"Pew" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... puzzled over the problem how to increase it to fifty. She puzzled over it all the rest of that day until she went to sleep at nine o'clock. The next day was Sunday; she puzzled over it as she sat in the pew in church, but she could not ...
— Young Lucretia and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... vaguest, but by the aid of "Whitaker's Almanack" she was enabled to declare that the marriage had taken place by license at a church in the district where Trimblett was staying. As a help to identification she added that the church was built of stone, and that the pew-opener had a cough. Tiresome questions concerning the marriage certificate were disposed of by leaving it in the captain's pocket-book. And again she declared that she was ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... nothing for the world was pretty evident to the minister the following Sunday—from the lofty watchtower of the pulpit where he sat throned, while the first psalm was being sung. His own pew was near one of the side doors, and at that door some who were late kept coming in. Amongst them were a stranger or two, who were at once shown to seats. Before the psalm ended, an old man came in and stood by the door—a poor man in mean garments, ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... reaching Hartford the next day, where we joined the other companies, and all started for New London. The first night we slept in a barn in East Hartford, and the second one in an old church in Marlboro. I remember lying on the seat of a pew, with my knapsack under my head. We arrived at New London on Saturday, marching the whole distance in the first week in August, and a hotter time I have never experienced since. We were dressed in heavy woolen clothes, carrying heavy guns ...
— History of the American Clock Business for the Past Sixty Years, - and Life of Chauncey Jerome • Chauncey Jerome
... advance. He neither takes nor gives credit. But the sky pilot does take credit and he gives none. He is always paid beforehand. Every year he expects a good retaining fee in the shape of a stipend or a benefice, or a good percentage of the pew rents and collections. But when his services are really wanted he leaves you in the lurch. You do not need a pilot to Heaven until you come to die. Then your voyage begins in real earnest. But the sky-pilot does not go with ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... is the sphere and the opportunity for the enterprising middleman. He appeals to a tuft-hunting instinct so deep in human nature that the mere surface difference of republic or monarchy hardly touches it. In a London church you will see a pew full of ladies' maids, and presently there is a great crowding and squeezing, and a low whisper of "make room for Lady Philippa." It is only another lady's maid joining her friends; but they all get titles by reflection. Turn from this scene to the ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... of mine I'll always remember as a day of smells, the smell of the pew-cushions in the empty church, the smell of the lilies-of-the-valley, that dear, sweet, scatter-brained Fanny-Rain-In-The-Face (she rushed to town an hour after getting my wire) insisted on carrying, the smell of the leather in the ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... reached the churchyard Lord Reggie and Tommy went round to the vestry, and the rest of the party made their way to a front pew, amid the suppressed excitement of the rest of the congregation. Mr. Amarinth especially created a sensation; but he always expected to do that. Ever since he had made a name for himself by declaring that he was pleased with the Equator, and desired its further ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... its intimate connexion with the former. I look at the stars, and my thoughts are of women—I look at the earth, and my thoughts run upon heaven—I frequent the opera, and moralize upon the world and its vanities—I sit in my pew at church, and my thoughts ramble every where in spite of my endeavours and those of the parson to boot—I live in town all the year, because it's the fashion to be here in the season, and because I prefer London most when I can walk about where there is nobody to interrupt ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 552, June 16, 1832 • Various
... had seen her more than once, and at last she had been persuaded to go to church with her sister. On the previous Sunday she had crept through the village at Fanny's side, and had taken a place provided for her in the dark corner of a dark pew under the protection of a thick veil. Fanny walked with her boldly across the village street, as though she were not in any slightest degree ashamed of her companion, and sat by her side, and then conveyed her home. On the next Sunday the sacrament would be given, and this was done ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... the monthly lecture, the church crammed, passages and pulpit stairs. Exact to a minute, James Chalmers—the old soldier and beadle, slim, meek, but incorruptible by proffered half crowns from ladies who thus tried to get in before the doors opened—appears, and all the people in that long pew rise up, and he, followed by his minister, erect and engrossed, walks in along the seat, and they struggle up to the pulpit. We all know what he is to speak of; he looks troubled even to distress;—it is the matter of Uriah the Hittite. He gives out the opening verses of the 51st ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... day after Harry's arrival at Castlewood was a Sunday. The chapel appertaining to the castle was the village church. A door from the house communicated with a great state pew which the family occupied, and here after due time they all took their places in order, whilst a rather numerous congregation from the village filled the seats below. A few ancient dusty banners hung from the ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... hearing the Dean preach in the Abbey, he sent me a very kind invitation to come on the next Sabbath to the Deanery before the service, and on account of my deafness Lady Augusta would take me into a seat close to his pulpit. Accordingly she stowed me in a small box-pew, which was close against the pulpit, and within arms' length of the Dean. His sermon was a beautiful essay on Solomon and great men, and in the course of it he said: "Such was the greatness of our Lord Jesus Christ." I felt so pained by what he ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... of something amiss came about midway in the hymn before the sermon, with old Squire Martin's setting down his book and dropping into his seat very sudden. Few noticed it, the pew being a tall one; but the musicianers overlooking it from the gallery saw him crossing his hands over his waistcoat, which caused one or two to play their notes false; and Nance Julian in the pew behind heard him groan: "I can't sit it out! Not for ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... vibrations touched his supersensitive nerves annoyingly. After a while he grew more accustomed to it, but he did not like it, and he said so loudly enough to bring him a stern glance from his father and smiles from some of the people in the pew ahead. During the brief ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... young mistress all the trouble he could; he accompanied her in her goings and comings. And of late he had taken to attending her to a certain neighbouring church, whereto Peggie, like a well-regulated young lady, was constant in her Sunday visits. There in the Herapath family pew, he and Peggie sat together on this particular Sunday morning, neither with any thought that the Herapath mystery had penetrated to their sacred surroundings. Selwood had been glad to take Cox-Raythwaite's advice and to put the ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... his clerks. He established a free reading-room in Bellemore, saw that every employee had his regular vacation each summer or whenever he preferred it, encouraged them to be frugal and moral, gave them good advice, forbade coarseness of language or profanity, and hired a pew in each of the two leading churches, which were always at the disposal of his young men ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... spiritually-minded minister, who hurled himself all the year round against the obduracy of the people. Ishmael had a quick movement of withdrawal as his mother led him in through the prosaic yellow-grained doors, but it availed him nothing. Another moment and he was being propelled into a pew. ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... wonders whether you will mind some friends of Miss Avies sitting with you in your pew to-morrow evening. She has especially asked—two of them ... ladies, I believe. But it seems that there will be something of a crowd, and as your pew is always half empty— He would not have asked except that ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... very last pew, on the aisle, sat an eager old colored woman—one of those typical "mammies" now so seldom seen—in an old-fashioned bonnet and shawl. She was of a bulbous figure, and her dark face shone with perspiration and delight as she stared at the ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... of the engine almost overcame Miss Barrett's nerves, which on a later trial shrank also from the more harmonious thunder of the organ of the Abbey. Sundays came when she enjoyed the privilege of sitting if not in a pew at least in the secluded vestry of a Chapel, and joining unseen in those simple forms of prayer and praise which she valued most. Altogether something like a miracle in the healing of the ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... against Peto from the same pulpit, and had been rebuked from the rood-loft by another of the brethren, Father Elstow, who had continued declaiming until the King himself had fiercely intervened from the royal pew and bade ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... years, man and boy, and he was human. Therefore, when at the expiration of a little more than five minutes' time Mr. Bommaney's bell rang, he himself ushered the visitor upstairs, and in place of retiring to his own pew below stairs, lingered in a desert little apartment rarely used, and then stole out upon the landing and listened. He was the more prompted to this because the visitor, who had a bucolic hearty aspect, and was very talkative, had told him downstairs ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... also instructed My intrepid aviators to reserve a pew for Me intact among the ruins of Notre ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 16, 1914 • Various
... sermon in Hawaiian, I, not understanding a word, looked at the side pews where the old folks sat, and tried to picture the life they had known in their youth, when the great Kamehameha reigned. In the pew next to the side door sat Mr. Sea-shore, straight and solemn as a deacon, and his wife, a fat old woman with a face that looked as if it had been carved out of knotty mahogany, but which was irradiated ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... offered them his pew, the first one on the right, close to the choir, and Madame Tellier sat there with her sister-in-law, Fernande and Raphaele, Rosa the Jade, and the two pumps occupied the second seat, in company with ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... end of the palace is the Cathedral San Giovanni Battista. To the left of the altar is the pew of the royal family. Behind the altar, and approached by two staircases of 37 steps each, is the Cappella del Sudario (open till 9 A.M.), acircular chapel, separated from the church by a glass screen. It was built by Guarini in 1694, and is encrusted with the dark grayish-blue ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... through German lines. She was a princess in rank, and a queen in looks. Thirty hours before the first shell burst into the Place Verte—Monday morning, it was—this fellow rapped at my door. He had wandered into the wrong pew, for his words were obviously intended to hurry up a brother officer with whom he was to take the morning ride to the firing line. Sticking his curly, sunburnt head around the corner he drawled ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green
... have been big, Meg," put in the captain, reflectively, as he was getting himself out of his smoking-jacket. "Let's see,—ours is a hundred-dollar pew down near the foot of the side aisle, and hers a thousand-dollar box-stall just in front of the centre. Could they flash all that distance? ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... house and estate of Hall, whence his family had moved to their lordlier mansion two generations before his birth. Being exiled to the country from the Court of Queen Anne, he cast about for some civilised way of passing the time, and one day, as he lounged at church in his great pew, his eye fell on Rachel Rosewarne, a gipsy-looking girl, sitting under the gallery. This Rachel's father was a fisherman, tall of stature, who planted himself one night in the road as my lord galloped homeward to Damelioc. The horse shied, ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... in answer to the formal invitation which they had received, Tinkleby and his friends filed into the room, looking very good and demure, and occupied the desk against the end wall, which they entered as though it had been a pew in church. The usual preliminaries were gone through, and the chairman called on "our worthy friend the secretary" to open the debate by moving, "That this house is of opinion that the moral and physical condition of mankind is ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... of this little boy was Edwin. Emma had met him frequently in the woods, and down by the brook where he went to fish. They had thus become pretty well acquainted, and from him Emma had learned the name of the pretty girl who sat in the pew in front of their own at church—the little girl who wore a black ribbon upon her bonnet, and whose manner in the house of prayer was both quiet and devout. Edwin had told her that the name of this pretty girl was Mary Palmer; that just before their family came ...
— Be Courteous • Mrs. M. H. Maxwell
... and many a well-fed, sleek, self-satisfied, well-dressed man, with a high salary and well-established social position, with a luxurious home and money in the bank, goes to church and sits down in a softly cushioned pew to listen to the preaching of the Gospel, while within hearing distance of the services an express train or a freight thunders by upon the road which declares the dividends that make that man's wealth possible? On those trains are groups ...
— Robert Hardy's Seven Days - A Dream and Its Consequences • Charles Monroe Sheldon
... why they should not have anything they wanted for less than it cost the maker. To gaze at a sister woman better dressed at half the money was simply to abjure every lofty principle. And to go to church with a counterfeit on, when the genuine lace was in the next pew on a body of inferior standing, was a downright outrage to the congregation, the rector, and all religion. A cold-blooded creature, with no pin-money, might reconcile it with her principles, if any she had, to stand up like a dowdy and allow a poor ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... ceased to toll, and a family group come slowly up the aisle. Dr. Kennedy, slightly bent, his white hair shading a brow from which much of his former sternness has gone, and his hand shaking but slightly as he opens the pew door and then steps back for the lady to enter, the lady Maude Glendower, who walks not as proudly as of old. She, too, has been made better by adversity, and though she will never love the palsied man, her husband, she ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... passed up to the altar. The surpliced boys of the Chapel Royal, and the clergy and gentlemen belonging officially to it, took their appointed places right and left, and the gold salver was deposited in front of the royal pew, generally tenanted by one or more members of the royal family. Evening prayer, slightly varied and adapted for the occasion, as custom has decreed for several centuries, was then gone through; the forty-first Psalm was chanted; and after the First Lesson an anthem ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... can do more than they are doing now to win these lapsed Lutherans. Some people are kept out of church through no fault of their own. For example, the rented pew system, still in vogue in some congregations, is an effective means of barring out visitors. Few care to force themselves into the precincts of a private club even if it bears the name ...
— The Lutherans of New York - Their Story and Their Problems • George Wenner
... cried Raggles. "Here's a go! Squash up, and we shall bag the front pew. Duff's got five-penn'orth of chocolate creams, so we ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... discomfiture than ever, Dr. Fairfax had seated the strange pair directly across the aisle from him in the pew with Esther. ...
— Rosa's Quest - The Way to the Beautiful Land • Anna Potter Wright
... literary fragments, jotted down on stray bits of paper, in old account books and diaries, and even, on one or two occasions, when seized by a sudden inspiration, on a smooth stone, taken from the brook, a fair sheet of birch bark, and the front of a pew in a white-painted country church. Having been subject to these inspirational attacks for many years, I had decided to take them in hand, and, if they must come, derive some benefit from them. An idea suggested itself. Claude Lorraine, it is said, never ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... objectionable Billy Bones is haunted by the dread of "a seafaring man with one leg." Captain Flint, we are told, was a brave man; "he was afraid of none, not he, only Silver—Silver was that genteel." Or, again, where John himself says, "there was some that was feared of Pew, and some that was feared of Flint; but Flint his own self was feared of me. Feared he was, and proud. They was the roughest crew afloat was Flint's. The devil himself would have been feared to go to sea with them. Well, ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... for the services being bad for Simon Jefferson's weak heart,—she did not think they would hurt his heart or that it would matter if they did. Visible, flesh-and-blood presence was needful to uphold the institution, and Grace would have given more for one body resting upright in a pew, than for a hundred members who were ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... to emphasize this dropping of the mask—this stop put to posturing and pretending—this going forth in rude nakedness before one's fellows. The man in the church pew chants out with the rest of the congregation, "We are sinners, desperately wicked, and there is no health in us;" but he says it with his tongue in his cheek, and fitting his mask on only the more tightly. ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... pastor's pew, And prayed for self-forgetfulness With deep humility, she knew She gave her figure and her dress To careful ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland
... Why should he not be permitted to read some of those treasured manuscripts which have been—shall we say the joy, or shall we say the discipline?—of so many congregations? Why should he not be allowed to bring paper and pencil, and, ensconced in a pew commanding full view of the rostrum, write down the thing that is true about the part we take in the work of saving the world? Perhaps he may find that all is well. Perhaps he may find that all is not quite well. If this should be the case, how important that we should know it. Discovery ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... in a bricked up window. Such buried and forgotten treasure, Glenormiston explained, filled the entire south transept. In the High Kirk, that then filled the eastern end of the cathedral, they went up a cheap wooden stairway, to the pew-filled gallery that was built into the old choir, and sat down. Mr. Traill's eyes sparkled. Glenormiston was a man after his own heart, and they were getting along famously; but, oh! it began to seem ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... off to the store for their special council, and the women, with a restful sense of sympathy alloyed by no disturbing element, settled down for an exclusively feminine view of the universe. Mrs. Page took the head of the pew, and disposed her portly frame so as to survey the scene with ease. She was a large woman, with red cheeks and black, shining hair. One powerful arm lay along the back of the pew, and, as she talked, she meditatively beat the rail ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... upon his round of visits. Accordingly, Mr. Talcott walked twice to and fro across the green, with Miss Amelia tripping demurely by his side, and served as the target for a thousand eyeshots as he stood up at the head of the Doctor's pew during the long prayers. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... unlimited supply of German soda-water. Also to add to the gaiety of indecent minds there is a complete outfit of ladies' clothing in a neighboring dugout. Funny fellows those German officers. Take a pew, won't you? ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... when the little door leading into our large family-pew was opened, and Rickson softly came in and whispered to my father, who in his turn leant over and whispered to me. A message had come from the house, he said, and he must go back at once; he knew I could be trusted to stay by myself and walk ...
— The Story of the White-Rock Cove • Anonymous
... as your faith is so pure and childlike, and as I observe that the light from the yellow panes usually falls across your pew, I would advise that you cymbalize your faith (wouldn't that be noisy in church?) by binding your prayer-book in pale blue; the color of skim-milk, dear Mrs. Potiphar, which is so full ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis
... Brandon, with Lord and Lady Chelford, was seen next Sunday, serene and unchanged, in the great carved oak Brandon pew, raised like a dais two feet at least above the level of mere Christians, who frequented the family chapel. There, among old Wylder and Brandon tombs—some painted stone effigies of the period of Elizabeth and the first James, ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... evening and the night followed, placidly and uneventfully. Monday came, a cloudless, lovely day; Monday confirmed the captain's assertion that the marriage was a certainty. Toward ten o'clock, the clerk, ascending the church steps quoted the old proverb to the pew-opener, meeting him under the porch: "Happy the bride ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... slipped her hand into her friend's protectingly. Sally responded with a reassuring pressure, and so with clasped hands the two sat throughout the service. And a memorable service it was. While the minister preached, the men took turns in patrolling the building and watching the horses. Beside every pew stood a musket, ready for instant use. Even in the house of God these people were not secure from the ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... me bring the thought a little closer. There is not a sitting in our churches that has not been sat in by dead people. As I stand here and look round I can re-people almost every pew with faces that we shall see no more. Many of you, the older habitues of this place, can do the same, and can look and think, 'Ah! he used to sit there; she used to be in that corner.' And I can remember many mouldering lips ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... Miss Avilda's heart when most she needed comfort and gentle teaching; and, distrusting God for the moment, as well as his inexorable priest, she left her place in the old meeting-house where she had "worshiped" ever since she had acquired adhesiveness enough to stick to a pew, and was not seen there again for many years. The Reverend Joshua had died, as all men must and as most men should; and a mild-voiced successor reigned in his place; so the Cummins pew was ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... on. I got back in lots of time to the church an' crep' into one of the big seats, waitin' for the music to begin. In a few minutes, along came a grand little lady, all dressed in velvet, with yellow hair and a big bonnet, an' a gentleman with her, an' she stood at the door of the pew an' beckoned me out. 'There's room enough for us all, Miss,' I whispered, pushing farther down the seat, but here the gentleman rapped his stick on the wood an' said so cross 'Hurry ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... you. You will not think it the bitterest tear you have shed when you drop one over this plan of an urn inscribed with the name of your dear brother, and with the testimonial of my eternal affection to him! This little monument is at last placed over the pew of your family at Linton [in Kent], and I doubt whether any tomb was ever erected that spoke so much truth of the departed, and flowed from so much sincere friendship in the living. The thought was my own, adopted from the antique columbaria, and ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... for half a second. Eight men, all of them under thirty-five, in top physical condition. He was fifteen years older than the oldest and had confined his exercise, in the words of Chauncey de Pew, to "acting as pallbearer for my friends who take exercise." Not that he was really in poor shape, but he certainly couldn't have argued ...
— A World by the Tale • Gordon Randall Garrett
... in all the choir Praised God in innocence and truth, The Deacon in his straight-backed pew Had dreams of her he lost in youth, And thought of fair-faced Hebrew maids— Of Rachel, and ...
— Poems • Marietta Holley
... Rudolph did nothing but amuse himself as usual, till the two last days, when he seated himself on the grass bank behind the arbor, and seemed to be thinking over his sermon. On the Sunday morning, Joseph drove the two young clergymen and us to Rahnstaedt. We went into the parsonage pew, and I can assure you I was in a great fright about Rudolph, but the rogue stood there as calmly as if he were quite sure of himself, and when the time came for him to preach, he went up into the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... He remembered having written, but he would scarcely perhaps have described his letter as "sweet," as he had not done much more than enclose a cheque for his son's account and object to the items for pew-rent and scientific lectures with ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... devil, there's the devil! true, he thought it Sactity enough, if he had killed a man, so tad been done in a Pew, or undone his Neighbour, so ta'd been near enough to th' Preacher. Oh,—a Sermon's a fine short cloak of an hour long, and will hide the upper-part of a dissembler.—Church! Aye, he seemed all Church, and his conscience was ...
— The Puritain Widow • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... It had been hard to pack him up and have him go away so far, where she couldn't hope to see him soon, where she couldn't listen for his whistle coming home at night, where he couldn't even come back for Sunday and sit in the old pew in church with them. But those things had to come. It was the only way he could grow and fulfil his part of God's plan. And so she put away her tears till he was gone, and kept them for the old felt hat when Father was out about the farm. And then when the news came that Stephen had graduated ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... of its father's death had shut up some of the senses of the child, and God had placed it in the mother's hand as a silent memorial to her, for life, of his chastising love. She left her fatherless flock in the family pew, and went with her nursling, not merely to give it to God, but to receive for it the seal of his covenant, bowing submissively to his inscrutable appointment, and imploring the God of Abraham to be still her God, and the God of this her seed. That scene had not failed to make ...
— Bertha and Her Baptism • Nehemiah Adams
... every one of you to stop looking at me and to take a good look at the wood out of which the pew ahead of you is made. [If necessary, revise the following sentences to meet your immediate conditions.] You will notice that the pew is made up of a good many pieces of oak fastened together so nicely that you can hardly tell where they are joined. ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... view over the city is afforded. King's Chapel, at the corner of Tremont and School streets, is a most interesting landmark, which was completed in 1753. Entering, you find a decidedly old-fashioned atmosphere in the high-backed, square pews and handsome decorations. George Washington's pew will be pointed ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... was to be held in the church—a not uncommon usage in country boroughs, but which from its rarity struck great awe into the Kingswell folk. The churchwarden was placed in the clerk's desk to receive votes. Not far off, the sheriff sat in his family-pew, bare-headed; by his grave and reverent manner imposing due decorum, which was carefully observed by all except Lord Luxmore ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... teagown—rising and falling rapidly in the intensity of her passion. I understood more or less what she felt. If God is at all what we think He is, sublime, then there is something a little grotesque about requiring a cushioned pew, a good system of heating and a nice fat footstool as aids to communion with Him. Yet I am not convinced that man is incapable of the highest emotion when his body is at ease. Some degree of physical comfort seems to be required if the excursions of the soul are to be successful. I cannot, ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... Dolorosa" on the other. The paintings were covered with crystals, and set with a rim of gold and pearls. The edges and clasps were of the same exquisite finish. "If you will only promise to be happy, dear Helen, I will buy a pew in the cathedral for you, and escort you thither whenever you wish ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... learn now to gain a friend, And the sure way is—never to offend; For, James, consider—what your neighbours do Is their own business, and concerns not you: Shun all resemblance to that forward race Who preach of sins before a sinner's face; And seem as if they overlook'd a pew, Only to drag a failing man in view: Much should I feel, when groaning in disease, If a rough hand upon my limb should seize; But great my anger, if this hand were found The very doctor's who should make it sound: So feel our minds, young Priest, so doubly feel, ...
— Tales • George Crabbe
... by hope after 800 years of growth it gives shade to myriads of birds; beams for lath and loom and ship in the service of industry; lends pen and pencil to poet and artist in the service of beauty; through desk and pew enters into man's intellectual and moral life; through instruments of convenience strengthens the sweet amenities of the home; working, it also waited and is ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... among the idler, that is, much the larger part. He admits that the routine is rather wearisome: the same judgments and speeches seem to repeat themselves 'like dreams in a fever,' and 'droves of wretched over-driven heavy people come up from the prison into a kind of churchwardens' pew,' when the same story is repeated over and over again. And yet he is profoundly interested. Matters turn up which 'seem to me infinitely more interesting than the most interesting play or novel,' and you get strange glimpses of the ways ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... through a crowd of gazers, many of whom, as usual, were strangers. The neighbouring gentlemen and their ladies paid us their silent respects; but the thoughts of the wicked verses, or rather, as Lady Davers will have me say, wicked action of the transcriber of them, made me keep behind the pew; but my lady sat down by me, and whisperingly talked between whiles, to me, with great tenderness and freedom in her aspect; which I could not but take kindly, because I knew she intended by it, to shew every one she was ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... next witness, a respectable tradesman in the town. He had seen the newspaper report of the first examination, and had volunteered to present himself as a witness. A member of Mr. Gracedieu's congregation, his pew in the chapel was so situated as to give him a view of the minister's daughters occupying their pew. He had seen the prisoner on every Sunday, for years past; and he swore that he was passing the door ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... great a drudgery of prayer As humble Curates are oblige'd to do,— Whose labour, wo the while! scarce buys them cassocks; And, every morning, whether foul or fair, Sir Thomas and the Dame were in their pew, Craw-thumping, upon hassocks. ...
— Broad Grins • George Colman, the Younger
... for these qualities and achievements that he received a monument honoured in St. Olave's, his favourite church. In St. Olave's, on December 23, 1660, Samuel went to pray, and had his pew all covered with rosemary and baize. Thence he went home, and "with much ado made haste to spit a turkey." Here, in St. Olave's, he listened to "a dull sermon from a stranger." Here, when "a Scot" preached, Pepys "slept all the sermon," as a man who could "never be reconciled to the voice ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... was able to listen to his sermon with outward calm. But it was a happiness to Mrs. Churton when Wood End House sent so large a contingent of worshippers to the village church, where the pew in which she had sat alone on so many Sundays—poor Mr. Churton's increasing ailments having prevented him from accompanying her—was so well filled. Glancing about her, as was her custom, to note which of her poor were present and which absent, she was surprised to see the carpenter ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... a memorable Sunday for Slimak and his wife. She had bought a silk kerchief at a stall, given twenty kopeks to the beggars, and sat down in the front pew, where Grybina and Lukasiakowa had at once made room for her. As for Slimak, everyone had something to say to him. The publican reproached him for spoiling the prices for the Jews, the organist reminded ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... and the sunlight. Below grew a thin screen of underbrush, through which we had no difficulty at all in pushing, but which threw about us face-high a tender green partition. The effect was that of a pew in an old-fashioned church, so that, though we shared the upper stillnesses, a certain delightful privacy of our own seemed assured us. This privacy we knew to be assured also to many creatures besides ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... in the firelight changes now," said Ezra, "an' seems as if I wuz in the old frame meetin'-house. The meetin'-house is on the hill, and meetin' begins at half-pas' ten. Our pew is well up in front,—seems as if I could see it now. It has a long red cushion on the seat, and in the hymn-book rack there is a Bible an' a couple of Psalmodies. We walk up the aisle slow, and Mother goes in ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... it was a genuine certificate of marriage between Archibald-Alexander-John Scott, Marquis of Arondelle, and, Rose Cameron, signed by James Smith, Rector of St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, and witnessed by John Thomas Price, Sexton, and Ann Gray, Pew-opener. ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... all the great old landmarks, all around us as we stand here now. On this porch behind us sits a lady who knew Lee well. Many's the talk she had with him after the war. My mother, a bride then, sat in the pew behind Davis that Sunday he got the message which meant that the war was over. History! Why this old town drips with it. Do you think we should forget our heroes, Mr. Queed? Up there in Massachusetts, if ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... was waiting at the altar. Madame and Aunt Matilda sat down together in a front pew; there was a moment's solemn hush, ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... a great preacher. I have a little faded card in my possession now: "Mrs. Henry W. Beecher." "Will ushers of Plymouth Church please seat the bearer in the Pastor's pew." And in the Pastor's pew I sat, listening to that magnificent bass-viol voice with its persuasive low accent, its torrential scorn! After the sermon I went to the Beechers' home. Mr. Beecher sat with a saucer of uncut gems by him on the table. He ran his hand through them from time to time, held ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... wet Sunday, when there were few people at church, and when especially certain ladies were absent, of whose observant faculties and tomahawk tongues Caroline stood in awe, she had allowed her eye to seek Robert's pew, and to rest awhile on its occupant. He was there alone. Hortense had been kept at home by prudent considerations relative to the rain and a new spring chapeau. During the sermon he sat with folded arms and eyes cast down, looking very sad and abstracted. When depressed, the very hue of ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... blood-relations:—else, why had the Almighty carried off his two wives both childless, after he had gained so much by manganese and things, turning up when nobody expected it?—and why was there a Lowick parish church, and the Waules and Powderells all sit ting in the same pew for generations, and the Featherstone pew next to them, if, the Sunday after her brother Peter's death, everybody was to know that the property was gone out of the family? The human mind has at no period accepted a moral chaos; and so preposterous a result was not strictly conceivable. ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... for underneath this pew Lies fast asleep that merry man Andrew: When the last day's great sun shall gild the skies, Then he shall from his tomb get up and rise. Be merry while thou canst: for surely thou Shalt shortly be as ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... consternation was in the pew where the Stubbles sat. They were all there except Ben, and the sisters were dressed in their finest. For once they forgot about their clothes, and stared with undisguised wonder upon the white-robed man before them. Simon Stubbles ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... majority of New Yorkers are compelled to roam about, from church to church, in order to hear the gospel at all. At the majority of the churches, strangers are welcome, and are received with courtesy, but at others they are treated with the utmost rudeness if they happen to get into some upstart's pew, and are not unfrequently asked ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... of pretty country places close by; a comfortable country town, with good houses of gentlefolks; a beautiful old parsonage, close to the church whither we went (and where the Carabas family have their ancestral carved and monumented Gothic pew), and every appearance of good society in the neighbourhood, I rather wondered we were not enlivened by the appearance of some of the neighbours at the Evergreens, and asked ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... proceeded. It really seemed to be buried in the earth, and the little side windows looked out into a ditch. There were two steps to go down into the deep porch, and within there seemed to be small space between the roof and the top of the high square pew into which they were ushered by Master Hewlett, who, it seemed, ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... middle of Edward's sermon at St. George's to-day somebody in our pew whispered it round that there was the King of Prussia[35] in the Gallery. I looked as directed, and fixed my eyes on a melancholy, pensive, interesting face, exactly answering the descriptions of the King, and immediately fell into a train of very ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... where Edith had spent much of her life. Far back in the past she could just remember a charming Surrey village with a pretty vine-covered church where Daddy used to preach. She could recall exactly how her fat legs dangled helplessly from the high pew seat. Directly behind sat a stout farmer with four sons. The boys made faces at Edith on the sly; their ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... worship without experiencing a devotional feeling and, without clothing her prayers in definite form, she had yet always thought to find a way to send up her wishes to Heaven. At first she wandered round the church in the manner of a stranger visiting a beautiful edifice, then she sat down in a pew before a small altar ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler
... to pay interest on twenty-five thousand francs for which I have no use. All that I can do for you is to place that sum, in my name, with the notary Dupuis. He is a religious man; you can see him every Sunday in the warden's pew in our church. Notaries, you know, never give receipts, therefore I could not give you one myself; I can only promise to leave among my papers, in case of death, a memorandum which will secure the restitution ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... church indicates the spot near which the poet is buried. I was very anxious to see the interior of the edifice, and, fortunately I found the sexton busy in the neighborhood. There was nothing, however, remarkable to be seen, after sixpence had opened the door, except perhaps the very largest pew which these eyes ever beheld. It belonged to the Penn family, descendants of drab-coated and sweet-voiced William Penn, whose seat is in the neighborhood. I do not know what that primitive Quaker would ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... adaptation of attire. Very estimable and we trust very religious young women sometimes enter the house of God in a costume which makes their utterance of the words of the litany and the acts of prostrate devotion in the service seem almost burlesque. When a brisk little creature comes into a pew with hair frizzed till it stands on end in a most startling manner, rattling strings of beads and bits of tinsel, mounting over all some pert little hat with a red or green feather standing saucily upright in front, ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... speaker for the day. Miss Minerva rarely missed a service in her own church. She was always on hand at the Love Feast and the Missionary Rally and gave liberally of her means to every cause. She was sitting in her own pew between Billy and Jimmy, Mr. and Mrs. Garner having remained at home. Across the aisle from her sat Frances Black, between her father and mother; two pews in front of her were Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton, with Lina on the outside next ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... the mother, as her husband brushed his thin gray hair in front of his chiffonier, while the merry sound of their children's voices came floating down to them through open doors, "thank the dear Lord for me in my stead when you sit in the pew to-day. I'll be with you in my thoughts. It's such a blessed thing that our little middle girl ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... each pew In decent order filled; no noise Loud intervene to drown the voice, Learning, or wisdom of the Teacher; Impressive be the Sacred Preacher, And strict his notes on holy page; May young and old from age to age Salute, and still point out, 'The good ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Avenue, and walking lightly and quickly came at last to the old church, where all her life she had worshiped. At this hour there was no service, and she knelt for a moment, then sat back in her pew, glad of the sense of absolute immunity ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... said. It was a sight to make an old heart young to see him march up the aisle of the church on Sunday in all the glossy splendour of his wedding suit, his curly black head held high and his round boyish face shining with happiness, stopping and turning proudly at his pew ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... and often was he washed out on to the sands in a smother of spindrift, in his mad eagerness to attain his end. The herring-gulls were the finest sport of all, with their constant melancholy cries—"pew-il," "pee-ole," or their hoarser note of warning, "kak-k-kak"; their bodies two feet in length; their spread of wing no less than four feet four. For months he chased them, till at last some must ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... an Old Man in a pew, Whose waistcoat was spotted with blue; But he tore it in pieces, to give to his Nieces, That cheerful Old ...
— Nonsense Books • Edward Lear
... blunderbuss, fired, and all three balls passed into Mr. Fraser's breast. All three horses reared at the report and flash, and Mr. Fraser fell dead on the ground. Karim galloped off, followed at a short distance by the trooper, and the two peons went off and gave information to Major Pew and Cornet Robinson, who resided near the place. They came in all haste to the spot, and had the body taken to the deceased's own house; but no signs of life remained. They reported the murder to the magistrate, and the city gates were closed, as the assassin had been seen to enter the ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... voice sounded like a sort of a bark, and his long snout opened and shut again in such a funny fashion that I came near laughing aloud. But, fortunately, I checked myself and looked for a moment at a couple of old maids in the pew opposite. And, whether you will believe me or not, they looked exactly like two dressed-up magpies, while the stout old gentleman next to them had the appearance of a sedate and pious turkey-cock. As he took out his handkerchief and blew ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... with her daughter in the family seat, in which were also Fanny and Madeleine. Dean Sparre, with his wife and daughter Barbara, were in the front row of the pew which belonged to them; while behind were Pastor Martens with the other Miss Sparres; and behind, again, Mrs. Rasmussen, the ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... strangely impressive to him in this simple worship out in what to him was a vast wilderness. He felt more of the true spirit of worship than he had ever felt at home sitting in the handsomely upholstered pew beside his mother and sister while the choir-boys chanted the processional and the light filtered through costly windows of many colors over the large and cultivated congregation. There was something about the words of these people that went straight to the heart ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... nature (but which he now forgot, and remembered only their kindness), they were his old familiar friends—his kind, if ostentatious, patrons—his great personal interest, out of his own family; and he could not get over the suffering he experienced from seeing their large square pew empty on Sundays—from perceiving how Mr Bradshaw, though he bowed in a distant manner when he and Mr Benson met face to face, shunned him as often as he possibly could. All that happened in the household, which once was as patent to him as his own, was now a ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... it may have been I cannot tell,' Sir George said, 'but I imagine the one the household usually attended. The other detail that a fire burned in our pew, did impress itself definitely upon my mind. I was at least big enough to lift a poker, and what must I do but seize that instrument, and set to scraping the fire, to the confusion of those with ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... individual reviving, let there be an earnest praying and striving for a reviving of the whole congregation, a life that may abide. Let every service in God's house be a revival service. Let each worshiper be a mourner over his sins, each pew an anxious seat. To this end let the preaching of the Word be plain and direct. Let it be full of "repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ." Where hearts are not wilfully closed against such preaching of "the truth ...
— The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church • G. H. Gerberding
... passed, prevent my hearing and joining in a prayer of such a nature, in which now I am peculiarly interested, would have been ill worth the while. I therefore - proposed to Miss Planta that we should go by ourselves, and desire one of the servants to show us at once into Mr. Hagget's pew: for that we had already heard offered to the use of Miss Vernons, as Lord Harcourt's was reserved for their majesties. She agreed; and we proceeded, following ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... and her daughter rustle into their pew at church—placed next in honour to that of the proprietor of the soil—all eyes are turned upon them. The old-fashioned farmer's wife, who until her years pressed heavily upon her made the cheese and butter in her husband's dairy, is not so old but that her eyes can distinguish ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... gentleman, given much to worldly things, who cared more for whist and a glass of wine than for anything else, and who thought that he had a good excuse for never going to church in England because he was called upon, as he said, to show himself in the governor's pew always once on Sundays, and frequently twice, when he was at the seat of his government. Sir Marmaduke manifestly looked upon church as a thing in itself notoriously disagreeable. To Mr. Outhouse it afforded the great events of the week. And Mrs. Outhouse would declare that to ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... staggering along the dock? Do you not give him a wide berth, shun him, and account him but little above the brutes that perish? Will you throw open your parlors to him; invite him to dinner? or give him a season ticket to your pew in church?—No. You will do no such thing; but at a distance, you will perhaps subscribe a dollar or two for the building of a hospital, to accommodate sailors already broken down; or for the distribution of excellent books among tars who can not read. And the very mode and manner in which ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... the exception of old Aaron Rockharrt, who did not choose to turn out that day, and Miss Rose Flowers, who stayed home to keep him company and to wait on him—came early in their capacious and comfortable family carriage. They had a large, square, handsomely upholstered pew in the right-hand ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... and stole. They had felt that his attire on the previous Sundays had been a little too informal. And when, at the time usually allotted to the sermon, Gissing climbed the pulpit steps, unfurled a sheaf of manuscript, and gazed solemnly about, they settled back into the pew cushions in a comfortable, receptive mood. They had a subconscious feeling that if their souls were to be saved, it was better to have it done with all the proper formalities. They did not notice that he was rather pale, and that his nose ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... him to say to Timpson on his return home, "I've secured a good pupil for your son-in-law." Timpson had a large family of daughters; Mr. Riley felt for him; besides, Louisa Timpson's face, with its light curls, had been a familiar object to him over the pew wainscot on a Sunday for nearly fifteen years; it was natural her husband should be a commendable tutor. Moreover, Mr. Riley knew of no other schoolmaster whom he had any ground for recommending in preference; why, then, should be not recommend Stelling? His friend ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... sholde be sped anon; whyche incontynent went togyder, tyll they[73] cam in to seynt Laurence Church in the Jury, where the gentylman espyed a preste raueshyd to masse[74] and [he] told the skoller that "yonder is the preste that hath the typet for you," and bad hym knele downe in the pew, and he shold speke to hym for it. And incontynent thys gentylman went to the preest and sayd: syr, here is a skoller, a kynnysman of myne, gretly dyseasyed wyth the chyncough.[75] I pray you, whan masse is donne, gyue hym iii draughtys of your ...
— Shakespeare Jest-Books; - Reprints of the Early and Very Rare Jest-Books Supposed - to Have Been Used by Shakespeare • Unknown
... conventionally deemed fitting:—against the world, as we say, is open to these moods of degrading humility. Robert waited for the sound of the bells with the emotions of a common culprit. Could he have been driven to the church and deposited suddenly in his pew, his ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Roman religion until such time as the Catholics had attained sufficient power to suppress Protestantism. Mr. Mayor was therefore informed that the declaration would not be read. On Sunday morning (August 11) when the omission had been made, the Mayor left his pew, and, stick in hand, walked up the aisle, seized the minister, and caned him as he stood at his reading-desk. Scenes of such a nature did not occur every day even in 1688, and the storm of indignation and excitement among the members of the congregation ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... forty years—or a thousand for that matter—count as one day, it is that throughout his life he detested stained-glass. Through this very window, indeed, now obscured ad majorem gloriam Dei et in memoriam Johannis Unonii medicinae doctoris, he loved—for it faced his pew—to watch during sermon-time the blue sky, the clouds, the rooks at their business in the churchyard elms. He has even recorded (in an essay on 'Visions' read before the Tregantick Literary and Scientific Society in the winter ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... mystery,—"immoderate great vayles, long wings," etc.,—mystery on mystery, but all recorded in the statutes, which forbid these splendors to persons of mean estate. There are the wives of the magistrates in prominent seats, and the grammar-school master's wife next them; and in each pew, close to the mother's elbow, is the little wooden cage for the youngest child, still too young to sit alone. All boys are held too young to sit alone also; for, though the emigrants left in Holland ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... by himself, a class apart from the great leaders of the world. He is not yet received into the spiritual circles of the race. He goes about the world, sits on boards and committees, fills directorships and trusteeships, pays pew-rent, and runs towns. But when the spiritual conclaves of the world take place, when the things of life and death are inquired into, when words are said of the higher conduct of the life of man, if he draw near ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown |
