"Banister" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a headache, and she would not go out for a walk with him. She heard her father reading the paper aloud, so she went to her room and dropped on the bed again. Her throat began to feel sore and swollen. When she heard the doctor's voice in the hall she leaned over the banister and said: "Dr. Kendricks will you come up ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... orange, looked down from the ceiling. Curtains of tawny velvet hung beside the shuttered windows. A great brazen candelabrum, filled with half-consumed candles, stood tall and splendid at the foot of a wide oak staircase, the banister-rail whereof was cushioned with tawny velvet. Splendour of fabric, wood and marble, colour and gilding, showed on every side; but of ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... and learning, as all of them did, to become thoroughly domesticated—Emily most of all. Behind the dining-room was a peat-room, which, when Charlotte was married in 1854, was cleared out and converted into a little study for Mr. Nicholls. The staircase with its solid banister remains as it did half a century ago; and at its foot one is still shown the corner which tradition assigns as the scene of Emily's conflict with her dog Keeper. On the right, at the back, as you mount ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... running steps upstairs. Katherine leaned over the banister. Her quiet voice reassured him. ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... the banister Tom Tracy saw Harold when the door was opened, and screaming to his mother at the top of his voice, 'It ain't old Peterkin, mother; it's Hall Hastings, come to the front door,' he ran down the stairs, and confronting the intruder just as he ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... almost reached the last step when there was a ring at the front door. With what he was afterward wont to call an inspiration, he retreated with unusual nimbleness until he had almost reached Joan's door again. Then he leaned over the banister and listened. ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... opening, lighted the entrance to the wynd. With a hand outstretched to either wall, Auld Jock felt his way up. Another lantern marked a sculptured doorway that gave to the foul court of the tenement. No sky could be seen above the open well of the court, and the carved, oaken banister of the stairs had to be felt for and clung to by one so short of breath. On the seventh landing, from the exertion of the long climb, Auld Jock was shaken into helplessness, and his heart set to pounding, by a violent fit of coughing. Overhead a shutter was ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... to produce, and Sir William Davenant had given performances of musical dramas 'after the manner of the Ancients' during the closing years of the Commonwealth, but it is probable that spoken dialogue occurred in all these entertainments, as it certainly did in Locke's 'Psyche,' Banister's 'Circe,' in fact, in all the dramatic works of this period which were wrongly described as operas. In 'Dido and AEneas,' on the contrary, the music is continuous throughout. Airs and recitatives, choruses and instrumental pieces succeed each other, ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... of examining the old familiar scene, but it was merely to collect himself, for his sight was clouded; spoke to the old servant, to reassure himself by the sound of his own voice, but the husky words seemed to stick in his throat; ascended the staircase with tottering steps, and leant against the banister as he heard his name announced. The effort, however, must be made; it was too late to recede; and Lord Cadurcis, entering the terrace-room, extended his hand to Lady Annabel Herbert. She was not in the least changed, but looked as beautiful and serene as usual. ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... bar, rod, boom, sprit^, outrigger; ratlings^. staff, stick, crutch, alpenstock, baton, staddle^; bourdon^, cowlstaff^, lathi^, mahlstick^. post, pillar, shaft, thill^, column, pilaster; pediment, pedicle; pedestal; plinth, shank, leg, socle^, zocle^; buttress, jamb, mullion, abutment; baluster, banister, stanchion; balustrade; headstone; upright; door post, jamb, door jamb. frame, framework; scaffold, skeleton, beam, rafter, girder, lintel, joist, travis^, trave^, corner stone, summer, transom; rung, round, step, sill; angle rafter, hip rafter; cantilever, modillion^; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... at last with a sigh, oppressed by the creak of the banister where Adam had sat, sinister and silent in his wheel-chair, listening to the music. Memories were crowding thick upon him. Again and again he wished that he had never opened the door of the sitting room that other night and caught the old man off his guard. It had left a specter in his mind, ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... made a fine picture, worthy of Rembrandt, the gloomy winding stairs illuminated by the reddish glare of the cresset of Gryphus, with his scowling jailer's countenance at the top, the melancholy figure of Cornelius bending over the banister to look down upon the sweet face of Rosa, standing, as it were, in the bright frame of the door of her chamber, with embarrassed mien at being ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... stairs until he saw that the thief had turned his back to him, whereat he vaulted the banister and dropped lightly upon a divan in a recessed niche that could not be seen ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... stairs, staircase, flight of stairs; escalator (moving stairway); caracole (spiral staircase). Associated Words: baluster, balustrade, newel, landing, riser, tread, banister, nosing, dog-legged. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... the lower step, five or six heads peered over the banister railing above, and what mystery of gravitation prevented as many bodies from toppling over after them I am unable ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... as she was skimming down the last flight of stairs three at a time she heard a voice call over the upper banister: "Oh, say—-" ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... in his excitement, or whether it was knocked out of his hand by means of a stick through the rails of the landing-banister as he ascended, will never be accurately known. He himself is not sure. The important fact is that the candle fell, and the trio stumbled up the last few stairs with nothing to guide them but a chink ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... the Past at their meals, in their walks, in the dining-room, in the first-floor drawing-room, but most of all on the stairs. It was an old house; it had once been a fashionable one, and was a fine one still. The banister rails of the stairs were excellent for sliding down, and in the corners of the landings were big alcoves that had once held graceful statues, and now quite often held the graceful forms of Cyril, Robert, Anthea, ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... Roger," Patty announced, a moment later, as she leaned over the banister to see, "skip along, Mona, we'll ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... called over the banister one afternoon a week later, "there's some one at the door." Anthony, who had been lolling in the hammock on the sun-speckled south porch, strolled around to the front of the house. A foreign car, large and impressive, ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... banister railing and thought thoughts about Jane. For several long, seething moments he thought of her exclusively. Then, spurred by the loud laughter of rivals and the agony of knowing that even in his own house they were ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... and seemed to multiply indefinitely as he sped below. Should his departure be noted, and some one advance to detain him! He fancied he heard a rustle in the open space under the stairs. Were any one to step forth, Robert or——With a start, he paused and clutched the banister. Some one had stepped forth; a woman! The swish of her skirts was unmistakable. He felt the chill of a new dread. Never in his short but triumphant career had he met coldness or disapproval in the eye of a woman. Was he to encounter it now? If so, it would go hard with him. He trembled ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... short flight of steps connecting his chambers with the stone staircase of the big old house. This latter-like set of steps had a door top and bottom, but the lower door, which gave on to the landing, was generally left open. Turning out the light in the lobby, Sherston put his left hand on the banister and slid down in the darkness, taking the dozen steps as it were in ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... delay holds back for ever the rolling of the great wheels of time, Gloria came. Slowly she descended the stairs, one hand at her breast, one gripping the banister. Her pallor was so great that her lips, though pale also, looked unnaturally red in contrast. They were just a little apart; she seemed to breathe with difficulty. Her eyes, glancing wildly about the room and at the men to ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... Catia stood there, waiting until, by very force of motionless persistence, she had focussed every eye upon her person. Then, according to the mandates of the Ladies' Galaxy, she hurled her bridal bouquet down across the banister, not upon the waiting Eva Saint Clair Andrews who hankered for it lustily, but straight against the manly waistcoat of the least and the pinkest one of the visiting clergy, a youth of twenty-five or six who had reluctantly torn himself away from ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... down the steps until he reached the one on which the dog was sitting, and put his arm around its neck. The banister posts hid him from the approaching couple. He could hear Georgina's eager voice piping ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... from old experience in Windsor Terrace, and which nobody but Mr. Micawber could ever have knocked at that door, resolved any doubt in my mind as to their being my old friends. I begged Traddles to ask his landlord to walk up. Traddles accordingly did so, over the banister; and Mr. Micawber, not a bit changed—his tights, his stick, his shirt-collar, and his eye-glass, all the same as ever—came into the room with a genteel and ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... all the woodwork downstairs "done over" in quarter-sawed oak with elaborate carvings. Ferocious gargoyles, highly excited dolphins, improper, pot-bellied little cupids, and mermaids without a shred of character, seemed about to pounce out from banister, alcove, bookcase, cozy corner ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... follow male precedents, dropping trivialities as soon as womankind is out of hearing, and preserve a discreet silence—two discreet silences—about their respective recencies. They depart to their rooms, Adrian risking his credit for a limited vision by committing himself to Mr. Pellew's arm and a banister. ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... with a spring of terror, trying to pull her wrist from his grasp; but he followed her, his dreadful young face close to hers. She put her other hand behind her, and clutched at the banister- rail of the stairs. She stared at him in a trance of fright. There was ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... with a). A tale is told of Charles and John Banister. John, having irritated his father, the old man said, "Jack, I'll cut you off with a shilling." To which the son replied, "I wish, dad, you would give it to ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... pavement, just before the fortune-teller's door; he told the driver to wait for him, and hastened into the entry, ascending the stairs. There was little light, the stairs were worn away from the many feet that had sought them, the banister was smooth and sticky; but he saw and felt nothing. He stumbled up the stairs and knocked. Nobody appearing, he was about to go down; but it was too late now,—curiosity was whipping his blood and his heart beat with violent throbs; ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... WILL give you a call" - which I fully intended, don't you see, because, of course, he was to be taken! I went over to the Setting Moon next day, with a brother officer, and asked at the bar for Simpson. They pointed out his room, up-stairs. As we were going up, he looks down over the banister, and calls out, "Halloa, Butcher! is that you?" "Yes, it's me. How do you find yourself?" "Bobbish," he says; "but who's that with you?" "It's only a young man, that's a friend of mine," I says. "Come along, then," says he; "any friend of the Butcher's is as welcome as the Butcher!" ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... would be there. You—you staggered us, the other evening. We were glad when you didn't appear—if you won't misunderstand. It is so unexpected, in this environment. I shall be curious to see how far you can carry it out." He was leaning against the banister, looking at them as if they were abstract propositions rather than young girls, and they felt ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... [146] According to Sir Banister Fletcher, A History of Architecture, Rev. ed., (New York: Scribners, 1963), p. 1126, "In general, the architecture of a particular area mirrored that of the homeland of the colonizers or settlers of that area, with modifications occasioned ...
— The Fairfax County Courthouse • Ross D. Netherton
... of Sociology and his assistant Sylvia Banister had been married for weeks. Hilton called them, together with Sawtelle and Bryant of Navy, into conference with the ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... against the machinery of Time that cheats the majority so easily with its convention of moving hands and ticking voice and bullying, staring visage. He slid swiftly down the long banister-descent of years and reached in a flash that old sombre Yorkshire kitchen, and stood, four-foot nothing, face smudged and fingers sticky, beside the big deal table with the dying embers in the grate upon his right. His heart was ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... was dressed, in fact, a row downstairs brought me into the hall outside my door, where I stood listening over the banister. Then came the tramp of men, and three gendarmes mounted the steps and ...
— Fiddles - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Yes, it was her, Her arms around us all— 'Cause Tom slid down the banister And peeked in from the hall.— And we all love her, too, because She's purt' nigh good ...
— Songs of Friendship • James Whitcomb Riley
... the shoulder sent the enemy in a hurry towards the narrow and winding stair which afforded the only exit from the place, and here, in the exhilaration of the moment, two of our party did an unguarded thing; they took to dropping the fugitives in the rear over the banister on to the heads and shoulders of the crowd below. We were left masters of the field but, as it happened, the "Concert Flam" was situated right opposite to the lowest Greek quarter, the Rue Yildiji, I think it was called, and it was approached under ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... staggered down the stairs like a drunken man, clinging to the banister. It was an old-faced man who came out onto the veranda, where Waters was chewing his cigar angrily. At sight of his host he started up. He was a keen man, was Waters. He could sense money a thousand miles away. And it was this buzzard keenness which ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... display of a painless dentist. You may have a room there for two dollars a week or you may have one for twenty dollars. Among the Vallambrosa's roomers are stenographers, musicians, brokers, shop-girls, space-rate writers, art students, wire-tappers, and other people who lean far over the banister-rail when ...
— Options • O. Henry
... There was no danger to be apprehended from her unexpected arrival, they thought; and just as the clock struck one the young men sought their rooms, greatly to the relief of Mrs. Jeffrey, who, in her long night robe, with streaming candle in hand, had more than a dozen times leaned over the banister, wondering if the ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... Reverend John Clayton whose activities have been noted. Other persons residing in Virginia and combining the role of clergyman with a considerable interest in medicine were Nathaniel Eaton, who had a degree in medicine, and John Banister who was an active naturalist. As a naturalist, he made an important study of the plants of Virginia (Catalogue of Virginia Plants) which added to the literature available for the dispenser of medicinal drugs. One of the founders of Presbyterianism in America, the Reverend Francis ...
— Medicine in Virginia, 1607-1699 • Thomas P. Hughes
... emanated from her hair went to my head, and with my delicate nerves you will readily understand that I was about to faint. I mastered this sensation, however. She took a firm grip of my hand, as one would clasp the knob of a cane or the banister of a stair, and we advanced into the stream ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... meditations, his chair slipped, and Frederick, in company with the electrical engineer, the dozing manufacturer, a lady physician, and a lady artist, was hurled against the banister, while the opposite row of passengers, including the Geheimrat and the professor, was hurled on top of them. It was a ridiculous incident, but Frederick observed that no one ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... possible, thought I, that from what I have lately heard the long-forgotten influence should have possessed me again? but I will not give way to it; so I hurried downstairs, resisting as I went a certain inclination which I occasionally felt to touch the rail of the banister. I was presently upon the gravel walk before the house: it was indeed a glorious morning. I stood for some time observing the golden fish disporting in the waters of the pond, and then strolled about amongst the noble trees of the park; the beauty and ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... off toward the stairway, the basket in his arms. He had filled it so full that he could not see over the top and, just as he reached the head of the stairs, his foot caught in a rug. The basket pitched forward, but Twaddles caught the banister rail and saved ...
— Four Little Blossoms on Apple Tree Island • Mabel C. Hawley
... he went on, leaning against the banister for a moment's rest, "we can be looking for the Luck. As Rupert says, we need it badly enough. Here's the ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... was very long and narrow. The wall was hung with imitation tapestry of dark green foliage, against which shone the copper of a gas fixture. I leaned over the banister. A servant (the one who waited at the table and was wearing a blue apron now, hardly recognisable with her hair in disorder) came skipping down from the floor above with newspapers under her arm. Madame Lemercier's little girl, with a careful hand on the banister, was coming upstairs, her neck thrust ...
— The Inferno • Henri Barbusse
... stairs at last and, groping for the banister, began to ascend slowly and cautiously, often pausing to listen, and to stare into the darkness before and behind. On he went and up, past the wizen-faced clock, and so reached the upper hall at the further end of which was ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... Nancy Banister was also greeted by several friends. She, too, was gay and bright, but quieter than Maggie. Her face was more reliable in its expression, ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... That Jack Built Unknown Old Mother Hubbard Unknown The Death and Burial of Cock Robin Unknown Baby-Land George Cooper The First Tooth William Brighty Rands Baby's Breakfast Emilie Poulsson The Moon Eliza Lee Follen Baby at Play Unknown The Difference Laura E. Richards Foot Soldiers John Banister Tabb Tom Thumb's Alphabet Unknown Grammar in Rhyme Unknown Days of the Month Unknown The Garden Year Sara Coleridge Riddles Unknown Proverbs Unknown Kind Hearts Unknown Weather Wisdom Unknown ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... her eyes accidentally, she saw an extremely odd-looking stranger, slim and long, leaning carelessly over with a pipe between his finger and thumb. Nose, lips, and chin seemed all to droop downward into extraordinary length, as he leant his odd peering face over the banister. In his other hand he held a coil of rope, one end of which escaped from under his elbow ...
— Green Tea; Mr. Justice Harbottle • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... George," she said; that were impossible, and yet she crept softly out into the hall, and leaning over the banister, listened eagerly to the sounds from the room below, where a crowd ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... cautiously with the top step and then discretion prompted her to abandon valor. In her best coat and hat and gorgeously arrayed as to her pretty feet, she, who considered herself quite grown up this afternoon, quietly slid down the banister! Just as she reached the newel post the door opened. There ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... grows spontaneously in Virginia and other parts of North America, from whence, as Miller informs us, it was sent by Mr. Banister to Dr. Compton, Lord Bishop of London, in whose curious garden he first saw it growing in ...
— The Botanical Magazine, Vol. I - Or, Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis
... Over the banister the child was leaning anxiously, watching me as I stumbled down the steps. At their foot I turned and waved my hand and laughed, an odd, faint, far-away laugh that seemed to come from some one else; and then I went into the street and found myself crossing it, impelled by surging impulse ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... Beecher Alderman, Consuls: Sir Wil. Chester Knight, Edward Iackman Alderman, Lionel Ducket Alderman, Edward Gilbert, Laurence Huse, Francis Walsingham, Clement Throgmorton Iohn Quarles, Nicholas Wheeler, Thomas Banister, Iohn Harrison, Francis Burnham, Anthony Gamage, Iohn Somers, Richard Wilkinson, Ioh. Sparke, Richard Barne, Robert Woolman, Thomas Browne, Thomas Smith, Thomas Allen, Thomas More, William Bully, Richard Yong, Thomas ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation v. 4 • Richard Hakluyt
... verify this fact for himself, by looking at the names of a single parish or a single street of shops. There, jumbled together, he will find names marking the noblest Saxon or Angle blood—Kenward or Kenric, Osgood or Osborne, side by side with Cordery or Banister—now names of farmers in my own parish—or other Norman-French names which may be, like those two last, in Battle Abbey roll—and side by side the almost ubiquitous Brown, whose ancestor was probably some Danish ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... into the hall, she listened over the banister till she heard Adele's signal from ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... 22nd of this instant, November, at the Musick-school in Essex Buildings, over against St. Clement's Church in the Strand, will be continued a concert of vocal and instrumental musick, beginning at five of the clock, every evening. Composed by Mr. Banister."—Lond. Gazette, Nov. 18. 1678. "This famous 'musick-room' was afterwards Paterson's ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.19 • Various
... him a clout on the head, but I did not. The sunlight was coming in through the window at the top of the stairs, and shining on the rope that was tied to the banister. The end of the rope was covered with stains, brown, with a glint of ...
— The Case of Jennie Brice • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... his friends. Then she turned and walked away; stopping to listen awhile to the music which La Petite was making. But it was only for a moment. She went on around the curve of the veranda, where she found herself alone. She stayed there, erect, holding to the banister rail and looking out calmly in the distance across ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... three minutes Carson stood there without speaking. Finally, with his hand on the banister, he started to descend ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... Little, over the banister, "I want Harvey to do an errand for me. Will you please give him my order. Here is a bright new silver piece ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... what he was doing, he rushed out on the landing, and, leaning over the banister, called out loudly, "Sir, ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau |
