"Sconce" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... lectures.... Upon occasion of one such imposition he said to Jorden:—"Sir, you have sconced [fined] me two pence for non-attendance at a lecture not worth a penny." Hawkins's Johnson, p. 9. A passage in Whitefield's Diary shows that the sconce was often greater. He once neglected to give in the weekly theme which every Saturday had to be given to the tutor in the Hall 'when the bell rang.' He was fined half-a-crown. Tyerman's Whitefield, i. 22. In my time (1855-8) at Pembroke College every Saturday ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... musician. He snatch'd his whinyard up, that fled When he was falling off his steed, (As rats do from a falling house,) 940 To hide itself from rage of blows; And, wing'd with speed and fury, flew To rescue Knight from black and blew; Which, e'er he cou'd atchieve, his sconce The leg encounter'd twice and once; 945 And now 'twas rais'd to smite agen, When RALPHO thrust himself between. He took the blow upon his arm, To shield the Knight from further harm; And, joining wrath with force, bestow'd 950 On th' wooden member such a ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... being covered with the skins of various animals, and holding them out from the side of the cave, discovered a very small arched chamber, which, as well as the one where Fleetword had just partaken of "the creatures comforts," was lighted by a small iron sconce, carefully guarded by a horn shade. Directly opposite the entrance a female was seated after the Eastern fashion, cross-legged, upon a pile of cushions. She placed her finger on her lip in token of silence, and the Buccaneer returned the signal ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... you consider me in little, I am with your worships reverence Sir, a Rascal: one that upon the next anger of your Brother, must raise a sconce by the high way, and sell switches; my wife is learning ...
— The Scornful Lady • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... was fairly brought to bay, Padella turned and dealt Prince Giglio a prodigious crack over the sconce with his battle-axe, a most enormous weapon, which had cut down I don't know how many regiments in the course of the afternoon. But, Law bless you! though the blow fell right down on His Majesty's helmet, it made no more ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Now, as I am a Christian, answer me, In what safe place you have bestow'd my money: Or I shall break that merry sconce of yours, That stands on tricks when I am undispos'd; Where is the thousand marks ...
— The Comedy of Errors • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... had descended to the hall in search of the maiden and his host, and finding no one, had sauntered in extreme weariness and impatience into the little withdrawing-closet, where as it was now dusk, burned a single candle in a melancholy and rustic sconce; standing by the door that opened on the garden, he amused himself with watching the peacock, when his friend, following Madge into the chamber, tapped him on ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a hundred yards distance in the open air, and darkest night. This was performed by a large concave-glass, with a deep pointed focus, quick-silvered on the backside and set in tin, with a socket for a candle, sconce fashion, and hung up against a wall. While the flame of the candle was diametrically opposite to the centre, the rays equally diverging, gave so powerful a light as is scarce credible; but on the least variation from the focus, the charm ceased. The lady discerning in this man a genius which ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... affected to make free with his host, and entered his chamber without ceremony. Aramis was asleep or feigned to be so. A large book lay open upon his night-desk, a wax-light was still burning in its silver sconce. This was more than enough to prove to D'Artagnan the quiescence of the prelate's night, and the good intentions of his waking. The musketeer did to the bishop precisely as the bishop had done to Porthos—he tapped ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Englishers at this distance, but I vaticinate a row in Italy; in whilk case, I don't know that I won't have a finger in it. I dislike the Austrians, and think the Italians infamously oppressed; and if they begin, why, I will recommend 'the erection of a sconce ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... sight, but it was not long before it came again to the other two, wherwith they tooke counsel and came all, 3 together against our ship, because we lay in the lee of al our ships, and had the Island of S. George on the one side in stead of a sconce, thinking to deale so with vs, that in the end we should be constrained to run vpon the shore, whereof we wanted not much, and in that manner with their flagges openly displayed, came lustily towardes vs, sounding their Trumpets, and sayled at the least three times about vs, beating vs with Musket ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt
... where some northern rogue sits puling, (The curse of universal schooling)— A ploughman to his country lost, An author to his printer's cost— A slave to every man who'll buy him, A knave to every man who'll try him— Yet let him take the pen, at once The laurel gathers round his sconce! ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... have given their own dread memories of fear and pain. We were glad to pass up the dusty wooden staircase, the custodian leaving the outer door open to light us somewhat on our way; for to our eyes the one long-wick'd, evil-smelling candle stuck in a sconce on the wall gave an inadequate light. When we came up through the open trap in the corner of the chamber overhead, Amelia held on to me so tightly that I could actually feel her heart beat. I must say for my own part that I was not surprised at her fear, for ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... Indian bauble, turning to examine it at the nearest candle sconce, even as I thrust the dainty little slipper of white satin again into the pocket of my coat. I was uncomfortable. I wished this talk of Elisabeth had not come up. I liked very little to leave Elisabeth's property in another's hands. ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... Chittagong on the 23rd of December, and became the guests of Mr. Sconce, Judge of the district, and of Mr. Lautour; to both of whom we were greatly indebted for their hospitality and generous assistance in ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... and a friend not; and that telling the author would make both change their opinions. Why did you not tell Griffyth(39) that you fancied there was something in it of my manner; but first spur up his commendation to the height, as we served my poor uncle about the sconce that I mended? Well, I desired you to give what I intended for an answer to Mrs. Fenton,(40) to save her postage, and myself trouble; and I hope I have ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... slowly opened, and a man bearing a tallow dip in a battered sconce showed himself in ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... burgess who chanced to find his strong-box a trifle the lighter. But as to the slow commanders, I have known none to equal Brigadier Baumgarten, also of the Imperial service. He would break up his winter-quarters and sit down before some place of strength, where he would raise a sconce here, and sink a sap there, until his soldiers were sick of the very sight of the place. So he would play with it, as a cat with a mouse, until at last it was about to open its gates, when, as like as not, he would raise the leaguer ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... thought the best way, as a dutiful son, Was to do as Old Royalty's self would have done.[3] So I sent word to say, I would keep the whole batch in, The same chest of tools, without cleansing or patching: For tools of this kind, like Martinus's sconce.[4] Would loose all their beauty if purified once; And think—only think—if our Father should find. Upon graciously coming again to his mind,[5] That improvement had spoiled any favorite adviser— That Rose was grown honest, or Westmoreland ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... in the very act of turning over to look at his enemy, and to find out whom he was addressing, he fell into a deep sleep. The next time he came back to consciousness it was dark, except for a sickly burning oil lamp on a sconce fixed against a wall at a little distance. He began to be aware of the fact that he was amazingly hungry, and the memory of what he imagined to have been his last meal came back to him. He ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... of fortification, and to plot the making of a Bridge on barges ouer that strait, for inhibiting the enemies accesse by boates and Gallies, into the more inward parts of the hauen. But it may be doubted, whether the bridge would haue proued as impossible, as the Sconce fell out vnnecessarie. ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... sides, "do not affright a poor clerk! If you look at me like that I will call the cook from yonder eating-stall to protect me with his basting-ladle. I wot if he fetches you one on the other side of your cracked sconce, you will never take service again with ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... in lowly places, that we have no tower to our Abbey churches, and that no finery and no metal, save only iron or lead, come within our walls. A brother shall eat from a wooden platter, drink from an iron cup, and light himself from a leaden sconce. Surely it is not for such an order who await the exaltation which is promised to the humble, to judge their own case and so acquire the lands of their neighbor! If our cause be just, as indeed I believe that it is, then it were better ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and for a time that ship was out of sight; but in no long time afterwards, it returned to the other two, when they consulted again, and came all three together against our ship, because we were to leeward of all our ships, having the island of St George on one side instead of a sconce, [fort] thinking so to deal with us as to force us to run on shore, to which we were very near. In that manner they came bravely towards us, with their flags displayed, sounding their trumpets, and sailed at least three times about ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... had the insolence to try to address her yesterday in Cheapside, on her way back from St. Paul's, that you prevented his doing so, and that there was quite a scene in the street. If I knew who he was I would break his sconce for him, were he Rochester himself. A pretty pass things have come to, when a citizen's daughter cannot walk home from St. Paul's without one of these impudent vagabonds of the Court venturing to address her! Know ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... irretrievable a thing it would be for him just then to lose his countenance, and at the thought the flush burned deeper and merged higher. It overspread his high, bald, intellectual forehead, and incarnadined his sconce up to the very top of it. At this moment it was that Mrs. Kilgore broke off her narrative with the exclamation, "Why, Joseph, what's ...
— Two Days' Solitary Imprisonment - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... of this?" "Here," cried the Jester, upon which Job passed out of the door and went about his business and on such wise made his escape. Next the Herbalist stood up and opening his basket brought out fragrant herbs and fell to scattering them over his sconce and about it and over his ears,[FN416] till such time as all his face was hidden in greens, after which he also went out and accosting the house-master said, "The Peace be upon you!" And when the man returned the salam he asked him, "Hath Job the Ulcered passed by thee on this ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... after a heavy meal, the king rushed upon the keeper of the royal books and hit him repeatedly and promiscuously over the head with an ivory chessboard, a pewter wine-flagon, and a brass candlestick; he knocked him violently and often against an iron torch sconce, and kicked him thrice round the banqueting chamber with rapid, energetic kicks. Finally, he dragged him down a long passage by the hair of his head and flung him out of a window into ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... jumping at each fortissimo, threatened, if not to set its shade on fire, at least to spill wax upon the ebony. At last she could contain herself no longer, and, running up the two steps of the platform on which the piano stood, flung herself on the candle to adjust its sconce. But scarcely had her hand come within reach of it when, on a final chord, the piece finished, and the pianist rose to his feet. Nevertheless the bold initiative shewn by this young woman and the moment of blushing confusion between her and the pianist ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... Bisseling Blacke and blewe Blacke gard Black Jacks Bob'd Bombards Bonos nocthus Booke ("Williams craves his booke") Borachos Bossed Bottom, Brass, coinage of Braule Braunched Braves Bree Broad cloth, exportation of Brond Browne, Sir Thomas, quoted Browne-bastard Build a sconce.—See Sconce Bull (the executioner) Bullets wrapt in fire Bullyes Bumbarrels Bu'oy Burnt Buskes Busse, the (Hertogenbosch taken in 1629, after a memorable siege, by Frederick Henry, ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... a soft green light, for it was a night of full moon. He could see dimly the furniture and the subdued gleam of silver wall-sconce, that caught the ghostly light and gave it a more mysterious value. He tried to rise but could not. To roll his head from side to side seemed ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... is no servant of the will, It has caprices of its own: When most pursued,—'tis swiftly gone; When courted least, it lingers still. With its vagaries long perplext, I turned and turned my restless sconce, Till one bright night, I thought at once I'd master it; so ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... despite of the maxim, cherished by all true knights, that "fair play is a jewel," hastened to take advantage of the hero's fall; but, as he stooped to give a fatal blow, Peter Stuyvesant dealt him a thwack over the sconce with his wooden leg, which set a chime of bells ringing triple bob majors in his cerebellum. The bewildered Swede staggered with the blow, and the wary Peter seizing a pocket-pistol which lay hard by, discharged it full at the head of the reeling Risingh. Let not ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... appearance of the front was eminently suggestive of the face of an old woman on which time had long been plowing furrows to plant disease. The interior of the house, when we entered it by the dingy and narrow hallway, that night, well corresponded with the exterior. A tallow-candle in a tin sconce was burning on the wall, half hiding and half revealing the grime on the plastering, the cobwebs in the corners, and the rickety stairs by which it might be supposed that the occupants ascended to the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... crooked little flights of steps leading to nowhere, its gables and slanting roofs, and its utter absence of all structural proportion. A shrine here, a broken statue there,—a half-obliterated coat-of-arms over an old gateway,—a rusty sconce fitted fast into the wall to support a lantern no longer needed in these days of gas and electricity,—an ancient fountain overgrown with weed, or a projecting vessel of stone for holy water, in which small birds bathe and disport themselves after a shower of rain,—those are but a few ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... last year, And now he signs John Smith, J.P. We'll hold our inquest NOW, we three; I'll be your coroner for once; I think old Oswald ought to be Our foreman—Jones is such a dunce,— There's more brain in the bloodhound's sconce. ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... hand-ball; but, poor fellows, since the trade fell off, they have had no heart for the game, and the vintner's half-mutchkin stoups glitter in empty splendour unrequired on the shelf below the brazen sconce above the bracepiece, amidst the idle pewter pepper-boxes, the bright copper tea-kettle, the coffee-pot that has never been in use, and lids of saucepans that have survived their principals,—the wonted ornaments of every ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... be demagogues. They have fed like buzzards upon the rotting offal of politics and the people continue to vote for them. Every now and then the ICONOCLAST reaches out and whacks one of them a fell blow upon his sconce, but, having tied up his head, he once again returns to his business of craving alms at the hands of ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... time of Themistocles, (they were not then very tractable, by the by,) and at the difficulty of disciplining them; but he is a 'bon homme' and a tactician, and a little like Dugald Dalgetty, who would insist upon the erection of 'a sconce on the hill of Drumsnab,' or whatever it was;—the other seems ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... cierge, rushlight, serge; pl. chandlery. Associated Words: chandler, wick, snuff, socket, accensor, petrostearine, sconce, sweal. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... corresponding to the tales that men tell of his great works. Thor replied that he preferred to compete with someone in drinking. Utgard-Loke said there would be no objection to this. He went into the hall, called his cup-bearer, and requested him to take the sconce-horn that his thanes were wont to drink from. The cup-bearer immediately brought forward the horn and handed it to Thor. Said Utgard-Loke: From this horn it is thought to be well drunk if it is emptied in one draught, some men empty it in two draughts, but there is no drinker so ...
— The Younger Edda - Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda • Snorre
... of head is now comic or ignoble; it was not so once; as is plain from its occurrence in the Prayer Book Version of the Psalms (Ps. vii. 17); as little was 'noddle', which occurs in one of the few poetical passages in Hawes. The same may be said of 'sconce', in this sense at least; of 'nowl' or 'noll', which Wiclif uses; of 'slops' for trousers (Marlowe's Lucan); of 'cocksure' (Rogers), of 'smug', which once meant no more than adorned ("the smug bridegroom", Shakespeare). 'To nap' is now a word ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... us into the shop on the ground-floor. The evening light had now faded so much that we could scarcely see even in the passage, and the shop having its windows barricaded with shutters, was in complete darkness. Raffaelle, however, struck a match and lit three half-burnt candles in a tarnished sconce upon the wall. ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... Duncan," answered the persevering commander, "I would premonish you, as a friend, to trace out a sconce upon that round hill, with a good graffe, or ditch, whilk may be easily accomplished by compelling the labour of the boors in the vicinity; it being the custom of the valorous Gustavus Adolphus to fight as much by the spade and shovel, as by sword, pike, ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... unequal, and exhibits its author's unmatched power of historical-artistic imagination or reconstruction in almost the highest degree possible. But in other respects it certainly does show the omission "to erect a sconce on Drumsnab". There was (it has already been hinted at in connexion with the Eastern Journey) a curious innocence about Thackeray. It may be ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... tint—and for all furniture, half-a-dozen chairs with lyre-shaped backs and blue leather cushions were ranged round the room. The two clumsy arched windows that gave upon the Place du Murier were curtainless; there was neither clock nor candle sconce nor mirror above the mantel-shelf, for Mme. Sechard had died before she carried out her scheme of decoration; and the "bear," unable to conceive the use of improvements that brought in no return in money, had ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... deep breath of relief and looked about him. The room was unfurnished save for a littered table and some chairs, and a gaudy picture of the Virgin that hung on the wall. On each side of it was a sconce, in which a slovenly candle guttered. A woman was perched on a corner of the table, a heavy shawl over her head. Under it the dark face, propped in the fork of her hand, glowed sullenly, and her bare, white arm was like a menacing ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... I go show them my unbarb'd sconce? Must I With my base tongue give to my noble heart A lie, that it must bear? Well, I will do't; Yet were there but this single plot to lose, This mould of Marcius, they to dust should grind it, And throw it against the wind. ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... the stairs, and a few minutes after the Junker was standing in Peter's study, face to face with Maria. The shutters were closed, and the sconce on the table ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... iron laths, the step of the domestic altar of the fireplace, with its huge hobs and boiler, and its hinged arm above the smoky mantel-shelf for roasting. The plain kitchen table is opposite the fire, at her elbow, with a candle on it in a tin sconce. Her chair, like all the others in the room, is uncushioned and unpainted; but as it has a round railed back and a seat conventionally moulded to the sitter's curves, it is comparatively a chair of state. The room ...
— The Devil's Disciple • George Bernard Shaw
... turned away, but the gendarme stayed beside us. Eagle glanced at him as if resenting his intrusion, and asked me to bring her a candle and hold it near a mark on the tracery. The gendarme himself, apologetic but firm, stepped to the sconce and took the candle. I do not know how the thing was done, or why the old spring and long unused hinges did not stick, but his back was toward us—she pushed me against the panel and it ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... atheneum was sconce for Mr. Holliday's candle I do not hazard. It seems I have heard him say that his cousin, Professor Wilbur Cortez Abbott (of Yale) was then teaching at the Kansas college, and this was the reason. It doesn't matter now; fifty years hence it may be ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... head, pretending to think. He waited a moment, then drew out his latch-key and opened the door very softly. A single sconce-candle flared in the hall; he lifted it from the gilded socket and passed into the state drawing-room, holding the light above his head, and searching over table and ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... his myrmidons—"Good friends! Sweet friends! Let me not stir your spirits up to mutiny. Though that cairn of granite stones lies very handy and inviting, I pray you refrain from it. Touch it not. I humbly entreat my friend with the dirty shirt not to break the sconce of the respectable gentleman whom I have in my eye, with that shillelah of his—though I must admit that he is labouring under strong and just provocation." "For mercy's sake, my dear sir!" he would exclaim to a third—"don't push my respected friend ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... the noise of the knob. Still she hesitated to reply. Uncertainly she moved toward the nearest wall-sconce and lifted her hand to the switch. She was sadly confused and unstrung, her thoughts awhirl and nerves ajangle. The last thing she wished just then was to ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... saved firing. A common office armchair, cushioned with leather, crimson once, but now hoary with wear, was drawn up to the table. Add half-a-dozen rickety chairs, and you have a complete list of the furniture. Lucien noticed an old-fashioned candle-sconce for a card-table, with an adjustable screen attached, and wondered to see four wax candles in the sockets. D'Arthez explained that he could not endure the smell of tallow, a little trait denoting great delicacy of sense perception, and the ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac |
