"Stairs" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... He ran down stairs and soon returned with the music. He seated himself at the piano and played the piece through ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... Leland's astonished eyes, the little man began a violent retching and vomiting. Leland went back down the stairs, swearing, and sent Julia with word to Mrs. Leland that Dart ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... sure that no one was coming up the stairs, and then tiptoed into the room to see what hung ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... laughter that at first greatly roused my ire, but ultimately awakened anxiety, for she could not gain her breath. I rang for a servant; of course none came, for she always had to call them. 'They were having such a good time down stairs, they could not hear the bell,' so I poured out a glass of water, and, while she drank, seized the poker; stirred up the dying embers; put on a good back log; lit a large and strong Cabana to lend zest to my courage, and prepared to make one more ...
— A Christmas Story - Man in His Element: or, A New Way to Keep House • Samuel W. Francis
... you. 5. Do not become peevish and pout, because you do not get a part of everything. Be satisfied with what is given you. 6. Avoid a pouting face, angry looks, and angry words. Do not slam the doors. Go quietly up and down stairs; and never make a loud noise about the house. 7. Be kind and gentle in your manners; not like the howling winter storm, but like the bright summer morning. 8. Do always as your parents bid you. Obey them with a ready mind, and with a pleasant ...
— McGuffey's Third Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... marvel of the tale. How he moved hence, you saw him and must know; Without a friend to lead the way, himself Guiding us all. So having reached the abrupt Earth-rooted Threshold with its brazen stairs, He paused at one of the converging paths, Hard by the rocky basin which records The pact of Theseus and Peirithous. Betwixt that rift and the Thorician rock, The hollow pear-tree and the marble tomb, Midway ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... difference in the accommodation in each case is that, in the "flat," the rooms are accessible to one another without the use of stairs, while in the "tower" six flights of stairs in all are used, constituting in the aggregate a ladder, as it were, of about a hundred steps; also in the fact that in the "tower" the owner has to manage his own heating, ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various
... and fetch it, dear! It's in the right-hand corner, third shelf, of the cupboard under the stairs. I'm sure you're very welcome," she added to Rufus, "but you must excuse me, for I've got to ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... Road I occupy garishly genteel first-floor front and back apartments at rupees fifteen per week and the Lady of the Land has entreated me to kindly excuse the waiting-maid for jumping with diffidence whenever I pop upon her unpremeditatedly on the stairs, being a nervous girl and unaccustomed to dark-complexioned gentlemen—though her own countenance, from superabundance of blacking and smuts, being of a far superior nigritude, it is I myself who should be ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... are the carpets spread, The dazie o'er the head, The cushions in the chairs, And all the candles lighted on the stairs? Perfume the chambers, and in any case Let each man ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... the liveried Antinous raised the little monster by the small of the back, drew him struggling from the presence, and lifting him up like a football, inflicted one enormous kick that sent him spinning down the whole flight of fifteen marble stairs. This exploit accomplished to the satisfaction of all parties, Jonathan naturally enough returned to look for Grace; and his master, with a couple of friends who had run to the door to witness the catastrophe, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... daughter; the Countess von Rosen. Seven in all. A brave story, I swear; and a brave play too, if we can find the trick to make the end. The play, I fear, will have to end darkly, and that spoils the quality as I now see it of a kind of crockery, eighteenth century, high-life-below- stairs life, breaking up like ice in spring before the nature and the certain modicum of manhood of my poor, clever, feather-headed Prince, whom I love already. I see Seraphina too. Gondremarck is not quite so clear. The Countess von Rosen, I have; I'll never tell you who she is; it's a secret; but I have ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and in one bound reached the corridor. By means of the one dim electric lamp he saw, going down the stairs, carrying a grip with him, the mysterious man who had tried to quarrel with him. He was evidently taking "French leave," going out in the middle of the night to "jump" ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... part of his scheme was frustrated, for his mother, who was suffering with a violent headache, was obliged to remain above stairs for a time, and Gertrude alone witnessed her brother's triumph. She was standing near Mr. and Mrs. Stanton, carelessly twirling a costly boquet, which one of her obsequious beaux had given her, when she overheard Nellie say to her husband, "I do hope she will come, ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... an hour had dragged by Jane heard footsteps descending the stairs to the accompaniment of the faint rustle of silken skirts. She sat suddenly very straight in her chair, her ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... at the door, a benediction on us with his walking-stick and went down the stairs, I strolled to the window and watched him cross the turfed square of the court. Jimmy had taken up the poker and started raking the lower bars of ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and replied: 'Noble Odysseus, it was an evil fate which the gods had decreed for me. I drank too much wine and that caused my death. I lay down to sleep on the roof of Circe's palace and could not remember the way to the stairs when thou didst call us to the ships. In my haste I fell from the roof and broke my neck, and my soul came down ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... for that!" How the words rang in her ears as she fled up the narrow stairs and through the dark hall, till the low room was reached where lay the babe for whom Margaret's child was not to be neglected. All the old bitterness had returned, and as hour after hour went by, and Madam Conway came not near, while the physician and the servants looked in for a moment only and ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... hear some one on the stairs," broke in the little girl suddenly in great excitement. ...
— A Little Book for Christmas • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... a new premier!" Turcas repeated, with firm, methodical politeness. Westerling looking from one face to another with filmy eyes, lowered them before Bouchard. "There's a room ready for Your Excellency up-stairs," Turcas continued. "The orderly will ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... diligently about three hours. Then, about midnight, Fetlock stepped down-stairs and took a position in the dark a dozen steps from the tavern, and waited. Five minutes later Flint Buckner came rocking out of the billiard-room and almost brushed ...
— A Double Barrelled Detective Story • Mark Twain
... the inner door and, when driven back, defended for a time a barricade hastily thrown up on the stairs. One of the Huguenot gentlemen rushed into the Admiral's room, with the news that the gate had been forced. The ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... staying in the house,) did not come in to supper that evening. My master went to bed at 8:15, and so did his son. The servants went to bed at 9:30. Soon after I got to my bedroom I saw out of my room flames from some burning house near by. I roused my master and his son. As they came down the stairs they were seized by German soldiers and both were tied up and led out, my master being tied with a rope and his son with a chain. They were dragged outside. I did not actually see what happened outside, ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... door open. They entered, and Kline, following, called for the owner, ordered all to come down, and said he had two warrants for the arrest of Nelson Ford and Joshua Hammond. He was answered that there were no such men in the house. Kline, followed by Mr. Gorsuch, attempted to go up stairs. They were prevented from ascending by what appears to have been an ordinary fish gig. Some of the witnesses described it as "like a pitchfork with blunt prongs," and others were at a loss what to call this, the first weapon used in the contest. An axe was next thrown ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... was the farmer's wife ordering the boys harshly to get up right away. She had already called them three times, and if this time they didn't obey, their father would come. Then they all sprang out of bed and in a few minutes were down-stairs, where their father was already sitting at the table and would not have ...
— What Sami Sings with the Birds • Johanna Spyri
... have been to preach, I have gone full of guilt and terror, even to the pulpit door, and there it hath been taken off, and I have been at liberty in my mind until I have done my work; and then immediately, even before I could get down the pulpit stairs, I have been as bad as I was before; yet God carried me on, but surely with a strong hand, for neither guilt nor hell could take ...
— Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners • John Bunyan
... harbor. They were accessible only by winding stone steps shifting on paved landings to continue the ascent between retaining walls overhung with a wealth of shrubbery clothed in the densest foliage, so green and liquid in the drip of the rain, that one almost felt like walking edgewise amid stairs lest the drip should leave a stain. Over such another series of steps, but longer and more winding, we found our way to the American Consulate where in the beautifully secluded quarters Consul-General ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King
... besides it is so jolly having nothing to do but watch the waves and the wind and learn to mind the helm. I have made great friends with all the sailors, and they are very nice fellows, all but one crabbed old Scotchman, who says, when he sees us on deck, 'ladies should always stay down stairs.' I crawled up stairs in the Bay of Biscay, because they said it was such a glorious sea, and, at first, I thought we were in a vast quarry of bright blue marble, all the broken edges being crested with brilliant white spar. Suddenly we seemed to go over all, all my quarry disappeared, ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... and the priests intimated that it was time to move. She and her mother went down stairs alone, and entered the carriage which was to drive them through all the principal streets, to show the nun to the public, according to custom, and to let them take their last look, they of her and she of them. As they ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... discouraged, and I'll not believe that doctor," she murmured, as she mounted the long flight of stairs which led to the fifth floor. "Aint I always 'ad good luck all the days o' a long life?" She reached her own landing at last, panting a little for breath as she did so. She opened her hall door with a latch-key and entered the kitchen. The ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... ever took it into his head to place himself in ambush upon the stairs, to disturb a man in an intrigue, and to pull him back by the leg when he was half way up to his mistress's chamber? yet did not you use your friend the Duke of Buckingham in this manner, when he ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... interval of comparative quiet, broken by strange, mysterious sounds, to which Beth listened with strained attention, unable to account for them. One moment it was as if trailing garments swept down the narrow stairs, heavy woollen garments that made a soft sort of muffled sound, but there was no footfall, as of some one walking. Then there came stifled voices, whisperings, as of people talking eagerly yet cautiously. Then there were heavy steps, distinct yet slow, followed, ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... submission to lower law for himself, but revelation of the Father to them by the introduction of higher laws operating in the upper regions bordering upon ours, not separated from ours by any impassable gulf—rather connected by gently ascending stairs, many of whose gradations he could blend in one descent. He revealed the Father as being under no law, but as law itself, and the cause of the laws we know—the cause of all harmony because himself the harmony. Men had to be delivered not only from the fear of suffering and death, but from ...
— Miracles of Our Lord • George MacDonald
... southwards. But as the guests arrived, they seemed to find the kitchen and the cooking that was going on quite irresistible. Catina, it seems, had lost her head with so many cuttlefishes, orai, cakes, and fowls, and cutlets to reduce to order. There was, therefore, a great bustle below stairs; and I could hear plainly that all my guests were lending their making, or their marring, hands to the preparation of the supper. That the company should cook their own food on the way to the dining-room, seemed a quite novel arrangement, but one that promised well for their contentment ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... the sash lowered. We try to keep him from any chilly draughts. When you push up the front stairs you must turn to the left, and enter the small passage. Don't lose any more time, or it will be ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... "Up stairs, master Frank," exclaimed the old butler to my father, "the general will be in heaven in half an hour, glory to ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... sure to come back to these exhibitions whenever you can in after years," the principal called as the last members of the late class were going down the stairs. ...
— The Grammar School Boys in Summer Athletics • H. Irving Hancock
... news of the desperate situation of the Treasury and the Bank reached the Emperor on the day after the battle of Austerlitz. The alarming accounts which he received hastened his return to France; and on the very evening on which he arrived in Paris he pronounced, while ascending the stairs of the Tuileries, the dismissal of M. de Barbs Marbois. This Minister had made numerous enemies by the strict discharge of his duty, and yet, notwithstanding his rigid probity, he sunk under the accusation ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... him, you shall hear what I have been doing to-day. The sun, which drew out you and the hawthorns, persuaded me that it was warm enough to go down-stairs—and I put on my cloak as if I were going into the snow, and went into the drawing-room and took Henrietta by surprise as she sate at the piano singing. Well, I meant to stay half an hour and come back ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... the barkeeper had suggested, a small hotel, and on ascending the stairs to the tiny apartment called by courtesy "the office," found the tall man ...
— Messenger No. 48 • James Otis
... door he heard a soft gurgling and promptly changed course. Pulling open the door with difficulty, he seated himself on the cellar stairs to watch a delightful new spectacle—frothing, gurgling water making its way across the floor towards the stairs. It looked wonderfully dirty and brown, and to Oley it was an absorbing phenomenon. It never occurred to ...
— Poppa Needs Shorts • Leigh Richmond
... waters which he felt as a perpetual pool in the center of his heart. Next minute he sneered at himself, like a schoolmaster at a boy who blubbers, and without further paltering put on his hat, took up a very slender cane with a slender grasp of yellow ivory, and ran down the long stairs of his ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... to a clergyman for 5600 pounds. (She betted him the 5000 pounds that he would not be made a bishop, and he lost, and paid her.) Was he the only prelate of his time led up by such hands for consecration? As I peep into George II's St. James, I see crowds of cassocks pushing up the back-stairs of the ladies of the court; stealthy clergy slipping purses into their laps; that godless old king yawning under his canopy in his Chapel Royal, as the chaplain before him is discoursing. Discoursing about what?—About righteousness and judgment? Whilst the chaplain ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... slowly down the four flights of stairs. I could not have gone fast without falling. I opened the door of the stuffy salon, and saw—the dearest couple the wide ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the very next evening. I did put my head into grandmamma's chamber to tell her what I thought of doing, but the dear old lady was asleep in her easy-chair, her knitting lying in her lap, and I knew she did not wish to be disturbed. I closed the door softly and flew down stairs. ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... led the way down the stairs, I followed, and Judy brought up the rear. The affair was not so bad as it might have been, inasmuch as, meeting the mistress of the house in no penetralia of the same, I insisted on going out alone, and ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... scornfully at me and I added: 'Can't the boys manage to get it away from her Majesty when she goes down stairs?' ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, January 1888 - Volume 1, Number 12 • Various
... hurriedly up the tottering stairs, went into a dark little room—and my heart sank.... On a narrow bed, under a fur cloak, pale as a corpse, lay Pasinkov, and he was stretching out to me a bare, wasted hand. I rushed up to him and ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... discontent and ill-humour. She had quarrelled with her father, because he would not take her to Paris; with her mother, because she would not give her more new gowns and bonnets and feathers and fur-belows; with the priest, the poodle, with the autocracy below-stairs, with everybody and everything. So at last the Baron decided that mademoiselle should marry, whereby he might be rid of her, and of her complaints, vagaries, ill-tempers, and ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... Stamp office at Edinburgh in Mr. William Law, Jeweller, his hands, off the Parliament close, down the market stairs, opposite to ...
— A Hundred Years by Post - A Jubilee Retrospect • J. Wilson Hyde
... seized him, dragged him out of the Temple, and set about to kill him. But the Roman authorities interfered, and rescuing him from the hands of the infuriated mob, bore him to the castle, the tower of Antonia. When they arrived at the stairs of the tower, Paul begged the tribune to be allowed to speak to the angry and demented crowd. The request was granted, and he made a speech in Hebrew, narrating his early history and conversion; ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... waiter stuck halfway up, but of course she could not see Margy. A dumbwaiter is like a little elevator, except that, as a rule, no one rides in it. It is used to pull things up and down between two rooms, when a person does not want to use the stairs. ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Aunt Jo's • Laura Lee Hope
... beforehand of the subject of the conversation, and if so I did not wish to appear as if I had slunk away from him after the interview. But I didn't stop—I didn't want to see him—and before he could answer I was already half way up the stairs running noiselessly up the thick carpet which also covered the floor of the landing. Therefore opening the door of my sitting-room quickly I caught by surprise the person who was in there watching the street half concealed by the window curtain. It was a woman. A ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... See, the walls are almost perpendicular, and the bottom comes down, from ledge to ledge, like a flight of stairs!" ...
— The Talking Leaves - An Indian Story • William O. Stoddard
... him, took his pistols, and led the way. In the dark corridor down stairs a Republican sentry mistook the cool, commanding figure for one of his own generals, and presented arms. Maximilian gravely saluted, and with his ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... lady Feng slackened her pace, raised her dress, and walked up the stairs, where Mrs. Yu was already at the top of the landing waiting ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... door opened, and quite at his ease, the keeper appeared, key in hand. He looked startled at Casanova's strange figure, but the latter, without stopping or uttering a word, passed him, and descended the stairs, followed by the frightened monk. They did not run, nor did they loiter; Casanova was already, in spirit, beyond the confines of the Venetian Republic. Still followed by the monk, he reached the water-side, stepped ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... two girls imagine, as they called her down stairs that night, secretly wondering what important business could make "Auntie" keep tea waiting fully five minutes, and set her after tea to read some "pretty poetry," especially Longfellow's, which they had a fancy for—little ...
— The Laurel Bush • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... industrious, regular at his work, quick to learn, kind, and truthful. Angels could hardly be more than that in a printing-office. But when food was scarce, even an angel—a young printer-angel—could hardly resist slipping down the cellar stairs at night, for raw potatoes, onions, and apples, which they cooked in the office, where the boys slept on a pallet on the floor. Wales had a wonderful way of cooking a potato which his fellow ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... artful men pretended, through the medium of oracles, to hold intercourse with the Deity, as familiarly as they now march up the back-stairs in European courts, the world was completely under the government of superstition. The oracles were consulted, and whatever they were made to say became the law; and this sort of government lasted as long as this ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... downstairs. Johnson sprang up with his hair bristling, thinking that some dreadful thing had occurred, but it was only his mother-in-law, incoherent with excitement and searching for scissors and some tape. She vanished again and Jane passed up the stairs with a pile of newly aired linen. Then, after an interval of silence, Johnson heard the heavy, creaking tread and the doctor came down into ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and walked along with all the dignity of an offended pea-chicken. There might or might not be something worth going to see; but I was resolved to keep perfectly cool. Up stairs? Well, up stairs then, or up in the attic, or out on the roof,—it made no difference to me. I could keep from asking questions as long as they could, ...
— Aunt Madge's Story • Sophie May
... a curious mixture of clay and soft stone. There were doors, with big skins from animals as curtains, and the windows were devoid of glass. Instead of stairs there were rude ladders, and the furniture in the mound houses was of ...
— Five Thousand Miles Underground • Roy Rockwood
... very remote village lives the sorceress Pamphile, who turns her neighbours into various animals. What true humour in the scene where, after mounting the rickety stairs, Lucius, peeping curiously through a chink in the door, is a spectator of the transformation of the old witch herself into a bird, that she may take flight to the object of her affections—into an owl! "First she stripped off every rag she had. Then opening a certain ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... Pawle. "Carless and Driver—excellent people. Mr. Carless wants to ask you a few questions in the hope that your answers will give us a little more light on Ashton's history. You needn't be afraid of Carless," he added as they began to climb the stairs. "Carless is quite a pleasant fellow—and he has with him a very amiable young gentleman, Lord Ellingham, of whom you ...
— The Middle of Things • J. S. Fletcher
... gone before he could fire a second barrel. Under these circumstances, on the order of the day for going into committee of the whole house, he would move that the bill should be referred to a select committee above stairs. This motion was made, but it was rejected, and the bill passed through committee without alteration. The debate on the third reading commenced on the 10th of May, and was continued for two nights by adjournment. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... happened that Furneaux was the first down the stairs, though the three emerged from the door of the inn on each other's heels. A stout man, in all likelihood a farmer with horses for sale, was mounting the two steps which led to the entrance. His head was down, and his weight forward, ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... are partly of the tourist orders, and its shopkeepers will sell you "American form" shoes and "best English" hats. It is really too bad, for the overpowering splendours of the chateau, the quaint old Renaissance house-fronts, the streets of stairs, and the exceedingly picturesque and lively congregation of countryside peasants on a market-day would make it a delightful artists' sketching-ground were one not crowded out by "bounders" in bowler hats and others ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... the bottom of the stairs, and as she allowed me to assure myself that she still possessed the rose of virginity, I gave her another ten sequins, and told her that the first time she went alone to the ball with me I would give her a hundred sequins. She said ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... be called a body. The discovery came as a shock. It seemed incredible that the occupant of that house, no cripple or invalid but an able man in the prime of youth, should not have awakened and made good his escape. It was the upper floor which had caught; the stairs had stood to the last. It was beyond calculation. Even if ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... yes, I did forget my mileage book, auntie. I'll get it this minute. But, auntie,"—Glory stopped at the foot of the stairs. Her discomfited laugh floated upward to the pale little invalid—"I've felt of my head and it's on. I didn't forget ...
— Glory and the Other Girl • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... listen to him, and rapidly descended the stairs. When they were in the street they did not find a carriage; and they began to look for one, shouting after the cabmen whom they saw passing by ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... for dinner. Nancy is sick again, new teeth do make her ill. Adeline is well and she can go to Cincinnati Monday with me. Aunt Ev. will send me a boy doll, Harry will be Nancy's and Adeline's brother. Wee sister is a good girl. I am tired now and I do want to go down stairs. I send many kisses and hugs ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... as washing up dishes, might be done, and whose shelves served as larder, and pantry, and storeroom, and all. The other door, which was considerably lower, opened into the coal-hole—the slanting closet under the stairs; from which, to the fire-place, there was a gay-coloured piece of oil-cloth laid. The place seemed almost crammed with furniture (sure sign of good times among the mills). Beneath the window was a dresser, with three deep drawers. ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... swathed up in a billowy white mosquito netting, that might never again be used as a bed canopy. She found her "rock" on a third floor landing, and clung frantically to the stairs post, while the wild sea of perfectly good oak steps dashed savagely at her uncovered toes. She also pink-pinked Cleo's ukelele, ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis
... flies buzzed everywhere, and the smell of warm resinous boards pervaded the rank atmosphere. The place was destitute of floor covering or drapery, and the passage Prescott walked down was sloppy with soap and water from a row of wash-basins, near which hung one small wet towel. Ascending the stairs, he entered a little and very scantily furnished room with walls of uncovered pine. It contained a bed with a ragged quilt and a couple of plain wooden chairs, in one of which a man leaned back. He was about thirty ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... sun was walking "Up the gray stairs of the dawn," And the crimson east was flushing All the forehead of the morn, Pitying skies were looking sadly On the "once proud, happy land," On the Southron and the Northman, Holding fast each other's hand. Fatherless the golden tresses, Watching 'neath the old plum-tree; Fatherless ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... no tossing of a coin. He had not even so much interest in the meal as that. Making his way across the Circus, he entered a restaurant in Shaftesbury Avenue, and passed down the stairs to the grill-room. ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... you, Nick?" she asked. "I declar, I'd jest dropped off to sleep when you woke me comin' down stairs. I never could abide tip-toein', nohow. I don't see how 'tis that I can't get no rest 'thout bein' roused up, when your pa can turn right over and sleep through thunder. ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... introduced from every corner of the world the luxuries which refine civilization; the artisan building himself a house would then make it more comfortable and healthy, with wood floors, carpets, better furniture, &c.; and the master manufacturer erecting a house would have marble stairs and floor in his entrance hall, doors, &c. of mahogany, furniture, of rarer woods, and ornaments of marble, paintings, plate glass, &c.; and when all these things were procured, "over-production" would be still as far ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... not come to see Corydon; and this led to a great misfortune. For she could not do without him now, her craving for him was an obsession; and so she left her bed too soon, and climbed the stairs to his room. Again and again she did this, in spite of his protests; and when, a little later, the doctors found that she had what they called "womb-trouble", they attributed it to this. Perhaps it was not really so, but Corydon believed it, and ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... I saw him on board the Glen Rosa, which used to run every day from London to Clacton-on-Sea and back. It gave me quite a turn when I saw him coming down the stairs from the upper deck, with his bronzed face, flattened nose, and with the familiar bar upon his forehead. I never liked Michael Angelo, and never shall, but I am afraid of him, and was near trying to hide ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... morceau, the Dead Man thrust it into his pocket, and then, after a moment's reflection, deliberately applied the flame of the lamp to the curtains of the bed; and having waited to see the fire fairly started, he ran rapidly down stairs, and escaped from ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... the poor women lodgers insisted on clearing up, and the poor men sat down by the fire to smoke, for old John actually passed around his beloved tobacco, Ann quietly slipped out for a few minutes, took four large bundles from a closet under the stairs, and disappeared upstairs. She was scarcely missed before she was ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... not call him anything else for some time. For Ham was whiter than all the rest, in his working-dress, cap and jacket and breeches, white to begin with, and powdered soft and furry, like his face and eyebrows, with the flying meal. Down-stairs there was plenty of noise; oats and corn and wheat pouring into the hoppers, and the great stones going round and round, and wheels creaking and buzzing, and belts droning overhead. Yvon could not talk at all here, ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... report, you know, my dear, would have been qualifying upon a point that I was too much determined upon, to give room for any of my friends to think I have the least hesitation about it. And so my mother went down stairs. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... gardens, so celebrated among the Greeks.(990) They contained a square of four hundred feet on every side, and were carried up in the manner of several large terraces, one above another, till the height equalled that of the walls of the city. The ascent was from terrace to terrace, by stairs ten feet wide. The whole pile was sustained by vast arches, raised upon other arches, one above another, and strengthened by a wall, surrounding it on every side, of twenty-two feet in thickness. On the top of the arches were first laid large ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... third story, the gardener stopped, and pointing to a door, said, "There." And without adding a word he turned about and went down stairs. The Count opened the door and found himself in a dark ante-chamber. The light from the stairway was sufficient, however, for him to distinguish a second door, which he opened, and through which he went into the apartment lighted from the window whence the blind had ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... the hallway and down a flight of stairs to the office. The woman in the darkness could hear him laughing and talking with a guest who was striving to wear away a dull evening by dozing in a chair by the office door. She returned to the door of her son's room. The weakness had passed from her body ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... green banknote figured in the transaction. Craig and I tenderly lifted the big bottles in their cases into our trap and drove back to our rooms in the hotel. It quite excited the hangers-on to see us drive up with a lot of empty five-gallon bottles and carry them up-stairs, but I had long ago given up having any fear of public opinion in carrying out ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... go at last, he went and sat on some stone stairs and cried. The big fellow sobbed like a little child; one might almost have ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg
... suggestion of the municipal officials we mounted the stairs and looked down on the packed square. There can be no more Oriental sight this side of the Atlas and the Sahara. The square is surrounded by low mud-houses, fondaks, cafes, and the like. In one corner, near the archway leading into the souks, is ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... courage of Great Britain. If you hadn't the full measure of years to give, give what was left, even though it were but six months. I may add that in England his services were accepted. His persistence refused to be disregarded. When red-tape stopped his progress, he used back-stairs strategy. No one could bar him ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... way to the family repository of all our greatness. I went up stairs "on the jump." We all knelt down before the well-preserved box; and my proud Aunt Patience, in a somewhat reverent manner, turned the key. My heart,—I am not ashamed to confess it now, although it is forty years since the quartette, in search of family ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... afterwards, Ralph went down the stairs and out into the street, dressed as a German laborer in his best suit. He was a little uneasy, at first; but no one noticed him, and he was soon in a shop, haggling over the price of a peasant's coat—as if the matter of a thaler, one way or ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... daughter and the healing of the woman with the bloody issue being so closely connected that they may be regarded as one) which are divided into three groups of three each, and are separated by three sections of more general character, like three landings in a broad flight of stairs, or three breaks in a procession (ch. viii. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... shown. One fire heats every room, passage, hall, and cupboard, and does it so effectually that the inhabitants are all but stifled. Soda-water bottles open themselves without any trouble of wire or strings. Men and women go up and down stairs without motive power of their own. Hot and cold water are laid on to all the chambers; though it sometimes happens that the water from both taps is boiling, and that, when once turned on, it cannot be turned off again by any human energy. Everything is done ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... Master Alderman," cried Mistress Headley, bursting on him from the gallery stairs. "Be that what you call fitting for your daughter and your prentice, a beggar lad from the heath? I ever told you she would bring you to shame, thus left to herself. And ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... victim, of which, in my calmer moments, I have in vain endeavoured to dispossess him. Every morning we are wakened up at an unseasonable hour by a furious ringing at the door-bell Joe Manton pulls off his nightcap, and slowly descending the stairs, opens the door, and finds Mr. Thorn, who inquires distractedly whether Miss Ringgan has arrived; and being answered in the negative, gloomily walks off towards the East river. The state of anxiety in which his mother is thereby kept is rapidly depriving her of all her ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... drawn between; but she that has broken her vow is buried alive near the gate called Collina, where a little mound of earth stands, inside the city, reaching some little distance, called in Latin agger; under it a narrow room is constructed, to which a descent is made by stairs; here they prepare a bed, and light a lamp, and leave a small quantity of victuals, such as bread, water, a pail of milk, and some oil; that so that body which had been consecrated and devoted to the most sacred service of religion might not be said to perish by such a death as famine. ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... depression and enervation as their result; or else that class of poetry, plays, &c., of which the foundation is feudalism, with its ideas of lords and ladies, its imported standard of gentility, and the manners of European high-life-below-stairs in every line and verse." Thus incited to poetic self-expression, Whitman (adds Mr. Conway) "wrote on a sheet of paper, in large letters, these words, 'Make the Work,' and fixed it above his table, where he could always see it whilst writing. Thenceforth ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... terror to cats I thought what fun there is in cats, and me and my chum went to stealing cats right off, and before night we had eleven cats caged. We had one in a canary bird cage, three in Pa's old hat boxes, three in Ma's band box, four in valises, two in a trunk, and the rest in a closet up stairs. ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... the building is reached through a beautifully finished vestibule, by a short flight of broad, easy stairs, and once inside the visitor is struck by the beauty of design as well as by the home-like appearance of the surroundings. The wood-work is mainly of hard woods, oak and cherry predominating. In a large part of the house the floors are of oak, with a cherry border, neatly finished ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... the finishing touch to his discomfiture, just as he was coming in his father came down on his way out and met him on the stairs. He had to explain where he had been, and why I was not with him. [Footnote: In a case like this there is no danger in asking a child to tell the truth, for he knows very well that it cannot be hid, and that if he ventured to tell a lie he would be found out at once.] The poor child would gladly ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... Half-way down the stairs, it suddenly occurred to Mr. Bennett that he wanted to sing. He wanted to sing very loud, and for quite some time. He restrained the impulse, and returned to bed. But relief such as his was too strong to keep bottled up. He wanted to tell someone all about ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... cottage, roofed with thatch; and furnished in the homeliest style of the peasants to whom it had belonged. We went up stairs. A few objects of higher taste were to be seen in the apartment to which we were now ushered—a pendule, a piano, and one or two portraits superbly framed, and with ducal coronets above them. But, to my great embarrassment, the room was full, and full of the first names of France. Yet ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... breathlessly, and he hurried away up a side passageway and out to reach the stairs leading ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... of how I came to this house in Adelphi Terrace. There is mystery in it, you must admit, my lady. Once or twice since that uncomfortable call I have passed the captain on the stairs; but the halls are very dark, and for that I am grateful. I hear him often above me; in fact, I hear him ...
— The Agony Column • Earl Derr Biggers
... stairs, the same high-bred domestic was in waiting to show him into the library. Mr. Darrell was there already, in the simple but punctilious costume of a gentleman who retains in seclusion the habits ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... defense. We are ill protected from bullets, and a cannon will blow us into the air." And then, moving from one to another, he looked through the loop-holes. "Train every gun on that window," he commanded, "and shoot if a finger is seen." Up the stairs he bounded. Old Gid was walking up and down the room, softly whistling. "Pretty peppery, Major," he said, pointing to three bodies ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... through fear of her violent fits of anger. After Sam had met Janet Eberly and had become her loyal friend and henchman all show of affection or even of interest between him and Edith was at an end and the kiss upon the stairs was forgotten. ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... daughter and your husband, in that dimly-lighted carriage, which bore you toward your dead. I could see all three of you under the oil lamp, you weeping and Annette sobbing. I saw your arrival at the station, the entrance of the castle in the midst of a group of servants, your rush up the stairs toward that room, toward that bed where she lies, your first look at her, and your kiss on her thin, motionless face. And I thought of your heart, your poor heart—that poor heart, of which half belongs to me and which is breaking, which suffers ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... later "Lord" Bill and Jacky were making their way to the smoking-room. On the stairs they met "Poker" John. He was ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... Strong car makes a good excuse for him to be around without exciting suspicion. He might even come up-stairs once in a while to get orders or do little repair jobs around the apartment. Some day, supposing the people next door were all out, he might even succeed in planting a dictograph so that you could sit there in your room and ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... went up stairs after breakfast to dress for church, Tillie's aunt said, 'I believe I will wear my black and white blanket shawl, ...
— Little Mittens for The Little Darlings - Being the Second Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... had been immured in Castle Tours since the famous murder of his father and uncle, had made his escape by a rather neat stratagem. Having been allowed some liberty for amusing himself in the corridors in the neighbourhood of his apartment, he had invented a game of hop, skip, and jump up stairs and down, which he was wont to play with the soldiers of the guard, as a solace to the tediousness of confinement. One day he hopped and skipped up the staircase with a rapidity which excited the admiration of the companions of his sport, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... alone in the house, the rest of its inmates having departed for the Taboo Groves. My valet was all impatience to follow them; and was as fidgety about my dilatory movements as a diner out waiting hat in hand at the bottom of the stairs for some lagging companion. At last, yielding to his importunities, I set out for the Ti. As we passed the houses peeping out from the groves through which our route lay, I noticed that they were ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... be asked questions, for what could he say? Nurse looked very awful as she went upstairs, charged with private information almost too important for any woman to contain. She stopped at the head of the stairs to whisper to Fletcher, shaking her head the while, and Fletcher, too, shook her head and whispered to Mrs. Freshwater that the doctor had a very bad opinion of the case. Poor little Tom had got to be "the case" all in ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... before me, I watched the approach of the boy who was riding through the avenue to the house, with the letter-bag strapped before him. I heard the step of the servant who was crossing the hall on his way to my uncle's study. In a few moments I heard Mrs. Middleton's voice on the stairs; and, about an hour after that, when it was getting quite dark, and I was leaving the library, I met Mrs. Swift, who told me that my aunt wished to speak ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... as she seemed. For my part, I believe the other one had more real pluck of the two, but it was the child-angel's ignorance that made her so bold. She went up the cone as she would have gone up stairs, and looked at the smoke as she would have looked at ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... that these odd people, while they were able to walk through the air with ease, usually moved upon the ground in the ordinary way. There were no stairs in their houses, because they did not need them, but on a level surface they generally walked just as ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... would break his neck on the way to work. He walked quickly past the workers' lounge, glancing in at the groups of men, arguing politics and checking the stock market reports before they changed from their neat gray business suits to their welding dungarees. Running up the stairs to the administrative wing, he paused outside the door to punch the time clock. 8:04. Damn. If only ...
— Meeting of the Board • Alan Edward Nourse
... from any further change or alteration; and, of course, as in process of time the mud becomes hardened and solidified, the shells of these animals are preserved and firmly imbedded in the limestone or sandstone which is being thus formed. You may see in the galleries of the Museum up stairs specimens of limestones in which such fossil remains of existing animals are imbedded. There are some specimens in which turtles' eggs have been imbedded in calcareous sand, and before the sun had hatched the young turtles, they became covered over with calcareous mud, and thus have been preserved ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... divination into our pastoral cases is by far and away the most difficult part of a minister's work. It is easy and pleasant with a fluent tongue to get through our pulpit work; but to descend the pulpit stairs and deal with life, and with this and that sin in the lives of our people,—that is another matter. "We must labour," says Richard Baxter in his Reformed Pastor, "to be acquainted with the state of all our people as fully as we can; both to ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... dangerous, dangerous for us both, I'd make an appointment with you out here in this lovely neighbourhood, under this stuffy roof? By the way, though, since I'm always bound to have the queerest luck if ever I do go a bit on questionable ways, whom should I meet on the stairs but Nathanael Jettel? I almost ran into the gentleman's arms! He'll take good care that my visiting you doesn't remain ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... the transition was natural to the cause of uproar going on below stairs. The sounds of the hubbub penetrated the chamber of the wounded man, and he expressed some curiosity in respect to it. This was enough for the woodman, who had partially informed himself, by a free conversation with the wagoner who ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... was making distressful sounds. "Doctor Greve," she screamed, and from above she heard the Bavarian shouting and then the noise of his coming down the stairs. ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... thoughtful shall the wanderers greet Each splendid square and still untrodden street, Or of some crumbling turret, mined by time, The broken stairs with perilous step shall climb, Thence stretch their view the wide horizon round, By scattered hamlets trace its ancient bound, And, choked no more with fleets, fair Thames survey Through reeds and sedge pursue ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... much hard endeavor, as far as the garret stairs, but their united strength failed to lift it. "Heave it, now!" cried Joe, and lo! it was up two steps. So they turned it over and over with many a thudding thump; every one of which thumps Uncle John heard, and believed to be strokes upon the box itself to burst it asunder, until it was fairly shelved ...
— Twilight Stories • Various
... a perquisite, delivered the rest to Abou Neeut; who, having counted the money, thanked God for his bounty; but said, agreeably to the scriptural declaration he ought to have had ten-fold for the sherif he had given to the beggar. The master of the servant overhearing this, called Abou Neeut up stairs; and having seated him, inquired his story, which he faithfully related to his host, who was a capital merchant, and was so much pleased at his pious simplicity, that he resolved to befriend him, and desired him to abide for the present in ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... party to the Royal Hotel. The carriage stopped at the door in the arch, and the two landlords, the porter, the waiters, and the clerk, half a score strong, turned out to receive its occupants. All of them bowed low, and all of them led the way up stairs. Paul took a parlor and chamber for ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... four children, one of whom, a girl eight or nine years old, held a baby in her arms. She proved to be the daughter of the people of the house, and gave us what leave she could to look about us. Thence we stepped across the narrow mid-passage of the cottage into the only other apartment below-stairs, a sitting-room, where we found a young man eating bread and cheese. He informed us that he did not live there, and had only called in to refresh himself on his way home from church. This room, like the kitchen, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... provide against this contingency, he took his stand under a beam fastened across the tower. "But what if the falling bell should rebound from one of the side walls, and hit me after all?" This thought sent him down stairs, and made him take his station, rope in hand, at the steeple door. "But what if the steeple itself should come down?" This thought banished him altogether, and he bade adieu to bell-ringing. And by a similar series of concessions, eventually, but with longer delay, he gave up another ...
— Life of Bunyan • Rev. James Hamilton
... them all along—the old man, the boys, the mother and the bride. Then[advances to the pastor at the door], as a preliminary celebration we'll crack a bottle of my oldest Johannisberger. But what is the matter out there? Who comes rushing up the stairs? ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... on the stairs, and the young person addressed as Faith entered the room. She was small in figure, and bore less in the form of her features than in their shades when changing from expression to expression the evidence ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... warm, and the old gentleman had climbed stairs, and his conversation had been weighty and steady. He arrested its flow for a moment and took a long breath. "Don't stop," said Rex earnestly, and the ...
— A Good Samaritan • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... left him John Ardayre drank down a full glass of Benedictine and followed her up the stairs, but there was no lover's exaltation, but an anguish almost of ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn |
