"Curtain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I expected," said Bertram, wiping his heated brow on the window curtain. "You have been ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... this was now covered with heavy linen, undoubtedly for the purpose of concealing what was passing within from any spy who might be seized with a fancy for a promenade on the roof. At one end of the room, and separated from it by a thick curtain, was an alcove. There were about twenty people, mostly women, in the room. Every one stood silent and motionless, as if awaiting some mysterious event. When the clock struck eleven, a voice from behind the curtain said: "Close ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... development of ancient ideas. Think only of this one fact, which no one would now venture to doubt, that the supreme deity of the Greeks, the Romans, the Germans, is called by the same name as the supreme deity of the earliest Aryan settlers in India. Does not this one fact draw away the curtain from the dark ages of antiquity, and open before our eyes an horizon which we can hardly measure by years? The Greek Zeus is the same word as the Latin Ju in Jupiter, as the German Tiu; and all these were merely dialectic varieties of the ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller
... side of the wall there hung a curtain of silvery-gray spider-web, and the voice seemed to come from it. The hero went toward it, but he saw nothing, for the spider that was spinning it moved so fast that no eyes could follow it. Presently it paused up in the left-hand corner of the web, ...
— The Counterpane Fairy • Katharine Pyle
... MRS. CAUDLE," he asserts, "having received an enthusiastic welcome from a Gravesend audience, and being pronounced far superior to any of the counterfeit Representatives, will have the honour of repeating her Curtain Lecture this and to-morrow evenings." "Mrs. Caudle at Gravesend" was, in fact, a "Comic Sketch" by C. Z. Barnett; and the programme decorated with a common engraving in impudent imitation of Leech's immortal cut, contained all the dramatis personae of Jerrold's little domestic drama, including ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... side of the tent, when I opened my eyes, and then I saw, glaring at me through the doorway of the tent, the hideous countenance of a red-skin warrior, horribly covered with paint and decked with coloured feathers. While with his left hand he lifted up the curtain, in his right he grasped his tomahawk, which quivered with his eagerness to ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... or future historic celebrity in the Netherlands, whose names are so familiar to the student of the epoch, seemed to have been grouped, as if by premeditated design, upon this imposing platform, where the curtain was to fall forever upon the mightiest emperor since Charlemagne, and where the opening scene of the long and tremendous tragedy of Philip's reign was to be simultaneously enacted. There was the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... lives a misery. Each one prayed that all this foolishness might end one way or the other. It was too much for human endurance. Every private soldier knew that such things as this could not last. They were willing to ring down the curtain, put out the footlights and go home. There was no hope ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... that, being a college town, it would rally to the call of the serious drama. Unfortunately the college was otherwise engaged at the moment with a drama of more contemporaneous interest and authorship. An unusually severe January added to the eager and nipping air upon which the curtain rises in "Hamlet," and proved too much for the well-meaning players. Hastings (so ran tradition) had gallantly bestowed such money as he had upon the ladies of the company to facilitate their flight to New York. His father, a successful manufacturer of codfish packing-boxes at Newburyport, ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... curtain fall to again. "I was thinking of night-time at the Home," she said. "You see, I got on pretty well, in the day, with my reading and writing. I wanted so to improve myself. My mind was troubled with the fear of your despising such an ignorant creature as I am; so I kept on at ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... still, came forth at intervals the repetition "I will get over it, I will get over it." John found me out, and said, quite startled, "What is the matter with you, Margery?" I complained of "my head," and drew back within the shelter of a curtain. "Margery, my dearest, you are ill," he said, and then the flood-gates of bitterness opened in my heart. How long was he going to act a cruel lie to me? I said, "I am ill; I must go to bed." He followed me out of the room, questioned me anxiously, wrapped ...
— The Late Miss Hollingford • Rosa Mulholland
... really, Aunt Hannah," she cried, with some show of animation. "And they clapped and cheered and gave him any number of curtain calls. We were so proud of him! But you see, I am tired," ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... being perched up aloft, sees, through the curtain, the Christmas holly and the Captain—taking care to mark that individual with mental chalk. The musician's eyes are in the Brown pue; but the eyes that used to meet them are turned another way—all ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... whilst the children clung to their knees, and the Countess (Mrs. Bingley) and Baron Steinforth (performed with great liveliness and spirit by Garbetts)—while the rest of the characters formed a group round them, Pen's hot eyes only saw Fotheringay, Fotheringay. The curtain fell upon him like a pall. He did not hear a word of what Bingley said, who came forward to announce the play for the next evening, and who took the tumultuous applause, as usual, for himself. Pen was not even distinctly ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... that curtain of thick darkness. Behold! A vast city of fantastic houses half buried in winter snows and reddened by the lurid sunset breaking through a saw-toothed canopy of cloud. Everywhere upon the temple squares and open spaces great ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... the rumble of the ice fields was clearer because there was no wind to deaden their tumult. The sky was cloudless, and the stars were like glaring, yellow eyes peering through holes in a vast, overhanging curtain of jet black. Keith, out to fill his lungs with air, looked up at the phenomenon of the polar night and shuddered. The stars were like living things, and they were looking at him. Under their sinister glow the foxes were holding high carnival. It seemed to Keith that ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood
... curtain scene of what I had called an extravaganza. Blenheim's confederates, taking no special pains for gentleness, stripped off the outer garments of the prostrate Schwartzmann, who moaned and groaned throughout the process, though he never opened his eyes. Blenheim ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... they seemed unstinted praise. Thus: "It was not the fault of the management that the new play was so far from being a triumphant success," was cut down to one modest sentence, "A triumphant success." "A few enthusiastic cheers from personal friends alone broke the ominous silence when the curtain fell," became ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... large sofas, or standing bed-places, on either side, with brass bars overhead, by which a curtain could be ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... medium size, and both had the same plain white curtains, made to draw, if necessary, all round them. The occupied bed was the bed nearest the window. The curtains were all drawn round this, except the half curtain at the bottom, on the side of the bed farthest from the window. Arthur saw the feet of the sleeping man raising the scanty clothes into a sharp little eminence, as if he was lying flat on his back. He took the candle, and advanced softly to draw the curtain—stopped ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... on from the Presidio and from Black Point, and both forts were hidden behind a great curtain of tumbling white smoke that rolled up to mingle with the fog. Everybody was on that side of the deck watching and making guesses as to the reason of it. It was perhaps target practice. Ah, it was a good thing ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... and his feet dangling in front of the wheel, which plays on to them a continuous stream of dirt and dust. In windy weather one must crawl inside and sit on the floor tailor fashion, there being no seat, and then let down the curtain, thus effectually blocking all view but keeping out most of the dust, which, flying in blinding clouds, would quickly reduce one to a state of absolute filth, filling the clothes, hair, ears and mouth ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... make my way to England, the land of my fathers, did not take definite shape until comedy, with a broad smile, rang down the curtain upon my love affair. But I fancy it had been a long while in the making. I am not sure but what the germ of it began to stir a little in its husk even at St. Peter's Orphanage; I feel sure it did while I browsed upon English fiction in my little wooden ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... to this window, put aside the dainty white curtain, and looked forth: the whole city of Washington, Georgetown, the winding of the Potomac and Anacostia rivers, Anacostia Island, and the undulating hills of the Virginia and Maryland shores lay spread like ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... space of time; and perplexed at the absurdity of a king's messenger applying for his son-in-law to succeed the King of Spain: "Is the man drunk, or mad? Where are your dispatches?" exclaimed his grace, hastily drawing back his curtain; where, instead of a royal courier, he recognized at the bedside, the fat, good-humored countenance of his friend from Cornwall, making low bows, with hat in hand, and "hoping my lord would not forget the gracious promise he was so good as to make, in ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... waits to trace His extreme way to her dim dwelling-place; The eternal Hunger sits, but pity and awe Soothe her pale rage, nor dares she to deface 70 So fair a prey, till darkness and the law Of change, shall o'er his sleep the mortal curtain draw. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... began to lose the thread of his narrative; and at last: 'Que que j'ai? Je m'embrouille!' says he, 'Suffit: s'm'a la donne, et Berthe en etait bien contente.' It struck me as the falling of the curtain or the closing of the ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... she imagined it was some sick person, or a secret tent set apart for the worship of the Great Spirit; but one day when the chief of the people had gone up the river hunting, and the children were asleep, she perceived the curtain of skins drawn back, and a female of singular and striking beauty appeared standing in the open space in front. She was habited in a fine tunic of white dressed doeskin richly embroidered with coloured ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... rustic ill-breeding of his hinds, his magnanimous soul cruelly tortured by the machinations of jealousy and envy and evil-browed ambition. Yonder on the hill Burgoyne's battery threatens death, and Lincoln avenges us of Burgoyne. Let the curtain fall; a bloodier scene ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... the sunset, and the white mountains were great banks of roses against a skyful of fading violets. But the minute we stepped inside the machine shop, which was lighted up by the red fire of a forge, night seemed suddenly to fall like a black curtain, shutting down outside the open door ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... at peace with God could not be doubted. One has no motive for being at enmity with Him when one is well in the land, and has never had to ask Him for anything. From the grand salon of the Manila home, a little door, hid behind a silken curtain, led to a chapel—something obligatory in a Filipino house. There were Santiago's Lares, and if we use this word, it is because the master of the house was rather a poly- than a monotheist. Here, in sculpture and oils, were saints, martyrdoms, and miracles; ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... upper and lower schools were divided by a curtain, about which there is a remarkable story. A boy, having torn this curtain, was saved from one of Busby's terrible floggings by his school-mate assuming the fault, and bearing the rod in his place. This brave lad in the civil war took the King's side, ...
— Harper's Young People, April 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... style of decoration and can always be kept fresh and dainty. But elaborate lace curtains which have seen better days elsewhere are most emphatically not for bedrooms, and should find another asylum. A pretty window drapery is the thin white curtain with a colored figured inner curtain. The use of figured draperies demands a good sense of proportion and of the eternal fitness of things, else ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... ebon vault Studded with stars unutterably bright, Through which the moon's unclouded grandeur rolls, Seems like a canopy which love has spread To curtain her sleeping world. ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... large war party of Iroquois—sacrificing their lives to save the little struggling colony at Montreal. Again, their way lay beneath those towering cliffs overlooking the Ottawa, on which now stand the Canadian Houses of {26} Parliament. They had just passed the curtain-like falls of the Rideau on one side, and the mouth of the turbulent Gatineau on the other, and before them lay the majestic Chaudiere. Here they disembarked. The voyageurs, following the Indian example, threw a votive offering of tobacco into ...
— Pathfinders of the Great Plains - A Chronicle of La Verendrye and his Sons • Lawrence J. Burpee
... remote corner of the cool, shady parlor, sympathizing in silence with the touching scene, but keeping as much in the background as etiquette and custom allowed, that she might not intrude on this last farewell. At length the curtain behind the grating fell, and the young girl had severed the tenderest link that bound her to the world. Many other visits were paid—some to friends of Mademoiselle G——'s parents (she had long been an orphan), some to ecclesiastical personages who had interested ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... a berlingot. When this shabby carriage was driven past the windows the inhabitants of the chateau, who were at breakfast, were convulsed with laughter; but when the bald head of the old man was seen issuing from behind the leather curtain of the vehicle Monsieur d'Hauteserre told his name, and all present rose instantly to receive and do honor to the head ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... the parlor door was partly of glass shaded by a silken curtain the folds of which hung a little awry. So strong was the merchant's interest in witnessing what was to ensue between the fair Polly and the gallant Feathertop that after quitting the room he could by no means refrain from peeping through the crevice of the curtain. But there was nothing very miraculous ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... familiar story preserves their names as companions, and commemorates their rival genius. Zeuxis, such is the story, painted a cluster of grapes which so closely imitated the real fruit that the birds pecked at them. His rival, for his piece, painted a curtain. Zeuxis asked Parrhasius to draw aside the veil and exhibit his picture. "I confess I am surpassed," generously admitted Zeuxis to his rival; "I deceived birds, but you have deceived the eyes of an ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... could be nothing but the violence of the wind penetrating through the divisions of the shutters; and she stepped boldly forward, carelessly humming a tune, to assure herself of its being so, peeped courageously behind each curtain, saw nothing on either low window seat to scare her, and on placing a hand against the shutter, felt the strongest conviction of the wind's force. A glance at the old chest, as she turned away from this examination, was not ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... the fortunes of those three during their long period of exile. The curtain was lifted in order that the Reader might take a glance at them in the far-off land. They are a pleasant trio to look upon. They do not thirst feverishly for the precious metal as many do. Their nightly reading of the Word saves them from that. Nevertheless, ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... an uncracked crystal—was always in his hand. He never disobeyed his father, and for years he never knew what became of Claude Melnotte after he went to the wars; or if Damon got back in time to save Pythias before the curtain fell. The Boy, naturally, had a most meagre notion as to what all these plays were about, but he enjoyed his fragments of them as he rarely enjoys plays now. Sometimes, in these days, when the air is bad, and plays are worse, and big hats are worse than either, he wishes that ...
— A Boy I Knew and Four Dogs • Laurence Hutton
... him. He chose to show himself in public with them, and to check any impression that they were without due protection. As usual, the pit was full of officers, and between the acts they all rose, as usual, and faced the boxes, which they perused through their lorgnettes till the bell rang for the curtain to rise. But Mrs. Elmore, having touched his arm to attract his notice, instructed him, by a slow turning of her head, that Captain Ehrhardt was not there. After that he undoubtedly breathed freer, and, in the relaxation from his sense of bravado, he enjoyed the last acts of the opera more than ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... are four years old the candle is all dressed up in a new frill. And stars nod to you through the hole in the curtain, (except the big stiff planets too fat to move about much,) and you curtsey back to the stars when no one is looking. You feel sorry for the poor wooden chair that knows it isn't nice to sit on, and no one is sad but mama. ...
— Sun-Up and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... at by many curious eyes, for everyone in Hilltown knew about the young beauty and the prize she had caught; but Helen saw no one, and had eyes for only one thing, the little white house where Arthur lodges. The carriage swept by and she saw no one, but she saw that the curtain of Arthur's room was drawn, and she shuddered at the thought, "Suppose he should be dying!" Yet it was a great load off her mind to have escaped seeing him, and she was beginning to breathe again and ask herself ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... to an almost immediate summit twenty thousand feet above the sea; on the left, in the distance, was just visible the receding snow dome of the South Peak, with its two horns some five hundred feet higher. The mists were passing from the distant summits, curtain after curtain of gauze draping their heads for a moment ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... expecting her; she went to the gate, and found it was fast locked, returned, locked and bolted the doors of the house, went to bed and slept as soundly as she had done since her residence in the old mansion. "I have at least, she said, escaped the disgusting curtain-lecture ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... staircase. The light no longer shone out into the left-hand passage; but groping down it, I found the study door open, as before, and passed in. A sick light stole through the blinds—enough for me to distinguish the glasses and decanters on the table, and find my way to the curtain that hung before the room where the light ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various
... evening at the theatre had quickly run through all Paris; the officer on duty told it at his relief to some of the guards, they to those whom they met, and it spread like wildfire. It was therefore very natural that, long before the curtain was raised, the great opera-house was completely filled, parquette, boxes, and parterre, with a passionately-excited throng. The friends of the queen went in order to give her a long- looked-for triumph; her enemies—and these the poor queen had in overwhelming numbers—to fling ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... the complaints of their subjects, and soon after brought the kings themselves to answer at their bar. At this last ceremony the ambassadors had not Clootz for their Cotterel. Pity that Clootz had not had a reprieve from the guillotine till he had completed his work! But that engine fell before the curtain had fallen upon all the dignity of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... extends across the stage from right to left, about six feet back of the foot-lights. Throughout the text, what goes on in front of this curtain is referred to as the Real-play; what goes on behind the curtain is the Play-play. Upon the sides of the curtain, Right and Left, is painted a representation of an attic room in a tenement house. The curtain becomes ...
— The Pot Boiler • Upton Sinclair
... the boundaries which humanity has placed, and the moral order of the world imposes: they perish both,—each at odds with self, with God, and with human society: only for him there yet remains room for further development. Then the curtain falls,—that is right, according to artistic rule of composition; true and necessary according to the views of those who hold the faith of the Church of England; and from a theological point ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... a knack for decoration, Sherm. I never dreamed you were artistic. Why didn't you tell us? That spray against the curtain is exquisite. Have you ever taken drawing lessons?" Marian was both surprised and interested to discover this unexpected talent in ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... art, the small beneficial result that follows so much outlay and such a combination of artistical skill, the amount of training bestowed on the singers and dancers, greater than that which produces great men, and the company before the curtain, together with reflections thereanent. It is a piece of forcible description, and of thoughtful though perhaps rather one-sided reflection. As we heard it remarked a few days ago by a shrewd critic, Carlyle is never so much himself as ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... levels: the higher, at the back, for the Song-preludes alone, concealed by a purple curtain; the lower only being discovered when the drop goes up. Diagonally across the extreme left of the lower stage, is arranged the king's court, with various platforms, for the various dignitaries ascending to the canopied throne. The body of ...
— The Cycle of Spring • Rabindranath Tagore
... had bade us good night. Mother and daughter finally retired; but, as for myself, I was nervous and restless, sleeping little, thinking of home and loved ones; not, however, forgetting the little "Wild Rose" that was separated from me only by a curtain partition. ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young
... before Primrose came. She is going to show me all her conservatories to-morrow, and she took a great fancy to my carnations. I promised her some slips. Oh dear! oh dear! who is that knocking at the hall door? Daisy, run and peep from behind the curtain, and let me know." ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... about sunrise. Going to the window, I put aside the curtain, and looked out into the garden. Louis Herbois and his wife were there, renewing the garlands with fresh flowers, and watering the moss which was spread over the grave. It must be their own child, thought I, and yet—no—I will step out and ask them, and put an end to the mystery. ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... of dark red velvet with ornamented designs cut from the green silk, and upon which are small pieces of white silk representing berries. Also, another handsome specimen of Spanish applied work of the seventeenth century is a linen curtain richly embellished with heraldic emblems couched with gold thread. Horse trappings and reposters, loaded with applique flowers cut from gold and silver cloth, were much in evidence among the Spanish ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... to Allah, the sentinels also being duly set, the warrior who is to fall in battle on the morrow lies down to sleep as peaceful as that of the babe he has left behind in the aoul, and soft as if the canopy overhead were not the star-spangled curtain of the skies. If the party have tents, as is sometimes the case, they are pitched by cutting down branches of trees for lack of poles, and then covering them with the mats and felts which have been transported ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... amid a real storm of applause; and, with their enthusiasm at the highest pitch, the audience claimed to know the names of the poet and of the composer. After a long pause the curtain rose and the registrar appeared; he made the three customary bows, and in a loud voice named Marsollier as the author and Mehul as the composer ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... a red curtain, and the cosy warmth of the place sent a glow of comfort through Nan. Jerry's efforts had not ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... words and the orchestra played a soft accompaniment that made the whole thing most effective. Major Pierce was a splendid Villikins, and as Dinah I received enough applause to satisfy anyone, but the curtain remained down, motionless and unresponsive, just because I happened to be the ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... crisis of Elizabeth's reign, her gay and dashing courtiers, and even her serious masters of affairs, persisted in pretending to look on the world in which they lived, as if through the side-scenes of a masque, and relieved against the background of a stage-curtain. Human life, in those days, counted for little; fortune, honour, national existence hung in the balance; the game was one in which the heads of kings and queens and great statesmen were the stakes,—yet the players could not get out of their stiff ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... The curtain went up. I have never felt anything to compare with the cool breath of air from the stage, which fanned my heated brow. The first act was received sympathetically, and was followed by applause, and I seized the interval to run and see my mother. The ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... while granny was talking, and taking a stitch occasionally, Lucy picked up the other curtain and made it. It was not a very big matter; all the windows in Seacombe houses were small. Then she put on the kettle, and while it was boiling she took the other curtain from granny's frail hand and worked away ...
— The Making of Mona • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... value, the value of the figures to which it serves as a background is impaired and often lost, and so the painted hangings of the Elizabethan age were a far more artistic, and so a far more rational form of scenery than most modern scene-painting is. From the same master- hand which designed the curtain of Madison Square Theatre I should like very much to see a good decorative landscape in scene-painting; for I have seen no open-air scene in any theatre which did not really mar the value of the actors. One must either, like Titian, make the landscape subordinate to the figures, ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... at last, Alexander, snatching a spear from one of the soldiers, met Clitus as he was coming forward and was putting by the curtain that hung before the door, and ran him through the body. He fell at once with a cry and a groan. Upon which the king's anger immediately vanishing, he came perfectly to himself, and when he saw his friends about him ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... the women apart, knitting or spinning by the light of the fire and one candle. The children play with their gifts of apples and nuts. As the hour grows later, and mysterious noises begin to be heard about the house, and a curtain sways in a draught, the thoughts of the company already centred upon the dead find expression in words, and each has a tale to tell of an adventure with some friend ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... in which it prefers to sit. Their habits are remarkably strong and invariable, and new ones are slowly formed. While using a large reaction box I noticed that the frogs, after having once escaped from an opening which could be made by pushing aside a curtain at a certain point in the box, tended to return to that place as soon as they were again put into the box. This appeared to be evidence of an association; but the fact that such stimuli as light and the relation of the opening to the place at which the animals ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... plays light tunes until the house lights are turned down; the curtain rises in darkness, accompanied by solemn music. A small light grows in the middle of the stage, and shows the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE sitting in judgment, wearing wig and red robes of office, in the Court of Criminal Appeal. ...
— Night Must Fall • Williams, Emlyn
... was found by the soundings, etc., that we were near our port, but a thick fog hid the land from our sight. About nine o'clock the fog began to rise, and seem'd to be lifted up from the water like the curtain at a play-house, discovering underneath, the town of Falmouth, the vessels in its harbor, and the fields that surrounded it. This was a most pleasing spectacle to those who had been so long without any other prospects than the uniform view of a vacant ocean, ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... of a great noise about the house, above which I heard the voice of Marais storming and shouting, and that of my father trying to calm him. Presently Marie entered the room, drawing-to behind her a Kaffir karoos, which served as a curtain, for the door, it will be remembered, had been torn out. Seeing that I was awake and reasonable, she flew to my side with a little cry of joy, and, kneeling down, kissed me on ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... and found the lamp gone out. She rose and re-lighted it. Every box and drawer lay overthrown and rifled, nothing left but what the thieves deemed not worth taking. She turned round to the mosquito curtain which concealed her husband; it was cut by two long gashes, the one close to his head, the other to his feet. There the robber-sentry must have kept watch, ready to destroy the sleepers if they had wakened for ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... be practical! I know Europe; I do not know India! I need a man brave, cool, and unscrupulous; I need a resolute man to aid me in the one purpose of my life! I wish to go out to India to face this Hugh Fraser, to lift up the curtain of the dead past, and I need a protector—a paid champion—a man who values the only thing which is concrete power in life; a man who knows the power of money! For, gold is ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... number of forty or fifty, can move about freely from larboard to starboard, or from stem to stern, or seat themselves on the benches running along the inside of the guard railing on the two sides of the vessel. They are protected from rain by a roof, and from the rays of the sun by a curtain ...
— Scientific American Suppl. No. 299 • Various
... lock up what jewels she had. She must be sure to do that. Violet Oliver looked towards the window and shivered. It was very silent in the room. Fear seized hold of her. It was a big room, and furtively she peered into the corners lest already hidden behind some curtain the ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... drop the curtain over the rest of the race—Hartshorn won it in a neck-and-neck drive with Calloway just as Shea was flogging the bay colt past the sixteenth pole—and we will lift the curtain again at the point where the judges summoned Pitkin ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... York. The short scene where Cardinal Beaufort, who is tormented by his conscience on account of the murder of Gloster, is visited on his death- bed by Henry VI. is sublime beyond all praise. Can any other poet be named who has drawn aside the curtain of eternity at the close of this life with such overpowering and awful effect? And yet it is not mere horror with which the mind is filled, but solemn emotion; a blessing and a curse stand side by side; the pious King is ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... When the curtain rises several courtiers are discovered wandering or sitting about. There is much laughing and ...
— Clair de Lune - A Play in Two Acts and Six Scenes • Michael Strange
... window and balcony, with a sort of pole or flag-staff; for the place is official or rather municipal. Round it swelled the crowd, with its songs and poems and passionate rhetoric in a kind of crescendo, and then suddenly the curtain of the window rose like the curtain of the theatre, and we saw on that high balcony the red fez and the tall figure of the Mahometan ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... notice as possible; but fate was sure to pursue them sooner or later, for Rachel had come down resolved on testing their acquirements, and deciding on the method to be pursued with them; and though their mamma, with a curtain instinctive shrinking both for them and for herself, had put off the ordeal to the utmost by listening to all the counsel about her affairs, it was ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... It is written (Ex. 26:3, seqq. [*St. Thomas quotes the sense, not the words]): "Let one curtain draw the other." Therefore one man should ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... across the table. There was something forced and graceless about the act. Blackie eyed Von Gerhard through a misty curtain of cigarette smoke. Von Gerhard gazed at Blackie through narrowed lids as he lighted his cigar. "I'm th' gink you killed off two or three ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... curtain drew back, and Catiline and Aurelia appeared. Fanny had dressed Francis, from Kennet's Antiquities, out of an old rag-chest, and a more complete little Roman figure I never saw, though made up no mortal can tell how, like one of your own doings, dear aunt, with a crown of ilex leaves. Aurelia ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... Elizabeth's reign is the dispersion of the Armada. The dragon has been fought and vanquished, and at this point, the curtain ought to ring down and leave the audience to imagine the Red-cross knight and his ladye-love living happy for ever afterwards. But in history no climax is more than an incident; at the most it is but the decisive entry on a new phase. The chain of causation, of ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... that it is quite within the bounds of truth to say that on July 31 the curtain went down upon a world which ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... of avoiding the danger of the night air are—to have your evening meal about 6.30 or 7,—8 is too late; sleep under a mosquito curtain whether there are mosquitoes in your district or not, and have a meal before starting out in the morning, a good hot cup of tea or coffee and bread and butter, if you can get it, if not, something left from last night's supper or even aguma. Regarding ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... as stiff as bolsters! Here is the cottage interior, the usual first flat, with the cloak upon the nail, the rosaries of onions, the gun and powder-horn and corner-cupboard; here is the inn (this drama must be nautical, I foresee Captain Luff and Bold Bob Bowsprit) with the red curtain, pipes, spittoons, and eight-day clock; and there again is that impressive dungeon with the chains, which was so dull to colour. England, the hedgerow elms, the thin brick houses, windmills, glimpses of the navigable Thames - England, when at ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... companion of the Night, In drearier depths my being steeping, Like the felt presence of an unseen sprite, With muffled tread comes creeping, creeping. Before me close her smothering curtain swings, And o'er my life a shadeless shadow flings; Sinking with pitiless weight, and slow To shroud the last sweet glimpse of Earth and Man, And set my limits to the narrow span Of but ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... been glad if that could be, being alone and motherless I knew not whom to open my mind to, and so I left it as it was, showing him no favour, except when my father, and his too, were from home, to raise the curtain or the lattice a little and let him see me plainly, at which he would show such delight that he seemed as if he were going mad. Meanwhile the time for my father's departure arrived, which he became aware ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... little ink-horn and two quills primly side by side upon it; and at the back stood a couple of small bound volumes in which the nun was accumulating little by little private devotions that appealed to her. A pair of beads hung on a nail by the window over which was drawn an old red curtain; two brass candlesticks with a cross between them stood over the hearth, giving it a faint resemblance to an altar. The boards were bare except for a strip of matting by the bed; and the whole room, walls, floor, ceiling and furniture were ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... put forward, widening the distance in imagination; and the next time she turned to view her work, the shack was sinking behind a billow of land. She stood now and gazed back at the flat, flowered expanse; then she turned her back upon it for the last time. One does not look long upon the gay curtain after it has closed ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... of a curtain, Archie was aware of some illogicality in his position, and stood abashed. He had a strong impression, besides, of the essential valour of the old gentleman before him, how conveyed it would be hard ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the faint glimmer peculiar to the shaded lamp of a sick-room. Guy's pulse bounded wildly at first, and then grew dull and still. In that room he knew Constance lay dying. The other window was brightly lighted, but half shaded by a curtain. While he gazed, this was torn suddenly aside, as if by an angry, impatient hand, and a man leaned out, throwing back the hair from his forehead, to catch the cold wind which was blowing sharply. Guy had never seen the dark, passionate face before, but he know ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... anybody know it. I suppose other women have had to do the same thing many a time. And some of them, perhaps, grow hard and cold, and say bitter things, and people dislike and avoid them, not knowing that if they lifted up the curtain of their hearts they would see a grave there, in which all their hopes were buried long ago. Well, God knows best, and will do His best for us all. How can I ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... ago, in his last address to the Congress, President Harry Truman predicted such a time would come. He said, "As our world grows stronger, more united, more attractive to men on both sides of the Iron Curtain, then inevitably there will come a time of change within the Communist world." Today, that ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... carry out. I made as you saw a determination of the angle at which this weight of 250 grams just slipped on the ice. The lower surface of the weight, the part which presses on the ice, consists of a light, brass curtain ring. This can be detached. Its mass is only 61/2 grams, the curtain ring being, in fact, hollow and made of very thin metal. We have, therefore, in it a very small weight which presents exactly the same surface beneath as did the weight ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly
... "'After closing the curtain she conversed with me for some time, and then walked across to where Miss Cook was lying senseless on the floor. Stooping over her, "Katie" touched her and said: "Wake up, Florrie, wake up! I ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... thou scan aright Dreams and visions of the night? Wouldst thou future secrets learn And the fate of dreams discern? Wouldst thou ope the Curtain dark And thy future fortune mark? Try the mystic page, and read What ...
— The Voice • Margaret Deland
... she had lain quiet a long time, the grasp was suddenly loosened and Clytie was privileged to ease her aching neck and cramped shoulders. Then, even as she looked down, she heard from Nancy the measured soft breathing of sleep. She drew a curtain to shut out one last ray of light, and went softly ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... is lighted up by camp fires which send their flames toward heaven in a cloud of smoke. These little red spots throw everywhere a fiery glow over the snow, and down upon this wonderful color symphony the moon pours its weak, ghostlike light through a curtain of clouds so that people seem to float away as in a dream. In the foggy twilight three battalions march to the front.... The noise of the gunfire penetrates to us in separate, spasmodic outbreaks. Flashes of fire flare up on the ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various |
