"Parlour" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Hamilton and the Hart girls joined them in the parlour. But after chatting for a few moments with them, Patty declared she must go back ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... Midland route to Saint Pancras; the projection of the Settle and Carlisle line; the introduction of Pullman cars, parlour saloons, sleeping and dining cars; the adoption of gas and electricity for the lighting of carriages; the running of third-class carriages by all trains; the abolition of second-class and reduction of first-class ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... about thirty feet long. It was three stories high in appearance, the third being the attic. On the lower floor of the main house there was only one room, which was about twenty feet square, and served the family for the triple purpose of parlour, sitting-room, and dining-hall. It contained an old-fashioned fireplace, so large that an ox might have been roasted before it. The second and third stories originally contained but one chamber each, of ample dimensions, and ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... putting on her grand air, stepped into the parlour, and saw standing there and awaiting her, a young man with a thin and somewhat hard face, a firm mouth, and extraordinarily keen, grey eyes. Upon her appearing the young man stood looking upon her without a word. As a matter ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... unlimited joint and vegetables could be obtained for half-a-crown. The old-fashioned boxes into which the guests edged themselves had not been removed, and about the mahogany bar, placed in the passage in front of the proprietress's parlour, two dingy barmaids served actors from the adjoining theatre with whisky-and-water. The contributors to the Pilgrim had selected a box, and were clamouring for food. Smacking his lips, the head-waiter, an antiquity who cashed cheques and told stories about ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... regulations of the Royal Yacht Club will not admit of our awarding the precedence to one or the other, we will descend from the elevation of Northwood, amidst the din of music from the Club House, and the hum of promenaders on the beach, and ensconce ourselves in the snug parlour of "mine host" Paddy White, whom we used to denominate the Falstaff of the island. Though from the land of shillelaghs and whiskey, Paddy is entirely devoid of that gunpowder temperament which characterizes his country; and his genuine humour, ample obesity, and originality ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 374 • Various
... parlour-trick. Those hens pecked the catch loose, and that cockatrice fairly staggered them. It was to them a clear case of "nourishing a viper." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 21, 1919. • Various
... my terrace, with coaches, post-chaises, waggons, and horsemen constantly in motion, and the fields speckled with cows, horses, and sheep. Now you shall walk into the house. The bow-window below leads into a little parlour hung with a stone-colour Gothic paper and Jackson's Venetian prints, which I could never endure while they pretended, infamous as they are, to be after Titian, &c., but when I gave them this air of ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... "but it does not signify now. Look how the water is pouring out of the parlour-window. The meal and grain must have been wet through long ago. Is not that a pretty waterfall? A waterfall from our parlour-window, down upon ...
— The Settlers at Home • Harriet Martineau
... there was the 'prentices' beds to make," Mrs. Tozer said indignantly to her husband; but Jane on her side pointed to the length of passage, the stairs, the dining and drawing-rooms, where there had once only been a parlour. ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... I'm mortally grieved to say this 'ere is Mercury. He's a little tired; we found him in the parlour of the White Lion. Come on, ...
— The Squire - An Original Comedy in Three Acts • Arthur W. Pinero
... and his daughter, and ran for the doctor.... Meantime it was nearly morning; Kolosov was almost dropping with fatigue. With the permission of Matrona Semyonovna, he lay down on the sofa in the parlour, and slept till eight o'clock. On waking up he would at once have gone home; but they kept him and gave him some tea. In the night he had twice succeeded in catching a glimpse of the pale face of Varvara Ivanovna; he had not particularly noticed her, but in the morning she made a decidedly ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... is likely to be a costly affair; but Mrs. Boakes has made an application for a grant-in-aid to the Ministry of Health and has received a sympathetic reply from Dr. ADDISON. The cost of reconstructing her house to enable the statue to be set up in her parlour ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 8, 1920 • Various
... St Valence well enough pleased with our lodging at the Golden Cross. It is, however, an exception to the bad set of inns we have lately been at. In the kitchen here, which I entered from curiosity, as the ladies went up stairs to the parlour, I found, as usual, a most extraordinary mixture of company. I listened, without joining at all in the conversation. The theme of discourse was a report that had been circulated, that all the young troops were to hold ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... beautiful drum!' he said joyfully, as he beat it with two sticks, and carrying his 'drum' into the parlour, he placed it on a chair, propped the music up in front of him, and practised the fingering diligently and noiselessly for an hour or more, till he ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... young again, so they did his mother. She was here, there, and everywhere; now in parlour or dining-room, in kitchen and scullery, in out-houses and tent, giving orders, leading, directing, ay, and sometimes even driving, the servants, for few of the Gauchos, whether male or female, could work with speed enough to please ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... square box of a brick cottage, which he had been buying slowly for the past ten years and would probably never own. In its parlour, gaudy with cheap, new furniture, Ramon confronted Catalina Archulera. She was clad in a dirty calico dress, and her shoes were covered with the dust of long tramping, as was the black shawl about her head and shoulders. Once he had thought ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... don't think you can take old Cooky in, do you? No, no, I know what ladies and gentlemen, and ladies' and gentlemen's YOUNG ladies and YOUNG gentlemen are, pretty well, dears, I can tell you! Don't I know all about the shiny hair and smiling faces of the little pets in the parlour, and how they leave parlour-manners behind them sometimes, when they run to the kitchen to Cook, and order her here and there, and want half-a-dozen things at once, and must and will have what they want, and are for popping ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... hour after he entered his house with the trustees, and sworn appraiser. He left them in the parlour below, while he held a brief but painful interview with ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur
... arch-way, or disused stables, the boys and girls, out for fun, may dance the golden hours away throughout Sunday afternoon and evening. Often the organs are hired for Eastern weddings and christenings and other ceremonials, and, by setting the musician to work, say, in the back parlour, the boys and girls can fling their little feet about the garden without interference from any one of the hundred authorities who ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... classics—we "shall do in this 'ere most awful go." We are both going mad with the strain of the situation, when in walks the engineer's brother from the Eclaireur. He seems intensely surprised to find me sitting in his friend the planter's parlour after my grim and retiring conduct on the Eclaireur on my voyage up. But the planter tells him all, sousing him in torrents of words, full of the violence of an outbreak of pent-up emotion. I do not understand what he says, ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... finishing it up at home. By such practice, and a patient perseverance, he has overcome all the difficulties of the art." Turner himself used to say that his best academy was "the fields and Dr Monro's parlour"—where Girtin and other young artists met and sketched and copied the drawings in the doctor's collection. Burnet, in his notice of "Turner and his Works," suggests that John Robert Cozens had paved the ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... little of the dressing-room but the name, and a toilet-table with a black and gold japanned glass, and curiously shaped boxes to match; her room opened into it on one side, and Charles's on the other; it was a sort of up-stairs parlour, where she taught Charlotte, cast up accounts, spoke to servants, and wrote notes, and where Charles was usually to be found, when unequal to coming down-stairs. It had an air of great snugness, with its large folding-screen, covered with prints and caricatures ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... ill, but had insisted upon sitting up in her parlour to receive the doctor, dressed and veiled, being propped up in her great easy-chair with a pillow which was of green silk, but was covered with a white pillow-case finely embroidered with open work at each end, through which the vivid colour was visible—that high ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... this is, as the old song says, 'parlour and kitchen and hall,' with sleeping accommodation included. There are plenty of fine spreading spruces outside, though, if you ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... overcome by sudden tears. But whoever dies, life goes on the same, our interests and necessities brook little interference. Meal-times are always fixed times, and when father and daughter met in the parlour—it was just below the room in which Mrs. Innes was dying—Evelyn asked why her mother had looked at her ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... sat drinking and smoking in a little parlour at the back of an old public-house in Shadwell. The room was about as large as a good-sized cupboard, and was illuminated in the day-time by a window commanding a pleasant prospect of coal-shed and dead wall. The paper on the walls was dark and greasy with age; and every bit ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... many rooms here to be found I love best that which is called the Sanded Parlour. Never were wainscoted walls of a mellower tone, never was pewter more gleaming, never were things more bright and speckless, from the worn, quaint andirons on the hearth to the brass-bound blunderbuss, with the two ancient fishing-rods above. At one end of the room was a long, ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... what's what; I peeped above her blind; The tea was made—the toast was hot— She looked so sweet and kind. My captain in her parlour sat, It gave me quite a pain, With coloured clothes, and shining hat, ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... odour of dust and decayed leather. The girl, after shutting the bolts behind her, led the way cautiously, and, crossing a passage at the rear of the shop, opened a door upon a far more cheerful scene. Here, in a neat parlour hung with old prints and mezzotints and water-colours, a hanging lamp shed its rays on a China bowl heaped with Warwickshire roses, and on a white cloth and a ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... repudiated these "Marriages by Act of Parliament;" nor would we advise any fair maiden who has a regard to the comfort and respect of her after connubial life, to consent to be married in the Registrar's back parlour, after due proclamation by the ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... aboard, liked ghosts as he didn't know of, I catches up a bit o' sailcloth that was lying on the ground, which he'd taken up there to sarve for his bed, and, I claps this over my head and shoulders, like a picter my mother had in the parlour at home of 'Samuel and the Witch of Endor.' Then, I lights the port fire and gives a yell to rouse up the darkey, and arter that—ho-ho! my hearties, you knows what happened. Ho-ho! it was as good as ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... a long time but confusion; till at last the squire, having sufficiently spent his breath, returned to the parlour, where he found Mrs Western and Mr Blifil, and threw himself, with the utmost dejection in his countenance, ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... went to another one three blocks away. This was a remarkable institution that had been maintained by wealthy Americans living in France before the war. I was assigned to a room on the third floor—a room adjoining a sun parlour, overlooking a beautiful Old World garden with a lagoon, ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... up as Santa Claus, with an immense cotton-wool beard and motor-goggles. We initiated them into the mysteries of Hunt the Slipper and Musical Chairs. Indeed, when neighbours began to drop in, as they did later on, they interrupted five children playing Nuts in May. Foolish old parlour-tricks we had forgotten since our own early childhood came back to memory and evoked shrieks of laughter. At ten, when I took them, well wrapped up, down our snow-trench and along the sidewalk to their own door, they were in a trance ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... looking at another picture, 'that is not the old picture, is it?' (Somebody had put him up to this.) No, sir,' cries Mrs. Stubbs, delighted with his recollection—'no, sir; but please to walk this way into my parlour,' And there, sure enough, was the picture he had been told to ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... cases in which the rod acts like those of the Melanesians, Africans, and other savages. A Mr. Thomas Welton published an English translation of 'La Verge de Jacob' (Lyon, 1693). In 1651 he asked his servant to bring into the garden 'a stick that stood behind the parlour door. In great terror she brought it to the garden, her hand firmly clutched on it, nor could she let it go.' When Mrs. Welton took the stick, 'it drew her with very considerable velocity to nearly the centre of the ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... occasion he would have exhibited no reluctance, having had a glass or two in the Bar Parlour had he not possessed those misgivings about the Sergeant. He looked furtively at that officer as though it were better to give him no chance. Seeing, however, that he was smoking quietly, and almost in a forlorn manner by himself, his apprehensions ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... deprive him of serenity and trust, but the inward fever was ravaging within. Only one short week, and then he departed; ere, however, that time came, he received a letter, and with a sickening feeling of indefinable dread recognised the handwriting of his Mary. He left the breakfast-parlour to peruse it alone, and it was long before he returned to his family. They felt anxious, they knew not why; even Arthur and Emmeline were silent, and the ever-restless Percy remained leaning over a newspaper, as if determined not to move ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar
... the following lines on a scroll within a kind of wreath, which hung over the chimney, the whole parlour being decorated with branches of ivy, which were made to run down the walls and hang down every pannel in festoons, at a country ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 183, April 30, 1853 • Various
... a scolded child, when two or three minutes later the parlour-door opened and Marcus entered. His face wore a queer expression, and in each hand he held an exquisite bunch of hot-house flowers; their perfume reached Olivia before he laid ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... is what she should have done; she realised it now alone there in the sunny parlour ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... of the leading boat. Something had roused her, and she began to reveal some of the "parlour-tricks," with which she had amused the Palazzo Barberini in her Roman days. A question from Pryce stirred her into quoting some of the folk-songs of the Campagna, some comic, some tragic, fitting an action to them so lively and true that ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... no idea then—nor had Celia—how much inconvenience and embarrassment can be produced by a warm-hearted parlour-maid. Jillings' devotion did not express itself in a concrete form until Celia's birthday, and the form it took was that of an obese and unimaginably hideous pincushion which mysteriously appeared ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol 150, February 9, 1916 • Various
... the parlour, hid myself in a corner, and heard everything the men talked about. Herr Hertz Hertzenhertz laughed aloud, and smoked thick black cigars that had a very strong smell. Suddenly my father came over to me, and gave ...
— Jewish Children • Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich
... or more in the spirit of some of Balzac's stories than the way in which the rich man receives his former benefactor; his faint recognition of fraternal feelings gradually cools down under the influence of a selfish wife; till at last the poor old sailor is driven from the parlour to the kitchen, and from the kitchen to the loft, and finally deprived of his only comfort, his intercourse with a young nephew not yet broken into hardness of heart, on the plea that the lad is ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... Falmouth is a fine town with ships in the bay, And I wish from my heart it's there I was to-day; I wish from my heart I was far away from here, Sitting in my parlour and talking ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... hour's stroll through the town. By this time it was getting dark, snowflakes were beginning to fall thickly, and he was very glad, after sitting for a time listening to the talk in the parlour of the inn, to ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... his solitary musings in the parlour-car of which he happened temporarily to be the sole occupant, Mr. David Amber put aside the magazine over which he had been dreaming, and looked out of the window, catching a glimpse of woodland road shining white between sombre walls of stunted pine. ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... page, let me in. He was clad in gray armozine, a sort of corded stuff, with red buttons, and he wore a red turban. As my aunt was gone to drive, on a visit to that Madam Penn who was once Miss Allen, I was in no hurry, and was glad to look about me. The parlour, a great room with three windows on the street, afforded a strange contrast to my sober home. There were Smyrna rugs on a polished floor, a thing almost unheard of. Indeed, people came to see them. The furniture was all of red walnut, and carved in shells and flower reliefs. There were so ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... there and in the town and in London, knew her, that she was able to take the old house which was once the maltster's, and have it done up nicely, and the great long room that had been the front office and sample-room turned into a school-room, and the pretty little parlour fitted with French windows, that it might open to the garden full of rose-bushes and standard apple-trees, and with its red brick walls covered with plums and jessamine. She began with nine young girls whom she brought with her as boarders, and five more soon came, so ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... and quieter wing of the mill-house was the part occupied by Mrs. Garland and her daughter, who made up in summer-time for the narrowness of their quarters by overflowing into the garden on stools and chairs. The parlour or dining-room had a stone floor—a fact which the widow sought to disguise by double carpeting, lest the standing of Anne and herself should be lowered in the public eye. Here now the mid-day meal went lightly and mincingly on, as it does where there is no greedy carnivorous ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... he? Not much the matter, I hope?" said the doctor, as he shook hands with the titled mistress of Boxall Hill in a small breakfast-parlour in the rear of the house. The show-rooms of Boxall Hill were furnished most magnificently, but they were set apart for company; and as the company never came—seeing that they were never invited—the grand rooms and the grand furniture were ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... of nothing, "the frank dunghill outside a German peasant's kitchen window. It is a matter of family pride. The higher it can be piled the greater his consideration. But what I loathe and abominate is the dungheap hidden beneath Hedwige's draper papa's parlour floor." ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... which impelled me was a hidden, obscure necessity, a completely masked and unaccountable phenomenon. Or perhaps some idle and frivolous magician (there must be magicians in London) had cast a spell over me through his parlour window as I explored the maze of streets east and west in solitary leisurely walks without chart and compass. Till I began to write that novel I had written nothing but letters, and not very many of these. I never made a note of a fact, of an impression, or of an anecdote in my life. ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... morning he was again more surprised. On coming down to the breakfast-parlour, he found his uncle there before him, walking up and down the room with his hands behind his back. As soon as George had entered, his uncle stopped his walk, and bade ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... put to rights here,' said the old gentleman, 'and then I'll introduce you to the people in the parlour. Emma, bring out the cherry brandy; now, Jane, a needle and thread here; towels and water, Mary. Come, ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... o'clock, put on his Sunday clothes, washed his face and hands, combed out his hair, and looked as brisk as a bee; and about six o'clock, away his father and he trudged to Lady Bountiful's; as soon as they arrived, they were ordered into her Ladyship's parlour. Well, says she, Gaffer Pippin, since you cannot afford to put Peter to school, I will send him at my own expence: so carry this letter to Mr. Teachum the Schoolmaster, and he will be taken as much care of as if he were my own son. A thousand blessings on your ...
— The History of Little King Pippin • Thomas Bewick
... external appearance, and particularly in those dialects of the English language which are used by the terrestrial animals of this kingdom. He desired the ostler to take his horse in tow, and bring him to his moorings in a safe riding. He ordered the waiter, who showed them into a parlour, to bear a hand, ship his oars, mind his helm, and bring alongside a short allowance of brandy or grog, that he might cant a slug into his bread-room, for there was such a heaving and pitching, that he believed he should shift his ballast. The ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... the crowd of kindly gentle-folks had gone their several ways; and Roger Acton found himself (through Sir John's largess) at free quarters in the parlour of the Swan, with Grace by his side, and many of his mates in toil and ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... he is going to the war because he is tired of farming. I hope he will find it a pleasant change. And Mrs. Richard Elliott over-harbour is worrying herself sick because she used to be always scolding her husband about smoking up the parlour curtains. Now that he has enlisted she wishes she had never said a word to him. You know Josiah Cooper and William Daley, Mrs. Dr. dear. They used to be fast friends but they quarrelled twenty years ago and have never spoken since. Well, the other day Josiah went to William and said ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... time than could have been expected, Draycott returned, accompanied by the best surgeon in Fallowfield, the rector, and a lawyer of good standing in that town. Again the patient was examined, after which a consultation was held in the farmer's parlour, which lasted about a quarter of an hour; the medical men then returned ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... any other cellar might be; and in lieu of window framed and glazed it had a great black wooden flap or shutter, nearly breast high from the ground, which turned back in the day-time, admitting as much cold air as light, and very often more. Behind this shop was a wainscoted parlour, looking first into a paved yard, and beyond that again into a little terrace garden, raised some feet above it. Any stranger would have supposed that this wainscoted parlour, saving for the door of communication ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... further enumeration of Miss Dana's charms and gastronomic ability. "No need to do so, Mr. Sawyer," for he had inspected the card carefully. "We have a private telephone in each room. Will you await her in the public parlour?" ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... item in his sum of happiness, consisted in the fact that his home was close to the sea shore. The restless sea could be seen from the windows of the house; and the sound of its waves, as they fell gently or dashed violently on to the shingly beach, could be heard in the warm, cosy parlour, or ...
— Leslie Ross: - or, Fond of a Lark • Charles Bruce
... those this morning,' said Mr. Barton, as he took off his boots and put his feet into the slippers Milly had brought him; 'you must put them away into the parlour.' ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... harpe on another Ride to Sheepscote this Morning, and persuaded Father to let him have the bay Mare, soe he and I started at aboute Ten o' the Clock. Arrived at Master Agnew's Doore, found it open, no one in Parlour or Studdy; soe Dick tooke the Horses rounde, and then we went straite thro' the House, into the Garden behind, which is on a rising Ground, with pleached Alleys and turfen Walks, and a Peep of the Church through the Trees. A Lad tolde us his ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... in the bottom of the nest, quietly sleeping, while their father and mother are both away, getting them food. At other times they feel wide awake. Then they stretch their wings, stand upon their feet, and peep over the side of the nest. From the parlour-window, the children can look up directly at their secluded home, and can see them amusing themselves and practising their lessons. The honeysuckle grows almost as fast as the birds, and the tender, overhanging branches make a roof which keeps ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... been yer thoo' dis las' war, dar wouldn't er been no slue-footed Yankees a-foolin' roun' her parlour. She'd uv up en show'd 'em ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... custom in Lower Austria and the Rhaetian Alps that somewhat resembles our mistletoe bough practices. People linger late in the inns, the walls and windows of which are decorated with green pine-twigs. In the centre of the inn-parlour hangs from a roof-beam a wreath of the same greenery, and in a dark corner hides a masked figure known as "Sylvester," old and ugly, with a flaxen beard and a wreath of mistletoe. If a youth or maiden happens to pass under the pine ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... in a parlour? Crammed just as they on earth were crammed,— Some sipping punch, some sipping tea, But, as you by their faces see, All silent ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... mansion preparing for a grand entertainment, when folding-doors are withdrawn, chambers converted into drawing-rooms, and every inch of available space thrown into one continuous whole. For previous to an action, every bulk-head in a man-of-war is knocked down; great guns are run out of the Commodore's parlour windows; nothing separates the ward-room officers' quarters from those of the men, but an en-sign used for a curtain. The sailors' mess-chests are tumbled down into the hold; and the hospital cots—of which all men-of-war carry a large supply—are dragged forth from the sail-room, ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... prosecuted. He is shocked at the cabins, and the rocks, and the beggar children, and the lack of trees; at the lack of logic, also, and the lack of shoes; at the prevalence of the brogue; above all, at the presence of the pig in the parlour. He is outraged at the weather, and he minds getting wet the more because he hates Irish whisky. He keeps a little notebook, and he can hardly wait for dinner to be over, he is so anxious to send a communication (probably signed 'Veritas') to the ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... advanced by even greater bounds. It takes place now exclusively within castle walls, and—what Messrs. Lumley & Co.'s circular would describe as—"desirable town mansions, suitable for gentlemen of means." A living dramatist, who should know, tells us that drama does not occur in the back parlour. Dramatists have, it has been argued, occasionally found it there, but such may have been dramatists with eyes capable of ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... harmless thoughts, to watch and keep Me while I sleep. Low is my porch, as is my fate, Both void of state; And yet the threshold of my door Is worn by the poor, Who hither come, and freely get Good words or meat. Like as my parlour, so my hall, And kitchen small; A little buttery, and therein A little bin, Which keeps my little loaf of bread Unchipt, unflead. Some brittle sticks of thorn or brier Make me a fire, Close by whose living coal I sit, And glow like it. Lord, I confess, too, when I ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... took little heed of them, looking in dull wonderment at John Fry, and Smiler, and the blunderbuss, and Peggy. John Fry was scratching his head, I could see, and getting blue in the face, by the light from Cop's parlour-window, and going to and fro upon Smiler, as if he were hard set with it. And all the time he was looking briskly from my eyes to the fist I was clenching, and methought he tried to wink at me in a covert manner; and then Peggy ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... The parlour at Captain Oliver's was a homelike place: The black tarred paper that covered its walls was fairly hidden from sight by selected illustrations cut out of leading weeklies—these illustrations being arranged with a nice eye to convenience, right side up, the small-sized ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... Hubert shut the door, while Hubertine, bearing her burden, passed through the front room, which served as a parlour, and where some embroidered bands were spread out for show before the great square window. Then she went into the kitchen, the old servants' hall, preserved almost intact, with its heavy beams, its flagstone floor mended in a dozen places, and ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... the hand, and led him into a very large parlour that was full of dust, because never swept; the which, after He had reviewed a little while, the Interpreter called for a man to sweep. Now, when he began to sweep, the dust began so abundantly to fly about, that Christian had almost therewith been choked. Then ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... now," said Lady Eustace. But Frank Greystock had hardly regained his self-possession when Miss Macnulty hurried into the room, and, with a look almost of horror, declared that Lady Linlithgow was in the parlour. ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... finished, each had his candle to blow out, and then all returned to the parlour, leaving the debris for the later ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... Noiselessly he advances up the brick walk to the hall entrance, and rings the bell. A well-dressed negro man soon makes his appearance, receives him politely, as the guide retires, and ushers him into a sumptuously furnished parlour. The Rosebrook negroes quickly recognise a gentleman, and detecting it in the bearing of the stranger they treat him as such. Mrs. Rosebrook, followed by her husband, soon makes her appearance, saluting the stranger with her usual suavity. "I have come, madam," he says, "on a strange mission. ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... love poetry, because it talks about real people, not ideals; it does not muse of the Prince Charming meeting the Fairy Princess, and forget the devoted wife meeting her husband on the villa doorstep with open arms and a nice dinner in the parlour. Sentiment must be based on reality if it is to have worth. This is the strong point, for our ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... often miscarry. Heaven is jealous of the extent that we attribute to the right of human prudence above its own, and cuts it all the shorter by how much the more we amplify it. The last comers remained on horseback in my courtyard, whilst their leader, who was with me in the parlour, would not have his horse put up in the stable, saying he should immediately retire, so soon as he had news of his men. He saw himself master of his enterprise, and nothing now remained but its execution. ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... his lodgings, of the great error he had committed. His hotel was filled with citizens, whose rebukes were loudly heard as he passed through the hall to his apartment, and as he nervously paced backward and forward in his parlour, 'the victim of remorse that comes too late,' he perceived both the depth and the darkness of the political pit ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... older than BOB, but his intimate friends. They had but little belief, but BLACK often preached, and BRIGHAM held undecided views on life and matrimony, having been brought up in the cramped atmosphere of a middle-class parlour. At Oxford, the two took pupils, and helped to shape BOB's life. Once BRIGHAM had pretended, as an act or pure benevolence, to be a Pro-Proctor, but as he had a sardonic scorn, and a face which could become a marble mask, the Vice-Chancellor called upon him ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 25, 1890 • Various
... her. She was usually shown into the right-hand parlour at once, and she relied on the bit of colour afforded by her scarlet cloak to give life to the modest shades of her spring colours of pale fawn and tender green. But servants were setting the dinner table in the right-hand parlour; and Conall and Rahal and Aunt Barbara had taken themselves to ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... south coast there are several fine links. Newquay is excellent for a holiday, and the course of the Cinque Ports Club at Deal, now that it is eighteen holes, is very fine. I have not enjoyed recent acquaintance with it, but the short fourth hole which they call the Sandy Parlour struck me when I was last down there as being a very sporting little piece of golf. Both Littlestone and Rye are admirable, and I have pleasant memories of the latter, particularly in connection with a match I once played there ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... Crittenden's horse," she said, and Crittenden climbed out obediently and followed her to the porch, but she did not sit down outside. She went on into the parlour and threw open the window to let the last sunlight in, and sat by ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... usage of mariners, he had first to dissipate his wages. "Guess I'll have to paint this town red," was his hyperbolical expression; for sure no man ever embarked upon a milder course of dissipation, most of his days being passed in the little parlour behind Black Tom's public-house, with a select corps of old particular acquaintances, all from the South Seas, and all patrons of a long yarn, a short pipe, and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... their offices had dwindled down to mere titles, borne by clergy or lawyers in the town and neighbourhood; and so the houses that had been meant to accommodate eight or ten people were now shared among three, the dean and the two prebendaries. Dr. Ashton's included what had been the common parlour and the dining-hall of the whole body. It occupied a whole side of the court, and at one end had a private door into the minster. The other end, as we have seen, looked out ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... at his second visit, when we were nine, that I remember his announcing his intention of being an author when he was grown up. My mother still delights in telling the story. She was sitting at work in the south parlour one day, when I dashed into ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall
... room on the right of the door, called the parlour, smoking a pipe with the old friend whose advice had probably kept him from coming on ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... a great deal how he came there, and I hoped that he was wondering the same sort of thing about me. In fact, I laid myself out to produce such a result. That is to say, I took some pains to show myself as little like the common or parlour lady's-maid as possible. I never took so much pains to impress any human being, male or (far less) female, as I took to impress that mere chauffeur—the very chauffeur I'd been lying awake at night dreading as the most objectionable ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... I do I'd as lief do in your own royal parlour! (Blows whistle; two dark-skinned men come in with vessels.) Give me here those pots ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... I heard nothing further of Catriona—my Miss Grant remaining quite impenetrable, and stopping my mouth with pleasantries. At last, one day that she returned from walking, and found me alone in the parlour over my French, I thought there was something unusual in her looks; the colour heightened, the eyes sparkling high, and a bit of a smile continually bitten in as she regarded me. She seemed indeed like the very spirit of mischief, and, walking briskly in the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... little room. I found Louis waiting in the corridor, and he told me that Madame de Cocheforet and Mademoiselle were in the rose garden, and would be pleased to receive me. I nodded, and he guided me through several dim passages to a parlour with an open door, through which the sun shone gaily on the floor. Cheered by the morning air and this sudden change to pleasantness and ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... unmitigated misery, there are times and seasons of peculiar enjoyment. The happiest hour of all the twenty-four to Martin Rattler was the hour of seven in the evening; for then it was that he found himself seated before the blazing fire in the parlour of the Old Hulk, to which Aunt Dorothy Grumbit had consented to be removed, and in which she was now a fixture. Then it was that old Mr. Jollyboy beamed with benevolence, until the old lady sometimes thought the fire was going to melt him; then it was that the tea-kettle ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... and shape of the curious pinnacles that rose from their roofs and in the trimmings of their verandas. Yet they were all alike, too, in their general expression of putting their best foot foremost and feeling quite sure that they made a brave show. They had lace curtains in their front parlour windows, and outside of the curtains were large red and yellow pots of artificial flowers and indestructible palms and vulcanised rubber-plants. It was ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... Miss Lavinia hesitated regretfully, it seemed so inhospitable,—she had thought to take us to several parlour concerts. Mrs. Vanderdonk, she that was a De Leyster, was going to throw open her picture gallery for charity, which would give us an opportunity to see her new house. In fact the undertow of the Whirlpool was still pulling at her ankles, even though ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... the day in which our tale begins, Edward Sinton—still standing at zero—walked into his uncle's parlour. The old gentleman was looking earnestly, though unintentionally, at the cat, which sat on the rug; and the cat was looking attentively at the kettle, which sat on the fire, hissing furiously, as if it were disgusted at being kept ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... this spirit the whole South was given up to plunder. The looting went on persistently and on a scale almost unthinkable. The public debts reached amazing figures, while Negro legislators voted each other wads of public money as a kind of parlour game, amid peals of ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... his womenfolk may be pardoned if they stand aghast a moment before they regain their self-command. In a way it is like a guest who is given the freedom of the house, and who, when her visit is over, tells her friends that the parlour carpet was turned, and the stairs ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... as I think we should have done if we'd ventured to speak at all. What a little lump of perfection you've made me! There is a strange feeling in reading it of hearing us all talking. I have not seen the matted hall and painted parlour windows so plain these five years. But my father is not like. He hates well enough and perhaps loves too, but he is not honest enough. It was from my father I learnt not to marry for money nor to tolerate any one who did, and he never would advise ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... listened to him with enchained and sympathetic interest. For a single second he permitted his thoughts to travel back to the humble beginnings of his political career. He had a brief, flashlight recollection of the suburban parlour of his early days, the hard fight at first for a living, then for some small place in local politics, and then, larger and more daring schemes as the boundary of his ambitions became each year a little further extended. Beyond him now was only ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of the half hour I returned to the parlour. Old Man Hooper was there waiting. A hanging lamp had been lighted. Out of the shadows cast from it a slender ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... quite late in the afternoon before he left, and I had just time to take a walk at sunset and be back in time for dinner. Immediately after that the people began to assemble for evening service. This is held every Sabbath evening in Mr. Edkins's parlour. Upwards of twenty usually compose the congregation. The missionaries take the service in turn. After service the mass of the congregation separated, but one man came with me to my room, and there we sat talking till midnight, when my visitor rose ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... into wards, and every ward contains its clubhouse for men, called a lum, in which young men and lads are obliged to pass the night. It consists of a bedroom above and a parlour with fireplaces below. In the parlour the grown men pass their leisure hours during the day, and here the councils are held. The wives cook the food at home and bring it for their husbands to the clubhouse. The ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... just opposite." And they crossed the street and walked into the cleanest little front room of a small house, half parlour, half shop, and bought a pound of most particular sausages, East talking pleasantly to Mrs. Porter while she put them in paper, and Tom doing ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... I command and enjoin, under pain of my Dying Curse, that the Iron Key now hanging from the Middle Beam in the Front Parlour be not touched or moved, until he who undertakes this Task shall have returned and have crossed the threshold of Lantrig, having duly performed all the said Instructions. And furthermore that the said Task be not undertaken lightly or except in direst Need, under pain of Grievous and ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... was seated in a little private parlour off the bar, illuminated by an oil-lamp. This Bell turned up, and then she noticed that her visitor looked anxious and ill at ease. Once or twice she attempted to speak, but closed her mouth again. ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... same as they drove up to it, with its twenty oak trees in a semi-circle and the gates in the middle. There was the same watch-dog, Lion; and on the parlour hearth-rug, lying curled up in the sunshine, lay Smut, grandmamma's ...
— Woodside - or, Look, Listen, and Learn. • Caroline Hadley
... stood leaning against the side of the window in the parsonage parlour, and with busy idleness tied knots in her gold chain, which at once untied themselves by ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... everything I saw in it, save a few articles of the peasant's furniture in the kitchen, has an authentic appearance. Three of the rooms below stairs are particularly shown, and they have nothing in them but what once belonged to the poet. In one, which I think they call his parlour, is a very antique cupboard; where, it is supposed, he deposited some precious part of his literary treasure. The ceiling is painted in a grotesque manner. A niche in the wall contains the skeleton of his favourite cat, with a Latin epigram beneath, of Petrarch's composition. ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... she led the way through a low window that opened upon the Corderys' best parlour, through that apartment, and across a passage to the door of a smaller room lined with shelves—formerly a stillroom or store-chamber for home-made wines, cordials, preserves, but now converted into a boudoir for ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... nurse, to the tales which the latter had been used to tell! How sad it all was! The memory of the merest trifle at home would please me, and I would think and think how nice things used to be at home. Once more I would be sitting in our little parlour at tea with my parents—in the familiar little parlour where everything was snug and warm! How ardently, how convulsively I would seem to be embracing my mother! Thus I would ponder, until at length tears of sorrow would softly gush forth and choke my bosom, and ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... reflection, who, wherever he goes, whether in crouded towns or solitary fields, finds something to engage his meditation—or the mercantile rider, who, when the business of his commissions is transacted, quits his lonely parlour for a stroll through the streets—we shall endeavor to bring before his eye as much of interest as our scenes will afford: and as for the diligent antiquary, we assure him we will make the most of our Roman remains; and we hope he will not quarrel with the rough forest stones ...
— A Walk through Leicester - being a Guide to Strangers • Susanna Watts
... Lardner, and its return in another form to the earlier ideal that amusement should be combined with instruction. All sorts of attempts were initiated to make Astronomy palatable to babies, Botany an amusing game for children, Conchology a parlour pastime, and so on through the alphabet of sciences down to Zoology, which is never out of favour with little ones, even if its pictures be accompanied by a ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White
... repose. The little vessel in which he intended sailing lay dry upon the shore, the tide being at low water. The king and his friends, the merchant, the captain, and the landlord, sat in the well-lighted cosy parlour of the seaport inn, smoking, playing cards, telling stories ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... melancholy state of things—and pleading with all my energies against the inevitable destruction which threatened the dear books—the obdurate bibliopolist displayed not one scintillation of sympathy. He was absolutely indifferent to the whole concern. In the back parlour, almost impervious to day-light, his daughter, and a stout and handsome bourgeoise, with rather an unusually elevated cauchoise, were regaling themselves with soup and herbs at dinner. I hurried through, in my way to the upper regions, with apologies for the intrusion; but was told that ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... In the parlour adjoining George Cannon was seated at the table. When Hilda saw him and their eyes met, she was comforted; a wave of tenderness seemed to agitate her. She realized that this man was hers, and the realization was marvellously reassuring. The sound of the piano descended delicately from the drawing-room ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... Jack, with that pretty little craft?" asked Captain Helfrich, as I was shown into his parlour, where he with his ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... circumstance, remember, I knew nothing of at this time. The same man I had picked up footsore and penniless in the bush sixteen years ago, and who had since lived with me, a most excellent and clever servant—the best I ever had. This man now came into Major Buckley's parlour, hat in hand, looking a little foolish, and when I saw him my knife and fork were paralyzed ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... Sandal's trunks, and found a complete disguise exactly suited to an aunt. We had everything—dress, cloak, bonnet, veil, gloves, petticoats, and even boots, though we knew all the time, in our hearts, that these were far too small. We put all ready on the parlour sofa, and then at last we began to feel in our eyes and ears and jaws how late it was. So we went back to bed. Alice said she knew how to wake exact to the minute, and we had known her do it before, so we trusted her, and agreed that she was ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... trickled from the window-frames in one continuous stream. A thick mist hung upon the panes of glass like a gauze veil, intersected by innumerable channels of water, which looked like a pattern of open work left in the dingy material. The shutters of our once populous parlour were half-closed; and admitted into the large, deserted apartment only a portion of this obscure light. The hearse destined to convey the remains of my dear mother to their last, long resting-place, was drawn ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... her complexion. The child was white, what should be done to make her look like other Negroes, was the question Mrs. Green asked herself. At last she hit upon a plan: there was a garden at the back of the house over which Mrs. Green could look from her parlour window. Here the white slave-girl was put to work, without either bonnet or handkerchief upon her head. A hot sun poured its broiling rays on the naked face and neck of the girl, until she sank down in the corner of the garden, and was actually broiled to sleep. "Dat little nigger ain't working ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown
... Davies, the actor, turned bookseller, who introduced me to Johnson. On Monday, May 16, 1763. I was sitting in Mr. Davies's back parlour at 8 Russell Street, Covent Garden, after having drunk tea with him and Mrs. Davies, when Johnson unexpectedly came into the shop. Mr. Davies mentioned my name, and respectfully introduced me to him. I was much agitated at my long-wished-for introduction to the sage, and recollecting his prejudice ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... together by the ordinary associative ties. I found, however, that they were wholly independent of each other. Curious to know whether the will exerted any power over them, I set myself to try whether I could not conjure up a death's-head as one of the series; but what rose instead was a cheerful parlour fire, bearing a-top a tea-kettle, and as the picture faded and then vanished, it was succeeded by a gorgeous cataract, in which the white foam, at first strongly relieved against the dark rock over which it fell, soon ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... abnormally wakeful, tried to read Bell's Life which lay before him and waited until Bovey was fast asleep. They occupied the same room, a large double-bedded one, which opened into a bathroom and parlour en suite. When he was perfectly certain that his cousin was sound asleep, so sound that "a good yelp from the county pack, and a stirring chorus of 'John Peel' by forty in pink could not wake him," thought Clarges, ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... Prince had many secret friends among the citizens. In back parlours of taverns 'douce writers,' and advocates of Jacobite sympathies, discussed the situation with secret triumph; in many a panelled parlour high up in those wonderful old closes, spirited old Jacobite ladies recalled the adventures of the '15, and bright-eyed young ones busied themselves making knots of white satin. 'One-third of the men are Jacobite,' writes a Whig citizen, 'and ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... This is restricted to a narrow use; that wanders free over the plain of meaning. And thus we may explain many of the variations of English and of American speech. A simple word crosses the ocean and takes new tasks upon itself. The word "parlour," for instance, is dying in our midst, while "parlor" gains a fresh vigour from an increasing and illegitimate employment. Originally a room in a religious house, a parlour (or parloir) became a place of reception or entertainment. Two centuries ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... Y-ts'un, as he got up, also in a conceding way, "suit your own convenience. I've often had the honour of being your guest, and what will it matter if I wait a little?" While these apologies were yet being spoken, Shih-yin had already walked out into the front parlour. During his absence, Y-ts'un occupied himself in turning over the pages of some poetical work to dispel ennui, when suddenly he heard, outside the window, a woman's cough. Y-ts'un hurriedly got up and looked out. He saw at a glance that ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin |
