"Threshold" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at once, and it may be stated without fear of serious contradiction that this same peculiar feature in its arrangement will continue to face him, as he enters different homes, about as certainly as he crosses the threshold. ...
— An Epoch in History • P. H. Eley
... hath he crossed the threshold, Yet the thought that he hath crossed it, Burns like poison in the marrow Of the ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... happened?" said he, "something of mighty import, I am sure, or I should have heard my pretty Ellinor's merry laugh long before I crossed the threshold." ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... it from the appearance of disproportion. Its gable ends were surmounted by two enormous brick chimneys, carried up on the outside, in the fashion of the South, and its high, broad windows were ornamented with Venetian blinds. Its front door opened directly into the "living-room," and at the threshold ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... with the pointed gables was inhabited, in the time of Henry III., by a councilor of state whom Queen Catherine came, some say to visit, and others to strangle. However that may be, the good lady must have stepped with a circumspect foot over the threshold of this building. ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... with his handkerchief and set apart, surveying them from a distance with a look of hope. He took up the breech-loading cannon and then suddenly put it down again with a little shiver, and went to the threshold of the perverted oratory and glanced in at his forge. Veneranda had carelessly left the window open, and the draught had carried the ashes about the floor. On the cinder-heap lay the tools which he had used in mending the broken pipe of the fountain at Casa Vervain, and had not used since. ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... is the thought with which the tempest-tossed earth-pilgrim blesses himself or herself, turning inward from the crowded ways of the world. This thought blesses the man of business, as he turns from his day's care, and crosses the sacred threshold. It is as restful to him as the slippers and gown and easy-chair by the fireside. Everybody understands him here. Everybody is well content that he should take his ease in his own way. Such is the case in the ideal home. That such is not always the case in the real home comes often from the mistakes ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... hunting, yet the climate in which you carry on this pursuit—vile as it is—is warm, which to me is almost an essential of existence. I beg you to understand that I make no pretension to a thorough knowledge of Fetish ideas; I am only on the threshold. "Ich weiss nicht all doch viel ist mir bekannt," as Faust said—and, like him after he had said it, I have got ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... perceived {this}: "O disgraceful conduct!" I exclaimed, and instantly hurried away from the spot in tears, overwhelmed by such an incredible and shocking circumstance. Her mother followed me; just as I got to the threshold, she threw herself on her knees: I felt compassion for her. Assuredly it is the fact, in my opinion, just as matters befall us all, so are we elated or depressed. At once she began to address me in these words: "O my {dear} Pamphilus, you see the reason why she left ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... province of Clothes-Philosophy, even the lowest, is without its direct value, but that innumerable inferences of a practical nature may be drawn therefrom. To say nothing of those pregnant considerations, ethical, political, symbolical, which crowd on the Clothes-Philosopher from the very threshold of his Science; nothing even of those "architectural ideas," which, as we have seen, lurk at the bottom of all Modes, and will one day, better unfolding themselves, lead to important revolutions,—let us glance for a moment, and with the faintest ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... he had been exceedingly anxious to learn the condition of Thomasin; but he did not venture to intrude upon a threshold to which he was a stranger, particularly at such an unpleasant moment as this. He had occupied his time in moving with his ponies and load to a new point in the heath, eastward to his previous station; and here he ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... clink of chain and bar, and the door was flung open. Shivering with chill and apprehension, the landlord of the Silver Flagon stood, half clad, candle in hand, upon the threshold. ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... their appearance. The fallen Autocrat and his servants walked with downcast heads, like men in a dream, for to them it was a dream, this sudden and incomprehensible catastrophe which had overwhelmed them in the very hour of victory and on the threshold of the conquest of the world. Three days ago they had believed themselves conquerors, with the world at their feet; now they were being marched, guarded and in shackles, to a tribunal which acknowledged no law but its own, and from whose decision there was no appeal. Truly it was a dream, such ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... been inconceivable to many of his friends and to all of his opponents that this twenty-seven-year-old M. P. should have regarded himself as but on the threshold of his work, should have looked upon what he had achieved merely as preliminaries to his rarely serious efforts in life. They would have smiled indulgently or ironically if they had been told at this period the story of Lloyd George's diary entry after his first visit to the House ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... at this time a rich money-lender, named Shylock. Antonio despised and disliked this man very much, and treated him with the greatest harshness and scorn. He would thrust him, like a cur, over his threshold, and would even spit on him. Shylock submitted to all these indignities with a patient shrug; but deep in his heart he cherished a desire for revenge on the rich, smug merchant. For Antonio both hurt his pride and injured his business. "But ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit
... officers to cross Harmony's threshold as visitors and equals were a colonel and a young captain, who both came from Wynberg with letters of introduction from Mrs. van Warmelo's daughter, Mrs. ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... pursuit of justice, and temperance, and still more especially and principally fortitude, and greatness of soul, and patience, it will not stop short at sight of the executioner; and when all other virtues proceed calmly to the torture, that one will never halt, as I said, on the outside and threshold of the prison; for what can be baser, what can carry a worse appearance, than to be left alone, separated from those beautiful attendants? Not, however, that this is by any means possible; for neither can the virtues hold together ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... them desolate. During the eight months they had been absent, their wives and children had either perished or wandered away; the fields on which they depended for food were overrun with weeds, and nothing was left them but to lie down, exhausted and despairing, and die at the threshold of their ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... now quite white, yet set; the resemblance to her father was plain to see. With lips compressed and breath quick-coming, she crossed the threshold, treading softly as though in a house of the dead. There she paused and lifted a warning finger at her companion, bidding him halt without; then she turned to the door on the left of ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... Should pass through the gateway of glittering light, Where jokes that are merry and songs that are bright Ring out a warm welcome with flattering voice, And temptingly say, 'Here's a place for the boys!' Ah, what if they should! What if your boy or mine Should cross o'er the threshold which marks out the line 'Twixt virtue and vice, 'twixt pureness and sin, And leave all his innocent boyhood within? Ah, what if they should, because you and I, While the days and the months and the years hurry by, Are too busy with cares and with life's fleeting toys To make round our ...
— The Unfolding Life • Antoinette Abernethy Lamoreaux
... the Time Traveller, and, to the Psychologist: 'You think. You can explain that. It's presentation below the threshold, you know, ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... the visitor gained the threshold Ned and Mrs. Bradley had exchanged half a dozen short sentences, and when Bradley looked out ...
— The Boy Scout Camera Club - The Confession of a Photograph • G. Harvey Ralphson
... the door, And wait the threshold on; I have no memory so fair, Where is my mother gone? Where ...
— A Cluster of Grapes - A Book of Twentieth Century Poetry • Various
... removed—after attending the hero and heroine of your tale through the diversified scenes of anxiety, suspense, hope, disappointment, expectation, joy, sorrow, anticipated bliss, sudden and disastrous woe——after elevating them to the threshold of happiness, by the premature death of one, to plunge the other, instantaneously, in deep and irretrievable despair, must not, cannot be right.—Your story will hereafter become languid and spiritless; the subject will be uninteresting, the ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... his way to prison, so long as he does not cross the threshold of the fortress, it is possible to deliver him. Weingarten, who, it appears to me, is much devoted to your highness, has drawn for me the plan of the route, Trenck is to take. Here it is." He handed the princess a small piece of paper, which she ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... by Giotto, the great head and master of Italian Art, there are but two from which even a faint impression of his style can be gained. There is nothing here which would enable one who had not seen his works in Italy to conceive a true idea of their character and merits. Giotto stands at the threshold of the fourteenth century, breaking open the door, so long barred up, that was to let men into the glories of the unseen world. The friend of Dante, he, as painter, stands side by side with the poet. In the midst of the tumults, the confusion, and violence of those ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... while Billy recovered, and talked, and ate his innocent meals. The cow-puncher was far too wise to think for a single moment of restoring the runaway to his debauched and shiftless parents. Possessed of some imagination, he went through a scene in which he appeared at the Lusk threshold with Billy and forgiveness, and intruded upon a conjugal assault and battery. "Shucks!" said he. "The kid would be off again inside a week. And I don't ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... in his shop making a golden chain, and when he heard the bird, who was sitting on his roof and singing, he started up to go and look, and as he passed over his threshold he lost one of his slippers; and he went into the middle of the street with a slipper on one foot and only a sock on the other; with his apron on, and the gold chain in one hand and the pincers in the other; and so he stood in the sunshine ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... in their sheaths O'er my threshold clamber, And the honeysuckle wreathes Its translucent amber Round the gables of my home: How is it thou ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various
... exclaimed, smiling upon them from the threshold. "Are you all here? Is there any one ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... I heard Henry Clay announce the same doctrine long before our Civil War. I heard also assertions of the same kind uttered on the floor of our Senate by learned and good men twenty years ago when we were on the very threshold of one of the most bloody wars which ever devastated this or any other land. Therefore I have some doubt whether mankind has attained that eminence where it can look backward upon wars and rumors of war, and forward to a ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... door, and Prudence stood upon the threshold of her new home. It was not a fashionable building, by any means. The hall was narrow and long, and the staircase was just a plain businesslike staircase, with no room for cushions, and flowers, and books. The doors leading from the hall were open, and Prudence caught a glimpse ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... and Billington's shamefaced obedience and the wonder of all who had listened to the outbreak were cut short by a startling apparition upon the threshold; the savages had really come at last, or at least one of them, for here stood, tall and erect, the splendid figure of a man, naked except for a waistband of buckskin fringe, his skin of a bright copper color glistening in the morning sun, and forming a rich background for the vari-colored ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... the threshold, with a sudden excited quickening of the senses, in which so many things were mingled that the misgiving there had scarcely time to make itself felt, Arlee found herself in a spacious vestibule, marble floored and inlaid with brilliant ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... trying. I love the early morning walk, everything is so fresh and the air singularly light and pure. It seems wicked to go into that atmosphere of hot air and suffering humanity, which greets one on the threshold of the bathhouse. To-day I have been driving with the princess. She does not like the automobile when she is making a cure—says it shakes her ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... stirred the delicacy of those whom he thus guaranteed, a horse stopped at the entrance, steps were heard in the corridor, the dining-room door opened, and a masked man, armed to the teeth, appeared on the threshold. ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... On his threshold, utterly sober, carrying himself with the assurance of the master in his own house, he would not have suffered by comparison with any man. Instead of the black broadcloth that Alice had expected, he wore ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... the floor sloped to the front a trifle, which helped. In a moment he had the satisfaction of feeling the big car give, then roll slowly ahead. The front wheels dipped down over the threshold, and Bud stepped upon the running board, took the wheel, and by instinct more than by sight guided her through the doorway without a scratch. She rolled forward like a black shadow until a wheel jarred against the block, whereupon he set the emergency brake ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... good-humoured fellow, and loth to disoblige the dog's master by executing the criminal, as the dog law directs, mitigates his sentence, and handled him as follows:—First, taking out his knife, he cut off both his ears; and then, bringing him to the threshold, he chopped off his tail. And having thus effectually dishonoured the poor cur among his neighbours, he tied a string about his neck, and a piece of paper to the string, directed to his master, and with these witty ...
— From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe
... this stepping forth into the world with all that is familiar and dear at their backs, and all that is strange and unknown and wonderful stretching away like a vast landscape before them? How many are there who would not give much to be back once more at that threshold of their career; and to have the chance of living over again the life they began there with such bright hopes and such careless confidence? Ah, if some of them could have seen whither that flower-strewn path was ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... son was wounded. Nor were children exempt. "About Aug. 4," says one witness, "near Vottem, we were pursuing some Uhlans. I saw a man, woman, and a girl about nine, who had been killed. They were on the threshold of a house, one on the top of the other, as if they had been shot down, one after the other, ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... forget a harangue from the mouth of the old man, which I listened to one warm evening as he and I sat on the threshold of the stable, after having attended to some of the wants of a batch of coach- horses. It related to the manner in which a gentleman should take care of his horse and self whilst engaged in a journey on horseback, ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... the name of both, the word That gave the witch's neck to the cord, And piled the oaken planks that pressed The feeble life from the warlock's breast! All the day long, from dawn to dawn, His door was bolted, his curtain drawn; No foot on his silent threshold trod, No eye looked on him save that of God, As he baffled the ghosts of the dead with charms Of penitent tears, and prayers, and psalms, And, with precious proofs from the sacred Word Of the boundless pity and love of the Lord, His faith ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... still upon my lips when the door opened and my friend of the gold eyeglass appeared, a memorable figure, on the threshold. In one hand she bore a bedroom candlestick; in the other, with the steadiness of a dragoon, a horse-pistol. She was wound about in shawls which did not wholly conceal the candid fabric of her nightdress, and surmounted by a ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Edithia, who was by now in fine bellicose condition, "I'm no more foreign than you are. Shut up, can't you? or——" and she took a step towards the stout station-master. He retreated precipitately, caught his heel against the threshold of the booking office and ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... carried her difficulty to Father Ademar when she next went to confession. She would never have propounded such a query to Father Dominic at Langley, since it would most certainly have ensured her a severe scolding and some oppressive penance; perhaps to lie flat on the threshold of the chapel and let every one pass over her, perhaps to lick the dust all round the base of the Virgin's pedestal. And Maude's own private conviction was that penances of this kind never did her the least good. Father Dominic ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... some feathers, and ran into a dark passage. He soon came to a door, which appeared not to be fastened, and from which proceeded distinct sighs and a slight hooting. He pushed the door open with his bill, but remained standing in astonishment on the threshold. In the ruinous chamber, which was lighted scantily by a small grated window, he saw a large owl sitting on the floor. Large tears were rolling from her great round eyes, and with a hoarse voice she uttered complaints from her crooked beak. But when she beheld ...
— What the Animals Do and Say • Eliza Lee Follen
... is another thought upon the threshold of such a subject that demands our attention. This verse of the text, being a sort of example or representative verse of the psalter, expresses to us—does it not?—the attitude and the mission of the Christian Church. The attitude. ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser
... dolorous or fearful. Their eyes were red with weeping; their hands were clasped on the crown of the head; their hair was in frightful disorder, and two channels of tears were plainly seen flowing down over the naked bosom of each of the women. In this manner they passed before the threshold of the hut in two close lines, and were observed to bend the knee to the venerable matron, without uttering a word. They then rose and departed, and their cries could be heard long after ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... effect this had on my spirits, it very much weakened my sight, and when I was suddenly brought out of the darkness into the glare of daylight it was very painful to my eyes. Several times I stumbled over the threshold, and could scarcely see where ...
— Black Beauty • Anna Sewell
... Rudyard driving Krool out of the house in Park Lane with a sjambok. She heard again the thud of the rhinoceros-whip on the cringing back of the Boer; she heard the moan of the victim as he stumbled across the threshold into the street; and again she felt that sense of suffocation, that excitement which the child feels on the brink of a ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... perplexity; he had been brought to the very threshold of revelation, and then thrust back into an every-day world of thwarted hopes and broken ambitions. But the memory of magic was still with him, and gave him a feeling of unrest, and a pertinacity that ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... was being held just outside the door, and the ministers wanted me to come and take part. I looked toward the door through which I must pass, and I saw two large worms with their heads together, lying directly across the threshold. In order to enter the room, I would have to step over the worms and would be in great danger of receiving a deadly bite. I said to myself, "I will not run the risk for any man's notions or ways"; and, turning on my heel, I went out of ...
— Trials and Triumphs of Faith • Mary Cole
... phases of a blameless life She lingered round the threshold of the poor: Where brighter scenes less noble minds allure, Her's was the joy to ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... Here, on the threshold of the inquiry, an objection meets us. There are in the world a number of extremely worthy, well-meaning persons, whose judgments and opinions are entitled to the utmost respect on account of their sincerity, who are of opinion that Vital ...
— The Method By Which The Causes Of The Present And Past Conditions Of Organic Nature Are To Be Discovered.—The Origination Of Living Beings • Thomas H. Huxley
... county, Kentucky, on a midsummer night, in 1787, just before the gray light of morning, John Merrill, attracted by the barking of his dog, went to the door of his cabin to reconnoiter. Scarcely had he left the threshold, when he received the fire of six or seven Indians, by which his arm and thigh were both broken. He managed to crawl inside the cabin and shouted to his wife to shut the door. Scarcely had she succeeded in doing so when the ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... distribution of the prizes; "you must take diligence and good will into consideration. That remark was made by several very estimable persons, and that was also my opinion. To be sure the snail took half a year to cross the threshold; but he broke his thigh-bone in the tremendous exertion which that was for him. He devoted himself entirely to this race; and, moreover, he ran with his house on his back. All these weighed in his favour, and so he ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... only taken the box out of the cart and carried it within the threshold of the door, now took it into his sisters' bedroom, and then went out and called Pablo, who came ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... as I never heard before. It was half burned down, and shattered with balls, and ten thousand men were hammering at the gates; but four hundred guardsmen held it in the morning and two hundred held it in the evening, and no French foot was ever set within its threshold. But how they fought, those Frenchmen! Their lives were no more to them than the mud under their feet. There was one—I can see him now—a stoutish ruddy man on a crutch. He hobbled up alone in a lull of the firing to the side gate of Hougoumont and he beat upon it, screaming ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... To enter was like going into the peace and serenity of some old cathedral, and, notwithstanding her defiant frame of mind, a feeling of something akin to reverence crept over Honor as she crossed the threshold. Her impressionable Celtic temperament could not fail to be influenced by outward surroundings: she had a great love of the beautiful, and this ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... close beside us to-morrow morning. Oh, listen! There's the band, and that is the very quickstep he used to love so much at the Point." And, fairly dancing in her happiness, she threw her arm around Marion's waist and together they appeared at the threshold,—a lovely picture, as the cap-doffing group of officers thought to a man. Half a dozen of these gentry were lolling at the gate; the broad walk was already alive with graceful forms in summer dresses, with playful children and sedate nurse-maids trundling the inevitable ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... at last. In passing along the gallery, my eye was caught by a valise laid outside one of the parlours, and corded, as for an immediate departure. It was marked with "La Comtesse de Tourville." I knocked gently at the door. I was unanswered. I touched it—it gave way, and I stood on the threshold. Before me, at a table, sat a female figure writing, with her face turned from me, and apparently so deeply engaged as not to have heard my entrance. But I should have known her among a million. I pronounced her name. She started up, in evident alarm at the intrusion. But in the next moment, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... altogether opposed to the habits and feelings of this country. She had no conviction that either Coningsby would wish to marry her, or, if willing, that his grandfather would sanction such a step in one as yet only on the threshold of the world. Lucretia therefore received the suggestions and proposals of Madarne Colonna with coldness and indifference; one might even say contempt, for she neither felt respect for this lady, nor was she sedulous to evince it. Although really ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... inscription to her memory, is still in existence; though it has changed its place and destination. The barbarians who pillaged the convent sold it with the rest of the plunder; and it now serves as a threshold to a house near the Mont aux Malades, at Rouen[17]. The inscription, which is cut in very elegant Gothic characters, is as follows: a part of it is, however, at present hidden by its position:—"Cy gist Agnes ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... President's mansion, however, wading through water above our ankles. This abode of President Houston is a small log house, consisting of two rooms, and a passage through, after the southern fashion. The moment we stepped over the threshold, on the right hand of the passage we found ourselves ushered into what in other countries would be called the antechamber; the ground floor, however, was muddy and filthy, a large fire was burning, ...
— John James Audubon • John Burroughs
... marvellous Middle Ages, wherein Art, foster-child of the Church, encroached on death and advanced to the threshold of Eternity, and to God, the divine concept and the heavenly form were guessed and half-perceived, for the first and perhaps for the last time by man. They answered and echoed each other—art calling ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... time the girl was absent. He then put a finger to his lip to enjoin silence, advanced to the table, and extinguished the light. Desiring his companions, in a low whisper, to tread cautiously and follow, he now led the way with almost noiseless step to the entrance of the hut. At the threshold of the door were placed a large well-filled sack, a light mast and sail, and half a dozen paddles. The latter burden he divided between the officers, on whose shoulders he carefully balanced them. The sack he threw across his ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... quickly to the first building and entered the open doorway, followed closely by Charley. At the threshold, Charley paused in horror. The room in which he looked was about twenty by fourteen feet in size. In the center a great slab of stone rested on four large blocks of the same material. It had evidently once done duty as a table for at one side of it was ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... a groan this time, and it came from the far side of the room. For the first time the boys noticed that there was a door there, partly open. They made a rush for it, Jerry in the lead. But he got no farther than the threshold. As he reached it, the door was flung ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart
... visited the school. He opened the door and stood on the threshold. His eyes seemed close together, and there was a long red scar on his bare neck, where he had on a former occasion cut his throat. All the scholars were afraid of Barney, and the girls climbed up on the benches and ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... missionary, opening the door to Leclere a few hours later, was surprised to note the absence of Batard from the team. Nor did his surprise lessen when Leclere threw back the robes from the sled, gathered Batard into his arms and staggered across the threshold. It happened that the surgeon of McQuestion, who was something of a gadabout, was up on a gossip, and between them they ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... and her heart was so full of joy that it could do nothing but overflow in silent thanksgivings and prayers. Daisy would not have stirred till he did, no matter how long it might have been; but there came an interruption. A door opened, and Mrs. Randolph appeared on the threshold, and so soon as she saw Daisy, beckoned her to come to another room. Mr. Randolph's arms had relaxed their hold somewhat, and Daisy obeyed ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Sarakoff-Harden bacillus—is ultra-microscopical. It grows in practically every medium with great ease. In the human body it finds an admirable host, and owing to the fact that it destroys all other organisms, it confers immortality on the person who is infected by it. We are therefore on the threshold of ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... the door, and stood on the threshold, barring the way. He was leaning against the doorpost with his head against it, as she had often seen her husband lean when he was talking to her on a summer evening. Something in his attitude, so like her husband's, touched her ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... breathlessly, before she had fairly passed the threshold, "you are going away to-morrow, and I have something very important to say to you. Put the boys down, and ...
— Gritli's Children • Johanna Spyri
... on the little house was an arrant piece of hypocrisy. Nothing but the direst extremity could have caused him to allow an alien step on that sacred threshold. The ploughing up of the flower-beds and planting of the corn had served a double purpose. It showed the too curious public the finality of his break with Rose and her absolute freedom; it also prevented them from suspecting ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... humiliation, or treachery from abroad. I would not have submitted to a foreign oppressor, for the same reason that I would resist the foreign and domestic oppressor. In the dignity of freedom, I would have fought upon the threshold of my country, and its enemy should enter only by passing over my lifeless corpse. And am I, who lived but for my country, and who have subjected myself to the dangers of the jealous and watchful oppressor, and the bondage of the ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... fortunes, the place, and even the lives of its citizens. Still even the dread Committee of Public Safety were powerless to discover the formidable enemies that concealed themselves there. That Coursegol was not irretrievably lost the instant he crossed the threshold of this mysterious and dangerous cavern was due entirely to Bridoul, who had volunteered to act as his guide and protector. Bridoul possessed a very considerable amount of influence. He presented his comrade to ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... them, is sincerely anxious for its preservation; but that it is determined, as it doubts not the other States are, to submit to undelegated powers in no body of men on earth"; and that "the project of the annexation of Texas, unless arrested on the threshold, may tend to drive these States into a ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... have looked at him forever, she was so happy; she cared nothing now for those dazzling dahlias—he had left them; he was actually here—here in her own, little dear home, with the cocks looking in at the threshold, and the sweet-peas nodding at the lattice, and the ...
— Bebee • Ouida
... drew back, understanding that her presence was no longer wanted. But on the threshold she paused, as if overruled by a stronger influence, and said, with a last look at her daughter: "You didn't meet anybody when you were out, did ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... beyond it,—a kind of little shrine, hung with pale purple silk, and looking as though it were intended to hold something infinitely precious. I entered it hesitatingly, not sure whether I was doing right or wrong, and yet impelled by something more than curiosity. As I stepped across the threshold I heard the voices behind the wall again—they sounded louder and more threatening, and I paused,—half afraid, yet longing to know all that might yet be said, though such knowledge might mean nothing but misery ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... the stair cut short the words of Miss Williams. The next instant the door was flung open and a man crossed the threshold, and, hat in hand, confronted ...
— Five Thousand Dollars Reward • Frank Pinkerton
... old Brea was left bare to every storm that blew. One morning, as the sun was rising over the town, surprising half a dozen belated gamblers in Ned Wright's saloon as they were getting up to leave, they found lying across the threshold the body of a man, ragged, emaciated, ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... commendations, which he will be sure to deliver at eleven of the clock.[27] They in courtesy bid him stay, and he in manners cannot deny them. If he find but a good look to assure his welcome, he becomes their half-boarder, and haunts the threshold so long 'till he forces good nature to the necessity of a quarrel. Publick invitations he will not wrong with his absence, and is the best witness of the sheriff's hospitality.[28] Men shun him at length as they would do an infection, and he ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... that loves not to walk abroad, but yet it is an horrible plague within doors. And, many that shew like saints abroad, yet act the part of devils when they are at home, by giving way to this house iniquity; by cherishing of this house iniquity. This iniquity meeteth the man and his wife at the very threshold of the door, and will not suffer them to enter, no not with one foot into the house in peace, but how far this is from walking together as heirs of the grace of life, is easy to be determined. Men should carry ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... would do for this year without alteration, or that it would defy the face of clay to count the number of her shawls. In one of my books there is a mother who is setting off with her son for the town to which he had been called as minister, and she pauses on the threshold to ask him anxiously if he thinks her bonnet 'sets' her. A reviewer said she acted thus, not because she cared how she looked, but for the sake of her son. This, I remember, amused my ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... stands at the threshold of dealing with the sense of beauty so as to give it due importance and preponderance, and that is that it seems with many people to be so frail a thing, and to visit the mind only as the last grace of a mood of perfect serenity and well-being. Many ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... so rare that its existence would almost of itself be sufficient to establish a close relationship between Romeo and Hamlet. Romeo's last speech, too, is characteristic of Hamlet: on the very threshold of death he generalizes: ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... every man who has any vision of the immediate future, who can forecast any part of it from the indications of the present, that we are just upon the threshold of a time when the systematic life of this country will be sustained, or at least supplemented, at every point by governmental activity. And we have now to determine what kind of governmental activity it shall be; whether, in the first ...
— The New Freedom - A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People • Woodrow Wilson
... lingering reflection of the sunset still lived, it looked bright to the girl who had come from the heavy dusk and gloom of the corridors with their roof-windows and their rows of grim doors. A room ought to look bright, too, when the visitor on just appearing on its threshold is rushed upon and clasped and kissed and greeted as "You dear, dear darling." Such a welcome met Miss Grey, and then she was instantly drawn into the room, the door of ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... this time. Clarissa drank some of the water and took the Captain's arm to return to the ball-room, which was beginning to look a little empty. On the threshold of the ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... in another And brighter land my darling walks and waits, Where we shall surely meet and clasp each other, Beyond the threshold of the shining gates. ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... Wesley, and his children. So we have seen, and others. But in all these cases the matter rested there and the observation was not prosecuted further. As, previous to the invention of the steam engine, sundry observers had trodden the very threshold of the discovery and there stopped, so in this case, where the royal chaplain, disciple though he was of the inductive philosophy, and where the founder of Methodism, admitting, as he did, the probabilities of ultramundane interference, were both at fault, ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith
... screamed out loud like a person as he went, so that the hills echoed with it, and the folks at Cauldstaneslap got to their feet about the table and looked at each other with white faces. The horse fell dead at the yard gate, the laird won the length of the house and fell there on the threshold. To the son that raised him he gave the bag of money. "Hae," said he. All the way up the thieves had seemed to him to be at his heels, but now the hallucination left him - he saw them again in the place of the ambuscade - and the thirst of vengeance seized on his dying ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... glanced back across his shoulder through the shadows. She was hovering just inside the threshold, hastily clad in her evening-wrap; beyond her in the hall the General stood fidgeting with his cap. Sir Tobias was sitting with his head bowed; he had not heard the sound of her reentry. He spoke evidently believing that they two ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... soon as the King saw them enter he rose, went to the door, and without giving them time to utter a word, said to La Feuillade, "Monsieur, we are both very unfortunate!" and instantly turned his back upon him. La Feuillade, on the threshold of the door that he had not had time to cross, left the place immediately, without having dared to say a single word. The King always afterwards turned his eye from La Feuillade, and would never speak to him. Such was the fall of this Phaeton. He saw that he ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... beauty, her toilet, and her diamonds, but nobody has the opportunity or the leisure to penetrate into the depths of her mind. A really distinguished woman once said to me, "I feel that I become stupid when I enter these drawing-rooms. Vacancy seizes me at the very threshold." Another, who had lived in France, regretted, with tears, the absence of those charming friendships, so cheerful and so cordial, that exist between the young ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... having arrived on the threshold of their own apartment, which was opened to them by an old female servant, the burgher's uneasiness was ended. Determined, however, to ascertain, if possible, whether there had been any cause for it, he called out to the man ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... Thomas's shoes creak, and was her sense of hearing unusually keen? Whatever the explanation may be, the event that actually happened was beyond all doubt. Exactly as Doctor Wybrow passed his consulting-room, the door opened—the lady appeared on the threshold—and laid ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... gifts ought to be a matter of family conference and each member ought early to have the opportunity and the means of determining his share in such extension. The child's gifts to the church should not be pennies thrust into his hand as he crosses the threshold of home for the Sunday school, but his own money, from his own account—partly his own direct earnings—appropriated for this or for other purposes by himself and with the advice of his parents. Family councils on forms of participation in ideal activities, by gifts and by service, bind ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... of Maria of Barneveld had scarcely begun. Desolation had become her portion, but dishonour had not yet crossed her threshold. There were sterner strokes in store for her than that which smote her husband on ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... second-floor passage, he found his room and one of its tenants, who nodded carelessly as John crossed the threshold. ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... low doorway leading into the dark entrance where two goats were dimly visible, thence to the room where the air, in spite of the open window, felt heavy and oppressive. A thin woman with a wrinkled face passed him on the threshold. It was Shmul's wife, who carried a piece of brown bread to the child outside, Lejbele's supper when he came ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... should be seen by those inside rejoicing and fearing nothing. But when the guards had set the gate open and were about to receive them into the city, they were to throw a stone or block of wood between the threshold and the gate and not allow them to shut it, but should themselves for a time stand in the way of those who wished to close it; for not long afterwards ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... it, yet it seems to me that in that mount, and there too where the temple was built, there was a spring of living water. This seems more than probable, by Ezekiel 47:1, where he saith, 'He brought me again unto the door of the house, and behold, waters issued out from under the threshold of the house eastward, for the fore-front of the house stood toward the east, and the waters came down from under, from the right side of the house, at the south side of the altar.' So again, 'And a fountain ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... layers of cotton, covered a bottom lined with gray velvet. All expected wonders, and Sinang's husband thought he saw carbuncles, gems that flashed fire and shone in the midst of the shadows. Capitan Basilio was on the threshold of immortality: he was going to behold something real, something ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... sometimes, by the great whore, or great Babylon, we may understand, the church of Antichrist in general; yet by it is meant more properly, the mother of the daughters, of whose overthrow we have spoken before. We are now then come to the threshold of the door of the house of the OLD one; to the door of the mother of harlots, and abomination of the earth. This then that but now is said to come into remembrance with God, is that which gave being to the cities destroyed before; to wit, the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... through sickness or old age. Here she possesses a habitation protected by exceedingly high walls and strongly barred gates. Her hall is called Elvidnir; Hunger is her table; Starvation, her knife; Delay, her man; Slowness, her maid; Precipice, her threshold; Care, her bed; and Burning Anguish forms the hangings of her apartments. The one half of her body is livid, the other half the colour of human flesh. She may therefore easily be recognized; the more so, as she has a dreadfully stern and ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... at once, crossed the threshold, and walked right up to the man where he stood, propped on his ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... looking about him with great care lest he be seen, but some intuition sent him back, and when he stole along in the shadow of the fence he saw the rear door of the house open and a thin, angular figure appear upon the threshold. It was too dark for him to see the face, but he knew it to be Miss Grayson. That figure could not belong to ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... My heart thumped heavily as I knocked at his door in the gloomy house. I recollected all the things that he used to tell me, at a time when I myself was very far from suspecting the violence of the anguish awaiting those who crossed his threshold. Now it was I who was about to beg and pray like ...
— Gobseck • Honore de Balzac
... At the threshold of your deliberations I congratulate you upon the favorable aspect of the domestic and foreign ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... clothe the harsh gray soil sickened and pined away; the shrubs made a short battle against the bleakness of winter, putting out pale, strange flowers like the wan smile of a woman who stands on the threshold of death, then failed away, and died. Mrs. Philbrook broke under the long strain of never-ending battles, and died the spring that her daughter came eighteen ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... three Powers recognise, on the threshold, "the independence of the Samoan government, and the free right of the natives to elect their chief or king and choose their form of government." True, the text continues that, "in view of the difficulties that surround an election in the present disordered condition of the government," ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... before the excitement quieted down and they gave her a chance to say she would go. Even then she spoke the words with fear and trembling as one might step off a commonplace threshold into a fairy palace, not sure but it might ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... Flowers.—Might I inquire of your correspondent EIRIONNACH why his long-promised Notes on the "ecclesiastical and rustic pet names" of plants and flowers have never been forthcoming? I have often lingered on the threshold of the "garden full of sunshine and of bees," where EIRIONNACH has laboured; would he kindly be my guide to the pleasant domain, and indicate (without trespassing on your columns I mean) the richest gatherings of the legendary ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 236, May 6, 1854 • Various
... o'er the moist flood waft her fleet as air, Then, seizing her strong spear pointed with brass, In length and bulk, and weight a matchless beam, With which the Jove-born Goddess levels ranks Of Heroes, against whom her anger burns, From the Olympian summit down she flew, And on the threshold of Ulysses' hall In Ithaca, and within his vestibule Apparent stood; there, grasping her bright spear, 130 Mentes[1] she seem'd, the hospitable Chief Of Taphos' isle—she found the haughty throng The suitors; they before the palace gate With iv'ry cubes sported, on ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... up a crystal cup, which was consecrated to the prophet, to let it fall upon the ground and dash it in pieces. His son coming in some time after, he stretched out his hand to bless him, as his manner was every morning; but the youth going out stumbled over the threshold and broke his arm. As the old man wondered at those events, a caravan passed by in its way from Mecca. The dervise approached it to beg a blessing; but as he stroked one of the holy camels, he received a kick from the beast, that sorely bruised ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... entitled to some respect, for she lives in her own house the life of an irreproachable matron. She shows the tenderest regard for the needs of her children, and never a man crosses her threshold but the doctor. ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis
... dropped the hand he held, and with slow steps Retired, but not as bidding her adieu, For they did part with mutual smiles; he pass'd From out the massy gate of that old hall, And mounting on his steed he went his way; And ne'er repass'd that hoary threshold more." ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... We ascertained, by inquiry, that the former has an extent wholly unsuspected by Dr. Wallin and by the first Expedition; and that a careful examination of it is highly desirable. But we were stopped upon the very threshold of the Hism by the Ma'zah, a tribe of brigands which must be subjected to discipline before the province of Madyan can be restored ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... entitled "Dans la Maison." It expressed the essential France hidden by the glare of the Third Republic. The music of Cesar Franck is the music of the people driven into themselves by the conditions of modern life. It is the music of the fine ones who stand hesitant on the threshold of the world, and have incessantly to struggle for the power to act, for faith and hope. It is the music of those who in the midst of millions feel themselves forsaken and alone and powerless, and in whose obscure and laborious ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... ball-room; but at present it was quite unoccupied. There were green velvet benches all around it, and a great polished floor stretched away, shining in the light of chandeliers adorned with innumerable glass drops. Miss Vivian stood a moment on the threshold; then she passed in, and they stopped in the middle of the place, facing each other, and with their figures reflected as if they had been standing on a sheet of ice. There was no one in the ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... we term our intelligence emerges from darkness through a slowly lifting dawn. During this twilight period it has lived, worked, acted, fashioned and informed itself. On the threshold of philosophical speculation it is full of more or less concealed beliefs, which are literally prejudices, and branded with a secret mark influencing its every movement. Here is an actual situation. Exemption from it is beyond anyone's ...
— A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson • Edouard le Roy
... of his house. It was barely dawn, but already a little group of Mexicans were staring at his door and talking with much excitement. Wondering what it could mean he hastily dressed himself and went out. As he opened the front door he ran into the body of the man, swinging above his own threshold, which he had left a few hours before hanging at the ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... window and in another, and vanished, and soon the door opened and there appeared two people on the threshold, clearly visible in the light of a strong incandescent ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon |
