"Ceiling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... gentlemen from perishing, playing her game so well, and inventing such fine stories, that his Majesty little guessed how much she aided him in securing the happiness of his subjects. The fact is, she has such a hold over him that she could have made him believe the floor was the ceiling, which was perhaps easier for him to think than anyone else seeing that at the Rue d'Hirundelle my lord king passed the greater portion of his time embracing her always as though he would see if such a lovely article would wear away: but he wore himself out first, ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... in gilt letters as "Whisky," "Brandy" and "Rum." To add to the effect, between the decanters were ranged glass jars of striped peppermint and winter-green candies, while a few lemons suggested pleasing possibilities of a hot sling, spiced rum flip or Tom and Jerry. The ceiling of this dining-room was blackened somewhat and the huge beams overhead gave an idea of the substantial character of the construction of the place. That fuel was plentiful, appeared in evidence in the open fireplace where were burning two great logs, while piled ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... accompanied by the roarings of the two lions of gold. With his two companions Liutprand was compelled to bow and to fall prostrate; and thrice to touch the ground with his forehead. He arose, but in the short interval, the throne had been hoisted from the floor to the ceiling, the Imperial figure appeared in new and more gorgeous apparel, and the interview was concluded in haughty and majestic silence. In this honest and curious narrative, the Bishop of Cremona represents the ceremonies of the Byzantine court, which are still ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... rather kennel, appropriated to the lodging of the muleteer, was a triangular garret already described, formed by the ceiling of the upper story and the roof of the house, which rose in an obtuse angle above it. Its greatest elevation was about six feet, and that only in the centre, whence the tiles slanted downwards on either side to the beams by which the floor was supported. The entrance was by a step-ladder, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... the ceiling slowly; perhaps it was coincidence that they rested on the place on the mantelshelf where ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... completed his work. A crimson drapery was suspended from the ceiling to the ground, along the whole length of the entry, and entirely shut out the staircase. At the street door this drapery was so skilfully arranged that a person visiting the apartments on the first floor could, at ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... slaughtered two fat pigs which had been brought on purpose. The middle deck was swept out, all the litter was cleared away, and flags were hung round the walls and ceiling. The Chukchis brought willow bushes from the valleys beyond the mountains to the south, and branches were fastened round a trunk of driftwood. This was the Vega's Christmas tree, and it was decked with strips of coloured paper and ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... fine smooth gravel walks, overgrown with grass—the redundances of the shrubbery neglected—the once finely painted pricket fences, rusted and fallen down—a fine garden in splendid ruins—the lofty ceiling of the mansion thickly curtained with cobwebs—the spacious apartments abandoned, while the only music heard within as a substitute for the voices of family glee that once filled it, was the crying cricket and cockroaches! Ignorant slave as I was at that time, I could but pause for ...
— The Fugitive Blacksmith - or, Events in the History of James W. C. Pennington • James W. C. Pennington
... reasonable tone of this amazing project. Mr. Blunt sat by very detached, his eyes roamed here and there all over the cafe; and it was while looking upward at the pink foot of a fleshy and very much foreshortened goddess of some sort depicted on the ceiling in an enormous composition in the Italian style that he let fall casually the words, "She will manage ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... creature opened its eyes at a much earlier hour than usual, and stared at the ceiling of its father's cottage. The sun was rising, and sent its unobstructed rays through the window of Maggot's cottage, where it danced on the ceiling as if its sole purpose in rising had been to amuse ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... and while Challoner recovered his breath, I looked round on the familiar scene. The inevitable whale's skeleton—a small sperm whale—hung from the ceiling, on massive iron supports. The side of the room nearest the door was occupied by a long glass case filled with skeletons of animals, all diseased, deformed or abnormal. On the floor-space under the whale stood the skeletons ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... savans cut out of the ceiling of a temple, at Denderah, in Egypt, a stone covered with uncouth astronomical, astrological, and hieroglyphic figures, which they insisted was a representation of the sky at the time the temple was built; and finding a division ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... lad and his tutor entered their room. The door was simply a lattice shutter covered with paper. The room was very small,—barely space for the two mattresses which had been put there by the servants, and the ceiling was so low that even the short Koreans could hardly stand upright. Yet here our two friends managed to make themselves very comfortable for ...
— Our Little Korean Cousin • H. Lee M. Pike
... sleep up dere?" said this strange man, and he actually pointed up to the ceiling. I thought him mad, or what he himself called "an ombog." "I know. You do not believe me; for why should I deceive you? I came but to propose a matter of business to you. I told you I could give you the clue to the mystery of the Two Children in Black, whom you met at Baden, and you came to see me. ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the moon, ye ken.—I'm coming, mother—I'm coming," she concluded, on hearing a scuffle at the door betwixt the beldam and the officers, who were endeavouring to prevent her re-entrance. Madge then waved her hand wildly towards the ceiling, and sung, at the topmost pitch ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... marvellous, and you are hideous enough to be wonderful. You have fallen from the highest heavens, or you have risen from the depths of hell through the devil's trap-door. Nothing can be more natural. The ceiling opened or the floor yawned. A descent in a cloud, or an ascent in a mass of fire and brimstone, that is how you have travelled. You have a right to enter like the gods. Agreed; ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... you? I remember it, for when I came to after the shock, I was standing square on my head with both feet in the air. All I could see was Bud dragging Jean's pony out of the muss. I thought he was upside down at first and the horses were walking like flies on the ceiling." ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... room that seemed to occupy most of the small house. One half of it was covered with a wooden ceiling which served as the floor of a loft, while for the rest of the way there was nothing beneath the sloping rafters of the roof. A ladder reached from the floor to the loft, and at one end, that nearest the outer door, a fire ...
— Vandrad the Viking - The Feud and the Spell • J. Storer Clouston
... to mere cheapness of diet, and other accommodations with which any particular age, or rank of men, appear to be contented, it is well known, that costly materials are not necessary to constitute a debauch, nor profligacy less frequent under the thatched roof, than under the lofty ceiling. Men grow equally familiar with different conditions, receive equal pleasure, and are equally allured to sensuality in the palace and in the cave. Their acquiring in either, habits of intemperance or sloth, depends on the remission of ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... smiled, and thrusting his hands deep into his trousers' pockets gazed at the ceiling. Of course five millions was a lot of cash, but the judge seemed to forget the hour in which they were, when everyday transactions involved millions. The young woman, who had expensive tastes, would not find the income of five ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... contained potato peelings, stood amid a litter of old long-boots and broken harness against one wall. The floor was black and thick with grease all round the rusty stove. A pile of unwashed dishes and cooking utensils stood upon the table, and the lamp above her head had blackened the boarded ceiling. ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... the exception of Senator Wadleigh, I seemingly had. He however took special pains to show that he did not intend to listen. He alternately looked over some manuscripts and newspapers before him, then jumped up to open or close a door or window. He stretched, yawned, gazed at the ceiling, cut his nails, sharpened his pencil, changing his occupation and position every two minutes, effectually preventing the establishment of the faintest magnetic current between the speakers and the committee. It was with difficulty I restrained the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... as you may have heard," said Raffles Holmes, leaning back in my easy-chair and gazing reflectively up at the ceiling, "was chiefly famous in England as a sporting peer. His vast estates, in five counties, were always open to any sportsman of renown, or otherwise, as long as he was a true sportsman. So open, indeed, was the house that he kept that, whether he was there or not, ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... was alone in charge, having just relieved Mrs. Touchett, who had been on guard since dinner. The room was lighted only by the flickering fire, which of late had become necessary, and Ralph's tall shadow was projected over wall and ceiling with an outline constantly varying ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... set up a squall, as destructives usually do when they don't have their own way. Dick clapped his hand to his ears. "Whe-e-ew, I can't stand this; come and take a walk, Leslie: I want stretching!" He stretched himself as he spoke, first half-way up to the ceiling, and then ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... around the walls and the gleams from the gilded furniture? And what—merciful God, what!—was that foul thing hanging from the central chandelier?—hanging there while its shadow, thrown upward past the glass pendants, wavered in a black blot that seemed to expand and contract upon the ceiling? ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... gentleman and a young lady a kissing of each other in the railway coach," says Hannah, jerking up with her finger to the ceiling, as much as to say, "There she is! Lar, she be a pretty young creature, that she be! and so I told Miss Martha." Thus differently had the news which had come to them on the previous night affected the ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... hung star-maps, and other diagrams illustrative of celestial phenomena. In a corner stood a huge pasteboard tube, which a close inspection would have shown to be intended for a telescope. Swithin hung a thick cloth over the window, in addition to the curtains, and sat down to his papers. On the ceiling was a black stain of smoke, and under this he placed his lamp, evidencing that the midnight oil was consumed on ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... know," cried Mrs. Aalbom, putting her head on one side and looking up to the ceiling. "It is possible to have too much of natural affection, mother's influence, home feeling, and ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... walls, not only were the "works of art" there, but they themselves were uniquely dotted from ceiling to floor with the muddy imprints of dogs' feet—not left there by a Pegasus breed of winged dogs, but made by the muddy feet of the station dogs, as the, pattered over the timber, when it lay awaiting the carpenter, and no one had seen any necessity to remove them. Outside the verandahs, ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... the varied assortment of articles displayed for sale. A long line of red handkerchiefs was fastened to a cord high above one counter. Long shelves were stacked high with ginghams, calicoes and finer dress materials. There were gaudy rugs and blankets tacked to the walls near the ceiling. Counters were filled with glassware, china and crockery; other counters were laden ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... table covered with a gaudy cloth. The nickeled lamp, which diffused an unpleasant odor, was of florid but very inartistic design; the plain stove stood in an ugly iron tray, and its galvanized pipe ran up, unconcealed, to the ceiling. A black distillate had trickled down from a bend in ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... forward a fact which he had neglected to mention in his deposition. It might throw light on the character of the accused. Francoise had a dress hanging up to dry in the mansard. Helene went up to the garret above this, made a hole in the ceiling, and dropped oil of vitriol on her ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... finished Riveros sat back in his chair and stared fixedly at the ceiling for some minutes while he drummed upon the table with his fingers. The other officers seated round the cabin seemed divided into two parties, one party sunk in deep thought, while the other stared at the young man as though he had taken ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... dry close to the fire; his worn shoe-packs, shining in a thick coat of caribou grease, and his single suit of steaming underwear that he had washed after supper, and which hung suspended from the ceiling, looking for all the world, in the half dusk of the cabin, like a very thin and headless man. In this gloom, indeed, but one thing shone out white and distinct—the skull on the little shelf above the fire. As his eyes rested on it, Steele's lips tightened and his face grew dark. With a sudden movement ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood
... advantage with such. Large figured papering makes a small room look smaller, but, on the contrary, a paper covered with a small pattern makes a room look larger, and a striped paper, the stripes running from ceiling to floor, makes a low ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... Nejdanov was beautifully neat and spacious, with wide-open windows looking on to the garden. A gentle breeze stirred the white curtains, blowing them out high like sails and letting them fall again. Golden reflections glided lightly over the ceiling; the whole room was filled with the moist freshness of spring. Nejdanov dismissed the servant, unpacked his trunk, washed, and changed. The journey had thoroughly exhausted him. The constant presence of a stranger during the last two days, the many fruitless discussions, had completely upset ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... palace thirteen years before he finished it. He also built the throne-hall where he judged the people. This room was the Hall of Judgment; and it was covered with cedar from floor to ceiling. ...
— The Children's Bible • Henry A. Sherman
... playing. Her slim, narrow slipper, revealing her thin ankle, remained upon the pedal; her delicate fingers were resting idly on the keys; her head was slightly thrown back, and her narrow eyebrows prettily knit toward the ceiling in an ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... invited to follow the Japanese witness into the hondo or main hall of the temple, where the ceremony was to be performed. It was an imposing scene. A large hall with a high roof supported by dark pillars of wood. From the ceiling hung a profusion of those huge gilt lamps and ornaments peculiar to Buddhist temples. In front of the high altar, where the floor, covered with beautiful white mats, is raised some three or four inches from the ground, was laid a rug of scarlet felt. Tall candles placed at regular intervals ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... pine desk with a three-legged stool beside it; two or three wooden-bottom chairs, exceedingly decrepit and infirm; and—not to forget the library—on some shelves, a score or two of volumes of the Acts of Congress, and a bulky Digest of the Revenue laws. A tin pipe ascends through the ceiling, and forms a medium of vocal communication with other parts of the edifice. And here, some six months ago—pacing from corner to corner, or lounging on the long-legged stool, with his elbow on the desk, and his eyes wandering up and down the columns ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of a pulpit, there was a kind of platform lined with crimson, which looked very nice. Most of the pews below, and some above, were lined with the same material. A splendid chandelier, having many circles of glass brilliants, was suspended from the ceiling. Altogether, the "church" was a very neat and graceful structure,—capable, as I learned, of accommodating about 1,500 people. But the floor—the floor! What a drawback! It was stained all over with tobacco juice! Faugh! Those Southern men are the most filthy ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... weight upon his cramped arm, this guilty wretch hardly can suppress a groan. There is limit to conscious endurance. At this point Pierre looks toward the ceiling. Such upward glance slightly relaxes his tense ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... would indemnify me for the toils and hardships of the day. A gentleman person in black opened the door, and admitted me into a spacious hall, lighted by an amber-coloured lamp suspended from the ceiling; he led me through this, along a passage, and opening the door of a back room, told me that was the schoolroom. I entered, and found two young ladies and two young gentlemen—my future pupils, I supposed. After a formal greeting, ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... Miss Cresswell," he said, and seating himself at his desk he put the tips of his fingers together and looked up to the ceiling for inspiration. "I am afraid, Miss Cresswell," he said, "that I ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... what those lights in the sky really are. At first men imagined the celestial bodies to be, as they seemed, small objects not very far away. Among the Greeks the view grew up that the heavens were formed of crystal spheres in which the lights were placed, much as lanterns may be hung upon a ceiling. These spheres were conceived to be one above the other; the planets were on the lower of them, and the fixed stars on the higher, the several crystal roofs revolving about the earth. So long as the earth was supposed to be a flat and limitless expanse, ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... the columns move—they shake, Totter, and vacillate, and shake, And wrenched by giant force, come down Like a disrupted mountain's crown, With cornice, frieze, and chapiter, Girder, and spangled dome, and wall, Ceiling of gold, and roof of fir, Crumbled in ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... under the stars where he lay with tiny, unwinking eyes intent upon the shadows on the ceiling. ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... green, and would not burn, so the giant began to blow. At the first puff Ashpot found himself flying up to the ceiling as if he had been a feather, but he managed to catch hold of a piece of birch-bark among the rafters, and on reaching the ground again he told the giant that he had been up to get something to make the ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Norway • A.F. Mockler-Ferryman
... at its heart and core—within doors—at his fireside- -was so lowering and old, so crazy, yet so strong, with its worn- eaten beams of wood in the ceiling, and its sturdy floor shelving downward to the great oak chimney-piece; so environed and hemmed in by the pressure of the town yet so remote in fashion, age, and custom; so quiet, yet so thundering with echoes when a distant voice ...
— The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin • Charles Dickens
... at least in the solid rock. The use of this chamber does not appear evident, unless it may have been a store room. The place within the city shown as "Peter's Prison" consists of a similar chamber (not dug in the solid rock, however), with similar openings in the ceiling or roof. The ruins extend underground some distance to the east of the mosaic floor, and efforts are being made to purchase the land in that direction, in order to allow of the excavations being extended there. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 415, December 15, 1883 • Various
... words the citoyenne Gamelin, whose lips were trembling, threw up her eyes to the ceiling and sighed out: ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... Hungry Tiger. In a balcony high up in the dome an orchestra played sweet music, and beneath the dome two electric fountains sent sprays of colored perfumed water shooting up nearly as high as the arched ceiling. ...
— The Emerald City of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... me heavier than I thought, but presently I was in lighter cloud, and soon had cleared the first layer. There was a second—opal-coloured and fleecy—at a great height above my head, a white, unbroken ceiling above, and a dark, unbroken floor below, with the monoplane labouring upwards upon a vast spiral between them. It is deadly lonely in these cloud-spaces. Once a great flight of some small water-birds went past me, flying ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... in magnificent shawls. To make themselves handsome, they blacken their eyelids, paint their nails red, and wear gold rings in their ears and noses. They delight in fine furniture. A room lined with looking-glasses, and with a ceiling of looking-glasses, ...
— Far Off • Favell Lee Mortimer
... broke into a church tower one night to steal the bell-ropes. The two ropes passed through holes in the wooden ceiling high above them, and they lost no time in climbing to the top. Then one man drew his knife and cut the rope above his head, in consequence of which he fell to the floor and was badly injured. His fellow-thief called out that it served him right for being such a fool. He said that he should ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... had struck the ship, spinning it around. The Captain fell to the floor, crashing into the control table. Papers and instruments rained down on him. As he started to his feet the second shell struck. The ceiling cracked open, struts and girders twisted and bent. The ship shuddered, falling suddenly down, then righting itself as ...
— The Gun • Philip K. Dick
... of living fondness Gleam out in their pictured looks; And in ranks round from floor to ceiling, Are my life-long ...
— Verses and Rhymes by the way • Nora Pembroke
... to an adobe house, with doors standing hospitably ajar, we were bidden to enter, and were shown into a great bare room, with a tiled floor, no ceiling except the roof of tiles, and containing two chairs, two beds, and a table. There were no windows, two great doors, one on each side of the corner, admitting light and air, and at one side of the room a smaller door led into another ...
— Six Days on the Hurricane Deck of a Mule - An account of a journey made on mule back in Honduras, - C.A. in August, 1891 • Almira Stillwell Cole
... market and over-generous pension system, because of the current economic slowdown and opposition from labor unions. But the leadership faces a severe economic constraint: the budget has breached the 3% EU deficit ceiling. ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... indicated. It was a spacious apartment, evidently a library from the book-shelves along the walls, and the great writing table in the center. The high ceiling, and restful wall decorations were emphasized by all the furnishings, the soft rug, into which the feet sank noiselessly, the numerous leather-upholstered chairs, the luxurious couch, and the divan filling the bay-window. The only light was under a shaded globe on the central ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... year to the parsonage, and in my visiting-time I occupy this tower. It is quite deserted when I am away, for I carry the key, and keep it with me wherever I go. I hang it at night where I can see the great shadow wavering on the ceiling above my head, when the jet of gas, trembling in the night-wind below, sends a shimmer of light ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... every bit of the contents, others, with powerful, portable glo-lights, were going over the walls and shelves. There was a three-foot ladder-stool in the closet, and one of them started to mount it to search the ceiling. ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... Monsieur Jolivet was destined never to know the hidden significance of his words. The room which he showed them with so much pride was a large apartment worthy of their praise, having a polished, shining floor of oak, with furs spread here and there upon it, and a low ceiling crossed with mighty beams also of oak. Robert looked at the windows, three in number, and he saw with satisfaction that they had heavy shutters. Monsieur Jolivet's glance followed his own, ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... cautiously sounding our way over stones of all colours and sizes, encased in the clearest water formed by the spray of the fall, we found the rock, which before had appeared like a wall, extending itself over our heads, like the ceiling of a huge cave, from the summit of which the waters shot directly over our heads into a bason, and among fragments wrinkled over with masses of ice as white as snow, or rather, as Dorothy says, like congealed froth. The water fell at least ten yards from us, ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... much attached to the north of London, would take long, slow tramps ten miles out in the direction of Highgate, Wood Green, etc. I have a very distinct recollection of calling upon him in Myddelton Square at the time when I was living close to him in Percy Circus. Books were piled up from floor to ceiling, apparently in great confusion, but he seemed to remember where to find every book and what there was in it. It is a singular fact that the only person outside those I have mentioned who seems to have known ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... and her tall figure, it would astonish you; but that is impossible because she is bent double with her knees up to her mouth; but for all that it is easy to see that if she could stand up she'd knock her head against the ceiling; and she would have given her hand to my bachelor ere this, only that she can't stretch it out, for it's contracted; but still one can see its elegance and fine make by its ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... man is!" remarked Myra to the ceiling, before looking again into the bright eyes of her partner. "Pardon me, Don Carlos, but you are carrying your extravagant ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... sheds of Army Ordnance are filled with everything that a soldier does not eat, all metal stores, whatever, and the men who work in them are housed in one of the longest sheds in tiers of bunks from floor to ceiling, and then there are the repairing sheds and workshops, established near by, and that is the most wonderful thing of the whole to my mind—never done before in connection with an army in the field. Trainsful of articles to be repaired come down from ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... The ceiling of the tunnel was so low that we could not stand upright on the raft, and the stream was not more than forty feet wide. That was anything but promising; if the stream really ran through to the western slope, its volume of water should have been ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... arm restrained him. With a violent kick the big sergeant-major shot through the air. His line of flight took him by the spaceman, and somehow their arms got linked. The spaceman was jerked from his post and the two came to a stop against the ceiling. ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage
... amuse, if it does not charm, a weary soul, and such a vacant hour there was on this same Friday evening. The "opera-house" was spacious and admirably ventilated. As I was listening to the merriment of the sooty buffoons, I happened to cast my eyes up to the ceiling, and through an open semicircular window a bright solitary star looked me calmly in the eyes. It was a strange intrusion of the vast eternities beckoning from the infinite spaces. I called the attention of one of my neighbors to it, but "Bones" was irresistibly droll, and Arcturus, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... asserting that he who was not fearful in the dark was a dull clod, utterly devoid of imagination. From his earliest childhood my brother was a devourer of fairy tales, and he continually stored his mind with fantastic legends, which found a vent in new shapes in his verses and prose tales. In the ceiling of one of his dens a trap-door led into the attic, and as this door was open he seriously contemplated closing it, because, as he said, he fancied that queer things would come down in the night and spirit him away. It is not to be inferred that he thus remained ...
— A Little Book of Western Verse • Eugene Field
... conditions the girl would have been delighted with the place, for this was the quaintest spot she had found in the north country. The main room held bar and gold-scales, a rude table, and a huge iron heater, while its walls and ceiling were sheeted with white cloth so cunningly stitched and tacked that it seemed a cavern hollowed from chalk. It was filled with trophies of the hills, stuffed birds and animals, skins and antlers, from which depended, in careless confusion, ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... Ireland are adorned with circles, spirals, stars, etc. One of the supports of the dolmen of Petit-Mont-en-Arzon has on it a representation of two human feet in relief; that of Couedic in Lockmikel-Baden is paired with flat stones covered with engravings. On the granite ceiling of the crypt beneath the dolmen of the Merchants, or as it is called in Brittany the DOL VARCHANT, is engraved the figure of a large animal supposed to have been a horse, but the head of which was unfortunately broken off at some remote date.[163] We often meet with representations of hammers, ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... He was free at last! For a moment, dazed by the sudden release, the bird battered his splendid head against the ceiling, then, before the roomful of travelers realized what had happened, he was out in the open, spreading his glorious wings ...
— Chico: the Story of a Homing Pigeon • Lucy M. Blanchard
... behind her reached from a high ceiling to the floor; they had been thrown open and the curtains looped apart. Stone steps outside led downward to the turf in the rear of the house. This turf covered a lawn unroughened by plant or weed; but over it at majestic intervals grew clumps of gray pines and dim-blue, ever wintry firs. ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... than from the road; the walls of it are three feet or more in some parts thick, and of rough stone inside. The floor of this room where I am writing this scrawl is verdure, and damp with the moisture from heaven. It has not even beams left for a ceiling, and the stairs up to it are scarcely passible; but I am truly thankful that all the little articles I brought are now up in this room, and no ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... ever some painter in love with things modern should conceive the idea of reproducing on canvas that perfectly typical manifestation of Parisian life, the opening of the Salon in that vast hothouse of statuary, with the yellow gravelled paths and the great glass ceiling, beneath which, half-way from the floor, the galleries of the first tier stand forth, lined with heads bending over to look, and with ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... little bit human. You know, Underhill, confidence and pigheadedness are not even connected by marriage; much less are they blood relations. By Jove," he grinned, "you can tell him I'll stick him up against the ceiling if he insists upon handling me with the ice tongs and leave him there until you take him down; that is, if you care to ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... Raphael's use of mythological subjects, though not quite in the order of time, we may here mention his frescos illustrating the story of Cupid and Psyche, painted on the walls and ceiling of the same nobleman's palace, the Chigi palace. The drawings for these pictures were made by Raphael, but most of the painting was done by his pupils. As we study these pictures of the joys and sorrows of this beautiful pair, we are interested, ...
— Great Artists, Vol 1. - Raphael, Rubens, Murillo, and Durer • Jennie Ellis Keysor
... of the wind that had arisen and was singing about the corners of the house there was no other sound. The seal-oil lamp in the corner flickered constantly, sending a weird yellow light dancing from floor to ceiling. ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... stormy sea in a glass box, some resin, a large stone bottle of ink, a ready reckoner, Whitaker's Almanack (paper edition), a foot-rule, and a bright brass candlestick. Above the table there hung from the ceiling a string with a ball of fringed paper, designed for the amusement of flies. At the window was a flat desk, on which were transacted the affairs of Mr. Ollerenshaw. When he stationed himself at it in the seat of custom ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... with a piece of clothes-line, one end of which he slipped with a running knot round one ankle, and the other in like fashion round the other. Then he cut the line in halves, and drawing them over two hooks in the ceiling, some distance apart, so that the legs continued widespread like a V upside down, hauled the feet up as high as he could, and fastened the ends of the lines. Hold lines and hooks, it was now impossible to ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... had been intrusted to Mignard. Lebrun withdrew to Montmorency, where he died in 1690, jealous of Mignard at the end as he had been of Lesueur at the outset of his life. Mignard became first painter to the king. He painted the ceiling of Val-de-Grace, which was celebrated by Moliere; but it was as a painter of portraits that he excelled in France. "M. Mignard does them best," said Le Poussin not long before, with lofty good nature, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... there was only one stove in the ramshackle house and that was in the kitchen. It was positively necessary to have her bed-room warm and comfortable, so I made Mr. Martin get another stove for that purpose. There was no chimney in that part of the house, however, and he cut a hole through the ceiling and stuck the stove-pipe through that into a big chamber above, where, by some means or other, he connected it up with the kitchen chimney. It was very unsafe, of course, and I protested against it, but he would not listen to me; so ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... States. These older-fashioned houses, built, I presume, on the Spanish model, are not without a certain stateliness, from the depth and breadth of their chiaroscuro. Their doors and windows reach almost to the ceiling, and ought to be plain proofs, in the eyes of certain discoverers of the 'giant cities of Bashan,' that the old Spanish and French colonists were nine or ten feet high apiece. On the doorsteps sit Negresses in gaudy print dresses, with stiff turbans ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... stairs again, as he entered the room. There was a close, faint, airless smell in it. Cobwebs, pendulous and brown with dirt, hung from the ceiling. The grimy window-panes saddened all the light that poured through them faintly. He looked round him, and saw no furniture anywhere; no sign that the room had ever been lived in, ever entered even, for years and years past. He looked again, more carefully: ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... murmured Smiley, in a puzzled tone. "In this building?" He glanced up at the ceiling as if expecting to see the missing man there. "Strange," he continued. "Now, I have been here for some time, for hours, indeed. I am a busy ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... died, the school he had founded at Bologna was fain in some sort to follow its master. His most famous pictures, in addition to the Assumption already cited, are—the "Entry of Paul III. into Bologna"; the "Francois I. Touching for King's Evil"; a "Power of Love," painted under a fine ceiling by Agostino Carracci, on the walls of a room in the ducal palace at Parma; an "Adam and Eve" (at the Hague); and two of "Joseph and Potiphar's Wife" (at Dresden and Copenhagen). His son Felice (1660-1724) and nephew Paolo ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... sawdust stamped with an ornamental pattern, and the quaint design of the cupboard-beds for the stablemen in the wall opposite; a streak here and there for the cords which loop the cows' tails to nails in the ceiling; gorgeous spots of crimson and yellow for the piled cheeses. And in the adjoining room, the while our guide described in creditable English the process of cheese-making, Starr sketched him standing before his big blue press, printing out his molds with an odd, yellow reflection from the ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... bitterness of beer and the acrid specks of cigarette tobacco that stuck to his lips, but the "bunch at Eddie's" were among the few people in Joralemon who were conscious of life. Eddie's establishment was a long, white-plastered room with a pressed-steel ceiling and an unswept floor. On the walls were billiard-table-makers' calendars and a collection of cigarette-premium chromos portraying bathing girls. The girls were of lithographic complexions, almost too perfect of ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... we drove back again through the Chinese street, with its red horned houses, the roofs terminating in gilded dragons' tails, and, after pressing through a dense multitude enveloped in tobacco-smoke and the steam of tea-urns, found ourselves at last in a low room with a shaky floor and muslin ceiling. It was an exact copy of the dining-room of a California hotel. If we looked blank a moment, Monsieur D.'s smile reassured us. He had given all the necessary orders, he said, and would step out and secure a box in the theatre before the zakouski ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... that it should have many fine rooms; but the one where Kingsley wrote is the best. It's sad that the oak panelling should be ruined with paint and varnish; but nothing short of an earthquake could spoil the ceiling, which is the famous feature. The merchant prince hired two Italians to come to England and make the wonderful mouldings by hand. That was long before the days of cement, so the fantastic shapes had to be fastened to each other and the ceiling with copper wire. When the skilled ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... he said, and held out his hand to say good night; but Lanley was smoking, with his head tilted up and his eyes on the ceiling. What he was thinking was, "It isn't good for an old man to get ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... candles, a big, winged insect had entered through the open window and was flying about the room, dashing against the wall at every moment with a faint thud. It disturbed Jeanne, and she looked up to see where it was, but she could only see its shadow moving over the white ceiling. ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... himself of his clothing, both upper and under, and to hand the garments to Fetinia. She wished him good-night, and removed the wet trappings; after which he found himself alone. Not without satisfaction did he eye his bed, which reached almost to the ceiling. Clearly Fetinia was a past mistress in the art of beating up such a couch, and, as the result, he had no sooner mounted it with the aid of a chair than it sank well-nigh to the floor, and the feathers, squeezed out of their proper confines, flew hither and thither into every corner of the apartment. ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... other building rather than the dwelling, or a fruit house may be built entirely above the ground. A house to keep fruit properly must be built upon the principle of a refrigerator. Its walls, floor, and ceiling should be double, and the space between filled with sawdust. The doors and windows should be double; and as light is undesirable, the windows should be provided with shutters. There should be a small ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... look at the stalactites that hung in the greatest profusion above the water. The light of my lamp shining through them produced an effect as surprising as it was beautiful. But no words can do justice to the scene. Imagine an immense room whose ceiling is studded with icicles forming every conceivable curve and angle, and you will have only a faint idea of the number and variety of ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... fireplace with brass andirons upon which some logs smouldered, for though it was a mild May day the great room felt cool. Around the room were deep cases with glass doors, from which peeped all kinds and sizes of birds, while between the tops of the cases and the ceiling the spaces were filled by colored bird pictures. The Doctor's desk stood in front of one window, heaped with papers and books; down the middle of the room were low book-cases standing back to back, and where these ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... he idly gazed up at the ceiling, and saw a naked sword hanging by a single hair directly over his head. He grew pale with terror, the laughter died on his lips, and, as soon as he could move, he sprang from the couch, where he had been in such danger of ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber
... come along. Here, you see, they have made a door through, here, they have put a partition dividing the old hall into two, one part is now my parlour; there they have put a plaster ceiling, hiding the old chestnut-carved roof because it was too high and would have been chilly for me; you see, being the original hall, it was open right up to the top, and here the lord of the manor and his retainers used to meet and be merry by the light from the monstrous ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... found myself in a lofty and spacious saloon. From the ceiling, which was of azure sprinkled with golden stars, were suspended the most magnificent chandeliers, brilliant with a thousand waxen tapers. Gorgeous and life-like tapestry adorned the walls—massive mirrors reflected on every side the blaze of elegance, while ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... heavens!" and Patty rolled her eyes toward the ceiling, "there's no pleasing her—positively no pleasing her! What to ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... I see nothing but blood before me. The heavens have opened and the red blood pours in through the windows. Blood wells up on an altar. The walls run blood from the ceiling to the floor and... a giant of blood stands before me. His beard and his hair drip blood. He seats himself on the altar and laughs from thick lips. The black executioner raises his sword and whirls it above my head. Another moment and my head will roll down on the floor. Another moment ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... forest trees. The flaming torches, raised aloft in the midst of them, revealed, supported by them, a wonderful gothic roof, with cornice, and frieze, and groined arches, like the interior of a cathedral. A very distinct fresco could also be seen, formed by mineral incrustations, on the ceiling and walls. On a cloudy background could be traced forms of men and beasts, of forests and flowers, armies, castles, and ships, not sculptured like the figures before described, but designed by the subtile pencil of some sprite, who, Virginia suggested, must have ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... in which a dozen card-tables were arranged, and thence into the receiving room. This was a large room, with a splendidly inlaid and polished floor, the walls covered with crimson satin, the cornices heavily incrusted with gold, and the ceiling beautifully painted in arabesque. The massive fauteuils and sofas, as also the drapery, were of crimson satin with a profusion of gilding. The ubiquitous portrait of the Emperor was the only picture, and was the same you see ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... chamber was vast, occupying all the space between the four walls of the tower; it was lighted from two windows, with stone cross-bars, and the dusty and broken lozenge-shaped panes of glass were set in lead. The huge beams of the ceiling were blackened by smoke, the floor was paved with bricks, and in a high chimney with roughly fluted wooden jambs, an iron pot filled with potatoes was suspended over a fire, where a long branch was burning, or rather smoking. ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... she said, taking it quite for granted, as he did, that he was to work for her all his life. "You can have a studio in the house, just as it used to be, if you please. And you can paint the great canvas for the ceiling of the dining-room. Or shall I restore the old chapel? Which should you ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... impatient. "She's somewhere about the car," he exclaimed, "search it." Raz Brown went through the Lalla Rookh from vestibule to vestibule: it was as empty as a ceiling. ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... droning, turning; Their wind comes in our faces, Till our hearts turn, our heads with pulses burning, And the walls turn in their places; Turns the sky in high window blank and reeling, Turns the long light that drops adown the wall, Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling, All are turning, all the day, and we with all; And all day the iron wheels are droning And sometimes we could pray, 'O, ye wheels' (breaking out in mad moaning) 'Stop! be silent ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... map of the district Woolsthorpe is marked "Carmaerthen House." The front and the entrance are old, and in one of the rooms there is decorative moulding on the ceiling and a carved mantelpiece, but the schoolrooms and workshops built out at the back are all modern. The home had a very small beginning, being founded in 1866 by Dr. Bibby, who rented one room, and took ...
— The Kensington District - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... with the key. The door was unlocked, and the light established. The party entered a large and lofty chamber with ceiling of elaborate plaster work and silver-grey walls, the paper on which was somewhat tarnished. A pattern of dim, pink roses as large as cabbages ran riot over it. A great oriel window looked east, while ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... does not attract as S. Croce and S. Maria Novella do; but certain treasures of sculpture make it unique. Yet it is a cool scene of noble grey arches, and the ceiling is very happily picked out with gold and colour. Savonarola preached some of his most important sermons here; here Lorenzo ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... spat contemptuously, and a puff of gray smoke spread rapidly over walls, ceiling and floor. "That will hold you," he jeered, and opened the door. Aping the Minister's important waddle, he walked over to ...
— Satan and the Comrades • Ralph Bennitt
... to an unused room of the bank, and there, to his dismay, Girard saw the walls and ceiling covered with spots of ink, which the cashier had dashed on ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... hearth, with a blaze flickering up now and then, and flinging a warm and ruddy light upon the walls. Ceres sat before the hearth with the child in her lap, and the firelight making her shadow dance upon the ceiling overhead. She undressed the little prince, and bathed him all over with some fragrant liquid out of a vase. The next thing she did was to rake back the red embers, and make a hollow place among them, just where the backlog had been. At last, while the baby was crowing, and clapping ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Philemon's garden. Never was such honey tasted, seen, or smelt. The perfume floated around the kitchen, and made it so delightful, that, had you closed your eyes, you would instantly have forgotten the low ceiling and smoky walls, and have fancied yourself in an arbour, with celestial honeysuckles ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... room. It was very like her old one at the cottage, and its sloping ceiling and bare white walls seemed familiar and homelike; it was a comfort, too, to see that its tiny window looked towards the hills. As she observed all this she took off her bonnet, and was immediately startled by a loud laugh ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... faster, faster whirls the ceiling, And wilder, wilder turns my brain; And still I'll drink—till, past all feeling, The soul leaps ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... me what to use as a spray to kill the flies in my stable? In the early, morning the ceiling and sides are thickly covered with the pests partly dormant but not enough so that they can be swept down and killed. What spray can I use that ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... Henry was sitting on the throne. It was placed at such an angle that her face would not be reflected in it, but an aperture in the wall allowed the figure of Henry to be reflected from a looking-glass, hung near the ceiling, down upon the "magic" mirror. So, of course, she saw his picture there, and believed entirely ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... across the shimmering water and into the room where the Outdoor Girls lay sleeping. They made patches on the floors and ceiling, and showered ...
— The Outdoor Girls on Pine Island - Or, A Cave and What It Contained • Laura Lee Hope
... flight. Fig. 4 represents the foot of a fly. It will be seen, under a strong microscope, to have a pair of large claws and a pair of leaf-like plates, one on each side. The claws and the plates have different uses. The plates are used when the fly is walking, say, up a window-pane or along a ceiling. They are moved so as to lie flat on the surface which the fly is crossing, and when they are laid flat a number of tiny hairs are pushed out from them, from the tips of which a sticky liquid oozes, so ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... finished speaking, Burke thrust his hands into his pockets, leaned back in his chair, and looked at the ceiling of the room, the walls, and the floor. He wanted to say something, but he was not prepared to do so. His mind, still nautical, desired to take an observation and determine the latitude and longitude of Mrs. Cliff, but the skies ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... light in the room is subdued, for the low eaves of the slanting roof admit but few of the sun's rays. Everything is sober in tint from the ceiling to the floor; the guests themselves have carefully chosen garments of unobtrusive colors. The mellowness of age is over all, everything suggestive of recent acquirement being tabooed save only the one note of contrast furnished by the bamboo dipper and the linen napkin, ...
— The Book of Tea • Kakuzo Okakura
... worm-eaten boards. But the little feet had long since gone to dust, and the only signs of children's play and merriment left about the place were the numberless scratches, nicks, and letters cut in the old panelling, and even on the beams which supported the low ceiling. ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... let me have the key of the cabinet, won't you, dad?" she asked, glancing across to where stood a beautiful old Florentine cabinet of ebony inlaid with ivory, and reaching almost to the ceiling. ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... I stand up and gaze over the sea of faces for a full minute. There is absolute silence. I put my hands into my trouser pockets and gaze at the ceiling, as if I were considering whether I should go on or give it up and go home. Even the boys at the back of the hall begin to look ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill
... blue and purple smoke rose from the live coals on the Incense Altar and wound its way upward to the ceiling of the Hekal. As Isaiah watched the rising smoke, it became thicker and thicker, and filled the whole Temple. His eyes gazed from the Altar to the glittering gold curtains behind it. The reflection from the coals, and ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... and stared upwards at the ceiling. "Really there was nothing to explain," he said. "She knows me—so ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... windows—black alternating with red, white and blue, which a card in pale, cramped writing explained: "In Memory of Garfield, 1881"—to two elaborate fly-catchers which did duty as chandeliers from vantage points of the ceiling. The simpler, made of straw tied with bows of red worsted, paled before the glories of the other—a structure of silver cardboard in cubes, the smaller depending from the corners of the larger in diminishing ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... within a desert cave, Cold, dark, and solemn as the grave, I suddenly awoke. It seemed of sable night the cell, Where, save when from the ceiling fell An oozing drop, her silent spell No ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... Hollanden exclaimed, turning his eyes from a prolonged stare at the ceiling, "don't go yet! Why, man, this is just the time when—— Say, who would ever think of Jem Oglethorpe's turning up to harrie you! Just at ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... anything but wet mud. It isn't that the chairs and tables look filthy, for there are none. It isn't that the pots, and plates, and pans don't shine, for you see none to shine. All you see is a grimy, black ceiling, an uneven clay floor, a small darkened window, one or two unearthly-looking recesses, a heap of potatoes in the corner, a pile of turf against the wall, two pigs and a dog under the single dresser, ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... quite right,' said Mr Swiveller, 'caution is the word, and caution is the act.' with that, he winked as if in preservation of some deep secret, and folding his arms and leaning back in his chair, looked up at the ceiling with profound gravity. ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... her 'den', for a long, undisturbed chat, and this room also bears the stamp of her taste and love of study. A big log fire burns merrily here, too, in the huge grate, and lights up a splendid old oak cabinet, reaching from floor to ceiling, which, with four more bookcases, seems literally crammed with dictionaries, books of reference, novels, and other light literature; but the picturesque is not wanting, and there are plenty of other decorations, such as paintings, flowers, ...
— Mrs. Hungerford - Notable Women Authors of the Day • Helen C. Black
... Budlong, "Call the next witness." One by one the witnesses gave their testimony, varying according to the friendly feeling for the men on trial. At last, Budlong said, "Call Brad Jackson." Old Brad got in the witness chair and gazed listlessly at the ceiling. ...
— Shawn of Skarrow • James Tandy Ellis
... In the white curtains waver'd the delicate shade Of the heaving acacias, through which the breeze play'd. O'er the smooth wooden floor, polished dark as a glass, Fragrant white Indian matting allowed you to pass. In light olive baskets, by window and door, Some hung from the ceiling, some crowding the floor, Rich wild flowers pluck'd by Lucile from the hill, Seem'd the room with their passionate presence to fill: Blue aconite, hid in white roses, reposed; The deep belladonna its vermeil disclosed; And the frail saponaire, and the tender blue-bell, ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... fellowship, and on the other some young girl in her loneliness, who wrung her handkerchief in terror of this dreaded spiritual court, and hoped within her heart that no elder would ask her "effectual calling" from the Shorter Catechism; while the little lamp, hanging from the ceiling, and swinging gently in the wind that had free access from every airt, cast a fitful light on the fresh, tearful face of the girl and the hard, weather-beaten countenances of the elders, composed into a serious gravity not ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... charged a vessel and drove its sword through 'copper sheathing, an inch board under-sheathing, a three-inch plank of hard wood, the solid white oak timber twelve inches thick, then through another two and a half-inch hard-oak ceiling, and lastly penetrated the head of an oil cask, where it stuck, not a drop of the oil ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... his pay enabled him to procure without trespassing upon the funds supplied by the generosity of his uncle. He then returned to his father, who had finished the wine and biscuits, and had his eyes fixed upon the ceiling of the room; and calling a hackney coach, drove to the direction which his uncle had pointed ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... called Whittington's palace in the old leases, but this is the only evidence in favour of the popular belief. The front was elaborately carved in oak, the work of a much later date than that of Whittington. The decoration is attributed to the latter part of the reign of Henry VIII., and on the ceiling among other forms was that of a cat's head, from which possibly the tradition of its having been the residence of Whittington arose. There was a popular superstition that the cat's eyes followed the visitor as he walked about the room. This house was taken down in 1801, but both it and the ...
— The History of Sir Richard Whittington • T. H.
... and they have not been replanted. Among a great many houses painted al fresco, the Casa Roma and Casa Candiani, by Appiani, and Casa Belgioiosa, by Martin, are superior. In the second, is a small cabinet, the ceiling of which is in small hexagons, within which are cameos and heads painted alternately, no two the same. The salon of the Casa-Belgioiosa is superior to any thing 1 have ever seen. The mixture called scagliuola, of which they make their walls and floors, is so like ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... buildings, was very considerably damaged, however only to such an extent as to allow its restoration to the original condition. The roof frame is burned to the beginning of the curve of the dome. The inner ceiling has prevented the fire from spreading to the inner part of the church, containing rich art treasures. Above the choir, however, the inner ceiling gave way, thereby partially damaging the upper part of the rococo altar of stone which was without ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... known Barkis ever since he was a baby. I have tossed him in the air, to his own delight and to the consternation of his mother, who feared lest I should fail to catch him on his way down, or that I should underestimate the distance between the top of his head and the ceiling on his way up. Later I have held him on my knee and told him stories of an elevating nature—mostly of my own composition—and have afterwards put these down upon paper and sold them to syndicates at great profit. So that, in a sense, I am beholden to Barkis for some measure of my prosperity. Then, ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... of windows, each above thirty feet high, and nearly level with the marble pavement, the whole city, with all its roofs and spires, beneath my feet. The pillars, cornices, and panels of this striking apartment are uniformly tinged with brown and gold; and the ceiling, enriched with emblematical paintings and innumerable canopies of carved work, casts a very magisterial shade. Upon the whole, I should not be surprised at a burgomaster assuming a formidable dignity in such ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... sugar-cane syrup, which we had brought from Florida, and which we drank at all hours. Old Floridians say that no one is justified in drinking whiskey, while he can get cane-juice; it is sweet and spirited, without cloying, foams like ale, and there were little spots on the ceiling of the dining-room where our lively beverage had popped out its cork. We kept it in a whiskey-bottle; and as whiskey itself was absolutely prohibited among us, it was amusing to see the surprise of our military visitors ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... "His last Will and Testament. Hech, sirs! there's a sair confronting of Death in a Doecument like yon! A' flesh is grass," continued the coachman, exhaling an additional puff of whisky, and looking up devoutly at the ceiling. "Tak' those words in connection with that other Screepture: Many are ca'ad, but few are chosen. Tak' that again, in connection with Rev'lations, Chapter the First, verses One to Fefteen. Lay the ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... huge lamps of "The Garden." I have noted that Mohammed's coffin suspended by magnets is an idea unknown to Moslems, but we find the fancy in Al-Harawi related of St. Peter, "Simon Cephas (the rock) is in the City of Great Rome, in its largest church within a silver ark hanging by chains from the ceiling." (Lee, Ibn ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... Giotto, according to Vasari, came to Ravenna at the instigation of Dante and painted in S. Francesco, but whatever he may have done there has utterly perished, and there only remains in Ravenna his spoilt work in this little chapel in S. Giovanni Evangelista. Here we see in a ceiling divided by two diagonals, at the centre of which the Lamb and Cross are painted on a medallion, the four Evangelists enthroned with their symbols and the four Doctors of the Church, a subject common everywhere and especially so in Ravenna. These works have suffered very ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... is bright and high, and a warm blush mantles in the walls and ceiling of this ancient room; when my clock makes cheerful music, like one of those chirping insects who delight in the warm hearth, and are sometimes, by a good superstition, looked upon as the harbingers of fortune and plenty to that household in whose ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... great difficulty in walking over the top of it. Yet it is seldom absolutely prostrate, at its lowest usually attaining a height of three or four feet, with a main trunk, and branches outspread and intertangled above it, as if in ascending they had been checked by a ceiling, against which they had grown and been compelled to spread horizontally. The winter snow is indeed such a ceiling, lasting half the year; while the pressed, shorn surface is made yet smoother by violent winds, armed with cutting sand-grains, ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... seem much disposed to answer. He had taken off his hat and overcoat. Now he drew from his pocket a cigarette-case. He selected one and lighted it carefully, seeming to find a veritable delight in the first whiffs which he sent towards the ceiling. ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... parti-colored mats at the doors that served them for towns and villages; the strips of home-woven carpet that stood for roads—this one to Mermentau, that one to Cote Gelee, a third a la chapelle; the walls of unpainted pine; the beaded joists under the ceiling; the home-made furniture, bedsteads and wardrobes of stained woods, and hickory chairs with rawhide seats, hair uppermost; the white fringed counterpanes on the high featherbeds; especially, in the principal room, the house's one mantelpiece, of wood showily stained ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... to Florence, Filippo undertook to paint at his leisure the Chapel of the elder Filippo Strozzi in S. Maria Novella, and he actually began it; but, having finished the ceiling, he was compelled to return to Rome, where he wrought a tomb with stucco-work for the said Cardinal, and decorated with gesso a little chapel beside that tomb in a part of the same Church of the Minerva, ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... Leonardo's MSS. we find here and there little sketches or suggestions for similar ornaments. Compare too G. MONGERI, L'Arte in Milano, p. 315 where an ornament of the same character is given from the old decorations of the vaulted ceiling of the Sacristy of ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... which the Egyptians of old, like those of to-day, passed most of their time, attending to household cares or gossiping with their neighbours over the party wall or across the street. The hearth was hollowed out in the ground, usually against a wall, and the smoke escaped through a hole in the ceiling: they made their fires of sticks, wood charcoal, and the dung of oxen and asses. In the houses of the rich we meet with state apartments, lighted in the centre by a square opening, and supported by rows of ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... repeated in the window curtains of muslin lined with taffety, and fringed in black and red. Six silver sconces, each supporting two candles, projected from the wall above the divan, to light those sitting or lying there. From the dazzlingly white ceiling was suspended an unpolished silver-gilt lustre; and the cornice round it was in gold. The carpets of curious designs were like Eastern shawls; the furniture was lavishly upholstered. The time-piece and candelabra were of white marble incrusted with gold; and cashmere ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... about her own bedroom and a small part of its exquisite beauty dawned upon her. It was an exact copy of Marie Antoinette's and the delicately carved furniture and pale blue upholstery and hangings harmonized with the painted domed ceiling ...
— Ptomaine Street • Carolyn Wells
... side to the long gallery the anteroom gave access to a large and lofty vaulted chamber, about one-sixth part of the space of which—that is, a third of the floor and a half of the height— was partitioned off by a slight modern wall and ceiling. Two young clerks occupied the larger unenclosed portion of the large hall,— for such its size entitled it to be called,—and Signor Fortini's senior and confidential clerk sat on the top of the ceiling, which enclosed the smaller portion. A small wooden stair gave access to this lofty ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... to give up his company; and at Hatton (1786-1825) now and then he was the tyrant of the fireside." Parr was capable of smoking twenty pipes in an evening, and described himself as "rolling volcanic fumes of tobacco to the ceiling" while he worked at his desk. At a dinner which was given at Trinity College, Cambridge, to the Duke of Gloucester, as Chancellor of the University, when the cloth was removed, Parr at once started his pipe and began, says one who was present, ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... thirty guests in the big breakfast apartment, which had been built to accommodate five times the number—a charming, luxuriously furnished place, with massive white pillars supporting a frescoed ceiling, and lighted by numerous bay windows opening on to the North Sea, which was sparkling brightly in a brilliant October sunshine. The thirty people comprised the whole of the hotel visitors, for in the year 1916 ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees |
