"Couch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... gesture at all be touched in those words which the prelate citeth, it was the gesture they used when they lay down to sleep, and not their table-gesture when they did eat; for mitta and ngheres (the two words which Amos useth) signify a bed or a couch wherein a man useth to lay himself down to sleep. And in this sense we find both these words, Psal. vi. 7, "All the night make I my bed (mittathi) to swim: I water my couch (ngharsi) with my tears." The Shunnamite ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... prisoner. I was settling myself to sleep, in fact I think I was asleep as far as it would be called so, for I had from habit the custom of sleeping with one eye open, when I saw or felt the flash of a knife over my head. The entrance to my couch was very limited, so that my would-be murderer had some difficulty in striking the fatal blow. Instinct at ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... not to thy eternal resting-place Shalt thou retire alone; nor couldst thou wish Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down With patriarchs of the infant world, with kings, The powerful of the earth, the wise and good, Fair forms and hoary seers of ages past, All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills, Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun; the vales, Stretching in pensive quietness ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... then looked after Peck. He gave a shrill whinny of recognition, and, I thought, seemed to be a little restless. A fresh feed of corn was in the old basket, and presently the man came into the stable with a bunch of hay, and commenced rubbing off the marks of Peck's oozy couch which were left on his flanks. As we went back to the shanty I noticed that he eyed me furtively, without daring to look me full in the face. As I was apparently none the worse for the night's experiences, he rallied at last, and ventured ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... pair entered the bungalow they found that Jessie had gone to her room. She was lying on a couch, and though the light was dim, Laura could see quite plainly that her friend had ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer
... reclining on the couch, and came back with a loaf of bread and some canned beef. Jim eyed the food with ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... went to the second landing and without knocking pushed open the door. It was a house storm-riven. Trunks bulged, though only half-packed, their contents straggling over the sides. The beds were not made, and a strong odor of valerian and camphor flooded the air. On a couch lay Mrs. Fridolin, her face covered with a handkerchief, while near hovered Miss Bredd in her most brilliant and oracular attitude. She was speaking too loudly as he entered: "There is no use of worrying yourself sick about Meg, Mrs. Fridolin. She's gone for a time—that's ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... Sherwood's depths that same day. A score and more of barefoot friars were there, and some that looked like tinkers, and some that seemed to be sturdy beggars and rustic hinds; and seated upon a mossy couch was one all clad in tattered scarlet, with a patch over one eye; and in his hand he held the golden arrow that was the prize of the great shooting match. Then, amidst a noise of talking and laughter, he took the patch from off his eye and stripped away the scarlet rags ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... overfraught, No added charm thy face hath found; Within my heart the change is wrought, My footsteps make enchanted ground. From couch of pain and curtained room Forth to thy light and air I come, To find in all that meets my eyes The ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... me, and the next minute we were helping to bear the old Spaniard to a couch, when, his wounds being roughly bound up, and a stimulant given, he told us in tolerable English that about three miles from the hacienda, while on his way to the nearest town, he had been set upon suddenly, and in spite of the resistance ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... steal from my lonely bed to the place where my dead wife and child lay, and, in agony of soul, pass my shaking hand over their cold faces, and then return to my bed after a draught of rum, which I had obtained and hidden under the pillow of my wretched couch. ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... nor harm, nor dread, But, the same couch beneath, Lay a gaunt wolf, all torn and dead, Tremendous still ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... the window. It had began to grow dark, and he was turning away to lie on the couch, when he heard the clatter of hoofs and saw Hugh Price mounted on his favorite black charger, riding toward Greensprings. Shortly after, Dinah's step was heard on the stairway, and his ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... voice. Charudatta has returned. I must open the door for him. [He does so.] Master, I salute you. Maitreya, I salute you too. The couch is ready. Pray be seated. [Charudatta and Maitreya enter and ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... art lovelier now than ever; How sweet 'twould be, when all the air In moonlight swims, along thy river To couch upon the grass, and hear Niagara's everlasting voice, Far in the deep blue west away; That dreaming and poetic noise We mark not in the glare of day, Oh! how unlike its torrent-cry, When o'er the brink the tide is driven, As if the vast ...
— The Culprit Fay - and Other Poems • Joseph Rodman Drake
... in sleep. Stretch'd on her couch The delegated Maiden lay: with toil Exhausted and sore anguish, soon she closed Her heavy eye-lids; not reposing then, For busy Phantasy, in other scenes Awakened. Whether that superior powers, By wise permission, prompt the midnight ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... aconite— enough to kill three men, so I had learned. I had drawn $6,000 that I had in bank, and with that and a few things in a satchel I left the house without any one seeing me. As I passed the library I heard him stagger up and fall heavily on a couch. I took a night train for New Orleans, and from there I sailed to the Bermudas. I finally cast anchor in La Paz. And now what have you to say? ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... the tomb of St. Mark and also that of the Doge Andrea Dandolo, who died at the age of forty-six, having been chosen Doge ten years before. His tomb is under a window in the baptistery, and the design is that of his statue in bronze, lying on a couch, while two angels at the head and the feet hold ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... experience left her drawn and haggard. Her sufferings were physical as well as mental, for over one eye rose a hideous, plum-coloured swelling, which her maid, a tall, austere woman, was bathing assiduously with vinegar and water. The lady lay back exhausted upon a couch, but her quick, observant gaze, as we entered the room, and the alert expression of her beautiful features, showed that neither her wits nor her courage had been shaken by her terrible experience. She was enveloped in a loose dressing-gown of blue and silver, but a black sequin-covered dinner-dress ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... his companion was that day, and therefore he took Mr. Wet-eyes with him. David would have made a most excellent associate for Mr. Desires-awake that day. 'I am weary with my groaning; all the night make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with my tears.' And again, 'Rivers of waters run down mine eyes, because they keep not Thy law.' This, then, was the only manner of man that Mr. Desires-awake would stake his life alongside of that day. 'I have seen some persons weep for the loss of sixpence,' ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... punster. Miss Caroline Ticknor tells us how he used to lie on a couch in a back room at the Old Corner Bookstore in Boston, at a very early hour, and amuse the boys who were sweeping and dusting the store until one of the partners arrived. I believe he never lost a chance to indulge ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... the gas was not turned up by the woman till after the door was closed. While the man was bolting the door the woman hurried to the dressing-table and hastily laid her hat on one chair and her cloak on the other. This action compelled the man to place his clothes on the couch or on one of the chairs by the folding doors. When all was ready, one of the operators scratched lightly on the door with his finger-nail, to warn the woman he was about to enter the room. The next moment the man boldly opened the door ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... good to be true!" she exclaimed, gazing happily from one girl to another, as the seven of them lounged about the living-room, three on the broad couch and the rest distributed impartially between the floor and the window-seat. Such complete informality had never seemed permissible in the sedate Clyde mansion; but somehow these surroundings seemed to invite one to be as comfortable and ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... that myself," quoth Bobbie, feeling that the privilege of restoring her to Mary had been rightfully earned. He picked her up and tenderly lifted her from the couch where she had been placed by the sergeant. Down the stairs they went with their prisoner, while Patrolman White descended from the roof with his captive, whose hands had been ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... of lightning, followed quickly by sharp thunder, discloses Dimsdell kneeling at his couch, and also shows SATAN—an archangel with ...
— The Scarlet Stigma - A Drama in Four Acts • James Edgar Smith
... eyes burned with white fire. She got up from the couch where she had lain curled like a ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... to sleep. Only a wooden partition separated her from the room in which the two brothers slept. She could hear Manasseh turning restlessly on his couch and muttering in his sleep as if in dispute with ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... to hand. I am interested in all you say. It was very kind, indeed beautiful, of you to sit by the couch of dear Erickson all those hours. But it will be a recollection of pleasure all through your life, and I have no doubt, after the fading hours of this life have passed out of sight and thought, it will give you satisfaction ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... so and discovered a large and beautiful cave lit up by the brilliancy of the stones with which it was lined, with a little couch covered with soft moss in one corner. She lay down on it and the dog at once nestled at her feet. Tired out with all she had gone ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... beside the bed, and in the high-piled whiteness of the empty couch there was a little hollow where a gray head nightly rested while Aunt Plenty said the prayers her mother taught ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... indignant in their tyrant's room,[24] No more in hall the fluttering theme he tears, Or lolling, picks his teeth at morning prayers; Unmark'd, unfear'd, on dogs he vents his hate, And spurns the terrier from his guarded gate. But now to listless indolence a prey, Stretch'd on his couch, he sad and darkling lay; As not unlike in venom and in size, Close in his hole the hungry spider lies. "And oh!" he cries, "am I so powerless grown, That I am fear'd by cooks and scouts alone? Oh! for some nobler strife, some senior foe, To swell by his defeat the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... cries of mothers; the wailing of women and children; the visitation of dismaid and swouning friends; the assistance of a number of pale-looking, distracted, and whining servants; a darke chamber; tapers burning round about; our couch beset round with Physitians and Preachers; and to conclude, nothing but horror and astonishment on every side of us: are wee not already dead and buried? The very children are afraid of their friends, when they see them masked; and so are we. ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... tenderness that my mother would have given me had she been at my bedside. At length I pulled through, and was able to come on deck; but it was a shadow of my former self who crept up the companion ladder to where a couch had been prepared for me. As I lay thus, recovering my strength in the sun, I was able to give Hartog some account of my adventure. At first, when I spoke of rubies, he evidently regarded what I said as a flight of fancy inseparable ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... rights belonged to them. He gazed at this thing and that, as if he had never seen it before. The place seemed to cast a spell over him, so that he could not leave it. He seated himself on the ancient brocaded couch, and sat staring, with a sense, which by degrees grew dreadful, that he was where he would not be, and that if he did not get up and go, something would happen. But he could not rise—not that he felt any ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... time William remained night and day near her bedside. The little couch on which he slept when he was in camp was spread for him in the antechamber; but he scarcely lay down on it. The sight of his misery, the Dutch Envoy wrote, was enough to melt the hardest heart. Nothing seemed to be left of the man whose serene fortitude had been ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... being devoutly read by Brother Anselmo, when the man, turning in his couch, caught sight of us at our sacred labors. He thereupon, with many profane and blasphemous oaths, ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... misery as he raised his head and looked about quickly for some couch on which to lay her. But the bare studio was devoid of any such luxury, and with his face set rigidly he carried her across the room and pushed open a door leading to an inner sleeping apartment. Barer it was and colder even than the studio, and its bleak poverty formed ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... parts should be the effect of a longer continuance in water, instead of that separation, which is begun by the introduction of watery particles into the body. Were it to be spread thin after this removal, it would become dry, and no vegetation would ensue; but being thrown into the couch, a kind of vegetative fermentation commences, which generates heat, and produces the first appearance of a vegetation. This state of the barley is nearly the same with that of many days continuance in the earth after sowing, ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger
... I entered my uncle's room. He was reclining on a sofa, his back towards us, and his long white hair, as fine as spun glass, hung over the back of the couch. ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... up, and the Canon called in Maurice to prescribe. He arrived in the late afternoon and was taken by the Canon into Lily's little sitting-room, where she lay on a couch by the fire. A small, shaded, reading ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... in a deep soft voice, while he extended his huge frame on the couch from which I had just risen. "I've got an ugly wound, I fear, and I've been waiting for you to waken, to ask you to get me a drop o' brandy and a mouthful o' bread from the cabin lockers. You seemed to sleep so sweetly, Ralph, that I didn't like ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... All these towns and spires looked peaceful, but all were held by the Burgundians. Men-at-arms were thick on the crest of our boulevard, and on the gate-keep, all looking across the river towards the town, whence the Maid should sally by way of the bridge. So there I lay on a couch in the window and waited, having no fear, but ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... moonlight began at this juncture to throw its beams in the prison, when Mr. Schnackenberger, starting up from his sleepless couch, for pure rage, seized upon the iron bars of his window, and shook them with a fervent prayer, that instead of bars it had pleased God to put Mr. Mayor within his grasp. To his infinite astonishment, the bars were more obedient to his wrath than could have been expected. One ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... up, child, and don't be ridiculous! Sit on that high chair, and don't stoop! I can't endure to see a young girl lounging on a couch. What is this new scheme that you wish ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... was strong we lay on the edge of a sword, now a couch sixty yards wide is too narrow ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... long parlor, the leaf ghosts that had all day long been flitting in, were darkening with the sunset and filling the room with twilight dimness. Deep in a crimson couch and haloed with the last brightness, lay the long, white outlines of a reclining figure. A handful of Japan lilies burned against the pure drapery, and another handful of tea violets lay crushed in the fleecy handkerchief on the floor. Against the cushions ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... arrived. We alter our position in a second, bring the deadly weapon to bear on the stag; quickly draw a steady bead, hugging the rifle with all our might, and fire! The hinds flash across our vision like the figures in a magic lantern, and the stag lies weltering in his couch." ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... in roasting, I looked upon him, and perceived that he was fast asleep. Then took I up in my teeth a firebrand by the end where it was not burnt, and cast it into the lap of my roaster, and another did I throw as well as I could under a field-couch that was placed near to the chimney, wherein was the straw-bed of my master turnspit. Presently the fire took hold in the straw, and from the straw to the bed, and from the bed to the loft, which was planked and ceiled with fir, after the fashion of the foot of a lamp. But the best ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... still for a moment, smiling, almost experiencing an emotion on the threshold of this chamber dedicated to love. But suddenly something appeared in the looking-glass, as if the phantoms which he had evoked had risen up before him. A man and a woman who had been sitting on a low couch concealed in the shadow had arisen, and the polished surface, reflecting their figures, showed that they were kissing each other ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... cold-blooded murder. Without hesitating to question those within, the ape-man threw his giant shoulder against the frail panel, and in a shower of splintered wood he entered the cabin, dragging Rokoff after him. Before him, on a couch, the woman lay, and on top of her was Paulvitch, his fingers gripping the fair throat, while his victim's hands beat futilely at his face, tearing desperately at the cruel fingers that were forcing the life ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... censure on her sloth and indifference, Rose caught, from the empty couch which had been destined for her own use, the upper covering, and dragging it with her into the inner ante-room, disposed it so as, with the assistance of the rushes which strewed that apartment, to ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... the same, all of great value, and all was perfumed like an altar, or the marriage bed of some young king. Here Sylvia was designed to lodge, and hither Octavio conducted her; and setting her on a couch while the supper was getting ready, he sits himself down by her, and his heart being ready to burst with grief, at the thought of the claim which was laid to her by Brilliard, he silently views her, while tears were ready to break from his fixed eyes, and sighs stopped what he would fain have ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... cliffs, afford magnificent scenery. Here is "Idris's Chair," where the grim magician, who used to make the mountain his home, sat to perform his incantations, whilst in a hollow at the summit he had his couch. According to Welsh tradition, whoever passed the night there would emerge in the morning either mad or a poet. This mountain, like Snowdon, is said to have been formerly a volcano, and legends tell of the fiery outbursts ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... gold, furred with ermines. The tester and ceiler also shining cloth of gold; the curtains of white sarcenet; as for his head-suit and pillows, they were of the Queen's own ordonnance. In the second chamber was likewise another state-bed, all white. Also, in the same chamber, was made a couch with feather beds, and hanged with a tent, knit like a net, and there was a cupboard. In the third chamber was ordained a bayne (bath) or two, which were covered with tents of white cloth. And, when ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... call up every black and threatening cloud of domestic sorrow, which was to meet me on my return home—the dreadful vacuum occasioned by my mother's death—the grief of my father—my brother and my sisters in deep mourning, and the couch on which I had left the best of parents, when I turned away my thoughtless head from her in the anguish of her grief. I renewed my promise of amendment, and felt some ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the blood-thirsty soldiers wuz rushin' to and fro seekin' for the young Child that they might destroy him, and in his palace King Herod lay in troubled sleep under the close-drawn curtains of the royal couch, slaves watchin' outside the room, slaves watchin' his fearful thorn-strewn pillow, the little Child that he feared and sought to destroy, slept with the clear midnight sky bendin' over his sweet ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... a happy group round Augustina's couch. The Confessor who had brought this precious relic of St. John of the Cross had opened the case, and placed the small and delicate reliquary that it contained in Mrs. Fountain's hands. She lay clasping it to her breast, too ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... exhausted, would pass whole evenings on a couch beside the fire. At such times, the schoolmaster would read aloud to her, and seldom an evening passed but the bachelor came in and took his turn at reading. During the daytime the child was mostly out of doors, and all the strangers who came to ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... have course bread offer'd 'em, are thankfull, And take it for a favour too. Are the rooms Made ready to entertain my friends? I long to dance now And to be wanton; let me have a song, is the great couch up The Duke ...
— Rule a Wife, and Have a Wife - Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (3 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... desire was to couch himself in shooting distance. Then he remembered that shooting with a revolver by moonlight was uncertain work. He slipped away to the hotel and got a rifle ready enough. Men were milling through the lower rooms of the hotel. The point ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... Corning Robert Cornwell William Cornwell Bernard Corrigan John Corrigan John Corroll Battson Corson Pomeus Corson Lewis Cortland Robert Corwell Joseph de Costa Antonio Costo Noel Cotis Anghel Cotter David Cotteral David Cottrill James Couch John Couch Thomas Coudon John Coughin Pierre Coulanson Nathaniel Connan Francis Connie Perrie Coupra Jean de Course Leonard Courtney Louis Couset Joseph Cousins Frances Cousnant Jean Couster John Coutt Vizenteausean Covazensa ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... the prelude to the third act was beginning, the music rose and fell in crowded intimations of lovers separated—lovers separated with scars and memories between them, and the curtain went reefing up to display Tristan lying wounded on his couch and the ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... his ease on the oriental couch, Theron experimented cautiously upon the unaccustomed tobacco, and looked at Celia with what he felt to be the confident quiet of a man of the world. She had thrown aside her hat, and in doing so had half released some of the ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... lively as he had been that day he went to Mr. Mugg's store and bought the toy. There were days when Joe never took the Nodding Donkey off the shelf at all. The wooden toy just had to stay there, while Joe lay on a couch near the ...
— The Story of a Nodding Donkey • Laura Lee Hope
... French windows open. One side of the window was open, which I understand was quite usual in the summer-time, and he passed without difficulty into the room. His mistress had ceased to scream and was stretched insensible upon a couch, while with his feet tilted over the side of an arm-chair, and his head upon the ground near the corner of the fender, was lying the unfortunate soldier stone dead in a pool of his ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... followed instructions and Chester dragged him to the parlor, where he laid him on a couch. Then he bent over ...
— The Boy Allies in the Balkan Campaign - The Struggle to Save a Nation • Clair W. Hayes
... prejudice wronged one of the hated pair. Mrs. Aylett's slumbers upon her downy couch might be none the less serene for her sister-in-law's danger, but Herbert's was the sleep of exhaustion, not callousness. He had been up all the previous night, and racked by the wildest anxiety throughout the intervening day, and to compass this vigil was beyond his physical powers. ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... will conveniently admit it, a couch will add greatly to the mother's comfort; and, if possible, it should be of leather upholstery; otherwise, it should possess a washable cover, for all articles that promote the accumulation of dust are not to be allowed in the nursery. In these early weeks and months baby ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... after dinner to even all my accounts of this month; and bless God, I find myself, notwithstanding great expences of late; viz. 80l. now to pay for a necklace; near 40l. for a set of chairs and couch; near 40l. for my three pictures: yet I do gather, and am worth 5200l. My wife comes home by and by, and hath pitched upon a necklace with three rows, which is a very good one, and 80l. is the price. So ends this month with great ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... thyself fair; the lovers despise thee, they seek thy life." In Ezek. xxii. 40-42, Jerusalem washes and paints herself, expecting her lovers, and decks herself with ornaments; then she sits down upon a stately couch; a table is prepared before her, upon which she places the incense of the Lord, and His oil. In this last feature in Ezekiel, the type disappears behind the thing typified, although not so completely as is the case in the ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... in the same species according to local circumstances difficult to be determined. We were shown a hut, or rather a kind of shed, in which our host of Calabozo, Don Miguel Cousin, had witnessed a very extraordinary scene. Sleeping with one of his friends on a bench or couch covered with leather, Don Miguel was awakened early in the morning by a violent shaking and a horrible noise. Clods of earth were thrown into the middle of the hut. Presently a young crocodile two or three feet long issued from under the bed, ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... not expected to make cloaks and skirts, but she was obliged to fight against a worse servitude even than that. She almost longed for the cloaks and skirts when day after day she was entreated to take her place in the easy chair by the couch of the Marchioness. There was a cruelty in refusing, but in yielding there was a crushing misery. The Marchioness evidently thought that the future stability of the family depended on Mary's quiescence and capability for drinking beer. ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... the excess of her confusion and mortification in a little sob, and then hides her grief behind the curtains of her berth. THE CALIFORNIAN slowly emerges again from his couch, and stands beside it, looking in upon the man in ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the smell seemed to him after that of the caravans! An empty stall was before him, like a chamber prepared for his need. He gathered a few straws from under each of the cows, taking care that not one of them should be the less comfortable, and spread with them for Abby and himself a thin couch. ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... Bedouins and Ascopards, and they be folk full of all evil conditions. And they have none houses, but tents, that they make of skins of beasts, as of camels and of other beasts that they eat; and there beneath these they couch them and dwell in place where they may find water, as on the Red Sea or elsewhere: for in that desert is full great default of water, and often-time it falleth that where men find water at one time in a place it faileth another time; and for that skill they make none habitations there. These folk ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown
... further: then they threw all my clothes in a bush, and hied them away, and as God would haue it, at their departure there fell from them an handkercher, and when I saw it, I rose from my Pallanchine or couch, and tooke it vp, and wrapped it together within my Pallanchine. Then these my Falchines were of so good condition, that they returned to seeke mee, whereas I thought I should not haue found so much goodnesse in them: because they were payed their mony aforehand, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt
... they mean that I should give testimony of myself by works and effects, not barely by words. I chiefly paint my thoughts, a subject void of form and incapable of operative production; 'tis all that I can do to couch it in this airy body of the voice; the wisest and devoutest men have lived in the greatest care to avoid all apparent effects. Effects would more speak of fortune than of me; they manifest their own office and not mine, but uncertainly and by conjecture; patterns of some one particular virtue. ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... upon his bed-ridden master, whose despotic habits were greatly increased by exasperation at his own helplessness. He kept a cowhide beside him, and, for the most trivial occurrence, he would order his attendant to bare his back, and kneel beside the couch, while he whipped him till his strength was exhausted. Some days he was not allowed to wear any thing but his shirt, in order to be in readiness to be flogged. A day seldom passed without his receiving more or less blows. If the ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... should copy. With his silver locks, and at an age when persons who had devoted themselves to the service of the altar in their early days, should, like the Emperor Charles V, rather think of their coffins than the nuptial couch, that prelate married a young woman. Whether the glowing love of truth or Hymen's torch induced him to change the Roman Pontifical for the Book of Common Prayer, and the psalms he and I often sang together for a bridal hymn, his own conscience is the most competent to determine: ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... a hideous nightmare, sat up on a rude horsehair couch, and held his head with both hands. He was conscious of a sense of nausea, burning temples, and a general indisposition to take any interest in his surroundings. He sank back upon ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... messenger out for some clothes, and for the next three hours amused himself by exhausting the resources of the Turkish bath. Finally, about the hour of noon, he found himself, considerably refreshed, swathed in towel, reposing on a couch, a cup of coffee at his elbow and that morning's Daily ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... the latch, too, a girlish figure had started up from the lit-de-fouaille in the corner by the hearth—the great square couch built out into the room and filled with dried bracken, the universal lounge in the Islands, and generally of a size large enough to ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... blow had been too severe, too terrible, to be so easily gotten over. When morning broke, he still lay, face downward, on the couch upon which he had thrown himself. The effects of the sleeping potion they had so mercifully administered to him had worn off, and he was face to face once more with the great sorrow of ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... man loyally, 'the liquor was no more than feelin' its way round inside of 'im; but 'e went an' filled that 'ole bloomin' palanquin with bottles 'fore 'e went off. 'E's gone an' 'ired six men to carry 'im, an' I 'ad to 'elp 'im into 'is nupshal couch, 'cause 'e wouldn't 'ear reason. 'E's gone off in 'is shirt an' trousies, swearin' tremenjus— gone down the road in the palanquin, wavin' ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... was a low and luxurious couch. Here Frohman sat cross-legged and listened to plays. This performance was a sort of sacred rite, and was always observed behind locked doors. No Frohman employee would think of intruding upon his chief ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... on my things very reluctantly, and went. I found Amelia in a richly-furnished house, but looking untidy and ill-cared-for. She was lying on a couch in her bedroom; three delicate-looking children were playing about, and their nurse ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... I have leapt In transport from my flinty couch, to welcome The thunder as it burst upon my roof, And beckon'd to the lightning, as it flash'd And sparkled on ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... couch of wolf skins and looked out upon the coming day: the promise of what it would bring him seemed breathing through all his forest world. He took her very gently by the hand and led her through the tangle of wilderness ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson
... loudly. And lo! a bugle-blast answered, and the door flew open, and the girl and the child entered in together. They wandered through beautiful rooms, listening ever to the music, and at last they came to one where on a couch lay the master of the castle playing ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... in. This was, of course, also opposite to the street leading into the Place Vendome. It was but a short walk from this place to the hotel. About six o'clock the children arrived at the hotel, and the table was already set for dinner. Mr. Holiday was reclining on a couch in the room, and Mrs. Holiday had been reading to him. Rollo's uncle George was also in the room. Mrs. Holiday laid down her book when the children came in. Rollo and Jennie sat down upon a sofa, not far from their father's couch. They were glad ...
— Rollo in Paris • Jacob Abbott
... his lips, or a man condemned to a short shrift by his doctor. I begged him to make himself at home and said that I would go at once and hunt up the woman of the house who would make him up a bed on the big couch there. He hardly listened to what I said. What were all those things to him! He knew that his destiny was to sleep on a bed of thorns, to feed on adders. But he tried to show a sort of polite interest. He asked: ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... to offer you," he said, "but I know you are not used to a soft couch. You must be tired from your journey. Becky will tend to your horses so you had better sleep now, that tomorrow we may start out early and visit Colonel Hawkins. He would see you before you begin work ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... looking so well," agreed Hepatica, straightening chairs and settling couch pillows, trailing here and there in her pretty frock with all the energy of the early morning, as if it were not half-after eleven by the little mantel clock. "Didn't you like her, dear?" She threw an eager glance at me. She was in ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... fruitful Summer loads the teeming plain, She crops the harvest, and she stores the grain. How long shall sloth usurp thy useless hours, Unnerve thy vigour, and enchain thy powers? While artful shades thy downy couch enclose, And soft solicitation courts repose, Amidst the drowsy charms of dull delight, Year chases year with unremitted flight, Till Want now following, fraudulent and slow, Shall spring to seize thee, ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... leaves the peoples whom he has evangelized the Scriptures in their own tongues. Seven short years after he left England, he dies all alone on a foreign strand. 'No kinsman is near to watch his last look or receive his last words. No friend stands by his couch to whisper comforting words, to close his eyes or wipe the death-sweat from his brow.' In the article of death, he is alone with his Lord. The brand plucked from the blaze has soon burned out. But what does it matter? At its ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham
... to come to Angers to see her son heir of Anjou, and actually brought the King with her; made Philippe and her husband behave in the most friendly manner, eat at the same table, sleep on the same couch; and Foulques was even base enough to sit on a footstool at the feet of this woman, who could scarcely have been better ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... parties, whose proceedings we had overlooked; we refer to Miss Tavistock and Dr Plausible. The latter handed the lady to her cabin, eased her down upon her couch, and, taking her hand gently, retained it in his own, while with his other he ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... sit down," he said; and he sank back on the bed. "How soft! Feathers! And the pillow—how cool! Cheeks burn so," he muttered, as he subsided on the restful couch to gaze sidewise at the window with its little sill and flowers growing in a box, all ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... the chiding Sea Say, Pilgrim, why so late and slow to come? Am I not always here, thy summer home? Is not my voice thy music, morn and eve? My breath thy healthful climate in the heats, My touch thy antidote, my bay thy bath? Was ever building like my terraces? Was ever couch magnificent as mine? Lie on the warm rock-ledges, and there learn A little hut suffices like a town. I make your sculptured architecture vain, Vain beside mine. I drive my wedges home, And carve the coastwise mountain into caves. Lo! here is Rome and Nineveh and ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... banks where soft Cephisus flows, A voice sail'd trembling down the waves of air; The leaves blushed brighter in the Teian's rose, The doves couch'd ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... and all the provisions, cooked and uncooked, gathered entomological specimens. At the last, the poor bedeviled theorist made a hasty meal of scorched food, brazenly postponed the washing of dishes until the morrow, and coiled about his hummocky couch to dream the nightmares of ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... her acquaintance she is twenty-three years of age—and looks eighteen. She is tall and slender and carries her handsome form with exquisite grace. Diana is never abrupt; her voice is ever modulated to soft, even tones; she rises from a chair or couch with the lithe, sinuous ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... Larkyns lolling on a couch, in dressing-gown and slippers. Opposite to him was a gentleman whose face was partly hidden by a pewter pot, out of which he was draining the last draught. Mr. Larkyns turned his head, and saw dimly through the clouds of tobacco smoke ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... so, lad," said the captain, interrupting; "I've been thinkin' o' that, an' you may as well rig up some sort o' couch for the poor fellow in the long-boat, for I mean to ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... portion of the very stone which was rolled away from the door of the Sepulchre, and on which the angel was sitting when Mary came thither "at early dawn." Stooping low, we enter the vault—the Sepulchre itself. It is only about six feet by seven, and the stone couch on which the dead Saviour lay extends from end to end of the apartment and occupies half its width. It is covered with a marble slab which has been much worn by the lips of pilgrims. This slab serves as an altar, now. Over it hang some fifty gold and silver lamps, which are kept always burning, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... could have seen Violet as she lay there on her couch after she had gone, she would have marveled more than she had done ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... door, an' pass outside For see mese'f how de night is look An' de star is commence for go couch De mountain also is put ...
— The Habitant and Other French-Canadian Poems • William Henry Drummond
... the "shaking down" hour, in Captain Jack's phraseology, had sounded, and the two friends separated to rest, the young man refused the offer, dictated by hospitality, of his host's own bedroom. Sir Adrian did not press the point, and, leaving his guest at liberty to enjoy the couch arranged by Rene in a corner under the bookshelves, even as when Mademoiselle de Savenaye had been the guest of the peel, himself retired to that now ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... the foot of my bed. I gave a kick with my foot: all movement ceased. After some time, I felt the same movement made under my legs. A sharp jerk made this cease quickly. I then heard the fits of laughter of the janissary, who lay on the couch in the same room as I did; and I soon saw that he had simply placed on my bed a large hedgehog to amuse himself by ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... enough to combat successfully the image of elegant dames in their chosen attitudes—the queenly moments when perhaps they enter an assembly, or pour out tea with an exquisite exhibition of arm, or recline upon a couch, commanding homage of the world of little men. What else had this girl to count upon to make her exclusive? A devoted heart; she had a loyal heart, and perfect frankness: a mind impressible, intelligent, and fresh. She gave promise of fair companionship ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... a couch of furs; and, as the old man entered and closed the door, "Ximen," said he, "fill out wine—it is a soothing counsellor, and I ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... wholly given up to the lowest and worst of pleasures, by which his mind and body were alike ruined. He was so bloated with vice and disease that he seldom walked without crutches; but at his feasts he could leap from his raised couch and dance with naked feet upon the floor with the companions of his vices. He was blinded by flattery, ruined by debauchery, and ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... sexual appetite. He diminishes day by day his food until it reaches the minimum quantity on which existence is maintained. He passes his life in prayer and meditation. He seeks retirement. He lives in his little cell; his couch is the skin of tiger or stag; he regards gold, silver, and all precious stones as rubbish. He abstains from flesh, fish, and wine. He never touches salt, and lives entirely on fruits and roots. I saw a female ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... the starving City She turned her couch to seek, With pearls of tender pity On her queenly cheek; There in restless slumber She dreamt that she was one Of that most piteous number By distress undone. In among that sullen brood, In homeless want she glided, While in mock solicitude Her fate they thus ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... into the house of Abraham, and they ate and drank and were merry. And when the supper was ended, Abraham prayed after his custom, and Michael prayed with him, and each lay down to sleep upon his couch in one room, while Isaac went to his chamber, lest he be troublesome to the guest. About the seventh hour of the night, Isaac awoke and came to the door of his father's chamber, crying out and saying, ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... deserted chamber of my lord.— [Then to the infant. And thou didst kiss thy father's lifeless lips, And in thy helpless hand, sweet slumberer! Still clasp'st the signet of thy royalty. 505 As I removed the seal, the heavy arm Dropt from the couch aslant, and the stiff finger Seemed pointing at my feet. Provident Heaven! Lo, I was standing on the secret door, Which, through a long descent where all sound perishes, 510 Led out beyond the palace. Well I knew it—— But Andreas framed it not! ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... when a fellow-creature needed her kindness. In a moment a match was put to the fire in the parlour; thither Jim and Ackroyd bore the old man, and laid him upon the couch. ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... George stares, then bursts out weeping with a great bellow. He throws himself on the couch, buries his face in a cushion, and howls like a kid. . . That's better, thinks Cloete, and he leaves him, telling the landlord that he must go out, as he has some little business to attend to that night. The landlord's wife, weeping herself, catches him on the stairs: Oh, sir, that poor ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad |
