"Closet" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the little girl began to search for Topsy. Upstairs and downstairs they went, looking everywhere. They opened all the closet doors, they looked into all the trunks and boxes. They even peeped into the baby's hamper and lifted the lid of grandmother's big workbasket; but no kitty did they find. Still they could hear her crying "Meow! meow! meow!" ...
— A Kindergarten Story Book • Jane L. Hoxie
... SAVIOUR'S solemn admonition to the improvement of that time which is allowed us to prepare for eternity: 'the night cometh when no man can work.' He sometime afterwards laid aside this dial-plate; and when I asked him the reason, he said, 'It might do very well upon a clock which a man keeps in his closet; but to have it upon his watch which he carries about with him, and which is often looked at by others, might be censured as ostentatious.' Mr. Steevens is now possessed of the dial-plate inscribed ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... Then the "moon and stars" which had been fixed for a quarter of a century, were made to spin; the "days of the month" refused to pass in review without a squeak that must be remedied, so I flew into the closet to get some sweet oil which was goose-grease; but shutting the ...
— Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories • M. T. W.
... his gun and went down into the cow barn below, whistling softly to himself. He began to enjoy the prospect. He gathered some eggs from the feed boxes, carrying them in his hat, and breaking the lock of the kitchen door he and his outfit looted the closet there and had an early supper, being careful to extinguish the ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... following Drama is universally allowed to be the Garrick of the German Stage, and the Dramatic Rival of KOTZEBUE in the Closet.—The great Object of MR. IFFLAND, in all his Dramatic Productions, is to render the Theatre what it was in the palmy Days of Terence—a School of Morality, by exhibiting Virtue in all her native Charms, and Vice in all her Deformity; or, in ...
— The Lawyers, A Drama in Five Acts • Augustus William Iffland
... scourge &c (instrument of punishment) 975; carking care, canker worm of care. mishap, misfortune &c (adversity) 735; desagrement [Fr.], esclandre [Fr.], rub. source of irritation, source of annoyance; wound, open sore; sore subject, skeleton in the closet; thorn in the flesh, thorn in one's side; where the shoe pinches, gall and wormwood. sorry sight, heavy news, provocation; affront &c 929; head and front of one's offending [Othello]. infestation, molestation; malignity &c (malevolence) 907. V. cause pain, occasion pain, give pain, bring pain, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... draperies, all these combine to make it one of those works, the moral force and directness of which appeal to the heart at once. Perhaps the most brilliant piece of color at the Russell Place Gallery may have been Rossetti's "Blue Closet," a picture which either illustrated or, as I should rather suppose, suggested Mr. Morris's wonderful poem published two ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... devoted admirer than the Lady of Eschalott, whose webs had a bad chance when there was one glimpse of Miss Conway to be obtained from the window, and the vision of whose heart was that Mrs. Martha might some day let her stand in the housemaid's closet, to behold her idol issue forth in the full glory of an evening dress—a thing Charlotte had read of, but never seen anything nearer to it than Miss Walby coming to tea, and her own Miss Clara in the scantiest of all ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... closet and bureau, she found no time on this first day at Cap'n Abe's store to stroll even as far as The Beaches; but the next morning she got up betimes, as soon as Cap'n Amazon himself was astir, dressed, ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... go down and leave him alone. Then he begged her to shut him up in the closet, and "see if that wouldn't make him good." Every few minutes he would come and stand before her, and say very earnestly, "Are you sure I ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... Steinmann repudiates, without, of course, mentioning names, the family tree constructed by Haeckel and his associates as wholly hypothetical and hence unjustified; he rightly remarks that their method smacks of the closet. He finds fault with them chiefly because they predicated actuality of this imaginary family-tree and fancied that the historical research of the future would have but ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert
... Aldeburgh, an hour's Rail distance from here: there I got out boating, etc., and I think became the more hearty in consequence: but my Bosom friend Bronchitis puts in a reminder every now and then, and, I suppose, will come out of his Closet, or Chest, when Winter sets ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... into the field, when God himself musters the hosts to war. Religion is too much interested in your success not to lend you her aid. She will shed over your enterprise her selectest influence. While you are engaged in the field, many will repair to the closet, many to the sanctuary; the faithful of every name will employ that prayer which has power with God; the feeble hands which are unequal to any other weapon, will grasp the sword of the Spirit; and from myriad of humble, contrite hearts, the voice of intercession, supplication, and weeping, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... Talisman: ah, well, you're welcome to it, whatever it is: I must be off about my business. Is all well in the house? Does it suit you? Any complaints from the servants' hall?" "No, indeed, nothing could be more charming. The only soupcon of a complaint besides the lock of the linen closet, which I told you of, is that Mrs. Maple says she cannot get rid of the sawflies out of that room you pass through at the other end of the hall. By the way, are you sure you like your bedroom? It is a long way off from any one else, you know." "Like it? To be sure ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... six; Marquis or Earl, five; Viscount, four; Baron, Knight of the Garter, or Lord Chancellor, three; a Duchess, Marchioness, Countess, Baroness, the Treasurer or Comptroller of the King's household, the Clerk of the Closet, the King's Secretary, the Dean of the Chapel, Almoner, and Master of the Rolls, each of them two chaplains. The Queen has forty-eight ...
— The Church Handy Dictionary • Anonymous
... lumber-room. All as they should be. Nobody under the table, nobody under the sofa; a small fire in the grate; spoon and basin ready; and the little saucepan of gruel (Scrooge had a cold in his head) upon the hob. Nobody under the bed; nobody in the closet; nobody in his dressing-gown, which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude against the wall. Lumber-room as usual. Old fire-guard, old shoes, two fish-baskets, washing-stand on three legs, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... that the Mississippian backwoodsman, Woodley, could give a better account of these singular excrescences than all the closet scientists in ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... hanging in the middle of the water-closet on a tape from her corset, fastened to the lamphook. Her body, already motionless after an unprolonged agony, was slowly swinging in the air, and describing scarcely perceptible turns to the right and left around its vertical axis. Her face was bluishly-purple, ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... the navy, he flamed with indignation. Such inquiry, according to him, was out of their province. He admitted that the House was a most loyal assembly, that it had done good service to the crown, and that its intentions were excellent. But, both in public and in the closet, he, on every occasion, expressed his concern that gentlemen so sincerely attached to monarchy should unadvisedly encroach on the prerogative of the monarch. Widely as they differed in spirit from the members of the Long Parliament, they yet, he said, imitated that Parliament in meddling ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... lady.—'Tis they who are most stern in creating these harsh regulations, that show most frailty in their breach. By the virtues of honest Leadenhall itself, but I should like to tempt the royal Anne, in her closet, with such a display of goodly laces and ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... floors, With shut, impracticable doors, Fickle and frail in every part, And rotten to their inmost heart. There shall the simple tenant find Death in the falling window-blind, Death in the pipe, death in the faucet, Death in the deadly water-closet! A day is set for all to die: Caveat emptor! ...
— Moral Emblems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... waited to hear no more, but hurried to the structure indicated— a building all but ready to fall down. In a harness closet they found a few old straps and a ...
— The Rover Boys in New York • Arthur M. Winfield
... of the transformation of these Celtic chiefs into English Earls has been very minutely described by an eye-witness. One batch were made at Greenwich Palace, after High Mass on Sunday, the 1st of July, 1543. The Queen's closet "was richly hanged with cloth of arras and well strawed with rushes," for their robing room. The King received them under a canopy of state, surrounded by his Privy Council, the peers, spiritual and temporal, the Earl of Glencairn, Sir George Douglas, and the other Scottish Commissioners. ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... genius which accommodates itself to general rules than to wonder at the bolder flights of an undisciplined imagination) was increased to a great degree when he saw the beauties that had struck him in the closet heightened by the utmost perfection of theatrical exhibition."[176] The French theatre, indeed, gave him much material for reflection. In his later years his thoughts and his conversation often recurred to the philosophy of the ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... A journey, he would hesitate, But, fearing to disgust her, He would trust her With his keys, Remarking to her prayerfully: "I beg you'll use them carefully. Don't look what I deposit In that closet, If you please." ...
— Grimm Tales Made Gay • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... all the Graces were seen on Cornhill; the Muses hailed her approach "in Cheap;" and the Cardinal Virtues (how are times changed!) paraded Fleet Street. At the banquet the king took his station, incog. in a little closet made out of the cloyster of St. Stephen's, on the right ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip
... end toys should be kept in an orderly way upon a shelf in the nursery or in a closet, never piled in a miscellaneous heap in the corner of the room. Children should select their toys and play with one thing at a time, which they should be taught to put away in its place before another is given. They should never be allowed to have a dozen things strewn about the room at ...
— The Care and Feeding of Children - A Catechism for the Use of Mothers and Children's Nurses • L. Emmett Holt
... their guard. Reed has seemed to be gaining lately; more depends on his nerves than those New York butchers of his are quite aware. I do know it, because I've taken care of his mother ahead of him; and there are some cases when an old-fashioned doctor with common sense and a closet full of family traditions is worth a dozen modern surgeons. Reed has been doing a little better lately; you and Dolph Dennison, with all your nonsense, are steadying him wonderfully. But that she-gargoyle! Olive, she'd have Reed in ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... children had gone to bed and the Plush Bear was in the closet of the playroom with the Rag Doll, the Bear leaned over and whispered ...
— The Story of a Plush Bear • Laura Lee Hope
... the Bank. You know they live at the Bank, perhaps? Very well. Yesterday afternoon, at the close of business hours, everything was put away as usual. In the iron room that this young fellow sleeps outside of, there was never mind how much. In the little safe in young Tom's closet, the safe used for petty purposes, there was a hundred and fifty ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... that no sound or sight should molest me in the pursuit of the end which I sought gropingly, blindly, with very little hope, but with an intense ambition, and a courage that gave way under no burden, before no obstacle. Long ago changes were made in the low, rambling house which threw my little closet into a larger room; but this was not until after I had left it many years; and as long as I remained a part of that dear and simple home it was my place to read, to write, to ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... sweep and dust the bedrooms, and keep them immaculate. The mistress should inspect the chamber-work occasionally for servants must not be permitted to feel that carelessness in details will be overlooked And the mistress should also take care of her own linen closet, unless she has a very trustworthy and competent servant; for linens should be worn alike, and not some worn constantly and others allowed to lie forgotten in corner ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler
... jest, And please all the rest; Comes Dingley, and asks you, what was it? And, curious to know, Away she will go To seek an old rag in the closet. ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... dirt. But dust in the corners which shows the dirt to be chronic and not accidental, unwashed windows, dingy mirrors, etc., etc., have no redeeming quality. It is a good thing for the mother of the family to love order, but there is ample scope for that in keeping every closet and drawer and box and basket in a dainty condition. However neat a room may be, it is odious the moment an open drawer or closet reveals disorder. The meaning of this is that the disorder which comes from daily happy living is delightful, and that is what we see in the ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... she would there be in the company of people not at war. And then, erratically, rebelliously, he felt a heart hunger; but he cursed this feeling as being vicious—it was. He smothered it, shoving it back into a niche of his mind, thinking he had locked it up—had turned a key in the door of the closet ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... experiment should be made in a closet where the air is very still, or it will be ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... old Atherton mansion, while we waited for Borroughs to arrive, Kennedy, whose fertile mind had contrived to kill at least two birds with one stone, busied himself by cutting in on the regular telephone line and placing an extension of his own in a closet in the library. To it he attached an ordinary telephone receiver fastened to an arrangement which was strange to me. As nearly as I can describe it, between the diaphragm of the regular receiver and a brownish cylinder, like ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... only idea of aid in the great cause was that of prayer, which men universally granted was her especial privilege, even encouraging her to pray for them; but it must be private prayer—prayer in her own closet—with no auditor but the God to whom she appealed. As soon as it became public, and took the form of petitions to legislatures and to Congress, the reprobation began. The enemies of freedom, fully realizing woman's influence, opposed ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... a loss to understand this, for she had quite forgotten the fact, that the children had any cake to use at their play of housekeeping. She supposed that Susy must have accused Annie of prying into the china-closet, where the cakes and jellies were kept. She sent for ...
— Little Prudy's Sister Susy • Sophie May
... running counter to the party which he believes to be right in its general views? A man so burthened with scruples as to be unable to act in this way should keep himself aloof from public life. Such a one cannot serve the country in Parliament, though he may possibly do so with pen and ink in his closet." ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... clothes-closet, with his hands tied and a gag in his mouth," says she. "Oh, I can handle him that way, big as he is; and I wasn't going to take any more chances. But it's likely that Mrs. Pell has missed her ring by this time and is raising a howl about it. ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... taste and smell, I have only to bite one of the biscuits they make nowadays of Lord knows what, reeking the moment you taste them, of fish glue and plaster that has been rained upon, I have only to eat that cold, insipid paste and sniff at a musty closet, and at once the lugubrious picture rises before me of some Godforsaken place!—Your Chartres will ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... months. They done a vaudeville sketch. Miss B'retta Sprowls—you may have heard of her—Oh, that was just the stage names—right there over the dresser is where the marriage certificate hung, framed. The gas is here, and you see there is plenty of closet room. It's a room everybody likes. It never stays ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... albeit she had no service but that of an ill-paid shop-lad, who was like one of the lean ears of Pharaoh's dream and moreover blind of one eye. Nevertheless I remembered well that her little shop, which was no greater than a fair-sized closet, had ever been filled with buyers when we had stolen in, against all commands, to buy a few dried figs. I can see the little crippled mistress now as she limped across the shop or along the street, and the boys would call after her: "Hip ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... for a second in dismay, after seeing her "true knight" sink on the floor, and then, like a sensible girl, instead of going off into hysterics, went like a flash to her aunt's wine-closet for brandy. But before she could find it Mrs. Marchmont had caused both the rescued and the rescuer to be conveyed to the privacy of their own rooms, where they could at once receive the prosaic ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... knew I could not perform. Of all these things they are perfect sovereign judges, without appeal; but as to the detail of particular measures, or to any general schemes of policy, they have neither enough of speculation in the closet, nor of experience in business, to decide upon it. They can well see whether we are tools of a court, or their honest servants. Of that they can well judge; and I wish, that they always exercised their ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... down, took off the dainty slippers, and, going to a closet, brought a pair of easy bedroom slippers and put ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... in conversation. When engaged in unrestrained and animated conversation with familiar friends, who is not conscious of having struck out brighter thoughts and happier sayings, than he ever put upon paper in the deliberate composition of the closet? It is a common remark concerning many men, that they pray much better than they preach. The reason is, that their sermons are made leisurely and sluggishly, without excitement; but in their public devotions they are strongly engaged, and the mind acts with more concentration ...
— Hints on Extemporaneous Preaching • Henry Ware
... the room behind her father's chair and closed, but did not hasp, the door. The room was completely dark, and I did not know whether it connected with other rooms or was a mere closet, but the freshness of the air in it inclined me to ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... tone in which the conversation was carried on, I failed to catch its purport; but it closed with an earnest request from Kolmagorof that Viushin should give him some article of clothing, which I understood to be a scarf or tippet. Viushin immediately went to a little closet in one corner of the room, where he was in the habit of storing his personal effects, dragged out a large sealskin bag, and began searching in it for the desired article. After pulling out three or four pair of fur boots, a lump of tallow, some dogskin stockings, ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... discipline of art and that of real life. The man who seeks his entire culture in art of any kind will soon find the old antagonism between speculation and action begin to appear. There will be a chasm, which he cannot fill, between his life in the closet and his life in the world; his impotence to carry his thought into act will limit and weaken the thought itself. But this ill result will equally ensue, whether the art in which he finds his nurture be that of the novelist ...
— An Estimate of the Value and Influence of Works of Fiction in Modern Times • Thomas Hill Green
... tight shingled and plastered house, ten feet wide by fifteen long, and eight-feet posts, with a garret and a closet, a large window on each side, two trap doors, one door at the end, and a brick fireplace opposite. The exact cost of my house, paying the usual price for such materials as I used, but not counting the work, all of which was done by myself, was as ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... want inducement to be abroad; and the unceasing variety of the subjects of his observation, will prevent his walking hastily: he will pursue his studies in the air; and that contemplative turn of mind, which in his closet threatened his destruction, will thus become the great means ...
— Hypochondriasis - A Practical Treatise (1766) • John Hill
... the field of action. Some of these kitchens, particularly those of the Kaiser and the Crown Prince in the German army, are described as almost luxurious. They contain complete equipment—range, bake-oven, pantry, ice-box, china closet and every device needed for preparing a ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... conscious emphasis upon secrecy. Primitive and modern secret societies, sororities, and fraternities have been organized around the principle of isolation. Secrecy in a society, like reserve in an individual, protects it from a disintegrating publicity. The family has its "skeleton in the closet," social groups avoid the public "washing of dirty linen"; the community banishes from consciousness, if it can, its slums, and parades its parks and boulevards. Every individual who has any personality at all ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... growled the Clutching Hand. "Quick—now— get on those clothes. I heard the train whistle as I came in the car. In which closet does the ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... its recesses. On their voyage home from Nassau, Gerald had sometimes read aloud to them from "The Midsummer Night's Dream." Could it be that there were such creatures in the woods as Shakespeare described? A closet adjoining her room had been assigned to Tulee. She opened the door and said, "Tulee, are you there? Why don't you come?" There was no answer. Again she gave a timid look at the window. The long face moved, and a most unearthly sound was heard. Thoroughly ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... your new suit now?" he interrupted, holding forth the garments. The suit proved a trifle tight about the hips, but I hastened to assure the tailor that the fit was perfect. I removed it and watched him do it up in a parcel, open a wall closet, call my house number, and send my suit on its way through one of the numerous carriers that interlaced ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... searched through the preserve-closet for dainties to tempt an unhappy woman's appetite, meanwhile rejoicing with housewifely pride in her well-stocked shelves. That evening, while Alden read the paper, she planned a feast for the next night, and mended, with fairy-like ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... been sending in nice things, and I can't begin to eat them up. Lend a hand and clear away this lot, or we shall have to throw them out of the window. Bring on the doughnuts and the tarts and the shaky stuff in the entry closet, Frank, and ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... the third-class boarding-house; the mean little hard-coal fire, the slovenly Irish servant-girl making it, the ashes on the hearth, the faded furniture, the private provender hid away in the closet, the dreary backyard out the window; the young girl at the glass, with her mouth full of hairpins, doing up her hair to go downstairs and flirt with the young fellows ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... are thus laid down in the Rajtarangini. It is evident, as Professor H. H. Wilson says, that the royal status was by no means a sinecure. But the rules are evidently the closet work of some pedantic, dogmatic Brahman, teaching kingcraft to kings. He directs his instructions, not to subordinate judges, but to the Raja as the chief magistrate, and through him to all appointed for the ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... Closely identified with the aggressive spirit of his section, he voiced a growing sense of humiliation that his country should be buffeted by every British ministry. The people of Kentucky and Tennessee had little patience with half measures in defense of national rights. The petty diplomacy of closet statesmen did not appeal to the soul of the frontiersman who was accustomed to hew his way to his goal. The people of this section, imperial in its dimensions, were prepared for large tasks done in a bold way. Their ideas of the Union transcended the policies of Eastern ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... left the kitchen, which was separated by a passage from the living-room, and went to spin hemp beside her masters. One tallow candle sufficed the family for the evening. The servant slept at the end of the passage in a species of closet lighted only by a fan-light. Her robust health enabled her to live in this hole with impunity; there she could hear the slightest noise through the deep silence which reigned night and day in that dreary house. Like a watch-dog, she slept with ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... taking his physic, he left it on the table after a broken night's rest, and went to the leve, was called into the closet, and in a manner compelled by the King to accept the Great Seal with expressions like these: "My sleep has been disturbed by your declining; do you mean to declare yourself unfit for it?" and still stronger afterwards, "If you will not comply, it must make an eternal break betwixt ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... and meditated on the subject or text, I desire to leave myself entirely in the hands of the Lord. I ask him to bring to my mind what I have seen in my closet concerning the subject I am going to speak on, which he generally most kindly does, and often teaches me much additionally whilst ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller
... division for the cook (as Nares supposed) and second mate. The after part contained, in the midst, the main cabin, running in a kind of bow into the curvature of the stern; on the port side, a pantry opening forward and a stateroom for the mate; and on the starboard, the captain's berth and water-closet. Into these we did but glance, the main cabin holding us. It was dark, for the sea-birds had obscured the skylight with their droppings; it smelt rank and fusty: and it was beset with a loud swarm of flies that beat continually in our faces. Supposing them close attendants upon man and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... fellow-adult Americans began doing—which was to take a drink when the opportunity offered. As I diagnose it, we nearly all are actuated now by much the same instinct which causes a small boy to loot a jam closet. He doesn't particularly want all that jam but he takes the jam because it is summarily denied him and because he's afraid he may never again get a whack ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... touched the handle of this door and he managed to open it. He gasped, "Help! Help!" and fell at his full length in a sort of cupboard or closet which the Prefect of ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... was not exactly even; how cozy the old faded-calico couch; how thoroughly comfortable the four chairs (two of them had been thoroughly rebottomed with brown sail-cloth, tastefully put on, with a border of carpet-tacks); how truly elegant the closet-case toilet-table, with the doll's looking-glass hanging above, which showed my face (the first time that I had seen it since I left home) some six shades darker than usual; how convenient the trunk, which did ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... and for long an astonishing pace. The strangely beautiful lyric passages interspersed through the speeches are really of a slower movement than the dramatic body of the poem; they are, by comparison, resting-places. The perfumed closet of the song of Paracelsus in Part IV. is "vowed to quiet" (did Browning ever compose another romanza as lulling as this?), and the Maine glides so gently in the lyric of Festus (Part V.) that its murmuring serves to bring ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... of, and which were really in danger of being lost, if the cabin was carried away. He rooted in every cupboard, secured a lot of dishes and tinware, knives, forks and spoons, even a loaf of bread and some cake that he found in a japanned tin box high up on the shelf of a closet, coffee, sugar, and condensed milk, butter, potatoes, onions and a lot of other things too numerous to mention, but which attracted the attention of the ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie
... a long breath. "It was just perfect!" she said; "finer even than I thought. They've got it hanging up in the very middle of a sort o' closet made of glass, and one of the lower corners is ripped and turned back so's to show the ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... and rain battered at the orchard blossoms the next day and the next. Kenny found a tuning outfit in a closet and spent his days with Joan tuning the Craig piano. He was grateful in the gloom of dark wood and dust for the fantastic thing of lavender she wore. It was like a bit of iris in a bog, he told her, and ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... pink satin slippers newly bought for commencement, caught up and pinned upon her head the new hat, of which Rosalie had said: "Well, of all the lids! Lily, did the milliner put the trimming on the box and forget to send home the hat?" Then grabbing her fur coat from the closet she ran screaming down to the lawn, certainly somewhat promiscuous as to raiment, for her nightie was an airy affair and she carried her coat over ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... 1 madras spread Bureau (mirror broken), 2 towel racks Mahogany washstand, mirror Small 3-legged table 3 rosewood chairs Bureau cover, pin cushion, etc. Shoebag on wall Oil painting, on copper Brass stair rods, in closet ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... her circumstances as was betrayed by the aspect of the room, evidently kitchen, dining-room, and bedroom in one; for at the far end, close to the door that opened into the second apartment, which seemed a mere closet, was one of those concealed beds so common in Scotland, and on it lay a figure which occasionally stirred, moaned, or coughed, but very feebly, and for the most part ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... strange figure, pale and noiseless, comes, By us perceived, unrecognized by those, Into the very closet and retreat Of ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... him disappointed, if it were only in joke; so she came out prematurely from behind the closet door, and ran into his arms, while the two young Cratchits hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off to the wash-house, that he might hear the pudding ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... the Oriental costume for several days and seeing no prospect of ever wearing it, and his small closet having become crowded by the presence of a new twenty-dollar suit which he purchased with part of his gains, he presented it to the young lady in Englewood previously mentioned, who reduced the ruby red jacket to a beautiful bolero jacket, made a table throw of the sash, and ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... were not in the premises which were at the disposal of the military authorities, and therefore could not, even on payment, be opened. He would again inquire if it were not possible to obtain a closed water closet for the sick. ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... bolted once more, the Brazilian came out of the dressing-closet, where he had been waiting, and he appeared with his eyes full of tears, in a really pitiable condition. ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... was persuaded to wait, and the cake was hidden away in the dining-room closet until the ...
— The Bobbsey Twins - Or, Merry Days Indoors and Out • Laura Lee Hope
... other, striving to penetrate the sense of Aboniel's last words. While yet they gazed, they were startled by a loud crash from an adjacent closet, and were even more discomposed as a large monkey bounded forth, whose sleek coat, exuberant playfulness, and preternatural agility convinced all that the deceased philosopher, under an inspiration of supreme irony, had ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... house. It read in this way: 'Burglars are respectfully informed that the silver-ware is all plated, and that the proprietor of this house never keeps ready money on hand. Cake and wine will be found in the dining-room closet, and burglars are cordially invited to rest and refresh themselves. Please wipe your feet on the mat, and close the window ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... this Page to wait on her in her Closet, she shut the Door; and after a thousand Questions of what he would undertake to serve her, the amorous Boy finding himself alone, and caress'd by the fair Person he ador'd, with joyful Blushes that beautify'd his Face, told her, 'There was nothing upon Earth, he would not do, to ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... revenge. The Queen called today to see the children, and when Her Majesty and myself withdrew into my closet, the Tisch, who had been spying, didn't retire as promptly as ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... stranger the tale, had the rights of it. There were town characters aplenty he might have described. A long-settled community with traditions behind it and a reasonable antiquity seems to breed curious types of men and women as a musty closet breeds mice and moths. This town of ours had its town mysteries and its town eccentrics—its freaks, if one wished to put the matter bluntly; and it had its champion story-teller and its champion liar and its champion guesser of the weight of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... entered carrying a seat, which she put down in the middle of the empty space. She next went over to the door of a closet and signed to the porter to follow her. He did so, and soon reappeared leading two black dogs by a chain, which he brought into the centre of the hall. Zobeida then got up from her seat between the Calenders and the Caliph and walked slowly across to where the porter stood with ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... days had done. She had been so much the lady, so perfectly the gentlewoman. To no one had the outward gesture and symbol of purity been more precious. No whisper had ever breathed against her. If there had been secrets behind her, they had been dead; if a skeleton, the closet had been closed. And now, looking down on her, he was not only appalled, he was a little sickened, as one might be to find squalor and decay creeping into a ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... the people to be dictatorial to his sovereign—to be to the king what he was to all others. On the contrary, he was the slave of his own imagination; there was a kind of mystic enchantment in vicinity to the monarch which divested him of his ordinary nature. "The least peep into the king's closet," said Mr. Burke, "intoxicates him, and will to the end of his life." A wit said that, even at the levee, he bowed so low that you could see the tip of his hooked nose between his legs. He was in the habit of kneeling at the bedside of George III. while transacting business. Now no man ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... them just before the meal was ready, so they would be hot and not chill the coffee; her mother would empty the water in the tray-bowl when she was ready to use them. Then they brought out of the china-closet the dishes which were to go into the kitchen to be heated: the dish for cereal, the small, deep plates to use with it, the plates and vegetable dish, ...
— A Little Housekeeping Book for a Little Girl - Margaret's Saturday Mornings • Caroline French Benton
... her to be seated, with a certain exaggerated gravity as if he was over-acting a grown-up part, and, taking a card from her, reentered his office. Here, however, he did NOT stand on his head or call out a confederate youth from a closet, as the woman might have expected. To the left was a green baize door, outlined with brass-studded rivets like a cheerful coffin-lid, and bearing the mortuary inscription, "Private." This he pushed open, and entered the Mayor's ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... closet and yanked out his ineffectual city raincoat and rubbers, and the dreary wreck of what had once been his pert new ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... his stock of provisions. It was a pleasant spot and well ordered, for he never liked to leave his quarters in disarray lest some one might enter during his absence, or come back with him. Besides, it was pleasanter so to return to it. A rough closet of goodly proportions held his clothes, his trunk, and ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... every mind, from the prince to the peasant, that understood the true value of genius when helmed by virtue, either on the land or on the wave; whether in the field or in the cabinet; in the student's closet, or in the duties ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... affliction, and mercy; wisely blended to bring me nearer to God. I think the end has been answered: I feel looser from the world, and my will is more fully subdued. This is the Lord's doing: blessed be His name! I rose early, and shut myself up in my closet, and there the Lord gloriously revealed himself: it was a blessed day, especially, in walking to the city; and among the dear people.—Another piece of encouragement: our servant, who has been brought under serious impressions since she came to us, was last Tuesday ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... very day to go through the linen closet," she said to Blue Bonnet as they rose from the table. "I think we will begin there ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... a hundred times, and she does, that she'd knock the hell out of Fannie, and God would love her every bit as much as he would love Miss Elizabeth Witherspoon, who has been taught otherwise and never said hell in her life, not even in a dark closet. Fannie and all the other Fannies and Idas and Louisas, say, "My Gawd!" as Miss Elizabeth says "You don't say!" and it is all one to the Heavenly Father. Therefore, gentle reader, it must be all one to you. There is not the ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... his own line, almost as laborious a writer as De Foe; though his was the closet life of the student, and not the aggressive life of the polemic. Though he knew debt, it never became his master; and from an early period in his career, he determined not to contract a debt that he was not able to discharge. He was not only enabled to do this, but to help his friends ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... should grossly fail in that decorum of which we have already said so much. We should likewise avoid all affected witticisms, which appear not to be thrown out occasionally, but to be dragged from the closet; for such are generally cold and insipid. It is also improper to jest upon our friends, or upon persons of quality, or to give any strokes of wit which may appear ill-natured, or malicious. We should ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... ceases and it is withdrawn. The Bumme Bayllyffe then winketh his right eye, and with great rapidity depositeth a curious-looking coin, of the value of five shillings, in the hand of the domestic, who thereupon pointeth with his dexter thumb over his left shoulder to a small china closet, in which the enemy of John Doe and Richard Roe is found, his Wellington boots sticking out of the hamper, under the straw in which the rest ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... and frequently, on that and many other occasions. I was very disappointed at not being able to have an emission, and on every occasion that offered I endeavored to excite myself to the extent of compassing this. I used to ask to go out of school two or three times a day, and retired to the closet, where I practised on myself most diligently, but to no purpose, at that time, though I began to have ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... large company, including Wiseacre, who spent a good deal of time there, the explorers withdrew, and finding the key in the door, entered quietly the adjoining room, which they took care to fasten on the inside. The only suspicious object here was a large closet. This was locked; but as the intention had been to make a pretty thorough search, a short, strong, steel crow-bar was soon produced from beneath a cloak, and the door in due time made to yield. Wonderful discovery! There ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... old hunter-naturalist, who very wisely reasoned that among so many gentlemen of large hunting experience he might collect new facts for his favourite science—for to just such men, and not to the closet-dreamer, is natural history indebted for its most interesting chapters. Of course every one of us, guides and all, warmly applauded the proposal, for there was no one among us averse to receiving a little knowledge of so entertaining a character. No doubt to ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... sighted," said the captain, "the signal-officer up stairs telegraphs to the other near stations, whose keepers at once send their lifeboats, cars and surfmen here. The ship is signaled—by flags in daytime, by rockets at night." He opened a closet in which were arranged the cases of lights, with books of instruction for their use. "The keepers ought to understand these as well as all other apparatus in the station, and under the new management they usually do. The keeper here is an old wracker, and has 'good judgment of the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... than to con the curious old books and the manuscripts that it contains. One incident amused me greatly. The employe, having shown me the busts adorning the walls of the principal rooms, took me into a side closet, where, ignominiously put out of sight, were the busts of Charles ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... began Mentezufis, "as to the difference between burning the dead and embalming them. We find the same difference that there is between destroying a garment and preserving it in a closet. When the garment is preserved it may be of use frequently; and if a man has only one garment it would be madness to ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... in standing idly thinking about it though, especially as nothing of interest was occurring in the street just then; so Annie turned away and began to wonder what she should do to amuse herself. In the "best china closet" was a delicious cake. She had discovered that the key of the inner cupboard, where it was locked up, was kept in the blue vase on the dining-room mantel. She had been several times "just to take ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... thinkin', Miss Esther. I'm thinkin' one might forget what one started to look for, before one found it. But there! the Bible ain't just like a store closet, neither, with all the things ticketed on shelves. I'm thinkin' a body must do ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... to a closed door which tempted him strangely. It was probably the door of a private state-room; it might be the door of a dust closet. He meditated, with his finger upon the knob. "I'll just open it slowly," he thought, "and if I make a mistake I'll say I thought it ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... a rope, which she puts down. She takes off her outdoor things and goes into closet). You might at least have ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... seat, and bouncing into a closet, soon returned with a large portfolio, which she placed on the table before Flora. "There are my treasures; you can examine them ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... the clothes in the tubs, because "her bread was never faulted before, an' faith, she wudn't pit up biscuits of a Sunday night no more for annybody!" The next one disposed of all the dish towels in four days, behind barrels and in the corners of the kettle closet, and complained insolently of ill furnishing; a third kindled her fire with the clothes-pins; a fourth wore Mrs. Argenter's cambric skirts on Sunday, "for a finish, jist to make 'em worth while for the washin'," and trod out the ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... This is the closet picture, and is found, on trial, to consist mostly of embellishments. The more I saw of my fellow passengers, the less I was tempted to the lyric note. Comparatively few of the men were below thirty; many were married, and encumbered with families; not a few were already up in years; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the greatest Lady in the Land could have better in her Closet, for her own private drinking.—You seem mighty low in Spirits, ...
— The Beggar's Opera • John Gay
... d'Ancre was apprehended, imprisoned, and beheaded for a witch, upon a surmise that she had inchanted the queen to dote upon her husband; and they say the young king's picture was found in her closet, in virgin wax, with one leg melted away. When asked by her judges what spells she had made use of to gain so powerful an ascendancy over the queen, she replied, 'that ascendancy only which strong minds ever gain over weak ones.'" Seward's "Anecdotes of some Distinguished ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... same moment some one rang the bell of the outer door. I arose precipitately, and had only time to open the closet door and motion the creature into it, when Desgenais entered the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... been burrowing in her closet for a stray blue satin slipper to match the gown spread upon her bed, was surprised a few moments later to see Virginia's ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase
... determined were they in their indignation; so loudly demanded they a cessation of such occurrences on board our boats, and the soil of a free State, that the slaveholders became greatly alarmed, and with all possible dispatch they hurriedly dragged the poor bleeding slave into a closet, and securely locked the door; nor have I ever been able to learn his final doom. Whether the kindly messenger of death released him from the clutches of the man-stealer, or whether he recovered to serve his brutal master, I have never ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward |
