"Haircloth" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... furniture whose infirmities were not always apparent (so that the disgrace seemed unmerited and rendered them victims of injustice) and with which, in the manner of children, she had established relations almost human, certainly dramatic. There was an old haircloth sofa in especial, to which she had confided a hundred childish sorrows. The place owed much of its mysterious melancholy to the fact that it was properly entered from the second door of the house, the door that had been condemned, and that it was secured by bolts ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... illumination in the Dalton sink window, Caleb thought Amanda sat in the kitchen evenings, but she didn't. She said she kept the second light there because she could afford it, and because the cat liked it. The cat enjoyed the black haircloth sofa in the sitting-room, afternoons, but she greatly preferred the kitchen for evening use; it made a change, and the high-backed cushioned rocker was then vacant. Amanda had nobody to consider but the cat, so she naturally deferred to her in every possible ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... occupant's dress alone suggested his calling. A hanging shelf held a few books, all evidently used as texts in the adjoining college. A table, much littered; a wooden dressing stand, with a small mirror; and an old-fashioned, haircloth trunk, bearing numerous foreign labels, eked out the ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... of the square Victor Hugo first took refuge after the great catastrophe of the coup d'etat. It bore the number 27. A tobacco-shop occupied the ground floor. The poet's parlor was furnished in a style of bald simplicity, with chairs and a sofa covered with black haircloth. But he was wont to say, pointing to the Hotel de Ville, "I have the most wonderful piece of carving in the world for a sideboard." In this modest abode he wrote Napoleon le Petit. Then, stirred by the historic memories around him, he ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... ancient dignity. One fancies that in many of these houses the best of old mahogany may be found, or, if not that, then at least the fairly old and quite creditable furniture of the period of the sleigh-back bed, the haircloth-covered rosewood sofa, and the tall, narrow mirror between the two front windows of ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... filler, after it has hardened overnight, apply a coat of orange shellac. Successively apply several coats of some good rubbing varnish. Polish the first coats with haircloth or curled hair, and the last with pulverized pumice stone, mixed with raw linseed or ...
— Mission Furniture - How to Make It, Part 3 • H. H. Windsor
... German cookery—cauliflower and boiled cabbage and vinegar and all that—floated out when the door opened. The room—a sort of living-room—into which we were ushered was a mixture of all sorts of furniture, black haircloth, dingy and old, with here and there a good picture or one fine chair, which I imagined ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... admired. About the cloister they have fashioned out many holes and caves, in, under, and among the rocks, like hermits' lodgings, with a room to lie in, and an oratory to pray in, with pictures, and images, and rare devices for self-mortification, as scourges of wire, rods of iron, haircloth girdles with sharp wire points, to gird about their bare flesh, and many such like toys, which hang about their oratories, to make people admire their mortified and ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... of the room with a green cover and four books on it, two or three unhappy-looking family portraits on the walls, a pair of brass candlesticks on the high, wooden mantel, a pair of bellows, a shovel and tongs, with, perhaps, in the way of luxury, a haircloth sofa. Now compare the room furnished in that way, which was by no means uncommon in the days of our grandfathers with a room of the same size, in which are stored half a dozen chairs, no two alike, and some of them as large as small lounges, a center ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... A black haircloth sofa, with broad mahogany arm, offered two easy steps, enabling me to tip the heavy frame sufficiently so as to peer behind. The one glance was sufficient. Underneath was an opening in the wall, much ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... nicked blue plate with a Chinese picture on it. And the homelier the plate the higher the price. Why there was as many as six families that got enough money for the rubbage in their garrets to furnish their houses all over with brand new things—real shiny, hand-painted stuff, not haircloth ruins with music box springs, nor platters that you had to put a pan under for fear of ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... pilgrims' staves in their hands, did men inquire the secret vow which led them to the Holy Land? They struck, they died; and men, perhaps God himself, asked no more. The pious captain who led them never stripped their bodies to see whether the red cross and haircloth concealed any other mysterious symbol; and in heaven, doubtless, they were not judged with any greater rigor for having aided the strength of their resolutions upon earth by some hope permitted to a Christian—some ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... hard that he had not been pricked by compassion at that which I then saw. For when I had approached so near to them that their actions came surely to me, tears were drawn from my eyes by heavy grief. They seemed to me covered with coarse haircloth, and one supported the other with his shoulders, and all were supported by the bank. Thus the blind, who lack subsistence, stand at pardons[1] to beg for what they need, and one bows his head upon another, so that pity may quickly be moved in others, not only by the sound of the words, but by ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 2, Purgatory [Purgatorio] • Dante Alighieri
... soldier, who founded an abbey in Wales, is said by the historian to have dismissed all his former companions, and devoted himself to God. For his military belt, he tied a rope about his waist; instead of fine linen he put on haircloth. And it is recorded of him, that the massive suit of armour which he had been used to wear in battle, to protect him against the arrows and spears and axes of the enemy, he put on now and wore as a defence against the wiles and assaults of the devil—and wore it ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... was not her first owner, nor her second, nor her third. I don't know what his number was on her list of owners, but I know if he had kept her much longer he would have been her last one. More than once we had bought the mere frame of a haircloth couch, and taken an esthetic pleasure in having it polished and upholstered, and made into a thing of beauty and service. It was with this view that we acquired Mis Cow, who at the moment was a mere frame with a patchy Holstein covering and a feebly hanging tail. ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... gives further details of the horrible penances which he inflicted on himself. He gradually reduced his food to a grain of rice each day. He lived on seeds and grass, and for one period literally on dung. He wore haircloth or other irritating clothes: he plucked out his hair and beard: he stood continuously: he lay upon thorns. He let the dust and dirt accumulate till his body looked like an old tree. He frequented a cemetery—that is a place where corpses were thrown ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... Deutra!" and put out her hand, and he laid his in hers and they shook on it, though no word had passed between them. And all this time my aunt and I sat motionless on the haircloth sofa next to the wall. And I tell you as I watched them my blood ran cold, though I didn't understand what it was about. But later I understood ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... is to Nahant summers. And what for I don't know, when right here in Bayport is a great, big, fine house and land around it and—and flower tubs in the front yard and—and marble top tables—and—and haircloth chairs and sofys, and—and a Rogers' statoo in the parlor and—and.... Why, say, Cap'n Sears, you ought to see that house and the things in it. They've spent money on that house same as if a five dollar bill wan't nawthin'. Wasted ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... but more composed, and with her mind made up, she came down into the hall. Drawing a long breath, she turned into the sitting room to face her uncle. By the light shining through the dining-room door she saw him on his knees by the haircloth sofa. She spoke his name. He did not answer nor look up. Alarmed, she touched him on the shoulder. At her touch his arm slid from the couch and he fell gently over upon his side on ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the cool, dusky interior, and was shown to the left into a dim, long room. He perched on a mahogany chair, and had time to notice the bookcases with the white owl atop, the old piano with the yellowing keys, the haircloth sofa and chairs, the steel engravings, and the two oil portraits, when Orde's ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... had been adventurous and even reckless, and he had known bitter failure as well as brilliant success; but he was a born experimentalist, and he had always found something to enjoy in the pressure of necessity, even when it was as irritating as the haircloth shirt of the mediaeval monk. At one time failure seemed inexorably his portion; ill-luck became his bed-fellow, and whatever he touched he turned, not to gold, but to ashes. His most vivid conception of a supernatural element in the world's affairs had come to him once ...
— The American • Henry James
... burrowed then in a tomb—still the visions. He hid next in the cellar of an old castle—in vain—the visions found him out. He flagellated himself for eighty and nine years, every day and night of which was a battle with the visions. He left two sheepskins to as many bishops, and one haircloth shirt to two favorite disciples—they had been his armor against the visions. Finally, lest the seductive goblins should assail him in death, he bade the disciples lose him by burial in an unknown place. ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... to have been in thrall to six haircloth chairs, a slippery sofa to match, and a very cold, marble-top center table, from the beginning of this century down to comparatively recent times. In all the best homes there was also a marble ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... were taken was full of heavy, old-fashioned furniture, stiffly arranged. The sofa and chairs were covered with black haircloth, and stood closely against the wall. Some books lay upon the table, arranged two by two; each upper book being exactly at a right angle with each lower book. A bunch of dried grasses stood in the fire-place. There were no pictures, ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... Armstrong had left her, and her trunk had come bumping up the back stairs and been deposited in the vast closet, she sat down on the black haircloth chair and looked hopelessly around the big dreary room. There rose before her a vision of her own room at the old home, the room that she and her sister Betty had shared. It had rose-bordered curtains and rose-festooned wall-paper and pink and white cushions. And it had a dear mother-face peeping ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... nor sit the longer at his meal for [because] he fasteth. Then shalt thou understand, that bodily pain standeth in discipline, or teaching, by word, or by writing, or by ensample. Also in wearing of hairs [haircloth] or of stamin [coarse hempen cloth], or of habergeons [mail-shirts] on their naked flesh for Christ's sake; but ware thee well that such manner penance of thy flesh make not thine heart bitter or angry, nor ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... him at night. He had moved into Harmony's adjacent room and dressed there. But he had never slept in the bed. At night he put on his shabby dressing-gown and worn slippers and lay on a haircloth sofa at the foot of Jimmy's bed—lay but hardly slept, so afraid was he that the slender thread of life might snap when it was drawn out to its slenderest during the darkest hours before the dawn. ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Mary Ellen swept and dusted there. The shutters were thrown open, and the thin-legged piano and the haircloth furniture were furbished up for the morrow. Moreover Mary Ellen liked our company. She had a spooky feeling about the parlour. Mr. Handsomebody gave her the creeps, she said, and once when she had turned her back she had ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... Ivy did not seem to be good for anything by the time Miss Lady reached her. She was half reclining on a haircloth sofa in the front hall with a bottle of smelling salts to her nose and a newspaper ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... could not escape the asceticism of the age; she lived on bread and a little oil, wasted her body with fastings, dressed like a servant, slept on a mat of straw, covered herself with haircloth, and denied herself the pleasures to which she had been accustomed; she would not even take a bath. The Catholic historians have unduly magnified these virtues; but it was the type which piety then assumed, arising in part from a too literal interpretation of the injunctions ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... a thousand monks and their disciples,(5) all students of the hinayana. To the east of these hills the dress of the common people is of coarse materials, as in our country of Ts'in, but here also(6) there were among them the differences of fine woollen cloth and of serge or haircloth. The rules observed by the Sramans are remarkable, and too numerous to be mentioned in detail. The country is in the midst of the Onion range. As you go forward from these mountains, the plants, trees, and fruits are all different from those ...
— Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms • Fa-Hien
... many meals from home. The rococo restaurant gained a steady customer. And the host of cavaliers who lingered in the hope of seeing Maizie home each evening diminished to one. He was often invited into the vine-clad cottage at the top of Powell street hill. Sometimes he sat with Maizie on a haircloth sofa and looked at Mrs. Carter's autograph album. It contained some great names that were now no longer written. James Lick, David Broderick, Colonel E.D. Baker and the still lamented Ralston, of whom Maizie's mother never tired of talking. He, it seems, ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... eke out the deficiency with drugget of a corresponding shade; but the merchant did not bring the drugget, and the carpet was put down, and time went on, and the strips of painted board were still uncovered, save by the straight row of haircloth chairs, which stood upon one side, and the old-fashioned sofa, which had cost fifty dollars, and ought to last at least as many years. There was a Boston rocker, and a center table, with the family Bible on it, and a volume of Scott's Commentaries, and frosted candlesticks on the mantel and two ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... very cool and dark; the curtains were down, and undulated softly like sails. Deborah placed the big haircloth rocking-chair for the doctor's wife, and Mrs. Ray sat down on ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... order, men otherwise professing apostolical charity, despise one another, and for the different wearing of a habit, or that 'tis of darker color, they put all things in combustion. And among these there are some so rigidly religious that their upper garment is haircloth, their inner of the finest linen; and, on the contrary, others wear linen without and hair next their skins. Others, again, are as afraid to touch money as poison, and yet neither forbear wine nor dallying ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... Little the wiser and much the poorer they have made me. No—no, Catharine and Clement may think as they will; but I will take the first opportunity to sneak back like a rated hound at the call of his master, submit to a plentiful course of haircloth and whipcord, disburse a lusty mulct, and become whole ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott |
