"Hearthrug" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the matter, Eustacia?" he said. She was standing on the hearthrug in the bedroom, looking upon the floor, her hands clasped in front of her, her bonnet yet unremoved. For a moment she did not answer; and then she replied in a ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... grey eyes were looking straight at Dickson, who managed to bring his own shy orbs to meet them. He thought that he detected a shade of hesitation. Then Mr. Loudon got up from his chair and stood on the hearthrug looking down at his visitor. He laughed, with some embarrassment, ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... good; and so it would if I could only have kept him awake. Georgina came too; and you should have heard the way she went on about it. She said it was downright immoral, and that she knew the sort of woman that encourages boys to sit on the hearthrug and make love to her. She was just preparing Teddy's mind ...
— How He Lied to Her Husband • George Bernard Shaw
... indefinitely mixed hues which the modern clothier has produced to harmonize with the religions of respectable men. He has not been out of doors yet to-day; so he still wears his slippers, his boots being ready for him on the hearthrug. Surmising that he has no valet, and seeing that he has no secretary with a shorthand notebook and a typewriter, one meditates on how little our great burgess domesticity has been disturbed by new fashions ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... doubtful if Caterham really heard him at all. Round such interpolations Caterham's speech flowed indeed like some swift stream about a rock. There this incredible man stood, on his official hearthrug, talking, talking with enormous power and skill, talking as though a pause in his talk, his explanations, his presentation of standpoints and lights, of considerations and expedients, would permit some antagonistic influence to leap into being—into ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... late in the evening, as he was in the habit of doing, often three or four times in the week. He looked across from his side of the hearthrug, where he had been standing watching the fire, but could not see the face opposite to him. Mrs. Nightingale was sitting with her back to the light sheltering her eyes from the blaze with a fire-screen. So Fenwick saw only the aureole the lamp ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... it. The limitations of its ridiculous life satisfied it completely. It seemed to reproduce in an absurd, diminished way my grandmother in her white lace cap, with her white face and hands. She sat in her chair all day and looked at the fire. The cat sat on the hearthrug and did the same. The cat seemed to me the animal personification of the human being who kept me chained from all the sports and pleasures I had promised myself for the holidays. When I went near to the cat, and heard it calmly purring ...
— The Return Of The Soul - 1896 • Robert S. Hichens
... strange figures on the linoleum, where the hearthrug had kept it clean. They traced them with chalk that Robert had nicked from the top of the mathematical master's desk at school. You know, of course, that it is stealing to take a new stick of chalk, but it is not wrong to take a broken piece, so long as you only take one. (I do ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... were now grouped in a neat geometrical figure, Mr. Rickman, on the chair of his choice, forming the apex of a prolonged triangle, having the hearthrug for its base. He was aware that Miss Harden and Miss Palliser were saying something; but he had no idea of what they said. He sat there wondering whether he ought to be seated at all, whether he ought not rather to be hovering about that little table, ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... an early stage in the process of each act, to have the details of its scene clearly before him? Ought he to draw out a scene-plot, and know, from moment to moment, just where each character is, whether He is standing on the hearthrug and She sitting on the settee, or vice versa? There is no doubt that furniture, properties, accidents of environment, play a much larger part in modern drama than they did on the Elizabethan, the eighteenth century, or even the early-Victorian stage. Some ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... that his Private History really began. It started one evening when mother was reading the children the story of the White Cat in front of the nursery fire before they went to bed. Thomas, who had been more than usually frisky all day, was taking a little repose on the hearthrug, and as the story was about a cat, had condescended ...
— More Tales in the Land of Nursery Rhyme • Ada M. Marzials
... something new," said 'Toinette. "See how he looks at it." Whereupon, of course, there was a chorus of delighted acquiescence, and Aunt Dolly must needs go down upon the hearthrug, too. ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... easy attitude upon the hearthrug, and pointed with a smile to the chair which his last visitor had occupied. But he did not offer his hand to Mr. Brown, nor did Mr. Brown ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... window-blind kept up an imaginary warmth in the cold room, and threw quite a glow on the floor. Twelve cockle-shells and a half- penny china figure were ranged solemnly along the mantel-shelf. Even the spittoon was an original note, and instead of sawdust contained sea-shells. And as for the hearthrug, it would merit an article to itself, and a coloured diagram to help the text. It was patchwork, but the patchwork of the poor; no glowing shreds of old brocade and Chinese silk, shaken together in the kaleidoscope of some tasteful ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... would it profit me? How far could I trust it not to lead me through another series of fantastic emotions and futile endeavours to the sublime climax of murdering a one-eyed cat? Self-abomination and contempt smote me as I thought of poor Polyphemus stretched dead on the hearthrug, and myself standing over him, sane, stupid, and remorseful, with the poker ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... were spent. There those who had only known him in his professional capacity were surprised to find him displaying the tenderness and jocosity of a parent. The dignified and stern headmaster was actually seen to dandle infants and to caracole upon the hearthrug on all fours. Yet, we are told, 'the sense of his authority as a father was never lost in his playfulness as a companion'. On more serious occasions, the voice of the spiritual teacher sometimes made itself heard. An intimate friend described how 'on a comparison having been ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... a calm, even tone, without once removing his eyes from the man who stood upon the hearthrug with bent ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... poor fish, my uncle, of course. What do you think my uncle's going to say to all this? If I sprang it on him cold, he'd tie himself in knots on the hearthrug." ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse
... growing sense of uneasiness I pushed my chair back. It caught the hearthrug, and in my efforts to disentangle it the screen fell over with a crash and in the flickering light of the fire I saw the face of the creature opposite. With a sharp catch of my breath I left my chair and stood ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... nice to lie on the hearthrug before the fire, leaning his head upon his hands, and think on those sentences. He shivered as if he had cold slimy water next his skin. That was mean of Wells to shoulder him into the square ditch because he would not swop his little snuff box for Wells's seasoned hacking chestnut, the conqueror ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... are wandering away from the talk by the fire—grandmother and aunty in their low chairs working—the three children lying in various attitudes on the hearthrug, for hearthrug there was, seldom as such superfluities are to be seen at Chalet. Grandmother was too "English" to have been satisfied with her pretty drawing-room without one—a nice fluffy, flossy one, which the children were so fond of burrowing in that grandmother declared ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... there was an ingenious double lock which turned the wrong way when you thought you were turning it the right, and could otherwise baffle the unskilful. Occupied with this task he could peep over his shoulder, through the unlighted front drawing-room, and see his adored one standing on the hearthrug, his hands clasped behind him, and his head bent, ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... the young people were left alone. First the Dean went to his study. Then Mrs. Conover departed to write letters. Marmaduke advancing across the room from the door which he had opened, met Peggy's mocking eyes as she stood on the hearthrug with her hands behind her back. Doggie felt very uncomfortable. Never had he said a word to her in betrayal of his feelings. He had a vague idea that propriety required a young man to get through some wooing before asking ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... Downing Street and was shown straight into a large, rather bare room. By the fireplace sat Jason, and beside him, on the hearthrug, stood the Premier. Jason introduced me and I ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... to understand Lousteau's indifference to the state of his garret. Etienne was the real king of these festivals; Etienne enjoyed the use of all these fine things. He was standing just now on the hearthrug with his back to the fire, as if he were the master of the house, chatting with the manager, who was congratulating ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... he finished saying it, he saw before him, standing on the study hearthrug, a Real Robber. There was no mistake about it. Oswald was sure it was a robber, because it had a screwdriver in its hands, and was standing near the cupboard door that H. O. broke the lock off; ...
— The Story of the Treasure Seekers • E. Nesbit
... with another kiss; but, nevertheless, I think the feeling that it was a strange world she had come to, was rather prominent in Dolly. She suddenly stooped to a great Maltese cat that was lying on the hearthrug, and I am afraid the eyes were glad of an excuse to get out of sight. She touched the cat's ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... in a black and white check suit with white gaiters stood on the hearthrug, his hands tucked behind his back. He had a curiously young-old appearance, such as is found in professors and scientists of a certain type. This suggestion was probably heightened by the very strong spectacles he wore, which magnified his eyes until they looked like ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... open the innermost doors, is the name I give to the unruly half of myself: the writing half. We are complement and supplement. I am the half that is dour and practical and canny, he is the fanciful half; my desire is to be the family solicitor, standing firm on my hearthrug among the harsh realities of the office furniture; while he prefers to fly around on one wing. I should not mind him doing that, but he drags me with him. I have sworn that M'Connachie shall not interfere with this address ...
— Courage • J. M. Barrie
... himself, stooped to pick up the reels and skeins of silk. One, a skein of pink silk with which she had been working, he held in his hand a moment, and, suddenly, put in his pocket. After which he drifted absently to the hearthrug, and stood waiting for her, hat in hand. He was thinking of that moment in the wintry dawn when he had read her letter. The shock of emotion returned upon him. But what was he to do? What was really in her mind?—or, for the matter ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... quite assured me that all was well. There sat my jolly old dad and my dear mother, cosily taking their tea, quite unsuspecting who would shortly join them in a cup. They looked very happy; so did a couple of dogs gambolling on the hearthrug, while our old cat sat on a rush hassock close by, looking dreamily at them through her half-closed eyes, when they threatened to knock her off her ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... ascertain whose entrance they thus greeted. A long stride measured the schoolroom, and presently beside Miss Temple, who herself had risen, stood the same black column which had frowned on me so ominously from the hearthrug of Gateshead. I now glanced sideways at this piece of architecture. Yes, I was right: it was Mr. Brocklehurst, buttoned up in a surtout, and looking longer, narrower, and ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... the portfolio of du Maurier the epic of the drawing-room. Many of the Victorians, including the Queen, and Alfred Lord Tennyson, seem to have viewed life from the drawing-room window. They gazed straight across the room from the English hearthrug as from undoubtedly the greatest place on earth. They were probably right. But some of this confidence has gone. Actually in these days there are people who won't own up to having a drawing-room at all. If they ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... Proudie sitting on the old bishop's chair, looking very nice in his new apron; they found, too, Mr Slope standing on the hearthrug, persuasive and eager, just as the archdeacon used to stand; but on the sofa they also found Mrs Proudie, an innovation for which a precedent might be in vain be sought in all the annals of ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... the great moment. Reist, too restless to sit down, stood upon the hearthrug, the angry fire lingering in his eyes, a spot of dull colour burning still in his cheeks. He had not yet got over the shock of finding one of the men he most hated and despised in life a guest in this house of ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... On hearthrug in the winter-time We lay and read it over; We read it in the summer's prime, Amidst the hay and clover. The trees, by evening breezes fann'd, Murmured sweet tales ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... helped himself to a cup of coffee, and then to a glass of Curacoa, and then looked industriously at a Spanish quarto of Don Quixote, and lastly walked over to me on the hearthrug. ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... turned in the latch. Invisible people went up the stairs in silence. But he knew that Christine was among them. He knew because of the sense of sweet security and rest that came over him. He tumbled on to the hearthrug ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... was standing on the hearthrug, her elbow on the mantel, her hand to her temples, her eyes on the ground; perfectly calm, but ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... was his slow reply, his dark eyes gazing full into mine as he still stood astride upon the hearthrug. ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux
... child whom he loved. Conyngham's attitude towards Fate was in strong contrast. He held his head up and faced the world without encumbrance, without a settled ambition, without any sense of responsibility at all. The sharp-eyed dog on the hearthrug looked from one to the other. A moment before, the atmosphere of the room had been one of ease and comfortable assurance—an atmosphere that some men, without any warrant or the justification of personal success or distinction, seem ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... lay half burned upon the hearthrug; he picked it up, and unfolded it, in order to get a better pipe-light by folding it the other way of the paper. As he did so, absently glancing at the penciled writing upon the fragment of thin paper, a portion of a name caught his eye—a ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... his legs astraddle on the hearthrug, with something appallingly viceregal in his air, when Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Cargill were announced. The Home Secretary was a joy to behold. He had the face of an elderly and pious bookmaker, and a voice in which lurked the indescribable Scotch quality of "unction." When he was talking you ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... replied William, 'and if I were rich I would buy its coat, and make a present of it to mother for a hearthrug.' ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... at Uncle Denny and strode out into the night. Uncle Denny, left alone in the living room, stood long on the hearthrug, talking to himself and now and again shaking his ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... was tenanted by one figure only—that of a young lady in evening dress. Neither Lady Caroline nor Mr. Adair had appeared upon the scene; but on the hearthrug, by the small crackling fire—which, in deference to the chilliness of an English June evening, had been lighted—stood a tall, fair, slender girl, with pale complexion, and soft, loosely-coiled masses of golden hair. She was dressed in pure white, ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... revealing the bareness and absence of all ornament of the apartment; a fire was laid in the grate but not lit, and Priscilla's ugly square trunk, its canvas covering removed, stood in a prominent position, half on the hearthrug, half on the square of carpet which covered the center of the floor. Priscilla had taken off her jacket and hat. She had washed her hands, and removed her muddy boots, and smoothed out her straight, light ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... the door of his own apartment. A bright fire was burning in the grate, the room was warm and comfortable. She threw herself with a little cry of delight into the huge Chesterfield drawn up to the edge of the hearthrug. ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... When I came into the parlour I found Colonel H—— stretched on the sofa, almost expiring with heat, my cousin standing panting before the window in his shirtsleeves, and his little boy lying moaning on the hearthrug, with his shoes off, and his complexion like that of a Red Indian. One of our party had been promenading the broiling streets of Halifax without his coat! A gentleman from one of the Channel Islands, of unsophisticated manners and excellent disposition, ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... writing in The Irrational Review, states that he has it on the best authority that when the GERMAN EMPEROR read the Criccieth New Year's interview with Mr. LLOYD GEORGE he exclaimed, "This beats the Tango," and fell heavily on the hearthrug. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... down and placed his head on the hearthrug, his hands on either side in front, and threw his heels in the air, to the great endangerment ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... was resenting contact with Jim's dog on the hearthrug. There was a hustle among the four, ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... expected from this man whose manner always seemed to hint that at least half of creation was at his sole disposal. They expressed a consideration on his part that she had been far from anticipating. He waited for an interval of several seconds for her to speak. He was standing up on the hearthrug, his ill-proportioned figure thrown into strong relief by the firelight behind him. At last, as she quite failed to answer him, he drew ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... never now effusive to any one, he made it clear at once that he accepted Betty as one of his own little circle of human folk, to be loved and trusted, and never suspected. In the evening the great hound lay extended on the hearthrug of the square, oak-paneled hall at Nuthill. (He occupied a good six feet of rug.) Betty stepped across his shoulders once, to reach matches from the mantel; and Finn never blinked or moved a hair, save that the tip of his long tail just ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... it alight again, even with the whole Daily Chronicle. Matilda, who was our general then, was out, as well as the fire, so we went and sat in the kitchen. There is always a good fire in kitchens. The kitchen hearthrug was not nice to sit on, so ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit
... like the Bishop, and after we had played for a bit, and The Seraph had demonstrated, on the hearthrug, how he could turn a somersault, some ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... the readiness of the duke to receive her to Pollyooly. She followed him eagerly and came into the smoking-room with a brave air, though she was not feeling as brave as she looked. The duke stood on the hearthrug and glowered ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... fortune to accompany a truffle-dog of first-class capacities on his rounds. Certainly there was not much outside show about him, this artist that I so desired to see at work; a dog of doubtful breed, placid and meditative; uncouth, ungroomed, and quite inadmissible to the intimacies of the hearthrug. Talent and poverty are ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... he was honestly performing that which he thought to be his duty towards her. Presently Mrs. Glynde came back, and shortly afterwards Dora left the room. The Rector was not reading the book he held open on his knee, but gazed instead absently at the pattern of the hearthrug. ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... himself might now resort to any manner he liked. His eyes had raked the floor to recover the position of something dropped or misplaced, and something, above all, awkward or compromising; and he had wanted his companion not to command this scene from the hearth-rug, the hearthrug where he had been just before holding him, hypnotising him to blindness, because the object in question would there be most exposed to sight Mark embraced this with a further drop—while the apprehension ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... his entering our door he had got himself upon terms with all of us, and with so easy and graceful a manner that it seemed as if he had known us all for years. I had a good look at him now as he stood upon the hearthrug with my mother upon one side and my father on the other. He was a very large man, with noble shoulders, small waist, broad hips, well-turned legs, and the smallest of hands and feet. His face was pale and ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Minister threw himself into an easy chair. Julian, with a little sigh of relief, selected a high-backed oak chair and rested his foot upon a hassock. Hannaway Wells remained standing upon the hearthrug. ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... subject on earth took the form of the most practical gratitude a man can show. But it is not before marriage only that woman finds her ignorance act as a charm. Husbands find pleasure in talking politics to their wives simply because, as they stand on the hearthrug, they are displaying their own mental superiority. An Englishman likes to be master of his own house, but he dearly loves ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... palatial, and it was at once the symbol and the scene of his new life. A stranger entering would have beheld a fair-sized room, a narrow bed, two chairs, an old-fashioned table, a new wardrobe, an old dressing-table, a curious carpet and hearthrug, low bookshelves on either side of the fireplace, and a few prints and drawings, not all of them framed, on the distempered walls. A stranger might have said in its praise that it was light and airy. But a stranger could ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... on her skirts, and he can see the graceful outline of her knees under them, and one small foot upon the hearthrug; the rest of the form is veiled in the shadow, except one rounded line of a shoulder and the glint of light ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... friends as nothing more tangible than a padding of soft paws on the stairs, a movement under the dining-table, where he had been accustomed to lie in life, a sound of a dog lying down with a sigh, or getting up from the hearthrug ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... Several other calls were also more than due, but it was useless even to consider those to-day. In spite of an oppressive sense of having much to do—perhaps because of it—Hadria felt as if it were a sheer impossibility to rise from that hearthrug. Besides, Martha would not hear of it. A desire to rest, to idle, to float down the stream, instead of trying always to swim against it, became overpowering. The minutes ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... to the other door, and would not have me shut it. So I stood between her and the hearth, on which lay the captain's corpse, with the hearthrug turned up on either side ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... and nearly fainted," she answered, with a shamefaced little laugh. "It was rather a bad cut, you know, but I didn't notice it until I found my hand covered with blood. Then I turned suddenly faint, and had to lie down on the hearthrug—it was in Mr. Hornby's study, which I was tidying up at the time. Here I was found by Reuben, and a dreadful fright it gave him at first; and then he tore up his handkerchief to tie up the wounded finger, and you never saw such an awful mess as he got his hands in. ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... story, but I think you'd better be a child and sit on the hearthrug, too. There's ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... recovering his wits. He had got out of his chair by that time, and had taken up a position on the hearthrug, his back to the fire, his hands in his pockets, his eyes on his visitor. He was thinking—and for the moment ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... An appalling disaster. His drawing-room hearthrug caught fire six years ago and was utterly ruined. He got eleven dollars out of the insurance company for that, and was ecstatically delighted about it for three weeks. Nothing worse ever will happen to Omega. His business is one of the safest in the country. ...
— The Plain Man and His Wife • Arnold Bennett
... to Eloquent crowds of people in the hall, mostly gathered about a round table near the fire. He discerned Mrs Ffolliot in the very act of "dispensing tea" and General Grantly standing on the hearthrug warming his coat tails. Mary, too, he saw give a cup of tea into her grandfather's hands, and he was conscious of the presence of Mrs Grantly seated on an oaken settle at the other side of the fire from Mrs Ffolliot. These four were ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... was sitting in his slippers, with a cup of tea in his hand, and Ethel, kneeling on the hearthrug with the firelight on her face, was telling him of an answer that had come that afternoon to ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... framed another picture—this time a girl of twenty, white-clad and wearing a powder-blue felt hat, caught up on one side by a silver buckle which twinkled in the hot morning sun. The curate started to his feet. Excalibur, who was now lying on the hearthrug dismembering the chicken, thumped his tail guiltily on the floor, but made no attempt ...
— Scally - The Story of a Perfect Gentleman • Ian Hay
... continued to stand staring at her, and, as he had anticipated, he saw only Mary Zattiany. As far as he was concerned Mary Ogden had never existed. But he still felt no immediate desire to touch her. He came over and stood opposite her on the hearthrug, his ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... spent a vivid afternoon got up as Father Christmas in a red dressing-gown and cotton-wool whiskers, which caught fire and singed his home-grown articles, small boys at the same time pinching his legs to see if he was real, while I put in some sultry hours under a hearthrug playing the benevolent polar-bear to a crowd of small girls who ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 28th, 1920 • Various
... at the doctor through the keyhole, and a run to the door, to make sure of there being no interruption there, and then the boy's face assumed a very serious expression. He took the cloth from the little table in the corner, rolled up the hearthrug longwise, and tied it in two places with string, and then treating it as a patient, he laid it on the settee, and drew ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... down before it, in the most comfortable chair he could find. That he might the better squeeze himself into the small corner that was left for him, Mr Pinch took up his position on Miss Mercy Pecksniff's stool, and setting his glass down upon the hearthrug and putting his plate upon his ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... though he was in pitchy darkness, for he was as much at home in a chimney as a mole is underground; but at last, coming down as he thought the right chimney, he came down the wrong one, and found himself standing on the hearthrug in a room the like of which ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... you know, it's not the same for a girl. A man may do things a woman maynt. [He stands on the hearthrug with his back to ...
— Fanny's First Play • George Bernard Shaw
... received the first impression of cosy warmth and comfort, which never faded from him in after-life. The room was small compared with his grandmother's rooms, but, oh! so different. There was a tiny fire blazing in the grate, a little black-and-white terrier lay basking on the hearthrug, a lamp in a corner of the room, covered by a rose-coloured shade, shed its light on a pretty pink and white chintz couch underneath it, and upon this couch, leaning back amongst pink cushions, was Bobby's stepmother. True was already sitting upon a footstool, and her head was in her lap, her ...
— 'Me and Nobbles' • Amy Le Feuvre
... wearily; the cat moved an ear; the nurse entered as a signal that the visitors must depart. 'You'll come again, won't you?' Christabel asked, holding Henrietta's hand and, as Rose said a few words to the nurse, she whispered, 'Come alone'; and surprisingly, from the hearthrug, there was a loud ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... leave open the door between the two rooms. Thus alone, I kept two candles burning on the table by my bed-head. I placed my watch beside the weapons, and calmly resumed my Macaulay. Opposite to me the fire burned clear; and on the hearthrug, seemingly asleep, lay the dog. In about twenty minutes I felt an exceedingly cold air pass by my cheek, like a sudden draught. I fancied the door to my right, communicating with the landing-place, must have got open; but no—it was closed. ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... hand. I knelt on the hearthrug until the merry blaze and crackle of the wood assured ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... age in the workhouse to dread? I have seen a little Yorkshire terrier go the round of the dinner-table, sit up and beg piteously, pretending that 'the smallest trifle is most thankfully received,' look carefully round, and, thinking that no one saw him, bury those trifles under the hearthrug, and return for more. The habit is not so common in cats, but I have known more than one puss do the same thing. One little tabby, found in the snow on my doorstep, would play with a piece of meat as if it were a mouse, make believe to kill it, and then hide it away under ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... the hearthrug, grasping the poker firmly in one hand. Now and again she gave the fire a truculent prod with it as though ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... hearthrug. "David Rossi," he said compassionately, "is a creature of his age. A man of generous impulses and wide sympathies, moved to indignation at the extremes of poverty and wealth, and carried away by the promptings of the eternal religion in the human soul. A dreamer, of course, a dreamer like the ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... pace the hearthrug and gesticulate, while Mr. Fotheringay sat with his arm on the table and his head on his arm, looking worried. "I don't see how I'm to manage about ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... and again I went into one of the master's studies and felt a carpet under my feet, and saw a pleasant litter of pipes and novels lying on the table, it seemed to me that I was in a holy place, and I looked at the hearthrug, the wallpaper, and the upholstered chairs with a kind of desolate love for things that were nice to see and touch. I suppose that if we had been in a workhouse, a prison, or a lunatic asylum, our aeesthetic environment would have ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... makes obeisance to the beauty of the sentiment, and then proceeds to an examination of the hearthrug. ...
— Alice Sit-By-The-Fire • J. M. Barrie
... could not bear, or because we had exhausted the penny library, but on a day I conceived a glorious idea, or it was put into my head by my mother, then desirous of making progress with her new clouty hearthrug. The notion was nothing short of this, why should I not write the tales myself? I did write them - in the garret - but they by no means helped her to get on with her work, for when I finished a chapter I bounded downstairs to read it to her, and so short were the chapters, ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... finding, when we have it, that it is not what we wanted. That is the law of life, dear. Do you think as you lie upon the floor with your head upon your arms, that you are the only woman whose tears are soaking into the hearthrug at that moment? My dear Princess, if you could creep unseen about your City, peeping at will through the curtain-shielded windows, you would come to think that all the world was little else than a big nursery full of crying children with ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... a walk after that, and coming back with a bored air stood on the hearthrug in the living-room and ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... came with one of his windmill rushes. But I was on the look-out for him this time. I landed him with my left a regular nose-ender as he came, and then, ducking under his left, I got him a cross-counter on the jaw that laid him flat across his own hearthrug. He was up in an instant, with a face ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... was that in due time Henri again traversed miles of path and pavement, between tall borders of wild sea grass, miles which perhaps were a hundred yards. And went round the screen, and—found the King on the hearthrug. But when he drew himself stiffly to attention he overdid the thing rather and went over backward ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... sat down. The paper lay on the hearthrug, and I stared at it hatefully. It was unspeakably loathsome, yet I was fascinated by it. I longed to take it up, to read it again. Somehow I did not dare. I was ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... herself, and when her eyes met his own they struck him as anxious and appealing. She was evidently not thinking of his song, though she said three or four times over that it was beautiful. "Well, I only wanted you to know, and now I must go," she added; but on his hearthrug she lingered with such an odd helplessness that he felt almost ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... Wetherell led the way in and sat down. I went across to the hearthrug and stood before him. "Now," I said, "we must think this out from the very beginning, and to do that properly we must consider every detail. Have you any objection ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... Sheila with less dignity, perhaps, than she had been surprised into since she had left a slimmer girlhood behind. She swept into the gaze of the two gentlemen standing together on the hearthrug; and so was caught, as it were, between a rain of conflicting glances, for her husband had followed instantly, and stood now behind her, stooping a little, and with something between contempt and defiance confronting an old fat friend, whom that one brief ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... and drooping, looked the little white maiden as she stood on the hearthrug, with the hot blast of the stove striking through her like a pestilence. Once she threw a glance toward the window, and caught a glimpse, through its red curtains, of the snow-covered roofs and the stars glimmering frostily and all the ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... He was, I believe, a little shy, and easily put out when he suspected anybody, particularly the young men, of want of consideration. I can quite believe that when an undergraduate, in addressing him, stepped on the hearthrug on which he was standing, he may have said: "Get down from my hearthrug," meaning, "keep at your proper distance." I can only say that I never found him anything but kind and courteous. It so happened that he had been made a Member of the Bavarian Academy, and I, though very young, had received ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... was sitting on the hearthrug playing with her two kittens, and you would have thought she was as happy as a queen, and quite contented to stay where she was instead of wanting to run about the world meddling with other people's property. But it happened that she was rather a mischievous little maid, and could not resist ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... nudged Norah's elbow, so that the needle which she was threading went deep into her fingers, and chucked Lettice under the chin, so that she bit her tongue with a violence which was really painful. This done, he plunged both hands into his pockets and danced a hornpipe on the hearthrug, while the girls abused him at ...
— Sisters Three • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... so you took her into the dining-room, and there, curled upon the hearthrug, fast asleep, was the little dog she fancied she ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... another taxi, driven by a shaggy grey hearthrug. I told him my difficulties, and he at once offered to drive me anywhere and made no bones about the distance whatever. So it was arranged that he should come for me on the morrow—say Tuesday, at a quarter to eleven, and we would then get through the preliminaries and my lunch comfortably by noon ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 16, 1914 • Various
... Chippendale chairs, and a little Chippendale sideboard with drawers, and a bookcase with glass doors above and a cupboard below, in which Aunt Victoria used to keep her stores of tea, coffee, sugar, and currants in mustard-tins. Beth heard with surprise that the hearthrug was one which Aunt Victoria had worked herself as a present for Prentice when she married. Prentice was now Mrs. Pearce, but Aunt Victoria always called her Prentice. The hearthrug was like a Turkey carpet, only softer, deeper, and richer. Aunt Victoria had sat on Chippendale chairs ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... don't know." He secured a chair and sat down facing her. "He insists that I'm officially free to kick over the traces, that he's not the kind of father who 'thunders vetos from the family hearthrug!'" ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... and, picking a used match from the hearthrug, threw it carefully under the grate. Miss Drewitt watched ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... knives and forks was over, the doctor turned himself to the hearthrug, and putting one leg over the other, he began to nurse it as he looked with complacency at his third cup of tea, which stood untasted beside him. The fragments of the solid banquet had been removed, but no sacrilegious hand had been ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... study by now, and he sat down heavily in his old leather arm-chair. Magdalen was standing on the hearthrug near him with the letter in her hand. She held it over the fire, he nodded, and ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... these parts," he said, still standing on the hearthrug with his back to the fire, coatless, looking with curious directness at the woman. Her self-possession pleased him and inspired him, set him curiously free. It seemed to him almost brutal to feel so master of himself and ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... the immortal Toby, M.P. for Barkshire, of Mr. Punch, to whom ever my best regards. Jack considered himself entitled to precedence wherever he went, and maintained it. He was a famous judge of upholstery, and the softest chair or sofa, hearthrug or divan, was instantly appropriated. This sometimes made the local dignitaries sit up a little. They might be accustomed to the dignity of one of her Majesty's Judges, but the impudence of her Majesty's "Jack"—for so he ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... He crawled stealthily on his hands and knees. A hearthrug thrown over his head and ...
— Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... in the morning I found my friend standing on the hearthrug with his back to the fire and a smile of complete satisfaction upon ...
— The Adventure of the Red Circle • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the hearthrug, beautifully dressed—too beautifully dressed, it is possible, to sit down. Her maid had a moment earlier confessed that she could do no more, and Etta had come down stairs a vision of luxury, of womanly loveliness. Nevertheless, ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... you think of your dog?" Stella asked, as soon as the lamp was lit. "See how he has made himself at home already, lying on his side on the hearthrug as though he was a big dog, and not a ridiculous tumbling-over puppy." Mrs. Wade knelt down obediently to receive the puppy's large paw, with more than a suspicion of white about the toes, which Stella laid in her hand. As the two heads met together it occurred to Lady O'Gara ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... the thick Turkey hearthrug with his cigar between his lips, watched me closely. Apparently he was considerably perturbed at my sudden illness, for he expressed regret, hoping that the brandy would ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... good of you, my dear Lady Clonbrony, in defiance of bulls and blunders, to allow us a comfortable English fireplace and plenty of Newcastle coal, in China!—And a white marble—no! white velvet hearthrug, painted with beautiful flowers—oh, the delicate, the ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... room," I remark, and look about a little disconcerted because there is no fireplace for me to put my back against, or hearthrug to stand upon. He pushes me a chair, into which I plump, and we hang over an immensity of ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... slowly, pondering every sentence and every word, and when he had finished it his hand dropped upon his knee; and when the letter fell upon the hearthrug he did not stoop to pick it up, but sat looking into the fire, convinced that everything was over and done. There was nothing to look forward to; his life would drag on from day to day, from week to week, month to month, year to year, till ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... approached and offered his paw, which Alice took cautiously, Frank's report of his doings being by no means encouraging. Turk, satisfied now that there was no occasion for his interference, threw himself down at full length upon the hearthrug, and Alice turned ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... seemingly empty shawl is not so marvellous if the conjurer has a well-draped table near him from behind which he can get such things, or even good wide sleeves to hide them in. But my poor conjurer was almost naked, and the bit of carpet, about the size of this hearthrug, which he carried with him, did not seem capable of holding glass bowls of water, most certainly. Besides which he shook it, and spread it on the ground close by me, after which he threw himself down and rolled on it. And yet from underneath this he drew out a glass bowl of water with gold-fish ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... a sleep. She was in a large library, the room was surrounded by book-shelves, the backs of the books glistened in the ruddy firelight. All around spoke of luxury and comfort. She was sitting on the hearthrug, her head against the knee of—whom? A gentleman was stroking her hair, and she heard him say, 'It is the sweetest name on earth to me, my darling.' What name? She was sure he pronounced it, but no sound seemed to come from his lips. ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... an address of the early struggles of an eminent portrait painter, and the statement appeared in print that, working at the easel from eight o'clock in the morning till eight o'clock at night, the artist "only lay down on the hearthrug for rest and refreshment between the visits of his sisters.'' This is not so bad, however, as the report that "a bride was accompanied to the altar by tight bridesmaids.'' A very odd blunder occurred in the World of Oct. 6th, 1886, one which was so odd ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... bed; but she said nothing more about going: and Friskarina took care at breakfast to show her every possible good-natured attention; she gave her by much the largest share of the cream, took the draughty side of the hearthrug herself, and, in short, did everything she could to show that she was anxious to be kind and civil to her; but all her little politenesses seemed nearly ...
— Tales From Catland, for Little Kittens • Tabitha Grimalkin
... to greet Miss Barker, standing on the hearthrug, this time in magenta velveteen, but presumably still tired of the Bible, conversing with Rachel's former lover, whose eyes were on the floor and whose hand gripped the mantel-piece. He had seen ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley |
