"Straight-backed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rare enough in women who have spent their lives in the hard work of a farmhouse; but autumn-like and withered as this woman may have looked, her features had kept, or rather gained, a great refinement. She led us into her old kitchen and gave us seats, and took one of the little straight-backed chairs herself and sat a short distance away, as if she were giving audience to an ambassador. It seemed as if we should all be standing; you could not help feeling that the habits of her life were more ceremonious, but that for the moment ...
— The Queen's Twin and Other Stories • Sarah Orne Jewett
... leisurely in the same direction. Gib of course was absent: by skreigh of day he had been gone to Crossmichael and his fellow-heretics; but the rest of the family would be seen marching in open order: Hob and Dand, stiff-necked, straight-backed six-footers, with severe dark faces, and their plaids about their shoulders; the convoy of children scattering (in a state of high polish) on the wayside, and every now and again collected by the shrill summons of the mother; and the mother herself, by a suggestive circumstance ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... any part of their ceremonial. Like all else in their lives, these visits are prearranged for them—a certain group of sisters visiting a certain group of brethren. The sisters, from four to eight in number, sit in a row on one side, in straight-backed chairs, each with her neat hood or cap, and each with a clean white handkerchief spread stiffly across her lap. The brethren, of equal number, sit opposite them, in another row, also in stiff-backed chairs, and also each with a white handkerchief smoothly laid over his knees. Thus arranged, ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... the walls, an ugly carpet on the floor, and an ugly view of cottage roofs and cabbage-gardens from the window. His own person his writing-table, and his book-case, were the only objects in the room that had the slightest air of refinement; and the sole provision for comfort was a clumsy straight-backed arm-chair covered with faded chintz. The man who could live in such a room, unconstrained by poverty, must either have his vision fed from within by an intense passion, or he must have chosen that least attractive form of self-mortification which wears no haircloth and has no ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... of sense of humor made it hard for him at times. He was sitting very erect in the straight-backed hotel chair when he said: "Mr. Ford, there are occasions when your conceit is insufferable. Do you imagine for a moment that you are the only engineer in the United States who can ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... with a blue ribbon around his neck, and helped himself to Aunt Francesca's chair. Isabel rocked him and he got down, without undue haste. He marched over to a straight-backed chair with a cushion in it; glared at Isabel for a moment with his inscrutable topaz eyes, ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... buxom ayah advanced—-a stout, straight-backed Madrassi, with her black hair in a chignon, a ring in her nose, jewelled rings in her ears, wearing a handsome blue-and-gold saree, coquettishly draped round her ample form, the usual short silk bodice, or choli, and numerous heavy bangles. She salaamed ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... conscious, in the course of their walk home, of an atmosphere not wholly novel, that lost no strength in this case from its studied repression. That afternoon, as they sat in the shade of the big elm, he in his flexible wicker chair, she in a straight-backed, high-seated legacy from her grandfather, the whirlwind that Mr. Waters had so lightly sown fell to the reaping of a victim too amiable and unsuspecting not to escape the sentence of any but so stern a judge as the handsome ...
— A Philanthropist • Josephine Daskam
... not," she agreed, seating herself in one of the straight-backed chairs. Her clasped hands rested on the small round table in the center of the room, while she looked out across the lawn to the dahlias and zinnias ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... and got off and went to the cabin door, walking straight-backed and every mental and physical fiber of her braced for the coming struggle. She even regretted not having a gun; rather, she wished that she was not more afraid of a gun than of any possible need of one. She felt, at that minute, as ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... sitting stiffly in a straight-backed chair by his library fire. In his young days men did not loll in deep chairs, with their knees higher than their heads. There were no such chairs in this library, just as there was no afternoon tea except for ladies. Sir John Meredith was distressed to observe a great many signs of ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... his own grandmother came up before him, she who would not let him read a child's book in a thunder shower lest God should consider the act too trivial in the face of elemental threatening and strike him dead. He took one of the straight-backed chairs by the stove and leaned forward with an absorbed pretense of warming his chilled hands. But he was not reassuring Tenney. He ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... trunks to sit by this imitation of a fire, only to find that there was nothing to sit on but the most uncompromising of straight-backed chairs. ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... upon an immense straight-backed chair, with his legs not stretched out, but simply placed upon a stool, formed an angle of the most obtuse form ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... two chairs—a favourite rocker of her own, and the straight-backed, deep chair in which Alden usually sat when he was reading. The chairs faced each other, with a little distance between them. Edith sat in hers, rocking, with her hands crossed behind her head, and her little white feet stretched out in front ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... room. Magda glanced about her curiously—at the plain, straight-backed chairs, at the meticulously tidy desk and bare, polished floor. Everything was scrupulously clean, but the total absence of anything remotely resembling luxury struck poignantly on eyes accustomed ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... dependants were all gathered together in the wide, cool kitchen of Drumquhat, for it was the time for the minister's catechising. Saunders sat with his wife beside him. The three sons—Alec, James, and Rob—sat on straight-backed chairs; Walter near by, his hand ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... from ever willingly taking up his abode in Russia, irrespective of his dislike to the despotic system of government under which it was placed. The travellers were ushered by a waiter into a room with a straight-backed, leather-covered sofa, chairs with wooden seats, and an old card-table; while the walls were ornamented with some coloured prints of battles between the Circassians and Russians, in which a host of the mountaineers were flying before a handful of their enemies. The waiter ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... cigarettes in a china saucer on the floor beside Miss Lentaigne. Lady Torrington was fanning herself with a slow motion which reminded Frank of the way in which a tiger, caged in a zoological garden, switches its tail after being fed. Priscilla sat in the background under a lamp. She had chosen a straight-backed chair which stood opposite a writing table. She sat bolt upright in it with her hands folded on her lap and her left foot crossed over her right Her face wore a look of slightly puzzled, but on the whole intelligent interest; ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... straight-backed chair they gave her Ellen sat like a statue, sweet and still, a thing so obviously good that it seemed even Courtrey himself must weaken to behold her. But not Courtrey. He was on fire with the vision of Tharon Last on the Cup Rim's floor, shaking her fist ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... standing. She had declined a chair. She stood straight-backed as an Indian, carrying her head with fine spirit. Her eyes attacked the oil broker, would not yield a thousandth part of an inch to ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... opened the door to the shack. There was a partition separating the place neatly into two sections. There were a couple of straight-backed wooden chairs and a leather sofa in the near room. The door to the other ...
— Lease to Doomsday • Lee Archer
... herself, sat down on the edge of the straight-backed chair near the desk, as though to mark the parenthetical nature of ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... one narrow cot bed against the wall, a tall bureau on which some brown old books were lying, and the little dust-pan and dust-brush on a brass nail in the corner. There was a brightly polished stove with no fire in it, and some straight-backed chairs of yellow wood stood round the room. An open door into a large, roomy closet showed various garments of men's apparel hanging upon the wall. The plain thermometer in the window casement seemed the one article of luxury or ornament in the apartment. I believe I made my observations ...
— On the Church Steps • Sarah C. Hallowell
... down while I answer you, Barbara," said Duncan, with almost unimaginable tenderness in his tone. "No, not in that straight-backed chair, for I want you to listen to all I have to say, and to be at ease while you listen. Sit here," pushing an easy chair forward, "sit here where you can see my face as I speak. I want you to see in my eyes the sincerity ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... There was a common, straight-backed chair in the room, between the chest of drawers and the wall. Through that interminable half-hour she sat upright upon it, her hands folded upon her knees, quite cold and motionless, her eyes closed, and her lips parted ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... little company gathered round the table. Suzanne looked sad and silent; Sir Andrew fidgeted uneasily with his fork, whilst the Comtesse, encased in the plate-armour of her aristocratic prejudices, sat, rigid and unbending, in her straight-backed chair. As for Lord Antony, he looked extremely uncomfortable, and glanced once or twice apprehensively towards Jellyband, who looked just as uncomfortable ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... a thin, straight-backed, brisk old lady, with a keen tongue, and a Yankee faculty for coming to the point. I besought her indulgence, and laid the whole Eleanor matter before her—at least, as much of it as seemed wise. I appeared in the role of her son's ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... been exhibiting its familiar annual spectacle. Straight-backed, small-headed, big-barrelled oxen, as dissimilar from any wild species as can well be imagined, contended for attention and praise with sheep of half-a-dozen different breeds and styes of bloated preposterous pigs, no more like a wild boar or sow than a city alderman ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... Franklin, N.H. In every room was a wealth of old-fashioned furniture from New Hampshire homes, much of it a hundred years old or more, as well as Webster relics, davenports, massive polished-top mahogany tables and sideboards, warming pans, antique sideboards, china closets, straight-backed armchairs, grandfather clocks, china and pewter ware. The greater part of the antique furnishings were from the very valuable collection of Gen. William E. Spalding, of Nashua. The State Building was provided with a lecture hall for stereopticon ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... touring,—all scrupulously dusted and accurately set out. The few cheap prints in maple frames that adorned the walls (always askew, he remembered) had been adjusted to the horizontal. On the chenille-covered table in the middle of the room stood a vase with artificial flowers. The straight-backed chairs upholstered in yellow and brown silk stood close sentry under the prints, in their antimacassar uniforms. Two yellow and brown arm-chairs guarded the white faience stove. The sofa against the wall frowned sternly at the whatnot on the opposite ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... and fresh and straight-backed and quiet as ever he had done, and when he saw that the room was empty save for Buddy, perched upon his long-legged chair with his heels hooked over the top round and a napkin tucked expectantly inside ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... light cast by a shaded candle, and began. It was dull enough, though I had borne such tribulations before, and the drone of my aunt's voice would have sent me to sleep, as it had done at other times, even in a straight-backed chair, had I not been so full of my discovery, and chafed at this delay. Thus all the time my aunt read of spiritualities and saving grace, I had my mind on diamonds and all kinds of mammon, for I never doubted ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... in the straight-backed sofa. It has terra-cotta and buff tulips running over the mustard brocade. The gilt part runs ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... tools, if of iron or steel, as axe, mattock, spade, and the iron nose for the digger or the plough, the village blacksmith usually fashioned, as he did the bake-pan, griddle, crane, and pothooks, for indoor use. Tables, chairs, cradles, bedsteads, and those straight-backed "settles" of which a few may yet be seen, were either home-made or gotten up by the village carpenter. Mattresses were at first of hay, straw, leaves, or rushes. Before 1700, however, feather beds were common, and houses and the entire state of a ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... the injustices of the earth that such people aren't loved as much as impulsive, selfish, brilliant natures like dear little Mark's. Paul has had such a restful personality! Even when he was a baby, he was so straight-backed and robust. There's no yellow streak in Paul, such as too much imagination lets in. I know all ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... him, in an ancient straight-backed rocking-chair, dark with age, and clumsy in its antique carvings, sat his wife. Stiffly upright, and with an almost painful primness in dress and figure, she sat knitting rapidly and with closed eyes. Her ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... a mile from the river, in a little plain surrounded by wooded hills, and entirely covers an eminence with its tile roofs, surmounted by a long, straight-backed cathedral with two stiff towers. As we got into the town, the tile roofs seemed to tumble uphill one upon another, in the oddest disorder; but for all their scrambling, they did not attain above the knees of the cathedral, which stood, upright and solemn, over all. As the streets drew near to this ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... were ever such practical people," confessed Mrs. Red Pepper Burns, sitting on the edge of a straight-backed old chair in the small kitchen. The house boasted but four rooms, two below and two above, with a small enclosure off the kitchen which had been used for a bedroom in the benighted days when people ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond
... burning wood that Darnell never forgot, and the room seemed to him full of women who talked all together in frightened tones. Mr. Darnell beckoned to a tall, grey old man, who wore corduroy knee-breeches, and the boy, sitting on a high straight-backed chair, could see the old man and his uncle passing to and fro across the window-panes, as they walked together on the garden path. The women stopped their talk for a moment, and one of them brought him a glass of milk ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... sat at his desk in a long, gray dressing-gown, with a rug across his knees: around him were ranged several straight-backed chairs on which were spread hundreds of pages of closely written manuscript. At his elbow on a stand was an immense dictionary, from which he lifted a pair ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... Possagno, there is a very pretty gallery containing casts of all Canova's works. It is an interesting place, where Psyches and Cupids flutter, where Venuses present themselves in every variety of attitude, where Sorrows sit upon hard, straight-backed classic chairs, and mourn in the society of faithful Storks; where the Bereft of this century surround death-beds in Greek costume appropriate to the scene; where Muses and Graces sweetly pose themselves and insipidly smile, and where the Dancers and Passions, though nakeder, are no wickeder than ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... up in an uncomfortable straight-backed chair, the marks of past servitude were less apparent; but they were there all the same—in her neat black stuff dress, and in her scrupulously clean, plain collar and cuffs. Mrs. Bunting, as a single woman, had been what is ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... house on Nepenthe which the Master still deigns to enter. I'm afraid he has grown very groggy on his pins of late; if he sat on any by a straight-backed chair they would never get him up again. To think that was once a pretty little boy . . . Poor old fellow! I know what he wants. They've been neglecting him, ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... atmosphere, however pleasing, and needed to waste none searching for the object of her desires. It faced her, distant not six paces from the door—that shameless little "Corot"!—resting on the arms of a straight-backed chair. ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... pale naturally, she was more than pale now. Her frightened eyes fluttered to her husband's face and fluttered away again. Why had she never thought of this! Sheer panic held her quiet in the straight-backed chair. ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... the house of a tolerably well-to-do family, you will find the quantity of furniture rather scanty, and not luxurious. The floor may be covered with matting, but you will find no carpets or rugs. A table and some straight-backed chairs are the principal pieces. On the walls you may find Chinese pictures, which will not challenge your admiration, though they may be artistic in China. Some jars and specimens of fine porcelain may adorn the room, with writings on the walls expressing moral sentiments. There may be ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... schools, straight-backed chairs to make a girl sit upright, and to give strength to her back: do ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... down the long gloomy room while he waited; the two grated windows were far above reach and opened upon a blank wall opposite. The bare stone pavement was damp, and the furniture consisted of a dark walnut table, once polished, a long straight-backed settle placed at one end, and twelve rush-bottomed chairs arranged round the sides of the room with great regularity. Above the settle hung a painfully realistic crucifix; on the wall at the opposite end a large barocco picture represented ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... like a rat's, and not ewe-necked; short on the legs. He should have a small well-put-on head, prominent eye, a skin not too thick nor too thin; should be covered with fine silky hair—to the touch like a lady's glove; should have a good belly to hold his meat; should be straight-backed, well ribbed up, and well ribbed home; his hook-bones should not be too wide apart. A wide-hooked animal, especially a cow after calving, always has a vacancy between the hook-bone and the tail, and a want of the most ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie
... rocking-chair, a couch covered with chintz, and half a dozen straight-backed, spider-legged chairs were ranged methodically along the sides of the room, while in the centre of the floor, so placed that the fresh morning breeze which entered by the door would blow straight across it to the window ...
— Aunt Hannah and Seth • James Otis
... Mademoiselle Jeanne," said Doggie, sitting down on a straight-backed chair by the oilcloth-covered kitchen table which ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... would not have exchanged the memory of them for the gold medal itself. That his blue-eyed god should address him, a mere peon, as "thy," the endearing, intimate pronoun kept for one's friends! The tears stood in Diego's black eyes when he heard; and Diego was no weakling, but a straight-backed stoic of an Indian, who stood almost as tall as the Senor Jack himself and who could throw a full-grown steer to the ground by twisting its head. He bowed low and turned to fumble the sweet, dried grasses in Surry's manger; and beneath his coarse shirt the feel ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... the third sat down together as she spoke; and while the second sat like a merchant, nursing fat hands on a consequential paunch, the third sat straight-backed, kicking a little sidewise with his left leg. Ranjoor Singh saw, too, that he kept his heels a little more than a spur's length off from the ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... the entrance and the small, low and square wooden belfry, give it a somewhat foreign aspect which is by no means surprising in the circumstances. Indeed, it may be said to have decided Norse suggestion. The interior, with its severely simple galleries, straight-backed wooden pews and high pulpit under the chancel window, has that quaintness to be seen in the earliest country churches of America. Two big-eyed, winged cherubim on the organ loft are interesting examples of early Swedish wood carving probably taken ...
— The Colonial Architecture of Philadelphia • Frank Cousins
... modern—English—comforts (low, wide chairs, writing-table, rugs, cushions, and centre-table covered with books in all languages, a very rare thing in a French chateau, picture papers, photographs, etc.) and the straight-backed, spindle-legged old furniture and stiff, old-fashioned ladies and gentlemen, looking down from their heavy gold frames, is very attractive. There is none of the formality and look of not being lived in which one ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... officious gentleman's back was turned, as may be taken for granted, "Oi wud loike to spot thet chap roight in the bull's-eye, bad cess to him! Och, but wait till we're aboord the Active, Tom, an', sure, we'll hev no more of straight-backed jokers ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... kind in so poor an excuse for her darling's perturbation. It accounted to her for all his odd behaviour during the remainder of the service, for his muteness in the psalmody, his restless disregard of the sermon, his hurry to be out of the straight-backed, uncomfortable pew. ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... I like it so much!" cried Julie, throwing herself down into one of the straight-backed arm-chairs and looking first round the walls and then through the windows to ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the priests, still undecided where they should sit, looked at the little horsehair sofa. Monsignor brought forward for her one of the six high, straight-backed chairs, and they sat at the circular table laid out with severe books; a volume of the Lives of the Saints lay under her hand, and she glanced at a little box for contributions. She looked at the priests and then round the room, striving to penetrate the ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... room consisted of the articles usually found in a boudoir of this kind, to wit: a straight-backed sofa, much worn; the inevitable and horrid straw carpeting; that old Satanic piano, that never was in tune; an antique and rheumatic table, and three wheezy old chairs. The only present attempts at ornament were two in number. The first was a large engraving of the ...
— Punchinello, Volume 2, No. 37, December 10, 1870 • Various
... living room of Harmer's house were assembled that February evening six persons. It was just growing dusk, but the dancing firelight gave a pleasant illumination. Harmer and Mason were seated on opposite sides of the hearth in straight-backed wooden armchairs, and both were smoking. Rachel sat at her wheel, with her sister Dinah near to her; and in the background hovered two fine-looking young men, the two eldest sons of the household—Reuben, his father's right-hand man in business ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... the glimmer of the weapons on the wall of the little armoury. Two ancient tapestry-covered settees, in which the ravages of moth and worm had been met by a skilful repair of chisel and needle, a heavy table of oak, with carved sides as black as ebony, and a few old, straight-backed chairs, ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... him, for he let me come on board. Without further delay I was shown into the Captain's room. Very important, the Captain. Picture him, a man in the forties, straight-backed, rather jolly, and with one of those German naval beards. The slightest mistake by the Captain of the Panther and England and France would have flung themselves into war with Germany. He stood for a moment regarding me, ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... Sarah. She had taken off her blanket, and sat in one of the straight-backed kitchen ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... as business-like in its appearance as his own. A flat-topped desk, rows of files, a bookcase filled with books bearing formidable titles, and three straight-backed chairs against the wall gave an impression of severity. Two redeeming things caught John Westley's eye—a bowl of blooming narcissi and a ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... end of the room was a massive mahogany bed, screened by heavy curtains which were looped back by silken cords. Near the bed was an old-fashioned mahogany dresser, with a diamond-shaped mirror, and in front of it a straight-backed chair adorned with the grotesque carving of an ancient and long-dead fashion. About him, everywhere, were the evidences of luxury and of age. The big lamp, which gave a brilliant light, was of hammered brass; the ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood
... was sitting bolt upright in an ancient straight-backed chair of curious workmanship. It was too high for her, so her little feet, of which she was inordinately vain, rested on a hassock of crimson tapestry. She wore white silk stockings, and slippers of cinnamon-coloured satin ...
— Geoffrey Strong • Laura E. Richards
... backaches and other potentially valid excuses, was enough to make one feel apologetic and worthless. Rose could truthfully say that she was feeling wretched. But Portia would sit there, slim and erect, in a little straight-backed chair, and whatever perfunctory commiseration she might manage to express, the look of her fine eyebrows would be skeptical. Justly, too. Rose could never deny that. Not so long as she could remember ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... face, of a highbred and strongly marked type, emphasised by age, had the hawk-like contour, that is supposed to betoken extreme acquisitiveness. His faded eyes were turned toward a woman, dressed in a homespun frock and a muslin cap, who sat bolt upright, in a straight-backed chair, at the other end of the piazza, with her hands folded on her lap, looking fixedly toward her vis-a-vis. Neither of them paid the slightest attention to the colonel, and when the old man rose, it was not to ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... sitting in a straight-backed chair in her grandfather's study, conning over dry lessons while Mr. Otway wrote or read, it was quite a different experience for Marian to go to school to Miss Dorothy in a cheerful little schoolhouse ...
— Little Maid Marian • Amy E. Blanchard
... straight-backed rattan rocker to the open window, giving it a hurried dusting with her black silk apron, and invited Mrs. Lee ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne
... fancies of a degenerate generation—a generation who, according to her creed, weakened their backs and ruined their health by lounging on sofas and easy chairs, while, for her part, though seventy years of age, she was thankful to say a straight-backed chair was good enough for her. It may be imagined that for this self-reliant, vigorous Aunt Mary to be taken seriously ill, so ill as to have to summon help, was a great shock, and Mr. Hastings decided ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 355, October 16, 1886 • Various
... oval (Wellsted says a circular) body of high ground disposed north-east to south-west; and with head and neck drooping westward so as to form a mighty pier or breakwater. The watery plain within is out of all proportion to the amount of terra firma. The body-profile shows straight-backed heaps of gypsum, some two hundred feet high, which become quoin-shaped about the middle of the isle: these hillocks are connected by low strips of sand growing the usual vegetation, especially the pink ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... errand her mouth grew fishier and the eye harder. Finally she led me down a long, dark, airless stretch of corridor and departed in search of the matron, leaving me seated in the unfriendly reception room, with its straight-backed chairs placed stonily against the walls, beneath rows of red and blue and ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... covered with charts and various papers. A few books were upon a shelf above this, and a sea chest was shoved under the bunk. Some oilskins, together with a suit of clothes dangled from wooden pins, while the only other furniture consisted of a straight-backed chair, and a four-legged stool. The round port stood partly open, and through it I could see the gray expanse ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... Long Ago, where as a boy I sat With mother in the family pew and fumbled with my hat— How I would like to see it now the way I saw it then, The straight-backed pews, the pulpit high, the women and the men Dressed stiffly in their Sunday clothes and solemnly devout, Who closed their eyes when prayers were said and never looked about— That little church of Long Ago, it wasn't grand to see, But even as a little boy it ...
— Just Folks • Edgar A. Guest
... read to her, and altered to her liking—was a desecration. It seemed as though she were losing him indeed—as though he now belonged to these strange people, all of whom were laughing and applauding his words, from the German Princess in the Royal box to the straight-backed Tommy in the pit. Instead of the painted scene before her, she saw the birch-trees by the river at home, where he had first read her the speech to which they were now listening so intensely—the speech ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... surprise. "Ah," he said. "Sit down, Mr. Malone." Malone looked around for the chair, which was an uncomfortably straight-backed affair, and sat down in it gingerly. Remembering past visits to O'Connor, he was grateful for even the small amount of relaxation the hard wood afforded him. O'Connor had only recently unbent to the point of supplying ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... railing ascended to an upper floor. Some large paintings and portraits hung on the walls, but the candle did not throw enough light to permit seeing them well. The furniture in the hall consisted of several tall, straight-backed chairs set at intervals against the walls, and at one side a massive table covered thick with the dust of years. There was a distinctly old-fashioned, "different" air about the place, but nothing in any other ...
— The Boarded-Up House • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... room. He closed the door behind him and sat on a straight-backed chair, his legs outthrust. Failure? He had come back home thus suddenly with immensely good intentions. Failure? On the whole, no. There was a great deal more he could have said downstairs, and a great deal more he had felt uncommonly inclined to say. But he had left the morning room without saying ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... gave no more than one glance at Kate, who hurriedly pulled her bathrobe together and made a half-hearted attempt to rise and greet her properly. The stove looked like a glimpse of paradise, and Mrs. Singleton Corey pulled up a straight-backed chair and sat down with a groan of thankfulness, pulling her snow-sodden skirts up above her shoetops to let a little warmth reach her patrician limbs. She fumbled at the buttons of her coat and threw it open, laid a palm eloquently upon her aching ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... were seated in tall high straight-backed chairs. They were the owners of that lordly mansion, and near them sat two young maidens of surpassing beauty; they were dissimilar, and yet there was a slight likeness, ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest |
