"Gaslight" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... As the gaslight in the bedroom was not satisfactory Elizabeth went into the sitting-room or study, as the students were accustomed to call it, to finish her dressing. Nancy came to the door just as Elizabeth put on the ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... wretched spot, a narrow life. Down there, nothing is not ridiculed that is not some phase of a provinciality. The dances in certain houses, the faces of some conceited club, long-spun names, business or gossip, or to drive a double carriage, are the gaslight boundaries of existence! Pah! it is a courtyard, bounded by four square walls, a path or two to walk in, and the eyes of busybodies to order our doings and sneer us out of our souls. How they deny us that the centre ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... wise policy for the votaries of gaslight pleasures to maintain that there is no baneful result arising from a constant pursuit of such distractions, but, however wise this attitude may be, I hardly think it can rely upon the sanction of our conscience. ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... tries to pass—his law examination, finds himself in precisely the same situation, only he does not gallop round a ring, under brilliant gaslight, to the music of a full band. He sits upon a hard chair in semi-darkness with his face to the wall, and the only sound he hears is the creaking of the inspectors' boots. For in all the wide, wide world there are no such creaky boots as those of law ...
— Norse Tales and Sketches • Alexander Lange Kielland
... his big head lolling drowsily against the mirror, whilst he watched Rose uncorking the bottles and giving a wipe here and there with her duster. And in spite of the somniferous effects of the wine fumes and the warm streaming gaslight, he would keep his ears open to the sounds proceeding from the little room. At times, when the voices grew noisier than usual, he got up from his seat and went to lean against the partition; and occasionally he even pushed the door open, and went ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... awakened by a tapping at his door, and jumped up to realize by his watch and the still burning gaslight that it was nine o'clock. But the intruder was only a waiter with a letter which he had brought to Randolph's room in obedience to the instructions the latter had given overnight. Not doubting it was from the captain, although the handwriting of the address was unfamiliar, he eagerly ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... alarmed. And yet, on reaching home, he found her dead! The body is to be conveyed to America, and the funeral service was read over her in her house, only a few neighbors and friends being present. We were shown into a darkened room, where there was a dim gaslight burning, and a fire glimmering, and here and there a streak of sunshine struggling through the drawn curtains. Mr. G——— looked pale, and quite overcome with grief,—this, I suppose, being his first sorrow,—and he has a ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... thanks for the only sleep I've had in forty-eight hours. I struck this old shebang at about ten o'clock, and it's now two, so I reckon I've put in about four hours' square sleep. Now, look here." He beckoned Herbert towards the window. "Do you see those three men standing under that gaslight? Well, they're part of a gang of Vigilantes who've hunted me to the hill, and are waiting to see me come out of the bushes, where they reckon I'm hiding. Go to them and say that I'm here! Tell them you've got Gentleman George—George Dornton, the man they've been hunting for a ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... one that they go down-stream, but we cannot be certain. From this point we can see the entrance of the yard, and they can hardly see us. It will be a clear night and plenty of light. We must stay where we are. See how the folk swarm over yonder in the gaslight." ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... pace. And so I slept uneasily and thought. Then it began to dawn upon me that the air was heavy, and dank, and cold. I put back the clothes from my face, and found, to my surprise, that all was dim around. The gaslight which I had left lit for Jonathan, but turned down, came only like a tiny red spark through the fog, which had evidently grown thicker and poured into the room. Then it occurred to me that I had shut the window before I had come to bed. I would ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... She carried the youngster in her arms, sound asleep, and it wasn't till she stepped under the gaslight ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... wide open, and the gaslight streaming in revealed to him the aspect of the cells arranged for Australian voting. The rails were all in their places, and the election might take place the very next day. It instantly occurred to Dane that he might ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... said; but at the name his wife raised her hand as if to silence him. As she did so the gaslight struck on the ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... the old pavement. Full of shadow the roofs of the square church swept across the sky; the triple lancet windows caught a little light from the gaslight on the buildings; and he wondered what was the meaning of the little gold lamb standing over one doorway, and then remembered that in various forms the same symbolic lamb is repeated through the Temple. He passed under the dining-hall ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... tall man, with a William H. Seward nose, in a flannel robe, cut plain, and then put a plug hat and a sealskin sacque and Arctic overshoes on him, and put him out in the street, under the gaslight, with his trim, purple ankles just revealing themselves as he madly gallops after a hydrophobia infested dog, and it is not, after all, surprising that people's curiosity should be a little ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... the same time there should be depth and passion. The professor understands exactly the sort of eye the lady means. But it will be expensive. There is a cheap quality; the professor does not recommend it. True that it passes muster by gaslight, but the sunlight shows it up. It lacks tenderness, and at the price you can hardly expect it to contain much hidden meaning. The professor advises the melting, Oh-George-take-me-in-your-arms- and-still-my-foolish-fears brand. It costs a little ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... faces looking out of the forest of long hair, moustache, and whisker—those two cold yet bold, trustless yet presumptuous visages— were the same faces, the very same that, projected in full gaslight from behind the pillars of a portico, had half frightened me to death on the night of my desolate arrival in Villette. These, I felt morally certain, were the very heroes who had driven a friendless foreigner beyond her reckoning and her strength, ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... A mist must have hidden the stars in the firmament; the vault above seemed opaque and heavy like lead; and yonder in front the houses of the Trastevere had long since been asleep. Not one of all their windows glittered; there was but a single gaslight shining, all alone and far away, like a lost spark. In vain did Pierre seek the Janiculum. In the depths of that ocean of nihility all sunk and vanished, Rome's four and twenty centuries, the ancient Palatine and ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... ill at ease. Even in the dim gaslight he clashed on my notions of a yachtsman—no cool white ducks or neat blue serge; and where was the snowy crowned yachting cap, that precious charm that so easily converts a landsman into a dashing ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... chandelier with six arms, approximately 24 inches long, fixed to a central hub. Burners at the end of each arm were fitted to hold glass globes or lamp chimneys. Fairfax County Court Minute Book, 1888-1892, p. 216. The end of the gaslight era occurred shortly after 1900, when, according to Thomas Chapman, former Clerk of Circuit Court, electric lights were installed in the clerk's office in 1902 and shortly thereafter ...
— The Fairfax County Courthouse • Ross D. Netherton
... brush were brought into play, and the oil all removed. Then a long dry polishing, and the restoration was complete. Certainly no other Smalltowner had such a wooden knife; and it was indeed beautiful. Black in a cross light, red in direct light, and kaleidoscopic by gaslight. Ah, such a prize! The family knew that something strange was transpiring, but what no one had an inkling. They must wait patiently, and they did. The Spectator proudly appeared, his prize in hand. 'See there!' he cried in ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn
... without Highnesses," laughed Markeld, gripping the proffered fingers with a warmth which pleased their owner. The latter found himself admiring, too, the erect figure, the clean face, the clear eyes; he told himself with pleasure that the Prince looked as well by daylight as by gaslight—a tribute to his youth and the ...
— Affairs of State • Burton E. Stevenson
... rather strange movements with his head and arms. They came into the shadow of the vaulted way beneath London Bridge Station. At this hour the great tunnel was quiet, save when a train roared above; the warehouses were closed; one or two idlers, of forbidding aspect, hung about in the murky gaslight, and from the far end came a ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... through his mind; a billiard table and the click of balls; the jolly conversation at the club, and glass after glass of that cold amber beer. The large freedom of the city streets at night, the warm saloons on every corner, the barrooms with their pyramids of bottles flashing in the gaslight—these were the things that made a man's life amusing. And here he was cooped up in a little cage in the suburbs like ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... untied and unrolled the little packet, then looked at it by the gaslight. It was covered with characters of a deep red color, curious and fantastic, and to him absolutely meaningless. It looked strange, uncanny, witch-like. Was it a charm? The Doctor studied it wonderingly for a few moments, ...
— A Bachelor's Dream • Mrs. Hungerford
... exhibition or of whatever period or school, without some renewal of that charmed Thorwaldsen hour, some taste again of the almost sugary or confectionery sweetness with which the great white images had affected us under their supper-table gaslight. The Crystal Palace was vast and various and dense, which was what Europe was going to be; it was a deep-down jungle of impressions that were somehow challenges, even as we might, helplessly defied, find foreign words and practices; over which formidably towered Kiss's mounted Amazon attacked ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... or four months, and on our return to Achin we could not land our passengers. At Batavia the tidal wave had penetrated almost to the town, where in the lower portion the houses were flooded by the Kali Bezar (great river). Business was suspended except by a few determined spirits who worked on by gaslight, so great was the alarm at ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold
... daytime, but not usually a day-lighted assembly, and means flowers, gaslight and music; elaborate costumes as may be without infringing on actual evening dress, and refreshments, all too abundant for those who ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... street, but the noise made the night cheerful; and so did the church clock near, which struck the quarters; and so did the light of the street lamps, which came through the blind and fell upon my little bed. We had very little light, except gaslight and daylight, in our street; the sunshine seldom found its way to us, and, when it did, people were so little used to it that they pulled down the blinds for fear it should hurt the carpets. In the room my sister and I called our nursery, however, we always welcomed it with blinds rolled ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... shutter. At intervals, this shutter opens with a metallic noise; a ray of bluish light penetrates into my cell, and behind the wicket appears the head and part of the shoulders of a man. He wears a moustache, and for several seconds regards me attentively. Accustomed to the stronger gaslight burning in the corridor, he can only vaguely distinguish what is going on in the cell. His eyes, fixed on me at short intervals, vex and trouble me. Taking advantage of one of these intervals, I rapidly change the clothes I am ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... grammar and copious vocabulary well adapted to the expression of the thoughts incident to their customs and status of culture, and they have no more difficulty in conveying their thoughts with their language by night than Englishmen have in conversing without gaslight. An example from each of three eminent authors has been taken to illustrate the worthlessness of a vast body of anthropologic material to which ...
— On Limitations To The Use Of Some Anthropologic Data - (1881 N 01 / 1879-1880 (pages 73-86)) • J. W. Powell
... spoke she stepped backward a pace or two, resting herself for a moment against the footboard of the bed—full in the gaslight. And he saw ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... along thinking over the dialogue, when suddenly his attention was attracted by a struggle. He saw several men slashing at each other with knives, as he recognized by occasional bright steel gleams under the gaslight. He always carried his club with him. He ran forward and, seeing two against one, went for the two who he observed were the assailants, while the other was acting on the defensive. Oscar drew his club, and the men were so ...
— Oscar the Detective - Or, Dudie Dunne, The Exquisite Detective • Harlan Page Halsey
... at half-past seven o'clock that Ursula Egremont's cab stopped at St. Ambrose's Road. She had missed the express train, and had to come on by a stopping one. But here at last she was, with eyes even by gaslight full of loving recognition, a hand full of her cab-fare, a heart full of throbbing hope and fear, a voice full of anxiety, as she inquired of the astonished servant, 'Louisa, Louisa, how is Aunt Ursel!' and, without ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... on an original plan published in America was the John Donkey. The editors of the paper were G. G. (Gaslight) Foster and Thomas Dunn English. Foster was a reporter on the North American who had written sketches of New York, notably the account of the illuminated clock of the Seward House, and who had been brought to Philadelphia by Morton McMichael. English was ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... then howl plaintively. After begging his supper, and while Uncle Billy was hitching up a horse in the stable, Satan went out in the yard and lay with his nose between the close panels of the fence—quite heart-broken. When he saw his old friend, Hugo the mastiff, trotting into the gaslight, he began to bark his delight frantically. The big mastiff stopped and nosed his sympathy through the fence for a moment and walked slowly on, Satan frisking and barking along inside. At the gate Hugo stopped, and raising one huge paw, playfully ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... wearying as the ascent, for we are in the town ere we are aware of it, and following in the wake of a throng of people, seemingly all heading in one direction. As we have still a few hours left us we will accompany them, and make a study of Spanish life by gaslight. ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... only one the street possessed, was nearly opposite. I thought at first it was the face of a girl, and then, as I looked again, it might have been the face of an old woman. One could not distinguish the colouring. In any case, the cold, blue gaslight would have made it ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... was the approving remark of Bland, as they entered. Hats and overcoats were laid aside, and they drew around a table that stood in the centre of the room under the gaslight. A few passages were read from Shakspeare, then drink was ordered by one of the the party. The reading interspersed with critical comments, was again resumed; but the reading soon gave way entire to the comments, which, in a little while, ...
— After a Shadow, and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... and he went noiselessly away. A dim gaslight burned halfway up the stairs and guided him to his room. He had only to softly open and close his door, and all was well. Judith had not been awakened by the catlike steps of the man who was not old ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... gaslight burning very low; Harmony turned it up and faced her visitor. She recognized her at once—the girl Dr. Stewart had ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... mouths. They are prohibited from printing more than a hundred words a day. Any reference to the sunshine, or to any of the subtile and imponderable substances before mentioned, is considered contrary to the order of the machine; to compensate for which, there is great show of gaslight (under glass covers) throughout the city. Gas and moonshine are the staple subjects of conversation. Besides lighting the streets and shops, the chief use of fire seems to be for cooking, lighting pipes and cigars, and fireworks ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... pathway talking to a customer there, and then passing inside to the ladies who were a little more genteel, and preferred to state their wants under cover. At the back of the shop was a desk perched up aloft, just big enough for one person, and with a gaslight over it. Andrew noticed it, and thought of winter, and wondered how anybody could sit there during a January day with the snow on the ground, or ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... room, Dulcie paid two dollars per week. On week-days her breakfast cost ten cents; she made coffee and cooked an egg over the gaslight while she was dressing. On Sunday mornings she feasted royally on veal chops and pineapple fritters at "Billy's" restaurant, at a cost of twenty-five cents—and tipped the waitress ten cents. New York presents so many temptations for one to run into extravagance. ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... representing the government," is the maxim of the law; and, in addition, we invite your attention to the singular fact that of the two officers who bore testimony in this matter, one asserts that the hall wherein Payne sat was illuminated with a full head of gas; the other, that the gaslight was purposely dimmed. The uncertainty of the witness who gave the testimony relative to the coat of Payne may also be ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... various changes which I had to encounter in doing so, one that might appear trivial enough occasioned me no little annoyance. The inevitable rouge, rendered really indispensable by the ghastly effect of the gaslight illumination of the stage, had always been one of its minor disagreeables to me; but I now found that, in addition to rouged cheeks, my fair theatrical contemporaries—fair though they might be—literally whitewashed their necks, ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... front with clouded windows had a placard outside bearing the announcement: "Olympia Theatre, 10-cent show. Will open next Saturday evening with the following special scenes: 1—The Poor Artist. 2—London by Gaslight. 3—A Day on the Overland Limited." At the door of the store just being renovated for a picture show stood a man, tying some printed bills to an awning rod for passers by to take. Ralph approached ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... strain my purse to bring up everything else to suit the clothes, as naturally gaslight, a leg of mutton, and two vegetables do not make a good foreground to bare shoulders and a white vest! And I'd rather fund the cash as ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... into one another's eyes. He seemed eager, but honestly eager. At that moment I believed it was a diamond he was trying to sell. Yet I am a poor man, a hundred pounds would leave a visible gap in my fortunes and no sane man would buy a diamond by gaslight from a ragged tramp on his personal warranty only. Still, a diamond that size conjured up a vision of many thousands of pounds. Then, thought I, such a stone could scarcely exist without being ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... gold which she had refused still in his hand, and without hesitation threw the coins far out into the river. Then he looked around. There was not a soul in sight. He drew a handful of money from his pocket and flung it away—a little shower of gold flashing brightly in the gaslight for a moment. He went through his pockets carefully and found an odd half sovereign and some silver. Away they went. Then he moved back to a seat and ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... she sat on the edge of the couch in the middle of the room under the brilliant gaslight, her hands forgotten in her lap, her brows arched high, her eyes on the floor. Then her head beginning to ache, a new sensation for her, she thought she should bind a wet handkerchief to it as she had often done for her aunt; but the water which the maid had placed in the room ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... who was to accompany it to Lisbon. Captain Proctor answered the First Lord from Spithead, dated May 17th, 1736, promising his attention to Harrison's comfort, but intimating his fear that he had attempted impossibilities. It is always so with a new thing. The first steam-engine, the first gaslight, the first locomotive, the first steamboat to America, the first electric telegraph, ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... another pleasant gentleman arose with a written poem in his hand, which he read under the gaslight, filling the whole room with the sound of ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... the man whether he owned that fine turnout or worked on wages. "I own it myself," he said curtly. Therefore, when I alighted, I slipped round behind the sledge and scrutinized it thoroughly under the gaslight. The back was decorated with a monogram and a count's coronet in silver! After that I never asked questions, but I always knew what had happened when I picked up very comfortable equipages at very reasonable rates in places which were ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... had first seen light, and that gaslight, in a block in lower Manhattan which has since been given over to a milk-station for a highly congested district, had the palate, if not the purse, of the cosmopolite. His digestive range included borsch and chow maigne; risotta ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... "'Under the Gaslight,'" said Mr. Quincel, mentioning Augustin Daly's famous production, which had worn from a great public success down to an amateur theatrical favourite, with many of the troublesome accessories cut out and the dramatis personae reduced to the smallest ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... old piping favourite, save where two wires had been pushed apart to hold its lump of sugar, carried with it a sort of graveyard cheer. The engineer apprentices would have nothing to say to us, nor indeed to the bagman; but talked low and sparingly to one another, or raked us in the gaslight with a gleam of spectacles. For though handsome lads, they were all ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... her I greatly desired to satisfy myself, but I could not be sure that my boy cousin (5 years old) might not find us out, even though she should consent. Once when we three were in the hay-loft a wave of lust rolled over me, but I made no proposal. Night and gaslight greatly increased my libido. On one occasion my aunt had gone to the village for ice-cream, and L. and I were left alone in the dining-room. I took her on my lap and had a powerful erection. I almost asked her to play sexually ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... unreasonable, that I should speak sharply to Bettina, and equally unreasonable that fear and horror and sickening suspicion should possess me, but possessed I was by sensations hitherto unexperienced, and for a moment the gaslight from the lamp on the opposite street corner wavered and circled in a confusing, bewildering way. Sudden revelations, sudden realizations, were unsteadying me. Was Selwyn really some one I did not know? Was his life less single than I believed it? Hateful, ugly, disloyal questions surged ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... whose physical resources are nearly at an end. For a long time he sits quite still, holding his wife's hand, saying nothing, for he has nothing more to say. A high screen behind the couch on which they rest cuts off the gaslight; only the firelight plays fitfully upon the two faces. Suddenly the brightness falls away, and over that foreshadowing of death, now only three days ...
— Angels & Ministers • Laurence Housman
... desk by the window, a slim figure in a clinging silk gown, which alone explained Mrs. Dolan's distrust. The gaslight was turned very low, and her hat shadowed her face, but could not hide its startling beauty, could not mar the brilliancy of the skin, nor dim the wonderful eyes of this modern Delilah. ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... person outside had been knocking for some time, and the landlord's curiosity might have been excited had he heard that his guest had barricaded his door. Dressing by gaslight, he found breakfast ready when he went down, and day broke soon after the meal was over. Foster paid his bill and set off with Pete, taking the main road west until they reached the end of the village, where some men ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... would ask a policeman whom he saw, and hesitating because he feared that the man would want to know his business. Then, of a sudden, he heard a woman scream, and knew that it was Ruby's voice. The sound was very near him, but in the glimmer of the gaslight he could not quite see whence it came. He stood still, putting his hand up to scratch his head under his hat,— trying to think what, in such an emergency, it would be well that he should do. Then he heard the voice distinctly, 'I won't;—I won't,' and after that a scream. Then ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... and velvet collar. He was accordingly sent in general to a garret, and other travellers have told us the same; one on board the steamers quite confirmed this account, and told us he considered it a piece of great luxury when he had a gaslight in his room. He made this remark on our reading to him the account I have given of our room in Albany and ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... as a general thing it is confined to the public rooms, and the unfortunate wight who longs to see beyond the end of his nose is forced to wrestle with dripping candles and unclean lamps, known only by tradition in our native land. The gaslight, which is a common necessary in the simplest private dwelling in an American city, is here a luxury scarcely attainable save by the very wealthiest. And we do not know how precious our gaslight is till we have lost it. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... tall figure in classical drapery. His eyes might have deceived him in the omnibus; but here, in the crude gaslight, he could not be mistaken. It was the statue he had last seen in Rosherwich Gardens—now, in some strange and ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... gaslight, and Parson Jack still paced the streets, intending but still deferring to find a dinner and a night's lodging. He had shaken hands with Major Bromham in a mood of curious exaltation. He had decided almost ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Canadian project, and Owen had caught at it. Idleness had never been his fault, and he wanted severe engrossing labour to stun pain and expel thought. He was urgent to know what standard of attainments would be needful, and finding Robert ignorant on this head, seized his hat, and dashed out in the gaslight to the nearest bookseller's for a treatise ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... going to the dresser, took down her hair. The smiling face of a doll looked up at her from the neighboring chair, where it was sitting bolt upright. Her costume was fresh from the modiste, and her feet, though hopelessly pigeon-toed, were encased in bronze boots of a freshness which caught the dim gaslight with ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... persons who have never seen in their lives a cloud vanishing on a mountain-side, and whose conceptions of mist or vapor are limited to ambiguous outlines of spectral hackney-coaches and bodiless lamp-posts, discern through a brown combination of sulphur, soot, and gaslight, there is yet some hope; we cannot, indeed, tell them what the morning mist is like in mountain air, but far be it from us to tell them that they are incapable of feeling its beauty if they will seek it for themselves. But if you have ever in your life had one opportunity ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... entered it—slightly intoxicated, and inclined now to cheerfulness again—on the arm of a real live peer, and by the front door. "This," thought Mr. Watkins, "is burgling in style!" The "scoundrels," seen by the gaslight, proved to be mere local amateurs unknown to Mr. Watkins, and they were taken down into the pantry and there watched over by the three policemen, two gamekeepers with loaded guns, the butler, an ostler, and a carman, until the dawn allowed of their removal to Hazelhurst ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... arrived, about half past nine or ten in the evening, the place was already pretty well crowded, and the white-gloved negro servant at the door was still receiving streams of guests.—The drawing-rooms were brilliant with gaslight, and as hot as ovens. The host and hostess stood just within the door of entrance; Laura was presented, and then she passed on into the maelstrom of be-jeweled and richly attired low-necked ladies ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... peacefully, but a new quarrel started around the box office. The actors and actresses stood there in a close group so that only their heads and faces, shining with the grease used to wash off the paint, were visible in the gaslight. They were all shouting for money and demanding their overdue salaries. They shook their fists threateningly at the cashier's window, their eyes flashed lightning, and their voices were hoarse ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... children wanted to know what the doctor measured eyes with, and how he did it, and Sally amused them very much by telling how she had to say her letters every day and look at the gaslight and tell what shape ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley
... when, in about twenty minutes, I saw Wetter coming toward the cafe. I had taken a table far back from the street, and he did not see me. The glaring gaslight gave him a deeper paleness and cut the lines of his face to a sharper edge. He was talking with great animation, his hands moving constantly in eager gesture. I was within an ace of springing forward to greet him—so my heart went out to him—but the ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... slow and imperfect method have been made of late years, among the earlier of which was that of Messrs. Newbery and Vautin. They placed the pulp with water in a gaslight revolving cylinder, into which the chlorine was introduced, and atmospheric air to a pressure of 60 lb. to the square inch was pumped in. The cylinder with its contents was revolved for two hours, then the charge was withdrawn and drained nearly dry ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... he was directed, and seated himself in a rocker under the gaslight. After perusing the baseball news he turned back to the front page. The paper was a fairly late edition, containing up-to-the-minute telegraphic notes. In the centre column, alongside the announcement of the annihilation of three entire regiments of Silesians by the explosion of nitroglycerine concealed ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... for the manufacturer in Bohemia, who had never seen the holy lotus, and required specimens. But the indomitable will of the man, to whose wishes neither oceans nor deserts opposed successful barriers, finally triumphed, and the coveted treasures fully repaid their price as they glistened in the gaslight, perfect as their prototypes slumbering on the bosom of the Nile, under the blazing midnight stars of rainless Egypt. Several handsome rosewood cases were filled with rare books—two in Pali—centuries old; and moth- eaten ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... darkening twilight; but the distant roar of the world surged without, and a gaslight shone flickering through the branches of the trees, and fell on the rich dress spread on the couch, and the ornaments on the toilet-table. There was a sense of oppression, and of being pursued by the incongruous world, and Dr. May sighed to silence all around, and see his poor daughter ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... ever occur to you how many subjects for the highest order of poetry lie unnoticed all about us? Take that chandelier, for example, the prismatic drops of which are dull in the shade, but sparkle with all the colors of the rainbow in the gaslight. Might not those hidden splendors be compared to that genius whose brilliancy is alone ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... left to make his heart rise and fall with great throbs of joy as he thought of Katy free, even though that freedom were bought at the expense of dire disgrace to others and of misery to her. But only for a moment did he feel thus, only till the bonnet was removed and the gaslight fell upon the pallid face with the dark rings beneath the eyes, and the faint, quivering motion around the lips, which told that ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... her hands and looked down on her steadily. Under the yellow gaslight her face gleamed excitedly up into ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... street suddenly widened; a blaze of flaring gaslight dazzled his eyes; he heard all round him the shouting of innumerable voices. For the first time since he had been in London, he found himself in one of the street-markets of ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... above and below, and all went wrong on it, from the moment Annie opened her sleepy eyes, leapt shivering out of bed, washed in cold water by her own choice, in order to rouse herself, dressed by gaslight, swallowed her coffee scalding hot, and hastened to her particular ward. The sister and the house-surgeon were, as if affected by the day, a little sour and surly, and every patient seemed ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... be a sorry-looking bridegroom," I thought as I surveyed myself in the little mirror at the office. It was Friday night, and we were shutting up. We had worked late by gaslight, all the clerks had gone home long ago, and only the porter remained, half asleep on a chair in ...
— On the Church Steps • Sarah C. Hallowell
... swallows swooped and darted, twittering softly on the wing. Near the western horizon the golden glow of sunset still lingered. It was a night for poets to sing of, a night to revel in and to remember; but it was assuredly not a night for study. Gaslight heated one's room to the boiling point. Closed windows meant suffocation; open ones—since there are no screens in the Harding boarding house—let in troops of fluttering ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... play. As we walked to the theater we found the shops still open, and we paused to look for a moment at the windows of Treacher's Library. In a long row of volumes I saw one bound in green. Its gilt lettering glittered, and the gaslight revealed to me the reissued poems of Swinburne. I went in and bought it and entered the dress circle hugging this priceless treasure. The play, I believe, had something to do with racing, but I hardly looked at the stage. My eyes ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... on the front hall stairs, the peaked flare of an olive of gaslight that burned through a red glass globe with warts blown into it, bathing the little group in a sort of greasy fluid. Roy and Flora Kemble, Snow Horton, Lester Eli, and Stanley Beinenstock, racked with bronchitis and lending an odor of creosote, Lilly, and even ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... as the doctor walked briskly to the gate. He had left the front door open, so that a shaft of gaslight fell upon them. In the light of this Brown opened the envelope ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... hesitated for a moment. In the dun gaslight of the corridor her sharp profile looked eager as the face of a hungry bird. She thought quickly. Mrs. MacDonald had not yet finished her own supper. No such frivolity as evening dinner was known at Hillard House. ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... swiftly before us under the softened gaslight. I say a score of forms—but each is double—they would have made two score before the dancing began. Twenty floating visions—each male and female. Twenty women, knit and growing to as many men, undulate, sway, and swirl giddily ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... may be, from then till bedtime you are rorty young dogs. The half-guinea topper, "as worn by the Prince of Wales" (ah, how many a meal has it not cost!), warmed before the fire, brushed and polished and coaxed, shines resplendent. The second pair of trousers are drawn from beneath the bed; in the gaslight, with well-marked crease from top to toe, they will pass for new. A pleasant evening to you! May your cheap necktie make all the impression your soul can desire! May your penny cigar be mistaken for ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... foot, and strikes his terrible slave with his light switch. A low, deep sound breaks from the enormous throat, the spectators hold their breath, the huge, flexible limbs are gathered for the leap, and in the gaslight and the dead silence man and beast are face to face. Life hangs in the balance, and death is ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... housing a zinc rod. It is difficult to understand why they used Samson batteries rather than dry cells; perhaps they were concerned with the mounting cost of the machine and were making use of parts already on hand.[26] A coil, possibly from an old gaslight igniter system, accompanied the Samson batteries under the seat. This original ...
— The 1893 Duryea Automobile In the Museum of History and Technology • Don H. Berkebile
... promises of tea, armchair, and slippered ease. The fragrance of the meal is already on the air, and through the darling twilight comes the muffin-man and the cheery tinkle of his bell—one of the last of a once great army of itinerant feeders of London. Gaslight and firelight leap on the spread table, glinting against cups and saucers and spoons, and lighting, with sudden spurts, the outer gloom. A sweet warmth fills the room—the restful homeliness imparted by a careful, but not ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... and voluminous compliments which her aunt was paying in the hall. She blushed because Westray's tone was too off-handed and easy towards so important a personage to please her critical mood; and then she blushed again at her own folly in blushing. The front-door shut at last, and the gaslight fell on Lord Blandamer's active figure and straight, square shoulders as he went down the steps. Three thousand years before, another maiden had looked between the doorpost and the door, at the straight broad back of another great stranger as he ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... a faint gaslight outside, and the watchers could see her figure and profile black against the slight illumination. All was still and silent as the grave when they began their ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... in childhood; perhaps of her days of innocence; perhaps of the mother at whose feet she had once knelt in prayer. But she was far away, in thought, from that scene of infamy of which she was a part; for, in the glare of the gaslight, a tear struggled through her eyelashes, and glittered like a ray from heaven piercing the ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... mysterious intimations, spend their first-earned money upon collars and ties, chiffon hats, smart lace collars, walking-sticks, sunshades or cigarettes, and come valiantly into the vague transfiguring mingling of gaslight and evening, to walk up and down, to eye meaningly, even to accost and make friends. It is a queer instinctive revolt from the narrow limited friendless homes in which so many find themselves, a going out towards something, ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells |
