the forest beyond, and in the far distance, ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Beechnut went away. Phonny took up an old tin cover which lay upon a shelf behind the bench, and which had once belonged to a tin box. The box was lost, but Phonny had kept the cover to put nails in. He now poured the nails out upon the bench, and went out to the pump to fill the ...
— Stuyvesant - A Franconia Story • Jacob Abbott

... refinements in the way of wine. Yet the total had mounted up in spite of all forbearance, and Miss Joliffe was at this moment reminded of its gravity by the gold-foil necks of three bottles of the universally-appreciated Duc de Bentivoglio brand, which still projected from a shelf above her head. Of Dr Ennefer's account she scarcely dared even to think; and there was perhaps less need of her doing so, for he never sent it in, knowing very well that she would pay it as she could, ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner

... was at least as thick as a good sized octavo. The book to which I wished to refer, was the second volume of Robertson's Charles the Fifth. After some hesitation, Madame P** led me into a back room; and opening a sliding pannel, discovered a shelf let into the wall, on which were arranged a number of authors, chiefly English and French. I was not surprised to find Rousseau and Voltaire among them; but am still at a loss to guess what Robertson has done or written to entitle him to a place in ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson

... On its top shelf was Book Three, a book a foot thick and bound in heavy brass studded with semi-precious stones in the form of signs and symbols. With difficulty, standing on tiptoe, Chris lifted it down, and placing it on the floor, turned over ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson

... idly in the clean painted little room with the big square desk and the three chairs. Through the door he could see Collins, perched on a high stool before the shelf-like desk. From the open window came the clear, musical note of the circular saw, the fresh aromatic smell of new lumber, the bracing air from Superior sparkling in the offing. He felt tired. In rare moments such as these, ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White

... arrangement made to keep food cool in the summer when there is no ice. A wooden cage with shelves is covered with a cloth cover and placed near a window or out of doors. If in the house it should stand in a large pan to prevent the dripping of water on the shelf ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts

... their pesky road," he said to me as we dragged ourselves up a shelf of rock and sat down, panting, to rest. "I'll get an air machine soon and fool them. I'm clearing a level space for a landing stage for the airships, and next time you come to Tahiti you will alight ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London

... few delicate flowers in the little conservatory, and put them in a basket with a peach from the dessert, then took down a couple of books from the shelf. Gillian could not but acquiesce, though she was surprised to find that the one given to her ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge

... many counsels that she had received from Flora, and they sounded so bewildering that she wished it had been Conic sections, and then she looked at a Hebrew grammar that Norman had given her, and gave a sigh as she slipped it into the shelf of the seldom used. She looked about the room, cleared out the last piece of brown paper, and burned the last torn envelope, that no relic of packing and change might distress Margaret's eyes for order; then feeling at once desolate ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... in the room; only the clock, that unavoidable dweller in all houses, that comrade of all people, ticked monotonously on the shelf, beneath the mirror, among the porcelain figures. Widow Clemens, while sewing, industriously, muttered on. Her unbroken loneliness, the store of thoughts put away in her old head, and the care in her heart had given her ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)

... of great size. man'aged, controlled; brought to do one's wishes. mane, the long hair on a horse's neck. man'tel, a narrow shelf over a fire-place, with its support. mar'gin, edge; border. mark'et, a place where things are sold. mark'ings, marks; stamped places. mean'time, during the interval; meanwhile. mel'low ing, ripening; growing ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes

... said to live for more than a hundred years. I am, however, not prepared to say that it was the same pair of birds that used, year after year, to build on the same rock-shelf among the precipices of Navity, from the times of my great-grandfather's boyhood to ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller

... which a copy of this work may now be found. In the noble minster church at Wimborne, Dorsetshire, is a rather large collection of books, comprising some old and valuable editions: all these books were, and many still are, chained to their shelves; an iron rod runs along the front of each shelf, on which rings attached to the chains fastened to the covers of the works have free play; these volumes are preserved in an upper chamber on the south side of the chancel. The parochial library at St. Margaret's, Lynn, Norfolk, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 196, July 30, 1853 • Various

... in the plough, who first the vine Did nourish tenderly, and chose good grapes, That rare old wine may pass from sire to son! Peace! who doth keep the plow and harrow bright, While rust on some forgotten shelf devours The cruel soldier's useless sword and shield. From peaceful holiday with mirth and wine The rustic, not half sober, driveth home With wife and weans upon ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus

... searched most carefully, in order to see whether he carried with him any English money, for nobody was allowed to carry away more than ten pounds of English money: all the rest was taken away and handed to the royal treasury. And thus farewell, Carissime Hentzneri! and slumber on your shelf until the eye of some other benevolent reader, glancing at the rows of forgotten books, is caught by the quaint lettering on your back, ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller

... mischief, truth to say, Like any little elf, Within the pantry hides to taste The "goodies" on the shelf? Who bothers cook, where'er she goes, And makes her scold, you may suppose?— ...
— Harper's Young People, February 24, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... of a forest of palm-trees, not far from the Orinoco. It is a pillar of granite, a prismatic mass, the bare and steep sides of which attain nearly two hundred feet in height. Its point, which overtops the highest trees of the forest, is terminated by a shelf of rock with a horizontal and smooth surface. Other trees crown this summit, which the missionaries call the peak, or Mogote de Cocuyza. This monument of nature, in its simple grandeur recalls to mind the Cyclopean remains of antiquity. Its strongly-marked ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt

... room was fresh and full of delicate perfume. Mr. Cardew had to admit to himself that this was a room in which the most refined young ladies in the world might sit with pleasure and profit. There was a shelf for books running round the dado, and the books therein were good of their kind and richly and handsomely bound. There were no small tables anywhere. Mr. Cardew was glad of that—he detested small tables; but there ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade

... post-office addresses, and mottoes with which the rocky walls had been frescoed (in candle-smoke). Still drifting along and talking, they scarcely noticed that they were now in a part of the cave whose walls were not frescoed. They smoked their own names under an overhanging shelf and moved on. Presently they came to a place where a little stream of water, trickling over a ledge and carrying a limestone sediment with it, had, in the slow-dragging ages, formed a laced and ruffled Niagara in gleaming and imperishable stone. Tom squeezed his small body behind it in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... am come to say,' he began, standing by the mantel-shelf, as was his wont in his conferences with Mrs. Edmonstone; and he repeated the same in substance as he had said to Amy in the garden, though with less calmness and coherence, and far more warmth of expression, as if, now that she was protected ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge

... out as he expected. His voice was loudest, and his oratory more decidedly effective than ever. The prospect before him was also of so seductive a character, that he yielded more than was his wont to the influences of the bottle-god: who stood little iron-hooped keg, perched upon a shelf conveniently in ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... could not be found, although diligent search was made for it, both at home and abroad, and his sister, Mrs. Cholmondeley, was on the point of taking out letters of administration, when it was accidentally discovered by Dr. Dibdin among some books on an upper shelf at Pimlico. As it did not contain any directions as to the disposal of his books, those in England, together with some brought from Holland, were sold by Sotheby and Son, Evans, and Wheatley at a series of sales extending over ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher

... Opposite to the fire-place, extending the whole length of the room, was an oaken shovel-board, with the right incline for a skilful player to send the weights into the prescribed space. There were baskets of white work about, and a small shelf of books hung against the wall, books used for reading, and not for propping up a beau-pot of flowers. I took down one or two of those books once when I was left alone in the house-place on the first evening—Virgil, Caesar, a Greek grammar—oh, dear! ah, me! and ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... It was all white. White. White tiles. Rows of little slender knives on a glass shelf, under glass, shining. A white sink in the corner. A mixed smell of iodine and ether. The surgeon wore a white coat. Harriett ...
— Life and Death of Harriett Frean • May Sinclair

... for naught when the "big lead," which marks the edge of the continental shelf where it dips down into the Arctic Ocean, is in one of its tantrums, opening just wide enough to keep a continual zone of open water or impracticable young ice in the center, as occurred on our upward journey of 1906 and the never-to-be-forgotten return ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary

... About ten o'clock Dan Hicks and Jack Flaherty breakfasted and about ten thirty both met in the office. Apparently they were two souls with but a single thought, for the right hand of each sought the shelf whereon reposed the blue volume entitled "Lloyd's Register." Dan Hicks reached it first, carried it to the counter, wet his tarry index finger, and started turning the pages in a vain search for the American steamer ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne

... which Karl was rejoicing. A ladder of three hundred feet was not to be thought of any more than one of three thousand. It was that he had just observed upon the face of the cliff a series of ledges that rose, shelf-like, one above the other. The rock had a seamed or stratified appearance, although it was a species of granite; but the strata were not by any means regular, and the ledges were at unequal distances from ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid

... to his feet, and crossing to the fireplace, flicked the ash from his cigar, and leaned lazily against the stone shelf. 'You're a member of the Royal Automobile Club, aren't you?' ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter

... the wonderful region of the Colorado. Here, as our readers will recollect, the lads were cut off from their trail by the falling of great masses of rock during a fierce storm. Apparently the boys were doomed to remain helpless on a narrow shelf of rock; our readers recall how Tad Butler, at the risk of his life, spent hours in the attempt to get them out of their dangerous situation. The mysterious circumstances that followed the boys all the way along on their journey through the great canyon form a most ...
— The Pony Rider Boys with the Texas Rangers • Frank Gee Patchin

... round table in the middle of the floor, and several other smaller tables in different places about the room. There was a sideboard, also, with a clock and various ornaments upon it. There was a mirror over the mantle shelf, and another between the windows; and various engravings, in frames that had evidently once been gilt, were hanging about ...
— Rollo in London • Jacob Abbott

... he, when at night you go off to your bed, Bids you go to your sleep and not trouble your head; For wherever they're lying, in cupboard or shelf, 'Tis he will take care ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... forgotten his spurs, and he ran back to get them. The cream-colored lady still had the chain hanging upon her, and Cumnor's problem was suddenly solved. He put the chain in his pocket, and laid the price of one round of drinks for last night's company on the shelf below the chromo. He returned with his spurs on, and went to his saddle that lay beside that of Specimen Jones under the shed. After a moment he came with his saddle to where the men stood talking by his pony, slung it on, and tightened the cinches; but the chain was now in ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister

... opinion of an ever-wise Government), that day which sounds the knell of active service, that day so dreaded and yet so longed for, that day when an army officer is sixty-four years old and Uncle Sam lays him upon the shelf, as that day approached, the city of San Antonio, in fact the entire State of Texas poured forth to bid him Godspeed; for if ever an army man was beloved, it was General Stanley by the State ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes

... never to be wanted again. From the ceiling swung two glowing paper lanterns that threw soft, mysterious, dancing lights on things. In the big fireplace a huge fire crackled and roared, and on the shelf above it were stacks of golden oranges, and piles of fat, brown doughnuts. Across one corner, on a stout cord, hung some green branches with small candles twinkling above them. It was not exactly a Christmas tree, but it had evidently fooled Santa Claus, for on every branch hung a trinket ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice

... the grace to blush. Bobby, who was fond of books but whose taste ran to "Rules for Basketball" and "How to Gain Health Through Exercise," had put up a small shelf directly over her bed to hold her literary treasures. Libbie, exhausting the space in her tiny corner bookcase had thoughtlessly placed the two heavy volumes of the story Bobby mentioned on top of her cousin's books with the awful ...
— Betty Gordon at Boarding School - The Treasure of Indian Chasm • Alice Emerson

... dodging a cafe table, jumping an improvised trellis—a hundred pursuing voices yelling: "Where is she? Where is she?"—the telltale tinsel scarf flapping frenziedly behind her, flapping—flapping—till at last, between one high, garnished shelf and another it twined its vampirish chiffon around the delicate fronds of a huge potted fern! There was a jerk,—a blur,—a blow, the sickening crash of fallen pottery—And little Eve Edgarton crumpled up on the floor, no longer ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... cellar, and fished round in the pork-barrel and found quite a respectable piece. Coming up, just as my head got level with the floor, what should I see but Miss Jemimy pour all the sugar into her bag and whip the bowl back on the shelf, and turn round and face me as innocent as Moses in the bulrushes. After she had taken the pork, she looked round a minute ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various

... a shelf at the other end of the room and got down a couple of loaves of maize bread, some ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston

... with a box bed and some pieces of humble furniture, fit only for a labouring man. But the choice treasures of Greece and Rome lay on the table, and on a shelf beside the bed College prizes and medals, while everywhere were the roses he loved. His peasant mother stood beside the body of her scholar son, whose hopes and thoughts she had shared, and through the window came the bleating of distant sheep. ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren

... bookcases. But I saw no one. However, at the other end of the large room there stood a screen near one of the many lounges, and I was on the point of approaching this place of concealment when Sinclair drew me toward a tall cabinet upon whose glass doors the firelight was shimmering, and, pointing to a shelf far above ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green

... the corner of her eye as she arranged books decorously on a shelf Dowie saw the still transparent hand open first one book and then another. At last it paused at a delicately coloured pamphlet. It was the last alluring note of modern advertisement, sent out by a firm which made a specialty of children's ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... time I pinned up my skirt until I came out with my face the colour of that smoke-stack, wasn't more than an hour, or maybe an hour and a half, but I had that house as clean and fresh as a new pine-wood box. I had a New York Herald with me, and I lined their shelf with paper for them. Well, Mr. Stephens, when I had done washing my hands outside, I came past the door again, and there were those two children sitting on the stoop with their eyes full of flies, and all just the same as ever, except that each had a little paper cap made out of ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle

... the windows stood a superbly-carved gilt table, oblong, and with curiously-twisted legs which bent inward and met a small central shelf half-way between the top and the floor, then spread out again into four strange claw-like vases, which bore each two golden lilies standing upright. On this stood the most singular piece of wood-carving I ever saw. It was of very light wood, ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson

... shelves, extending an inch or two above them. A couple of coats of outside paint will also add to the looks and to the life of these shelves and further tend to prevent any annoying drip from draining pots. Such a shelf will be still further improved by being covered an inch or two deep with coarse ...
— Gardening Indoors and Under Glass • F. F. Rockwell



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