"Doorpost" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Wrenn, isn't it?" she gurgled, and leaned against the doorpost, merry, apparently indolent. "I'm Mrs. Ferrard. Mr. Poppins told me you were coming, and he said you were a terribly nice man, and I was to be sure and welcome you. Come ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... revealed, was to be angry with the lad who had robbed his child's heart away from him and her family. "A plague upon all scapegraces, English or Indian!" cried the Colonel to his wife. "I wish this one had broke his nose against any doorpost but ours." ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... that sort—and they said they had not any, but found they had a remnant cheap ( (nnth parenthesis) price 3 shillings) which is less than many people pay for the other hosiers' hose) (end of parentheses) a doorpost at the side of the doorway of some place of business ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... presume, to prevent my being too much agitated by despair. For what action do you see possible to be taken, or in what way? Through the senate? But you yourself told me that Clodius had fixed upon the doorpost of the senate-house a certain clause in the law, "that it might neither be put to the house nor mentioned."[340] How could Domitius,[341] therefore, say that he would bring it before the house? How came it about also that Clodius held his tongue, when those you ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... with every circumstance of colour and sound. Incessantly, he had before him the image of that great mass of man stricken down in varying attitudes and with varying wounds; fallen prone, fallen supine, fallen on his side; or clinging to a doorpost with the changing face and the relaxing fingers of the death-agony. He heard the click of the trigger, the thud of the ball, the cry of the victim; he saw the blood flow. And this building up of circumstance was like a consecration of the man, till ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... accents, interrupted at times by broken murmurs from his wife, Mr. Teak informed him of the robbery. Mr. Chase, leaning against the doorpost, listened with open mouth and distended eyeballs. Occasional interjections of pity and surprise attested his interest. The tale finished, the gentlemen exchanged a significant wink and sighed ...
— Ship's Company, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... dropped with a clatter from the old man's hands. He sank back against the doorpost and leaned there an instant; then, whimpering and laughing, he came tottering forward—his old legs failing him in this excess of unexpected joy—and sank on his knees to kiss ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... loophole. It is exactly in a line with the opposite hut, and the fellows in there must come to their door to fire. I will take this slanting hole by the doorpost. I can see one of the windows of the next hut to that we were in. I have no doubt that they are firing from there also. Don't wait for them to shoot, but fire directly ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... of Benediktov—the poet in fashion in those days—could rival the slender grace of her figure. When, at the most emotional passages, she raised her eyes upwards—it seemed to him no heaven could fail to open at such a look! Even the old man, Pantaleone, who with his shoulder propped against the doorpost, and his chin and mouth tucked into his capacious cravat, was listening solemnly with the air of a connoisseur—even he was admiring the girl's lovely face and marvelling at it, though one would have thought he must have been used to it! When she had finished ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... direction his eyes had taken. She was a practical person. The object her eye met was the figure of the boy who had come in a few minutes before. He was leaning against the doorpost, attired in a cool suit of white linen, his hands in his pockets, the expression of his handsome darkling young face a most curious one. He was staring at his father steadily, his fine eyes wide open holding a spark of inward rage, his nostrils ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... shrug shoulders, and he did it inimitably, turning his back on Schubert and helping Will support me to the door. The feldwebel stood grinning while I held to the doorpost and they dragged Brown to his feet. He made no offer to help us in any way at all, nor did ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... Louise," she beamed, rising to her feet and holding her offspring clutched at a precarious angle to her shoulder. She stood with one hand resting on the doorpost and in her eyes expectancy. ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... distressed by the heat and the loss of his wife, by hunger, thirst, and weariness. And as he sought for food, he came to a village. There he saw many Brahmans eating in the house of a Brahman named Lotus-belly, and he leaned against the doorpost, speechless and motionless. ...
— Twenty-two Goblins • Unknown
... and woke. The fire on the hearth was dead, the candle in the outer room flickering in its socket, and somebody was rapping at the door. He opened it, but fell back with a cry before the dripping half-naked figure that reeled against the doorpost. ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... and Ditte had to go, the old woman cried. Ditte stood outside listening to her wailings; she held on to the doorpost trying to pull herself together. She had to go home, and began running with closed eyes the first part of the way, until she could hear Granny's cries no longer, then——But she got more and more sick at heart, and knew no more, ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... to avoid it, but the doorpost against which she stood checked the backward movement. Before she could prevent it the wine was ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... the tableau was complete with the following figures, all coloured in the richest manner, and harmonizing most exquisitely:—a very pretty, intelligent young woman, dressed in green, violet, red, and brown, stood leaning against the doorpost, with an infant in pink, grey, and stone-colour, in her arms: her husband—a handsome, dark Spaniard, with a many-coloured handkerchief with ends twisted round his wild, black, straggling hair—raised his face above her: in shade, behind, stood a sinister-looking smuggler with a sombrero, ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... interruption to this triumphal progress, and that was so slight as to be noticed by only one of the two girls. As they passed the new works at the mill, the new engineer, as Piney had foreseen, was leaning against the doorpost, smoking a pipe. He took his hat from his head and his pipe from his month as they approached, and greeted them with an easy "Good-afternoon," yet with a glance that was quietly observant ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... quite satisfied with the captain's arrangement, so, when the latter went in to perform his part of this delicate business, the former remained at the doorpost, expectant. ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... fallen, and they had not yet come. She stood in the doorway, went down the road and home again; but no wagon appeared. At last she hears a rattling on the road, her heart beats as violently as the wheels revolve; she clings to the doorpost, looking out; the wagon is coming; only one sits there; she recognizes Lars, who sees and recognizes her, but is driving past without stopping. Now she is thoroughly alarmed! Her limbs fail her; she staggers in, sinking on the bench by the window. The children, alarmed, gather ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors • Various
... guilt of the accused, and if he thought the accusation sustained, order the culprit to punishment. He did not imitate his Mussulman prototypes to the extent of bowstringing or decapitating the condemned, nor did he cut any thief's hands off, nor yet nail his ears to a doorpost, but he introduced a modification of the bastinado that made those who were punished by it even wish they were dead. The instrument used was what is called in the South a "shake" —a split shingle, a yard or more long, and with one end ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... master's, and he should go out by himself. That is, the man by the law became free, while his wife and children remained slaves. If the servant, however, plainly said, "I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free: then his master brought him unto the judges, also unto the doorpost, and his master bored his ear through with an awl, and he served him forever." (Ex. xxi. 1-6.) Sir, you have urged discussion:—give us then your views of that passage. Tell us how that man was separated from his wife and children ...
— Slavery Ordained of God • Rev. Fred. A. Ross, D.D.
... was the brief reply, and Wilford staggered back against the doorpost, where he leaned a moment for support in that first great shock for which he was ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... blushed again at her own folly in blushing. The front-door shut at last, and the gaslight fell on Lord Blandamer's active figure and straight, square shoulders as he went down the steps. Three thousand years before, another maiden had looked between the doorpost and the door, at the straight broad back of another great stranger as he left her father's palace; but Anastasia was more fortunate than Nausicaa, for there is no record that Ulysses cast any backward glance as he walked down to ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... and throwing curt nods to Bob and Frank, Rollins left the room. A moment later Jack arose and followed swiftly but silently to the door on the gallery. Peering around the doorpost cautiously, he assured himself Rollins had entered his own room, ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... in amazement mixed with anxiety. His emotion is beyond speech. He turns and leaves the room. In his perturbation he even forgets to kiss the mezuzah[2] on the doorpost. The pupil feels reproved and yet somehow in the right. Who did make God? But if the rebbe will not tell—will not tell? Or, perhaps, he does not ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... struggling to shake off the restraining hand that pinned him, helpless, half behind the doorpost. "Never ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... I had been busy in our respective lodges getting peltries and personal belongings into shape for return to Red River. On Saturday night, at least I counted it Saturday from the notches on my doorpost, though Eric, grown morose and contradictory, maintained that it was Sunday—we sat talking before the fire of my lodge. A dreary raindrip pattered through the leaky roof and the soaked parchment tacked across the ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... done, Huntington reappeared at the door of his bedroom. The revolver in his right hand moved slowly upward. In the kitchen doorway was Claire—a stricken thing in blue and gold—clinging to the doorpost, her lips parted, her eyes wide with terror. But Haig! Could anything have been more horrible than that smile? It was fearless, mocking, insolent. And his whole attitude matched it perfectly. He stood carelessly erect, with arms folded, ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... if to avoid letting in the cold, and Nora saw a thin dark little woman with rather a hard look and a curiously dried-up skin, whom she rightly guessed to be her sister-in-law, standing in the doorway, while lounging nonchalantly against the doorpost was a tall, strong, well-set-up young man whose age might have been anything between thirty and thirty-five. He had remarkably clean-cut features and was clean-shaven. His frankly humorous gaze rested ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... attack a few days before. We went down one Caverna in which, on the occasion of this last attack, a Magyar officer and 25 men surrendered. The Austrian sentry, also a Magyar, had been fastened by the leg to the doorpost outside the entrance to the dug-out. In the Italian bombardment one of his feet was blown away, but his own people had done nothing for him. Now his dead body lay out in the open behind the new ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... Musa, Daud and Selim, clad in robes of striped silk, and high red fezzes, sat out on stools, one on either side of the doorway, to feel the morning sun and chat with wayfarers. Behind them, against the doorpost, leaned a tall negro in white robe and turban, who held a broom in his hand, but seemed to have done with sweeping. Iskender approached this group with ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... consuming and all absorbing love of gaming. After entering the street, he glanced cautiously around, and then advancing to the iron-gray charger that was tied with a stout bridle to the horse-shoe at the doorpost, adjusted the accoutrements, leaped to the saddle, and rode hurriedly along the road leading to the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... Speaking trumpet!" muttered the man, and directing his light toward the doorpost he saw a raised patch of snow, which upon being ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... door in force, a man, two women, and a girl, and brought a pair of lanterns to examine the wayfarer. The man was not ill-looking, but had a shifty smile. He leaned against the doorpost, and heard me state my case. All I asked was a guide as far ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "Vendetta," or "I serve my master," or "Viva Corsica," roughly engraved on the long blade. There is a macaroni warehouse. There are two of those mysterious Mediterranean provision warehouses, with some ancient dried sausages hanging in the window, and either doorpost flanked by a tub of sardines, highly, and yet, it would seem, insufficiently, cured. There is a tiny book-shop displaying a choice of religious pamphlets and a fly-blown copy of a treatise on viniculture. And finally, ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... his back against the doorpost, and regarding the three baffled rogues with a grim eye, "I have a few words to say to you. I speak first to you, Trail, and to you, Luiz Sebastian. These papers have told you little that you did not ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... the twig, turn up one's toes; die a violent death &c. (be killed) 361. Adj. dead, lifeless; deceased, demised, departed, defunct, extinct; late, gone, no more; exanimate[obs3], inanimate; out of the world, taken off, released; departed this life &c. v.; dead and gone; dead as a doornail, dead as a doorpost[obs3], dead as a mutton, dead as a herring, dead as nits; launched into eternity, gone to one's eternal reward, gone to meet one's maker, pushing up daisies, gathered to one's fathers, numbered with the dead. dying &c. v.; moribund, morient|; hippocratic; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... brass candlesticks, pot-lids, flat-irons, and other such strong resentments, they were now the happiest and affectionatest couple upon earth; as could be proved any day on application at Golden Lion Court, number twenty-sivin, second bell-handle on the right-hand doorpost. After glancing at herself as a comparatively worthless vessel, but still as one of some desert, she besought her to bear in mind that her aforesaid dear and only mother was of a weakly constitution and excitable temperament, ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... was one of the few men who never lost a minute, would even get in ten minutes of work between river and Hall (which was in those days at five o'clock); and much resembled the Roman who learned Greek in the time saved from shaving. On the doorpost inside his bedroom over the Buttery there remained in pencil the details of many days of work thus pieced together." [Footnote: ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... the platform steps and staggered against the doorpost. His face flamed so red that, as Shadrach said afterward, it was "a ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... steadfast, O'er the horse his whip then brandished, 260 And the sledge went rattling onward. Thus a little way he travelled, On the highest of the pathways, To the highest of the houses, And he asked upon the threshold, Calling from beside the doorpost, "Is there any in this household, Who can heal the wounds of iron, Who can check this rushing bloodstream, And can stay the dark ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... last drop was eaten, they made ready to go. Each in turn kissed Toinette's hand, and said a word of farewell. Thistle brushed his feathered cap over the doorpost as he passed. ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... western border left but few days free from sights of blood or mementoes of the savage. The pioneer might go to the field in the morning, unsuspecting; and, at noon, returning, find his wife murdered and scalped, and the brains of his little ones dashed out against his own doorpost! And if a deadly hatred of the Indian took possession of his heart, who shall blame him? It may be said, the pioneer was an intruder, seeking to take forcible possession of the Indian's lands—and that it was natural that ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... the doorpost, and, fixing his clear eyes on Wayne, said: "Ef it's all the same to you, I'd rather you did not bring him. You understand what I mean? You follow me; no other man but you and me. I ain't sayin' anything ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Dickon, the said son, is delighted to undo the padlock for a visitor who is 'square.' In an instant the long hounds leap up, half a dozen at a time, and I stagger backwards, forced by the sheer vigour of their caresses against the doorpost. Dickon cannot quell the uproarious pack: he kicks the door open, and away they scamper round and round the paddock at ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... moment the villain could not speak, but leaned against the doorpost, with his cheeks gone white and his jaw fallen, the most pitiable spectacle to be conceived. I affected to see nothing, however, but went by him easily, and into the room, drawing off my gauntlets as entered. The dicers, from their seats beside ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... it," he said, with no more discomposure than the occasion seemed to warrant, turning and leaning against the doorpost, as if he had given up his intention of going away. "I knew that his sister had gone to see him. Did he die before ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... the doorpost hung a small roll of parchment in a case. Naomi was used to seeing her father and his friends touch it reverently when passing in or out, and then kiss the fingers that had touched the Name of the Most High. She could even recite as well as Ezra the verses she knew ...
— Christmas Light • Ethel Calvert Phillips
... anything of further interest, Peterkin took up the old cat, which had lain very contentedly asleep on the stool whereon he had placed it, and we prepared to take our departure. In leaving the hut, Jack stumbled heavily against the doorpost, which was so much decayed as to break across, and the whole fabric of the hut seemed ready to tumble about our ears. This put into our heads that we might as well pull it down, and so form a mound over the skeleton. Jack, therefore, with his axe, cut down the other doorpost, which, ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... door behind her, and for the first time in her life, threw the heavy lever which barred out anyone from down stairs. Mrs. Comstock heard the thud, and knew what it meant. She reeled slightly and caught the doorpost for support. For a few minutes she clung there, then sank to the nearest chair. After a long time she arose and stumbling half blindly, she put the food in the cupboard and covered the table. She took the lamp in one hand, the butter in the other, ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... "I thought you were a man; but you are like an old woman who thinks the house must be on fire as soon as she sees smoke rising from her pot. See," he went on, "if I know anything more about this story than that doorpost there, may I never hope for salvation. I was at home long before," he added. Frederick stood still, oppressed and doubtful. He would have given much to be able to see his uncle's face. But while they were whispering, the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... which had, as will be seen hereafter, some coincidence with the events heretofore related, Laigle de Meaux was to be seen leaning in a sensual manner against the doorpost of the Cafe Musain. He had the air of a caryatid on a vacation; he carried nothing but his revery, however. He was staring at the Place Saint-Michel. To lean one's back against a thing is equivalent to lying down while standing ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... fan-shaped from the open door upon the trodden grass, and was cast upwards on the trees, showing up sharply the whitish undersides of the thick growing leaves. A girl, who looked like a maid-servant, was standing in the shop with her back against the doorpost, bargaining with the shopkeeper; from beneath the red kerchief which she had wrapped round her head, and held with bare hand under her chin, could just be seen her round cheek and slender throat. The young men stepped into the patch of light; ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... hair-line streaks of brightness; but from the door next his own it issued in a wide stream that lost itself in the moon-splashed verandah. Quita had rolled up her 'chick,' and stood leaning against the doorpost in an attitude that suggested weariness, or despondency, or both; the tall slender form of her thrown into strong relief by the light within. He knew that she must have seen him; and his hope was that she would come out and say good-night ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... the coming disappointment. In his anxiety he pressed nearer to her, resting his hand on the doorpost. The Queen drew ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... my glance fell upon Turgenev leaning against the doorpost at the far end of the room, and as I looked, I was struck, being shortsighted, by a certain resemblance to my father [Thackeray], which I tried to realise to myself. He was very tall, his hair was grey ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... traffic passed, the cries of a coster and distant whistlings mounted through the unwholesome air. Some sparrows in the eave were chirruping incessantly. The little sandy house-cat had stolen in, and, crouched against the doorpost, was fastening her eyes on the plate which, held the remnants of the fish. The seamstress bowed her forehead to the flowers on the table; unable any longer to bear the mystery of this silence, she wept. But the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy |
