"Chimneypiece" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... legs, piled with all sorts of modern reviews and magazines. A log fire was burning in the big oaken grate. The perfume from a great bowl of lavender seemed to mingle curiously yet pleasantly with the half musty odour of the old leather-bound volumes. The massive chimneypiece was of black oak, and above it were carved the arms of the House of Fentolin. The walls ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... before putting them in the oven. Many superstitions cling round hot cross buns. Thus it is still a common belief that one bun should be kept for luck's sake to the following Good Friday. In Dorsetshire it is thought that a cross-loaf baked on that day and hung over the chimneypiece prevents the bread baked in the house during the year from ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... minute, still with her eyes on him as he leaned upon the chimneypiece, appeared to turn this over. "You're just a wonder of kindness—that's what you are!" she said at last. "A lady's expected to have natural feelings. But YOUR horrible sex—! Isn't it a horrible sex, little love?" she demanded with ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... chimneypiece and I expect the housemaid will commandeer them. I daren't ask for them, I ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... present what a vicar's background should be, his study. Here the consistency ends. All along the chimneypiece were ranged bottles of horse, pig, and cow medicines, and against the wall was a high table, made up of the fragments of an old oak Iychgate. Upon this stood stuffed specimens of owls, divers, and gulls, and over them bunches of ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... other hand, there is no doubt that Marat had better be unhappy. He was right (if he said it) that he was LA MISERE HUMAINE, cureless misery - unless perhaps by the gallows. Death is a great and gentle solvent; it has never had justice done it, no, not by Whitman. As for those crockery chimney-piece ornaments, the bourgeois (QUORUM PARS), and their cowardly dislike of dying and killing, it is merely one symptom of a thousand how utterly they have got out of touch of life. Their dislike of capital punishment and their treatment of their domestic servants ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "since I am speaking to you as I would to my confessor, I do assure you, by the holy name of God, that I have nothing to reproach myself with except for having, now and then, buttered my bread on both sides; and I call on Saint-Labre, who is there over the chimney-piece, to witness that I have never said one word about the Gars. No, my good friends, I ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... about the room making ready. They lengthened out the table and spread and set it; more of the Good People trooped in, bringing stools and food and drink. The pipers came last, and they sat themselves around the chimney-piece a-blowing their chanters and trying the drones. The feasting began and the pipers played and never had Teig seen such a sight in his life. Suddenly ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... very ready-witted. His biographer[2] records the following anecdote of him as very likely to be authentic. The great artist occasionally made sketches from an honest old tailor, of the name of Fowler, who had a picturesque countenance and silver-gray locks. On the chimney-piece of his painting-room, among other curiosities, was a beautiful preparation of an infant cranium, presented to the painter by his old friend, Surgeon Cruickshanks. Fowler, without moving his position, continually peered at it askance ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... in the arm-chair near mine, laid back his head, and clasping his arms beneath it, looked up at the picture above the chimney-piece. ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... caught a glimpse of her own reflection in the strip of mirror over the chimney-piece, and at the sight a little thrill, half-painful, half-pleasant, passed through her veins. The soft bloom of her complexion, the dainty finish of her dress, differentiated her almost painfully from her companions, and she felt a pang of dread lest that difference should ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... On the chimney-piece, under an enormous glass shade, were a bride's wreath, a military medal, and a plait of white hair. On each side of the glass shade was a china vase containing a branch of box. All this, together with the table ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... to represent marble, and habitually without fire. In the chimney stood a pair of firedogs of iron, ornamented above with two garlanded vases, and flutings which had formerly been silvered with silver leaf, which was a sort of episcopal luxury; above the chimney-piece hung a crucifix of copper, with the silver worn off, fixed on a background of threadbare velvet in a wooden frame from which the gilding had fallen; near the glass door a large table with an inkstand, loaded with a confusion of papers and with huge ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... therefore, greatly surprised when he heard Calvert allude to it for the first time on that winter's afternoon. The young man had taken Mr. Jefferson's place before the open fire and now stood leaning against the chimney-piece as he talked, while Mr. Jefferson, sitting beside the reading-table, drew deep whiffs of the fragrant tobacco from his long pipe and listened interestedly to what Calvert had to say, smiling now and then appreciatively. After a little the young man ceased to speak and stood gazing meditatively ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... did not return. Aubrey came back alone, and found them all hanging on his entrance. Pamela put down her knitting and looked at him anxiously; so did the elder sisters. He went up absently to the chimney-piece, and stood leaning ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... greatly—would he know all about it, and thrust his ill-natured jokes at her? Her lover should have opened the door for her to pass through; but instead of doing so, as soon as she had withdrawn her hand from his, he placed himself on the rug, and leaned back in silence against the chimney-piece. ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... a large crown at the top, glared on you: the paper, the curtains, the carpet glared on you: the books, the wax-flowers in glass-cases, the chairs in flaring chintz-covers, the china plates on the door, the blue and pink glass vases and cups ranged on the chimney-piece, the over-ornamented chiffoniers with Tonbridge toys and long-necked smelling bottles on their upper shelves—all glared on you. There was no look of shadow, shelter, secrecy, or retirement in any one nook or corner of those four gaudy walls. All surrounding objects ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... common enough in those days, of King George and Queen Charlotte, with all their numerous children, down to the little Princess Amelia in a go-cart. On each side hung a small portrait, also engraved: on the left, it was Louis the Sixteenth; on the other, Marie-Antoinette. On the chimney-piece there was a tinder-box and a Prayer-book. I do not remember anything else in the room. Indeed, in those days people did not dream of writing-tables, and inkstands, and portfolios, and easy chairs, and what not. We were ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... where forty poor people was maintained; a very old foundation; and over the chimney in the mantelpiece was an inscription in brass: "Orate pre anima Thomae Bird," &c.; and the poor box also was on the same chimney-piece, with an iron door and locks to it, into which I put 6d. They brought me a draft of their drink in a brown bowl, tipt with silver, which I drank off, and at the bottom was a picture of the Virgin and the child in her arms, done in silver. ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... he saw a Buffalo Upon the chimney-piece: He looked again, and found it was His Sister's Husband's Niece. 'Unless you leave this house,' he said, ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... surprised to find it was daylight; he sat up and looked around him on the prison-room; it was a large and airy room, receiving light from a window strongly grated with iron. In two corners of the room were two old-fashioned but clean and comfortable-looking beds; opposite the beds were a chimney-piece and hearth for burning wood; and several old-fashioned chairs and a table stood against the wall; there were also in the room two doors, which ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... have given her twenty shillings, here is every farthing I have about me", and emptied my purse (there was but a shilling or two in it) before them, and put all the money I had loose in my pocket on to the chimney-piece. There was I think about seventeen shillings in all. "Look it is every farthing I have,—you may have that you damned thieves,—take it and let me go,—see my pockets are empty",—and I turned ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... was disgusted with the world, and wished he was out of it. After a time he was tried at plain brick-laying in a foundation, and gradually began to handle a brick rather well. He seemed to grow step by step more reconciled to his lot, and was advanced to work upon a chimney-piece. A day or two later he was asked how he was getting on. He then replied, with a bright smile upon his face, "Oh, very well, sir, now! I likes my chimbley-piece, and dreams of her at nights in my ...
— Prisoners Their Own Warders - A Record of the Convict Prison at Singapore in the Straits - Settlements Established 1825 • J. F. A. McNair
... myself, and I think the housemaid paid the butter-man; but you got in the cheese the day before, and I have a sort of recollection that I may possibly owe you for that, all but a few pence you must have had left of mine, that I told you to take from off the chimney-piece. Well, cook, I think that's nearly all! Now how do ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... this time grown slightly afraid of him when they sat facing one another at night at opposite sides of the chimney-piece. She wanted to wake him up, to make him say something, no matter what, that would break this dreadful silence, which was like the darkness of a wood. But he did not appear to listen to her, and she shuddered with the terror of ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... the chimney-piece a quaint image of a Chinese griffin—a hideous little goblin with wings—informed me that the Gipsy name for it was a Seemor or Seemorus, and further declared that the same word meant a dolphin. "But a dolphin has no wings," I remarked. "Oh, hasn't it?" rejoined the Gipsy; "its fins are its wings, ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... to the great open carved mantelpiece, took hold of the point of the sword, passing the blade over so that the hilt rested beyond his right shoulder; and, using the keen point as a graver, he marked-out, breast high upon one of the supporters of the chimney-piece, which happened to be a massive half-nude figure, the shape of a heart—the figure being about four inches in diameter. Apparently satisfied with his work, he drew back a few feet, turned up his right sleeve, and grasping his rapier by the handle, made the ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn
... advocates, and, I suppose, the public. The advocates addressed the screen, on the other side of which sat Fate, in the persons of the municipal fathers, enthroned in oak seats of unsurpassed gravity and dignity, amid all the sombre insignia of their office. The chimney-piece is an imposing monument of abstract Justice—no more elaborate one can exist. Solomon is there, directing the distribution of the baby; Faith and Truth, Law, Religion and Charity are there also. Never can ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... former set Lagrange down at a small table in a far corner with some food before him. The dwarf lounged towards the fire-place with an assumed air of indifference and boredom, and, leaning against the chimney-piece, stroked his ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... finished off my glass, and cleared my throat for my song, when the clock on the chimney-piece chimed half-past nine, and the same instant I felt a heavy hand fall upon my shoulder. I turned and beheld my servant Tim. This, as I have already mentioned, was the hour at which Tim was in the habit of taking me home to my quarters; and though we had dined an hour ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... standing by the chimney-piece holding at arm's length a pencil sketch of a woman's beautiful face and lithe figure. "Like herself—alive to the fingertips," he thought, and then he propped it ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... clergy there will be a yet greater aping of the manners of the West. There will be chairs covered with hideous antimacassars, tasteless round worsted-work mats for absent flower jars, and a lot of ugly cheap and vulgar china chimney ornaments, which, there being no fireplace, and consequently no chimney-piece, are set out in order on a rickety deal table. The whole life of these village folk is one piece of unreal acting. They are continually asking themselves whether they are incurring any of the penalties entailed by infraction of the long table of prohibitions, and whether they are living up to the ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... had put on festal airs. Summer had come early to Burnet that year; every garden was in bud and blossom, and every one who had flowers had sent their best to grace Katy's wedding. The whole world seemed full of delicious smells. Each table and chimney-piece bore a fragrant load; a great bowl of Jacqueminots stood in the middle of the breakfast-table, and two large jars of the same on the porch, where Clover had arranged various seats and cushions that it might serve as a ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge
... an excellent motto!" exclaimed Ben, when he read the following words, which were written in large characters over the chimney-piece, in his ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... after a last impatient turn, had put aside the curtains of worn damask to strain her eyes into the darkening square. She came back to the hearth, where Charles Bowen stood leaning between the prim caryatides of the white marble chimney-piece. ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... returned the Squire, who had just cracked a nut and found it a bad one. "That's Bred in the Bone with you, I reckon. Look yonder!" As he spoke, a porcelain vase clock upon the chimney-piece struck the half hour, and a gilt serpent sprang from the pedestal, showing its fang, which was set in brilliants. "That's my serpent clock, which always reminds me of Madam, your mother, and the more so, because it goes for a twelvemonth, which was just the time she and ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... foliage can be distinguished. Perhaps a thorough cleaning might bring out paintings like those discovered on the plank ceilings of Tristan's house at Tours. If so, it would prove that those planks were placed or restored in the reign of Louis XI. The chimney-piece is enormous, of carved stone, and within it are gigantic andirons in wrought-iron of precious workmanship. It could hold a cart-load of wood. The furniture of this hall is wholly of oak, each article bearing upon it the arms ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... chimney Is south the chamber, and the chimney-piece Chaste Dian bathing. Never saw I figures So likely to report themselves. The cutter Was as another Nature, dumb; outwent her, ...
— Cymbeline • William Shakespeare [Tudor edition]
... manage it, and by Thursday night the party was actually assembled at 'The Breakers.' There was a sou'easter on that night, but the drift-wood burned stoutly in the wide chimney-piece, with now and then a cheerful sputter as a few stray drops sought to immolate themselves in the green ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... local sheep fair. The room was lighted by half a dozen candles, having wicks only a trifle smaller than the grease which enveloped them, in sticks that were never used but at high-days, holy days, and family feasts. The lights were scattered about the room, two of them standing on the chimney-piece. This position of candles was in itself significant. Candles on the ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various
... was fitted up as a study, and a curtain shut off a smaller room suggestive of a bed within; while over the chimney-piece were foils opposite single-sticks; boxing-gloves hung in pairs, bruised and swollen, as if suffering from their last knocking about; a cavalry sabre and a dragoon officer's helmet were on the wall opposite the window. Books, ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... an ivory-headed stick which leaned against the side of the chimney-piece, walked with tottering steps towards the bureau. There she took from her pocket a small bunch of keys, and having, with some difficulty from the trembling of her hands, chosen one and unlocked the sloping cover, she opened a little drawer inside, and took out a gold watch with a bunch ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... blazing coals, and then began playing with a little chimney-piece ornament showing the day of the ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... out, and then blew another blast upon his nose, which made some ornament upon the chimney-piece rattle. ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... besides, one of his assistants had only one eye, and the other squinted horribly, so if we measured by eyes, I think the advantage was actually on our side; and, as far as ornament went, most decidedly; for who would not prefer putting on his chimney-piece one handsome, elegant vase, than two damaged, ill-looking pieces of crockery? Mr Pleggit had certainly a gilt mortar and pestle over his door, which Mr Cophagus had omitted when he furnished his shop; but then the mortar had a great crack down the middle, ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... with an alarum clock by way of ornament, a very low bedstead with a coverlet flung over it—a red cloth with a black key border—all these things made part of a whole that told of a life reduced to its simplest terms. A triple candle-sconce of Egyptian design on the chimney-piece recalled the vast spaces of the desert and Montriveau's long wanderings; a huge sphinx-claw stood out beneath the folds of stuff at the bed-foot; and just beyond, a green curtain with a black and scarlet border was suspended by large rings from ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... some eminence at the bar, and when I had a seat in parliament, on my return one day from court, I found an old gentleman seated alone in my drawing-room, his feet familiarly placed, on each side of the Italian marble chimney-piece, and his whole air bespeaking the consciousness of one quite at home. He turned round—it was my friend of the ball-alley. I rushed instinctively into his arms, and burst into tears. Words cannot describe the scene which followed:—"You are right, sir; you are ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... ever witnessed. A little farther on is a cottage, the casement of which opens, and the hatch at the door is closed; and, on looking in at either, our visitants perceived a fine and exquisitely finished copy of Gainsborough's Cottage Children standing by the fire, with chimney-piece and cottage furniture compleat. Near to this is Gainsborough's Woodman, exhibited in the same ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... splendid chimney over twenty feet square. So much room does it occupy that there is no central staircase, but little winding stairs ascend at three corners of the house. In the vast fireplace an ox could literally have been roasted. On each chimney-piece are hooks to hang firearms, and at one side curious little drawers are set for pipes and tobacco. In some Dutch houses in New York these tobacco shelves are in the entry, over the front door, and a narrow flight of three or four steps ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... Will, and, rising obediently, he stood clutching at the chimney-piece. "Get me out of this—only get me out of this," he repeated, with a desperate reliance on the other's power to avert the consequences of his deed. "I've always been a good friend to you," he went on passionately. ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... confess; but I have watched a grimy, inartistic personage, smoothing it affectionately with toil-stained hand, while eager faces crowded round to admire and wonder at its blatant crudity. It hangs to this day in its cheap frame above the chimney-piece, the one bright spot relieving those damp-stained walls; dull eyes stare and stare again at it, catching a vista, through its flashy tints, of the far-off land of art. Christmas Waits annoy me, and I yearn to throw open the window and fling coal at them—as once from ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... little cooking; and the same thought came to her when she lay all alone in the little parlour, furnished with what a few pounds could buy—a paraffin-lamp, a round table, a few chairs, an old and ill-padded mahogany armchair, in which it was a torture to lie; not an ornament on the chimney-piece, not a flower, not a book to while away the interminable hours. From the barren little passage, covered with a bit of oil-cloth, all and everything in 27 was meagre and unimaginative. The Major had impressed his ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.
... Morgan, "I like to go into an old-fashioned country kitchen, with a nice painted floor, and braided rag rugs laid down here and there: with a grandmother's corner by a sunny window, and a father's chair by the wide, cheerful chimney-piece, and a place for the children to play, with plenty of room to get about. Apples and nuts always taste so good in such a place! Instead, we have a stuffy little kitchen and a cheerless dining-room, that no one wants to sit in, and every member of the family goes to his or her room, and sociability ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... oppressive. A fire had been lately kindled in the damp old-fashioned grate, and it was more disposed to go out than to burn up, and the reluctant smoke which hung in the room seemed colder than the clearer air,—like our own marsh mist. Certain wintry branches of candles on the high chimney-piece faintly lighted the chamber; or it would be more expressive to say, faintly troubled its darkness. It was spacious, and I dare say had once been handsome, but every discernible thing in it was covered with dust and mould, and dropping to pieces. The most ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... than the foot. The difference was slight, but Colwyn could see a portion of the fireplace which had not been visible before. The bed stood almost in the centre of the room, the foot in line with the door, and the head about three or four feet from the chimney-piece. In noting this rather unusual position during his last visit, Colwyn had formed the conclusion that it had been chosen for the benefit of fresh air and light during the summer months, as the window, ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... chimney-piece, Charles looked at the dead man. He slowly tore the folded paper to pieces, while he thought ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors • Various
... who had never been "taken" and who had a passionate objection to it. They just wouldn't be, for anything any one could say. I had loudly complained of this; him in particular I had so vainly desired to be able to show on my drawing-room chimney-piece in a Bond Street frame. It was at any rate the very liveliest of all the reasons why they ought to know each other—all the lively reasons reduced to naught by the strange law that had made them bang ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... evening previous to the day set for Nelly's departure—how well I remember it—I found her sitting alone by the wide chimney-piece looking musingly at the crackling back log. There were no candles in the room. On her face and hands, and on the small golden cross at her throat, fell the flickering firelight—that ruddy, mellow firelight in which one's grandmother ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... prime and plenitude; the line of the head and neck, the hair falling over the stooped shoulder —a sensuous dream it is; all her body's beauty, to borrow a phrase from Rossetti, is in that white dress; and the beauty of the arm in its full white sleeve lies along the white chimney-piece, the fingers languidly open: two fallen over the edge, two touching the blue vase. Note how beautiful is the placing of this figure in the picture; how the golden head shines, high up in the right-hand corner, and the white dress and white-sleeved ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... money to a handsome officer of her own age. He is represented in the act of returning her a handful of bank-bills, with the hope of exchanging them for another acquisition and more delicate plunder. On the chimney-piece are a watch-case and a figure of Time, over it this motto—Nunc, 'Now!' Hogarth has caught his heroine during this moment of hesitation—this struggle with herself—and has expressed her feelings with ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... There she made the most of the relics of her past magnificence. The elegance of the great lady was still redolent about her. She was still surrounded by beautiful things which recalled her former existence. On her chimney-piece was a fine miniature portrait of Charles X., by Madame Mirbel, beneath which were engraved the words, "Given by the King"; and, as a pendant, the portrait of "Madame", who was always her kind friend. On a table lay an album of costliest price, such as none of the ...
— The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan • Honore de Balzac
... flowed from her eyes, which she mopped convulsively with an already damp pocket-handkerchief. Before she had recovered sufficient self-possession to speak, she signed to Hyacinth to fetch a bottle of smelling-salts from the chimney-piece. He hastened to obey, and found himself kneeling beside the sofa, holding the bottle to her nose. After a while she recovered sufficiently to tell him that she had not slept at all during the night, and felt extremely unwell ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... close after the rainy night-air. Gay pictures beautified the walls. Here a bottle, a cheese, grapes, a hare, a goblet—in a clear brown light that made the guest's mouth water to admire. Here a fine gentleman toasting a simpering chambermaid. Above the chimney-piece a bloated old man in vineleaves that might be Silenus. And over against the door of the parlour what I took to be a picture of Potiphar's wife, she looked out of the paint so bold and beauteous and craftily. Birds and fishes in cases stared ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... parts of Cornwall, small branches of sea-weed, dried and fastened in turned wooden stands, are set up as ornaments on the chimney-piece, &c. The poor people suppose that they preserve the house from fire, and they are known by the name of "Lady's trees," in honour, I presume, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 72, March 15, 1851 • Various
... make it up—but it is hopeless." And it was clear from the way he changed the subject that he had banished the whole matter from his mind. At a later date, when the letters to him grew more abusive, I was told by one who was living with him, that he would even put one up on his chimney-piece and ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... two days ago tete-a-tete with Lord Buchan. Heard a history of all his ancestors whom he has hung round his chimney-piece. From counting of pedigrees, good {p.154} Lord deliver us! He is thinking of erecting a monument to Thomson. He frequented Dryburgh much in my grandfather's time. It will be a handsome thing. As to your scamp of a boy, I saw nothing of him; but the face is enough to condemn ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... a long, rather narrow room, once the drawing-room of the Georgian mansion. Only a carved Adams' chimney-piece, now painted over in imitation of oak remained of its former adornment; the tall windows were eighteenth century, and with that air they looked upon the terrace. The walls had been lined by the nuns with plain wooden shelves, and upon them were what seemed to be a thousand books, every one ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... to the chimney-piece. He was very pale, but his eyes were bright and sparkling. When she looked up at him at last she saw that her task was done. His scorn—his resentment—were they not the expiation, the penalty she had looked forward to all along?—and ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of the same uncomfortable material, cold and slippery, on which it was impossible to rest. The carpet was nearly threadbare, and the curtains of dark-red moreen were very dingy; the mirror over the chimney-piece seemed to have been made purposely to distort my features, and produce in me a feeling of depression. My bedroom, which communicated with this agreeable sitting-room by folding-doors, was still smaller and gloomier; and opened upon a dismal ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... himself, he began an inventory of the apartment, as a general studies the ground on which he is about to give battle. No trace remained of the unfortunate scene of the previous night, save a broken candelabrum on the chimney-piece. It was the one which Pascal Ferailleur had armed himself with, when they talked of searching him, and which he had thrown down in the courtyard, as he left the house. But this detail did not attract M. Fortunat's attention. The only thing that puzzled him was ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... bait, during which operation Connie begged to be carried into the parlour of the little inn that she might see the china figures that were certain to be on the chimney-piece, as indeed they were, where she drank a whole tumbler of new milk before we lifted her to carry her back, we came upon a wide high moorland country the roads through which were lined with gorse in full golden bloom, while patches of heather all about ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... than a large family circle rusticating from choice. The corridors look brown and simple, like the rest of the house, and lack the white statuary of Osborne, and the superb vases, cabinets, and pictures of Buckingham Palace and Windsor. By the chimney-piece in the entrance hall rest the tattered colours once borne through flood and field by two famous regiments, one of them ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... moreover with some of the best mathematicians, and some of the first literary men in Cambridge. I was awe-struck, and should have been utterly at a loss, had it not been for a print of Mendelssohn over the chimney-piece, which recalled to my mind the life of this great man; by the help of that I had happily some ideas in common with the learned Jew, and we; entered immediately into conversation, much to our mutual relief and delight. Dr. Johnson, in one of ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... on the board which served as a chimney-piece. Dr Johnson took up Burnet's History of his own Times. He said, 'The first part of it is one of the most entertaining books in the English language; it is quite dramatick: while he went about every where, ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... mother briskly, as she rose from the table, "pop into bed, both of you, as fast as you can go. You are already half asleep! Father, you help them with their buttons, and hear them say their prayers, while I wash up these dishes and take care of the milk." She took a candle from the chimney-piece as she spoke, and started down cellar with the skimmer. When she came back into the kitchen once more, the children were safely tucked in bed, and her husband was seated by the kitchen door with his chair tipped back against ...
— The Belgian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... had been set in the blind chimney-piece, in which were placed grandma's graceful andirons, buried so long in the attic that Nan had never seen them, while the old mantel-shelf in the library was torn out altogether and a stately new one put in its stead, and in this too was a place for wood and fire-dogs. The two French windows leading ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... the misfortune to be blown down in the previous winter. It will be perceived that M. Loyal is a staunch admirer of the great Napoleon. He is an old soldier himself - captain of the National Guard, with a handsome gold vase on his chimney-piece presented to him by his company - and his respect for the memory of the illustrious general is enthusiastic. Medallions of him, portraits of him, busts of him, pictures of him, are thickly sprinkled all over the property. During the first ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... face full of smiling interest, and sitting down in a chair beside the imaginary patient, he went through a magnificent piece of pantomime—so good that it was a pity there was no audience present to admire. For Bob had taken the doctor's glasses from the chimney-piece, put them on, and ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... talk, he talks well; and, on all subjects of taste, his delicacy of expression is pure as his poetry. If you enter his house—his drawing-room—his library—you of yourself say, this is not the dwelling of a common mind. There is not a gem, a coin, a book thrown aside on his chimney-piece, his sofa, his table, that does not bespeak an almost fastidious elegance in the possessor."—Diary, 1813; ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... chimney,' said Iachimo, 'is south of the chamber, and the chimney-piece is Diana bathing; never saw ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... coquettish aspect to the apartment. It was one mass of white, and perfumed throughout, as if to serve as a nest for young, fresh love. The good lady, moreover, had taken pleasure in adding a few bits of lace to the bed, and in filling the vases on the chimney-piece with bunches of roses. Gentle warmth and pleasant fragrance reigned over all, and not a sound broke the silence, save the crackling and little sharp reports of the wood aglow ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... wore the lamentable aspect of all constructions of hatred, ruin. It might be asked: Who built this? It might also be said: Who destroyed this? It was the improvisation of the ebullition. Hold! take this door! this grating! this penthouse! this chimney-piece! this broken brazier! this cracked pot! Give all! cast away all! Push this roll, dig, dismantle, overturn, ruin everything! It was the collaboration of the pavement, the block of stone, the beam, the bar of iron, the rag, the scrap, the broken pane, the unseated chair, the cabbage-stalk, the tatter, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... scream nor faint, as Cutter had expected. The blood rushed to her face, and then sank again as suddenly. She steadied herself with one hand on the chimney-piece ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... silence seemed more absolute than ordinarily he turned round. The heavy, gloomy oak wainscot, which extended over the walls upstairs and down in the dilapidated "Old-Grove Place," and the massive chimney-piece reaching to the ceiling, stood in odd contrast to the new and shining brass bedstead, and the new suite of birch furniture that he had bought for her, the two styles seeming to nod to each other across three centuries ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... yourself, Maggie. I have always said that. How Edward has turned out as he has done, I cannot conceive. But now, Maggie, I've something to say to you." He moved uneasily about, as if he did not know how to begin. Maggie was standing leaning her head against the chimney-piece, longing for her visitor to go, dreading the next minute, and wishing to shrink into some dark corner of oblivion where she might forget all for a time, till she regained a small portion of the bodily ...
— The Moorland Cottage • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... the middle of our room, his back to me, his Derby hat in his hand, looking curiously about the walls. I saw his glance held for a moment by the old English clock with its swinging pendulum and weights. It passed on to the chimney-piece loaded with antique silver, bizarre brasses, candle-snuffers and snuff-boxes. It moved over to the bust of Bill that Von Roon had given her when she was married, a miracle of cunningly-arranged shadows. It fell ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... den was no less dilapitated than she; there were chalk walls, blackened beams in the ceiling, a dismantled chimney-piece, spiders' webs in all the corners, in the middle a staggering herd of tables and lame stools, a dirty child among the ashes, and at the back a staircase, or rather, a wooden ladder, which ended in a trap door ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... Corinthian columns, fluted, and a ceiling in stucco, gilt. The drawing room has a rich carved ceiling; and the sides are hung with three-coloured silk damask, the finest of the kind ever executed in England. The antique mosaic tables, and the chimney-piece of this apartment are very splendid, as are also the glasses, which are 108 inches by 65. The great gallery, serving for the library and museum, is 133-1/2 feet by 14, is in stucco, after the finest remains of antiquity, and is remarkable as the first specimen of stucco ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 389, September 12, 1829 • Various
... 'you are a wilful one! What do you want to threaten me for? Don't you know me well enough to know that ain't the way? That's the tone Selina used to take. Surely you don't want to begin and imitate her!' She only sat there, looking at him, while he leaned against the chimney-piece smoking a short cigar. There was a silence, during which she felt the heat of a certain irrational anger at the thought that a little ignorant, red-faced jockey should have the luck to be in the right as against her flesh and blood. She considered him helplessly, with something ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... said Bounderby, getting up to lean his back against the chimney-piece. 'What are you talking about? You took her for ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... repose—this sober, kindly room in which for more than half his life he had lived and worked—why had he forgotten it? It came forward greeting him with an amused smile, as of some old friend long parted from. The faded photos, in stiff, wooden frames upon the chimney-piece, among them that of the fragile little ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... put aside the setting altogether: it is a little too large for the present fashion; and have the portrait of my uncle framed and placed over my chimney-piece, next to yours. It's a ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... gray dawn broke, and all The bells began to peal, And tiny forms down many a hall And stairway 'gan to steal, In vain each chimney-piece they sought— Those weeping girls and boys— For Christmas morn had come and brought No ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris
... the dying embers, throwing on a pine knot for better light. Then I took down my father's sword from its deer-horn brackets over the chimney-piece, and set myself to fine its edge and point with a bit of Scotch whinstone. It was a good blade; a true old Andrea Ferara got in battle in the seventeenth century by one of the ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... as he leant upon the chimney-piece. Here was another son gone, in a different way, beyond her reach. She had seen comparatively little of him since his University days; and though always a good and conscientious person, there had been nothing to draw her out of secular modes of thought; nor had she any connection with the clerical ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that Feversham rose abruptly from his chair, just before the tattoo ceased. He crumpled the telegram loosely in his hands, tossed it into the fire, and then, leaning his back against the chimney-piece and upon one side ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... course," he added with a smile, seeing her look of dismay. "I will sleep here to-night, and we can settle afterward what is to be done to it.— There used to be a portrait," he went on, "—over the chimney-piece, the portrait of a lady—not well painted, I fancy, but I liked it: what ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... heated, and there they would at once escape by a fit opening. Where there is no such opening, however, they become diffused in the upper air of the room, and can escape only slowly by diving under the chimney-piece as that air is changed. Thus the air of a room above the level of the fire-place, whenever there are people or lights in the room, must always be loaded, more or less, with impurity. The purest air of the ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps
... can; I made 'M.L.' in roses on mamma's last birthday, and set it up over the chimney-piece in the drawing-room, and I am sure we could contrive this. ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... little. Last week, Joe Irving, the undergardener at Clomley lodge, brought me, as a present, a large nosegay of dahlias and china-asters. I carried them upstairs, and while Mrs. Rodney was in church, I put them into jars, on the table, and on the chimney-piece, and very bright and pretty they looked. So when she came in, she noticed them and thanked me, and spoke quite cheerful. As she was standing a-talking to me about them, an insect ran out from between the leaves, and I tried to kill it, but she caught ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... the letter carefully on the chimney-piece of the kitchen. "I reckon it's somethin' mo' 'bout the taxes," she thought, "or maybe somebody wants to buy one er my lots. Rena'll be back terreckly, an' she kin read it an' find out. I'm glad my child'en have be'n to school. They never could have got where they are ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... once belonging to Queen Anne, and presented by George III. to the Warwick family. The walls are hung with Brussels tapestry, representing the gardens of Versailles as they were at the time. The chimney-piece, which is sculptured of verde antique and white marble, supports two black marble vases on its mantel. Over the mantel-piece is a full-length portrait of Queen Anne, in a rich brocade dress, wearing the collar and jewels of the Garter, ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe |
