"Basement" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fancied he heard a suppressed groan, as of one suffering from intense agony—Not the groan, but the peculiar tone in which it was uttered, arrested his attention, and excited a vague yet stirring interest in his breast. On approaching closer to the temple, he found that at its immediate basement the earth had been thrown up into a sort of mound, which so elevated the footing as to admit of his reaching the bars of the window with his hands. Active as we have elsewhere shown him to be, he was not long in obtaining a full view of the interior, ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... basement of the annex had been remodeled into a well-equipped gymnasium, and at the rear of the lot a swimming pool had ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... age was not far removed from that of her young mistress. This made the substitution I have mentioned feasible, and when I was told that she was seen taking her hat and bonnet into the bride's room, and, though not expected to leave till the next morning, had slid away from the house by the basement door at the same moment her mistress appeared on the front steps, my suspicions became so confirmed that I asked how this girl looked, in the hope that you would be able to recognize her, through the description, as the woman you had seen sitting ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... that evening, that he was thinking that this might be his last night here. His air and walk indicated no weakening of spirit. He entered the hall, where an early lamp was aglow, and encountered "Wash" Sims, an old negro factotum, who was just coming up from the basement, carrying a bucket of coal for ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... It was marked five and sixpence. It seemed to comprise everything needed for the production of the most entrancing and majestic architectural views, and as Edwin took out its upper case and discovered still further marvellous devices and apparatus in its basement beneath, he dimly but passionately saw, in his heart, bright masterpieces that ought to be the fruit of that box. There was a key to it. He must have it. He would have given all that he possessed for ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... of the Sunrise at nine o'clock that night tingled with excitement. A supplement had already gone to press, and the machines in the basement were working rapidly. In the business office on the first floor people were constantly coming and going, and the footsteps on the stairs of the composing-room sounded through the walls like the irregular ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... of blossom and cost the least for tendance. A wide terrace stretched across the rear of the palace, dropping to the garden path by a flight of balustraded steps, and upon this terrace opened the long windows of Mrs. Vervain's parlor and dining-room. Her landlord owned only the first story and the basement of the palace, in some corner of which he cowered with his servants, his taste for pictures and bric-a-brac, and his little branch of inquiry into Venetian history, whatever it was, ready to let himself or anything he had for ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... Christmas candles passed him by unheard. Women with big baskets jostled him, stopped and fingered his cabbages; he answered their inquiries mechanically. Adam's mind was not in the street, at his stand, but in the dark back basement where his wife Hansche was lying, there was no telling how sick. They could not afford a doctor. Of course, he might send to the hospital for one, but he would be sure to take her away, and then what would become of little Abe? Besides, if they had nothing else in the ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... front portion of the church where the faithful wash each other's feet is today covered with linoleum. The long spotlessly white towel used for drying the feet of the meek has given place to a brightly colored green and red striped bath towel (basement special, or such as are found on the counters of the five and ten). The singing, instead of being the solemn chant of the sixth century to which mountain folk for generations adapted the words of their traditional hymns, is in swift tempo, almost jazz such as can be heard at any point ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... for me of the kind called a hall bedroom, which I don't ever remember seeing before. There were none at Sans Souci and none, I think, at any of the palaces. Cousin Willie has a room at the top of the house, and Cousin Ferdinand in the basement. ...
— The Hohenzollerns in America - With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities • Stephen Leacock
... cobbler; "and we live in Todmorden's Lane, leading out of Beauchamp Street. It is Mr. Bennet's the bootmaker, and I works for him and lives in the basement, 'long ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... grew on my nerves to such an extent that, were it only to punish my cowardice, I felt I must make the 'round of the basement again, and, if anything were there, face it. And then, I would go up to my study, for I knew sleep was out of the question, with the house surrounded by creatures, half beasts, half something ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... not until they had explored the basement and found it utterly without signs of human occupancy that the truth of the situation began to dawn upon them. Barminster's face was white and his voice shook as he ventured the ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... made of glass and iron, and filled from basement to roof with beautiful suits of clothing of all kinds," said Fritz delightedly. "A man could go in there in a morning-gown, and come out in a quarter of an hour dressed like a gentleman from head to foot. Father told me of a splendid clothing-house here ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang
... Erlingsen. "Long before you came,—from the time the new church was begun, we meant it should have a handsome pulpit. Six of us, within a round of twenty miles, undertook the six sides; and Rolf has great hopes of having the basement allotted to him afterwards. The best workman is to do the basement, and I think Rolf bids fair to be the one. ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... gigantic cliff, lifting itself up, perpendicularly from the water's edge, to the height, of about three hundred feet, and accompanied by an insulated cliff, called the Chimney, of about the same altitude, rising, in the form of a turret, at least sixty feet above its basement, which is a portion of the imposing cliff ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 583 - Volume 20, Number 583, Saturday, December 29, 1832 • Various
... wagons used daily in delivering goods in the city and suburbs. Heated throughout with steam, lighted by electricity, and electric power applied to rotary brushes for grooming, hydraulic elevator service capable of lifting tons of feed and grain to upper floors, basement fitted up with complete blacksmith shop for horse shoeing, wagon and sleigh repairing. Ground floor space is usually devoted to wagons, each having its respective station. Easy stairways provided for horses to reach the upper floors, which are constructed to bear almost unlimited ...
— How Department Stores Are Carried On • W. B. Phillips
... poilus in their mingled wrath and exultation could not resist, some of them, abusing the German wounded through the windows of the hospital. But then, with a keen dramatic instinct, Soeur Julie drew a striking picture of the contrast between the behaviour of the French officer going down to the basement to visit the wounded German officers there, and that of the German officers on a similar errand. She conveyed with perfect success the cold civility of the Frenchman, beginning with a few scathing words about the treatment of the town, and then proceeding ...
— Towards The Goal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... concluding sentences. She turned and looked at Lily with exactly the expression upon her sixteen-year-old face which had overspread it years before when the thirteen-year-old Polly had surprised the sentimental "Thusan Thwingle" exchanging osculatory favors with "one of thothe horrid boyths" in the basement of the high school at Montgentian. Then she said with ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... already been observed, that, in the basement story of the gable fronting on the street, an unworthy ancestor, nearly a century ago, had fitted up a shop. Ever since the old gentleman retired from trade, and fell asleep under his coffin-lid, not only the shop-door, but the inner arrangements, had been suffered to remain ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... main body of the guard, to the officer commanding which Captain Todd was each night introduced. Double sentries were placed in the shrubbery all around the mansion, and the main body of the guard was posted in a vacant basement-room, from which a staircase led to the upper floors. A person entering by the main gate and walking up to the front door of the Executive Mansion during the night could see no sign of a guard; but from the moment anyone entered the grounds by any entrance, ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... and Kearny, Big John, at Merchant street between Montgomery and Sansome, Marshall's Chop House, in the old Center Market, and Johnson's Oyster House, in a basement at Clay and Leidesdorff streets, were all noted places and much patronized, the latter laying the foundation of one of San Francisco's "First Families." Martin's was much patronized by the Old Comstock crowd, and this was the favorite dining place of the ...
— Bohemian San Francisco - Its restaurants and their most famous recipes—The elegant art of dining. • Clarence E. Edwords
... lamps quiver So far in the river, With many a light From window and casement, From garret to basement, She stood with ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... huge and slow through the house as though they had struck the door of the very mountain. And no one came. And then Rodriguez saw dimly in the darkness the great handle of a bell, carved like a dragon running down the wall: he pulled it and a cry of pain arose from the basement ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... retreat still, in case his first place of concealment were discovered. At the end of the farther attic there is a small cupboard most cunningly hidden in the wall. In front of it there is a shaft, a great, horrible, yawning chasm, several feet wide and very deep, going quite to the basement of the house. It was intended as a trap to baffle pursuers, who would fall down it in the dark when ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... room, ladies' room, rest room; [fixtures] (uncleanness). 653 attic, loft, garret, cockloft, clerestory; cellar, vault, hold, cockpit; cubbyhole; cook house; entre-sol; mezzanine floor; ground floor, rez-de-chaussee; basement, kitchen, pantry, bawarchi-khana, scullery, offices; storeroom &c (depository) 636; lumber room; dairy, laundry. coach house; garage; hangar; outhouse; penthouse; lean-to. portico, porch, stoop, stope, veranda, patio, lanai, terrace, deck; lobby, court, courtyard, hall, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... not encourage him. Hour by hour the messengers of Curran appeared with the one hopeless phrase: no news. He walked about the park until midnight, and then posted himself in the basement with cigar and journal to while away the long hours. Sinister thoughts troubled him, and painful fancies. He could see the poor lad hiding in the slums, or at the mercy of wretches as vile as Claire; wandering ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... superintendent's bunch last night, pretending I had lost the key to my locker in the basement. I knew he had a master-key that unlocks all the apartment doors, and there was no trouble in picking it out. I had some wax in my hand and made an impression of it right ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... said between subsiding ripples, "Father, please go down in the basement and look in the furnace and you'll find the baker with the cold roast left from dinner! Mr. Polk, you go along too, please, and you'll see some loose bricks between the joists right under this dining-room window, and right behind them is the ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins
... to face with the woman dying from overwork, would undoubtedly care. But the workers are out of sight, hidden away in attic and basement, or the upper rooms of great manufactories. The bargains are plain to see, every counter loaded, every window filled. And so society, which will have its bargains, is practically in a conspiracy against the worker. The woman who ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... grain-elevator divided into cells, where linoleum and lincrusta simulated the stucco and marble of the Stentorian, and fagged business men and their families consumed the watery stews dispensed by "coloured help" in the grey twilight of a basement dining-room. ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... did not seem to me to bear the impress of some phantom finger feeling its way along. A glint of stealthy eyes would look from dark uncertain corners; a thin evil vapour appear to rise through the cracks of the boards from the unvisited cellars in the basement. ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... not over-well-dressed even before the beginning of the conflict, was led by some boys whose father kept a so-called flower cellar—that is, a basement shop for plants, wreaths, etc.—at the head of Leipzigerstrasse. They often sought us out, but when they did not we enticed them from their cellar by a particular sort of call, and as soon as they appeared we all slipped into some courtyard, where a battle speedily raged, in which ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... could bear it no longer. He knew where the water-bucket stood, and stepping from his bed, he groped his way down the long stairs to the basement. The spring moon was low in the western horizon, and shining through the curtained window, dimly lighted up the room. The pail was soon reached, and then in his eagerness to drink, he put his lips to the side. Lower, lower, lower it came, until ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... years earlier in a lodge started by a nineteen-year-old boy in Chicago in imitation of such ideas of Masons, Odd-Fellows, etc., as its founder could get from his older brother, and its meetings were first held in a basement. On this basis older heads aided in its development, so that it is a good example of the boy-imitative helped out by parents. The organization is now represented in every State and Territory, and boys travel on its badge. ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... it?" she replied in very mournful accents, gently reproachful, as she suffered me to take her hand in mine, and lead her back to the parlor in the basement story. I seated her upon the sofa, and took a place ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... in most of the rooms, while over the fan-light of the front door was a small transparent square of glass, bearing what seemed to be the representation of some Greek saint. The front steps were well kept, and in the deep basement was a ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... the editorial rooms is the mechanical department, with which every reporter should be, but rarely ever is, acquainted. Because of the heavy machinery necessary for preparing and printing a paper, the mechanical department is often found in the basement. This department is divisible into three sub-departments, the composing room, the stereotyping room, and the ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... pair o' geese you see hangin' on de fence dar, an' de udder ba'el I jest ca'aed down de cellar full er oishters. De tar'pins was in dis box—seben ob 'em. Spec' dat rapscallion crawled ober de fence?" And Chad picked up the basket with the remaining half dozen, and descended the basement steps on his way through the kitchen to the front door above. Before he reached the bottom step I ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... August of 1897. It is known as the Hotel d'Aligre, and as the property of Mademoiselle Le Verdier is almost unchanged since the great exile lived in it two centuries ago. There are three windows on the ground floor and a basement. Between the two windows of the first floor is a medallion held by two figures. On each side of the circular pediment is a little "Mansard" window in the roof, and on the pediment itself are two statues. ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... the most vulnerable point in the armor of exclusive sanctity that encases the church. Here, if anywhere, organized church work for boys may be tolerated. Whenever it is, lights begin to shine from the basement windows several evenings a week, a noisy enthusiasm echoes through the ghostly spaces above, in a literal and figurative sense cobwebs are brushed away. The stir is soon felt by the whole church. A ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben
... he revealed to no one except Jerry himself. For some reason Jerry had taken a great liking to the genial Snubby, and when he received a call from that young man down in his basement room, his seamed features took on an expression that might have caused Mr. Stevens to add the adjectives happy and ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... said that the modest President shrank from receiving such a compliment as that. It was too much. He hid away the stone in a storeroom of the capital, in the basement of the White House. It now constitutes a part of his monument, being one of the most impressive relics in the Memorial Hall of that structure. It is twenty-four hundred years old, and it traveled across ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... reverberations. Its fall was hailed with many broken cries; for the whole of Richard Street was now in high emotion, the people crowding to the windows or clambering on the garden walls. The same man who had already addressed Challoner seized him by the arm; whisked him through the basement of the house and across the street upon the other side; and before the unfortunate adventurer had time to realise his situation, a door was opened, and he was thrust into a low ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Germany. Whilst this work of search was going on without, his Lordship was quietly occupying the upper story of the family mansion, making it his headquarters. Forney and his wife being old, were graciously allowed the privilege of living in the basement. As soon as he was informed his gold, silver and jewelry were found, amounting to one hundred and seventy pounds sterling, he was so exasperated for the moment that he seized his gun and rushed to the stair steps with the determination to kill ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... moment later Whispering Smith put his head inside the door of the joint Du Sang had entered, withdrew it, and, rejoining his companions, spoke in an undertone: "A negro dive; he's lying low. Now we will keep our regular order. It's a half-basement, with a bar on the left; crap games at the table behind the screen on the right. Kennedy, will you take the rear end of the bar? It covers the whole room and the back door. George, pass in ahead of me and step just to the left of the slot machine; you've ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... the house—it seemed as if some invisible power attracted him there. From the basement there arose the grateful, savory ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... grow wiser and wiser) Midas had got to be so exceedingly unreasonable that he could scarcely bear to see or touch any object that was not gold. He made it his custom, therefore, to pass a large portion of every day in a dark and dreary apartment underground, at the basement of his palace. It was here that he kept his wealth. To this dismal hole- -for it was little better than a dungeon—Midas betook himself whenever he wanted to be particularly happy. Here, after carefully locking the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... the massy new tower, the Turris Magna, now known as the Tour des Anges, the best preserved of all the old towers. The foundations were laid on April 3, 1335, and it was roofed with lead on March 18, 1337. The basement formed the papal wine-cellar; the ground floor was the treasury, or strong room, where the specie, the jewels, the precious vessels of gold and silver and other valuables were stored; many payments are recorded for locks and bars and bolts for their ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... was very old, believed in hobgoblins. Like most provincial artisans, he worked in a small basement shop. The Knights, disguised as devils, invaded the place in the middle of the night, put him into his own cutting-press, and left him shrieking to himself like the souls in hell. The poor man roused the neighbors, to whom he related the apparitions ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... hospital overhead, and then Mrs. Stobart's mild, quiet voice said, "Everything is to go on as usual. The night nurses and orderlies will take their places. Breakfast will be at the usual hour." She and the other ladies whose night it was to sleep at the convent then returned to sleep in the basement with a Sister. ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... repaired immediately to the nursery, and without knowing anything of the technical terms of the noble game of football, instinctively realized that Jack and Tommy were having a "scrimmage." That is to say, she was confronted with a structure made up as follows: basement, the ball; first story, Tommy, with his small and tender stomach placed directly over the ball; second story and roof, Jack, lying stomach upward and wiggling, his back accurately registered on Tommy's back, to the detriment ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... car, driving around the house. A row of doors opened out of the basement garage; Walters, who must have gone through the house on the double, was waiting for him. Having what amounted to a conditioned reflex to park his car so that he could get it out as fast as possible, he cut over to the right, jockeyed ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... first, broken in the middle by a broad arched passage, called the Porta Pompae, over which, on an elevated tribunal magnificently decorated with insignia and legionary standards, the consul sat in the place of honor. On both sides of the passage the basement was divided into stalls termed carceres, each protected in front by massive gates swung to statuesque pilasters. Over the stalls next was a cornice crowned by a low balustrade; back of which the seats arose in theatre arrangement, ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... was an unsheeted bed. There was a rusty bucket for water, a hole kicked through the floor for waste water. Plumbing, and such luxuries, apparently hadn't existed for years—except for the small cistern and worn water-recovery plant in the basement, beside the tired-looking weeds in the hydroponic tanks that tried unsuccessfully ...
— Police Your Planet • Lester del Rey
... by a fine garden and green turf, while flowers were abundant. A high wall shut it out from the street. Within, all was refinement and good taste; there were flowers in the windows, the furniture was plain and substantial, while quiet simplicity reigned supreme. The house had two stories and a basement. On the first floor were two drawing-rooms, a small reception room, a dining-room and Mr. Lewes's study. These rooms were decorated by Owen Jones, their artist friend. The second floor contained the study ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... was going on. The corridors were thronged with peasants of all ages and both sexes, and the good fathers, more than ever distracted, were incapable of helping us. Seeing a great crowd piled up against a rear basement-door, we descended the stairs, and groped our way through manifold steams and noises to a huge succession of kitchens, where caldrons of cabbage were bubbling, and shoals of fish went in raw and came out cooked. In another room some hundreds of peasants were eating with all the energy of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... Lipton again th' Cup. Ordhered that if Sir Lipton shall secure said Cup fr'm aforesaid (which he won't) he must build a boat as follows: Wan hundherd an' twinty chest, fifty-four waist, hip an' side pockets, carryin' three hundherd an' sixty-three thousan' cubic feet iv canvas; th' basement iv th' boat to be papered in green with yellow flowered dado, open plumbin', steam heat throughout, th' tinant to pay f'r all repairs. Be means iv this infernal machine, if enable to kill off th' rile fam'ly, he will attimpt ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne
... but one must take these things as one finds them. The entrance by which the Capitol is approached is such as I have described. There are mean little brick chimneys at the left hand as one walks in, attached to modern bakeries, which have been constructed in the basement for the use of the soldiers; and there is on the other hand the road by which wagons find their way to the underground region with fuel, stationery, and other matters desired by Senators and Representatives, and at present by ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... are not more than from 700 to 800 feet. I collected some specimens of plants, which, however, are not peculiar to this range. I named it Gosse's range, after Mr. Harry Gosse. The late rains had not visited this isolated mass. It is barren and covered with spinifex from turret to basement, wherever sufficient soil can be found among the stones to ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... don't know how long—not since—. Then you played on the organ some variations on a tune—'The Sweet By-and-by'—and the tears started, and I seemed but a leaf in a wild storm. That was the song my little boy used to sing! There was a Sunday-school in the basement of a church next to our house, and he would stand at the window, and listen till he caught the tune, and learned the words. Oh, that hymn! Every note stung me like a whip lash when I heard it again. My child's face as I saw him the last time I put him to bed; when he opened his drowsy ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... stage experience myself, I'd not be competent to instruct any one on the subject. I am not only a teacher of dancing, I am also a dancer, and can do all the steps as well as tell you how to do them. My experience as a stage dancer began in a store basement in Chicago, where I tried to imitate the best dancers I had seen at a Variety show. I put on wooden shoes and whistled my own clogs and jigs for hours at a time, till I brought myself by main strength, and no personal instruction, to a point where I could exhibit my home-made steps to a ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... the pavement like a drunken man, regardless of the passers-by, and jostling against them, and only came to his senses when he was in the next street. Looking round, he noticed that he was standing close to a tavern which was entered by steps leading from the pavement to the basement. At that instant two drunken men came out at the door, and abusing and supporting one another, they mounted the steps. Without stopping to think, Raskolnikov went down the steps at once. Till that moment he had never been into ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... progressing over complaining floors through what may have been the servants' hall, a large room with a table in the middle and a number of promiscuous chairs (witness his tortured shins!), he finally blundered into the basement hallway. ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... filaments in your lamps and the iron wires in your heaters that get white hot resisting it. When it's pushed its way through all of them and done the work you want it to do, it's tired out and goes away by the other wire. But if you cut off the insulation down in the basement, where those two wires are close together, and make it possible for the current to jump straight across without doing any work, it will take the short circuit instead of the long one and you won't have any lights in your house. Now do you ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... somewhat of awaiting dinner in a drawing-room after a long walk in wintry weather. It is one thing to get there an occasional whiff of viands cooking in the basement of the house, and quite another to feel the same accentuate your gnawings ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson
... reared on the ruins of the first, was destroyed by an earthquake; but a third, the colonial castle and residence of the governors, stands to this day. It crowns the summit of the rock, is one hundred and forty feet in length, seventy feet in depth, two stories with basement and attic, and has a lookout that commands one of the most romantic and picturesque combinations of ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... the basement door, says to cook, "Och, an' there comes up the street our little Puppet, with her dogs all behind her, carrying her basket," cook is much more likely to see the broken bits "botherin' roun' on the schalves o' the cubbid," than ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... experiment station, the name of which I do not care to publish. Incubators kept in a cement basement which has flues in which fires were built to secure "ample ventilation." This caused a strong draft of cold, dry air, making the worst possible condition for incubation. The hatch for the season averaged 25 per cent. and was explained by lack of vitality ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings
... one of some pretension originally; that is to say, it had been built in the style of country gentlemen in New England forty years ago. A row of white-pine pillars surrounded the house from roof to basement, and formed a piazza-walk very convenient in a dull day. Six chimneys crowned the roof, and the whole arrangement was tasteful and imposing. There was a terrace of green turf all round the house, and the offices and out-buildings were at a short distance from the main building. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... years. On the relations between masters and servants Thackeray was never more severe than in this book; he is irritated by the marching in of the household brigade to family prayers, and he declares that we 'know no more of that race which inhabits the basement floor, than of the men and brethren of Timbuctoo, to whom some among us send missionaries'—a monstrous imputation. He constantly resumes the moralising attitude; and his pungent persiflage is poured out, as if from an apocalyptic vial, upon worldliness and fashionable insolence. ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... less than a hundred years old. Seventy-six feet by forty it is, built of red sandstone with freestone trimming; a fine, aristocratic-looking structure which lends quite an air to the old campus. In the basement there is a roomy baseball cage, a bowling alley, lockers, and baths. In the main hall, one end of which terminates in a fair-sized stage, are gymnastic apparatus of ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... in a sweatshop," she replied. "But he came to my school five nights a week, and at ten o'clock when school was out he went to a little basement cafe, where he sat at a corner table, drank one glass of Russian tea and studied till they closed at one. Then he went to his room, he told me, and used to read himself to sleep. He slept as a rule four hours. He said he felt ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... much better examples of this same work may be seen in the Assyrian basement-room ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... little station of Tougaloo, we look up through a pleasant vista about three-quarters of a mile and see the Mansion, Ballard Hall, Ladies' Hall, and Strieby Hall, the latter a brick house three stories high above the basement, dedicated Thanksgiving Day of 1881 in the presence of the venerable secretary for whom it was named. The work on this building was done by colored mechanics, students of the school making the brick and the stone, a sort of concrete for ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 42, No. 1, January 1888 • Various
... afterwards that Lieutenant Ennefer heard of the catastrophe, and when he came up Channel again on his return four years later, there was the old seamark clear once more, whiter a little, but still the same old tower. It had been rebuilt at the sole charge of Lady Blandamer, and in the basement of it was a brass plate to the memory of Horatio Sebastian Fynes, Lord Blandamer, who had lost his own life in that place whilst engaged in ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... window and stood for a while looking out. The houses opposite and all down the road were exactly alike, all featureless and grey, roofed with slate, three-storied, with basement kitchens. Nearly every one of them had "Apartments" in gilt letters on the fanlight over the front door. It was raining. The pavements were wet and there was mud on the roadway. The woman who lived in the corner house was spring-cleaning. Olive saw her helping the servant to take down the ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... showing the livery of its owner. In addition to all this grandeur, the balconies of the great houses lining the route of the processions display priceless heirlooms of embroideries, hanging before each window from basement to roof. If these ancient decorations could speak, what a strange story they might tell of the processions they have seen pass! In honour of the victories over the Moors; of the heroes of the New World; of the miserable murders of the Autos-da-fe; ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... 72, with balconies above, below, and in front, the full width of the building. It contained reception halls, parlors, toilet rooms, and commissioner's office, 14 rooms in all. The building was two stories high, with basement, provided with rugs and ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... Dal came back and spoke a few words to Max, who followed him to the basement, and in ten minutes more Flannigan puffed up the steps and ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... did leave it at home?" was her distracted thought, as she climbed the basement stairs with a heavy heart, after having thoroughly examined the locker. But a close search of her room that noon revealed no trace of the missing pin. Hot tears gathered in her eyes, but she brushed them away, muttering: "I won't cry. It isn't ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... at the rest of the rooms, from basement to attic, we came to the conclusion that the dining room contained any effects which might belong to the Count. And so we proceeded to minutely examine them. They lay in a sort of orderly disorder on the ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... 'em all down to the basement," he said finally when he had studied them from every point of view for fifteen minutes. "They ain't as well polished as I'd like to have 'em and I think they might be a little longer in the shank. There ought to be a ring of babbit ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... thought that'd catch you! Now just let me ask you another question: Why are there bars on the basement windows?" ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... coffin, formerly visible from the chantry. On either side of St. Edward's altar were once golden pillars presented by Edward II.; the golden image of St. John the Evangelist stood upon one, that of the Confessor himself upon the other. The stone basement was entirely covered with elaborate decorations, glass mosaic, precious stones, and enamels; and the twisted pillars, also richly decorated, remind the Italian traveller of those in the cloister at ...
— Westminster Abbey • Mrs. A. Murray Smith
... at seventeen, was to drown in a pleasure canoe; Snow Horton—clandestinely present—daughter of a neighborhood dentist and forbidden to play with the "boarding-house children"; Flora and Roy Kemble, twins; and little Harry Calvert, who would creep up like a dirty little white mouse from the basement kitchen. ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... what this all meant to my Carl—until recently reading and pegging away unencouraged in his basement study up on the ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... after him asking: "What do you require?" but with a grateful glance up at the first floor in remembrance of Captain R—'s examination room (how easy and delightful all that had been) he bolted down a flight leading to the basement and found himself in a place of dusk and mystery and many doors. He had been afraid of being stopped by some rule of no-admittance. ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... on to declare that the cat very seldom honoured "upstairs" with his presence, but kept himself, as a rule, strictly to himself, in the basement. Apparently, however, the sagacious beast had realised that there was a new element in the office, and had come to inspect it and see whether he could give it his approval or not. When it was given, it was ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... midst of its farms, reposed the Acadian village. Strongly built were the houses, with frames of oak and of hemlock, Such as the peasants of Normandy built in the reign of the Henries. Thatched were the roofs, with dormer-windows; and gables projecting Over the basement below protected and shaded the doorway. There in the tranquil evenings of summer, when brightly the sunset Lighted the village street and gilded the vanes on the chimneys, Matrons and maidens sat in snow-white caps and in kirtles Scarlet and blue ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... the street. We had heard a girl's scream: then her frantic, muffled words to attract our attention. Then we saw her white face at the basement window. It was on the night of June 8-9, 1950, when I was walking with my friend Larry Gregory through Patton Place in New York City. My name is George Rankin. In a small, deserted house we found ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... the master of the mansion promptly opens the door, and it is then perceptible that his basement, parlor, spare-bedroom and attic are all on one floor, and that a couple of pigs are spending the season with him. Showing his visitor into this ingeniously condensed establishment, he induces the pigs to retire to a corner, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 18, July 30, 1870 • Various
... out into the hall, and then, somewhat to Arnold's surprise, down the stairs at the back, which apparently led to the basement of the house. ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... addresses secret. All mail was sent only to Post Office Box No. 526 in the old Chicago Post Office. The company was named the Patriotic Publishing Co. and with the utmost secrecy editorial offices were established at 5 S. Wabash in Chicago and the paper printed in the basement at 4233 N. Kildare ...
— Secret Armies - The New Technique of Nazi Warfare • John L. Spivak
... with whom he had made no attempt to exchange a syllable, and led him to the block-house: The door which communicated with the basement of this building was always open, in readiness for refuge in the event of any sudden alarm. He entered, caused the lad to mount by a ladder to the floor above, and then withdrawing the means of retreat, ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... which is a wide fire-place with a richly carved mantel reaching to the ceiling. On each side of this mantel there is a closet let into the wall, one of which communicates by a secret door with the large basement room below. Tradition says that from this room a secret passage led to the river; that here the pirate confined his captives, and that certain ineffaceable stains upon the floor in the room above, hint of dark deeds, whose ...
— In Ancient Albemarle • Catherine Albertson
... very ably shown here a devoted little band of Saxons holding services in a basement. In referring to it as "abasement," not the slightest idea of casting contumely or obloquy on our ancestors is intended by the humble writer of pungent but sometimes ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye
... marriage founders, and she comes back to England. Both the sisters rent a nice place in the country and spend a lot of effort in decorating it. So Miss Harding has occasional spells of living as her original young self with her sister, before returning to her basement flat. As usual with this author, with her fascination with illness, a child of one of the neighbours, Billie, becomes very ill and needs roound-the-clock nursing. Miss Harding plays a big part in this. But one day a chance ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... ice-cream borne by Katie, the senior of the elderly maids; uproar greeted the cake; and finally there was a rush for the chocolates, little tablets wrapped in tinfoil and tied with red and blue ribbon. After that, the pandemonium left the dining-room, to spread itself over the spacious house from the basement to the great playroom in the attic, where the dolls and blocks and hobby-horses of the parental generation ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... were in the basement. The only entrance to the building was by means of a flight of six steps leading to an unroofed platform before the door of the story proper. Mizzoo and Wilfred, standing on this platform, were lifted above the heads of perhaps a hundred ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... of that great beautiful car out there and how much it must have cost, and to hear you speak of one of your other cars as if you had millions of them, and to think of little Carmela living down in the basement room of Number 18 in your block, growing whiter and whiter every day, with her great blue eyes and her soft fine wavy hair, and that hungry eager look in her face. And her mother, sewing, sewing, all day long at the little cellar window, ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... the kitchen, and the men in the basement. Over my bed hang two bell-ropes, of which one goes to the women's room and the other ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... series of columns surrounded this building, and at either end was a portico, eight columns wide, and two deep. There were two pediments, or gables, of flat pitch, one at each end. The whole stood on a basement of steps; the building, exclusive of the steps, being 228 ft. long by 101 ft. wide, and 64 ft. high. The columns were each 34 ft. 3 in. high, and more than 6 ft. in diameter at the base; a portion of the shaft and of the capital of one is in the British Museum, ...
— Architecture - Classic and Early Christian • Thomas Roger Smith
... basement, see? While I'm waitin' I take a chance and work da lock on da basement door, see? It's a padlock and I cop it, see? This mornin' I get a friend to make a key for it, see? and this afternoon I slip it back ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... Peter's Church, is also a private speculation (that of Mr. Thos. Hall), and was opened at Christmas, 1883. It contains, in addition to the frontage, thirty-two shops, with the same number of offices above, while the basement forms a large room suitable for meetings, auctions, &c., it being 135ft. long, 55ft. wide and nearly 15ft. high. Two of the principal features of the Arcade are a magnificent stained window, looking ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... occasion of the torchlight parade two miles long, whereby the enemy sought to carry the city by storm, and which passed close to our front door, our house was as dark as Erebus. Josephine insisted even that the lights in the front hall and in the basement should be extinguished, and she drew the drawing-room curtains over the window-shades so that we need not seem to furnish our foes with one pale ray of comfort. Induced by curiosity to peep out at the ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... flying from the higher ridges against a pallid background of slaty cloud, while the gaunt ribs of the hills glisten below with fitful gleams of lurid light. At sunrise, one morning, stealthy and mysterious vapours clothe the mountains from their basement to the waist, while the peaks are glistening serenely in clear daylight. Another opens with silently falling snow. A third is rosy through the length and breadth of the dawn-smitten valley. It is, however, impossible to catalogue the indescribable variety of those beauties, which those who love ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... an airy platform whence the spire ascended heavenwards. His conductor led upward still, and he followed, winding within a spiral network of stone, through which all the world looked in. Another platform, and yet another spire springing from its basement. Still up they went, and at length stood on a circle of stone surrounding like a coronet the last base of the spire which lifted its apex untrodden. Then Robert turned and looked below. He grasped the stones before ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... man, one of the night guards of the Treasury, buttoned to the chin, was standing in a narrowish basement door-way of the great building not fifteen feet away. The old man took his pipe out of his mouth, and seeing Storri survey the obstructing ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... decided to purchase the famous Free Trade Hall for the sum of ninety thousand pounds. A thorough search for the Sacred Principles of Liberalism, which are said to be concealed somewhere in the basement, will be undertaken as soon as the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, August 11, 1920 • Various
... so," answered the lad; "but I must not stay to speak any more, for the mistress waits for this balm to make tea for the cook Jean, who is like to have a fever;" and the lad disappeared under the low archway of the basement. ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... Mother has a headache; when I proposed reading to her, she very politely asked me if I would not let her remain alone. She says I always want to sing, read, or talk incessantly if she wishes to be quiet. I can't ding on the piano, for it is heard from attic to basement. I don't want to read alone, for I have such a desire to be sociable—now, Aunt Mary, you have a catalogue of my troubles, can't you relieve me, for I am really miserable, if I don't look so!" Alice broke into a laugh, although it did not bubble right ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... a flight of steps communicating with the rampart, where the flag-staff was erected. Several men were employed at this staff, passing strong ropes through iron pulleys that were suspended from the extreme top, while in the basement of the staff itself, to a height of about twenty feet, were stuck at intervals strong wooden pegs, serving as steps to the artillerymen for greater facility in clearing, when foul, the lines to which the colours were attached. The ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... her harmless small-mindedness; knowing well that in the wide-built mansion of human nature there must be always a certain order of beings honourable, useful, and excellent in themselves, to form the basement-story. ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... only a raise of a couple of dollars every blue moon or so, and a weekly spree on Saturday night to vary the monotony. (He laughs again.) Interesting, eh? Getting the dope on the Social of the Queen Esther Circle in the basement of the Methodist Episcopal Church, unable to sleep through a meeting of the Common Council on account of the noisy oratory caused by John Smith's application for a permit to build a house; making a note that a tugboat towed two barges loaded with ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... the house the year before the war, upon their brother's advice, and going halves with him, paying a sum of forty-seven thousand francs, every thing included. It was a capital bargain; for they rented out the basement and the first story to the first grocer in Sauveterre. The sisters did not think they were imprudent in paying down ten thousand francs in cash, and in binding themselves to pay the rest in three yearly instalments. ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... should never be built under dwelling houses. Because of improper construction and neglect, they are undoubtedly the cause of much disease and many deaths. A basement beneath the house is advantageous, but the greatest of care should be given to construct it in accord with sanitary laws. It should be thoroughly drained that there may be no source of dampness, but should not be connected with ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... instead-like the eggs in a Chinese juggler's fingers, that are turned in a jiffy into a growing plant—behold the roof miraculously transformed into a garden, or lost in a rampart, or, with quite shameless effrontery, playing deserter, and serving as the basement of another and still fairer dwelling. That was a sample of the way all things played you the trick of surprise on this hill. Stairways began on the cobbles of the streets, only to lose themselves in a side wall; a turn on the ramparts would land you straight into the ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... The school liked the little British church at Fossato. It was so utterly different from anything to which they had been accustomed in England or America. To begin with it was not an ecclesiastical building at all, but simply a big room in the basement of the Hotel Anglais. The walls had been exquisitely decorated by a French artist with conventionalized designs of iris in purple and gold, and through the windows there was a gorgeous peep over the bay. The girls used to exercise ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... torture to pay a ransom.... The ornaments of all the churches were pillaged and the relics and other things thrown into the sinks and cesspools. Even the holy places were sacked. The Church of St. Peter and the papal palace, from the basement to the top, were turned into stables for horses.... Every one considers that it has taken place by the just judgment (p. 172) of God, because the Court of Rome was so ill-ruled.... We are expecting to hear from your Majesty how the city ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... steps led up to the doorway of the main hall, the outer wall of which is washed by the waters of the Avon. As designed at first, no dwelling had been allotted to the lord of the castle and his family but the dark and dismal basement story of the keep. A more civilized or more effeminate generation, however, had refused to be pent up in such a cellar, and the hall with its neighboring chambers had been added for their accommodation. Up the broad ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the roof of a house at the end of the alley and burst in the basement, showering the street with slate and plaster. A second struck a chimney and plunged into the garden, followed by an avalanche of bricks, and another exploded with a deafening report in ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... "flat" in form) contains a kitchen, pantry, furnace-room, fuel-cellar, laundry, dining-room, china-closet, parlor, eight bed-chambers provided with suitable closets, two bath-rooms, a trunk-room, a front staircase extending from the first floor to the attic, and a back staircase extending from the basement to the third floor. What will these accommodations cost in this form and what in the form of a "flat" in ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various
... consists of a centre and two wings, of the Corinthian order, connected by colonnades of the Ilyssus Ionic order, and altogether presents a picturesque display of Grecian architecture. The three stories are a rusticated entrance, or basement; and a Corinthian drawing-room and chamber story; surmounted with an elegant entablature and balustrade. In the details, the spectator cannot fail to admire the boldness and richness of the columns supporting the pediment in the centre, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 322, July 12, 1828 • Various
... a large hard stone to which a rocking motion is given by manual power by means of the bamboo handles while the ore is crushed between the upper and basement stone. ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... the room for a few minutes, now returned and told Furlong she would show him over the house if he pleased. He assented, of course, and under her guidance went through many apartments; those on the basement story were hurried through rapidly, but when Mrs. O'Grady got him upstairs, amongst the bed-rooms, she dwelt on the excellence of every apartment. "This I need not show you, Mr. Furlong—'t is your own; I hope you slept well last night?" This was ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... ziggurat or tower, a huge solid mass of brick-work, built (like all Babylonian temple-towers) in stages, square being emplaced on square, and a sort of rude pyramid being thus formed, at the top of which was the main shrine of the god. The basement platform of the Belus tower was, Herodotus tells us, a stade, or rather more than 200 yards, each way. The number of stages was eight. The ascent to the highest stage, which contained the shrine of the god, was on the outside, and consisted either of steps, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson
... prayer meeting will be held in the basement of the church on Wednesday evening." Then almost in a tone of colloquy, and with just a hint of satire about his long ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan |
