"Closet" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... laid his head on his friend's breast and slept in his arms. At night they descended, and going to Boscobel House, were shown a secret hiding-place, such as were then to be found in the mansions of all Catholic families, called the priests' hole a little confined closet built between two walls, in the principal stack of chimneys, and having a couple of exits for the better escape of those compelled to seek its shelter. Here the king rested in peace for a ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... of time had elapsed since human foot had trod it—a secret way, doubtless, unknown to living Manatorians. Here they dragged the corpse of E-Med, leaving it upon the platform, and as they left the dark and forbidden closet Lan-O would have slammed to the panel ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... wax and paper, and armed with labels. But Maggie has neither sentiment nor imagination. Jelly to her is an institution, not an inspiration. It is subject to certain rules and rites, of which not the least is the formal interment in the fruit closet. ...
— The Confession • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... he came, it was pretty plain that he was prepared for the grievances he was to hear—not very impartially it seems, for he would not speak to Lord Harcourt. In about three days he did, and saw him afterwards alone in his closet. What the conversation was, I can't tell you: one should think not very explicit, for in a day or two afterwards it was thought proper to send the Archbishop and Chancellor to hear his lordship's complaints; ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... poetry always more diffused throughout a people, in proportion as it is less written than recited. How few, even at this day, will read a poem!— what crowds will listen to a song! Recitation transfers the stage of effect from the closet to the multitude—the public becomes an audience, the poet an orator. And when we remember that the poetry, thus created, imbodying the most vivid, popular, animated subjects of interest, was united with all the pomp of festival and show—all the grandest, the most ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... white as a sheet, and seemed stupefied, as if a sudden electric shock had smitten him. He babbled some incoherent words, and went hastily to a small closet where he usually kept his liquors. Although astonished at his emotion, I was too preoccupied with my own idea to pay much attention to ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... in her bounties, is best related in the words of her faithful attendant, Mrs. Rachel Vergo, "who always waited particularly on her mistress, and was the only servant who sat up, as she spent an hour or two every night in her closet. She did the same in the morning, and was a very early riser. Mrs. Vergo had the care of the family under Mrs. Mary Pope, a relation of Mrs. Bovey, who came for a visit of a month, and stayed nearly forty years. The regularity and economy in the family was great. The maids were kept ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls
... passed directly on, followed by the children, through a door in a high wall, which led into a little court, and thence they passed into a sort of entrance hall, leading into a building. Philippe, who had preceded them, opened a closet, and took out some small candles. He lighted these candles by means of a lamp hanging against the wall, and gave one to each of the party. There was an open door near, with a broad flight of stone steps leading down, like ...
— Rollo in Naples • Jacob Abbott
... laid-by clothes now, and I keep my black suit that you had me git for the funeral in there, too. There ain't room. You told me allus to keep your buryin' clothes in a box in the spare room closet, so's they'd be handy to git if they was wanted in the night. You told me that four or five ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... to Mrs. Driver, "One moment into that Closet, if it be but to read the Practice of Piety" becomes "One Moment into that Closet, Dear, dear Creature; they say it's mighty prettily furnish'd," And in her aside, "I vow, I've a good mind; but Virtue—the Devil, I ne're was so put to't i' my Life," for ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker
... rooms; the first for wood, water, etc., with an old fashioned closet chest, high enough to hang up clothes in; the next was the bed room; and beyond it the sitting room, which looked into the garden through a glass door; and on the outside there was a small landing place railed in, and a flight of narrow ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... finally to his father's office. He went to a closet filled with drugs, removed them, and then a certain pressure of his hand caused the back of the closet to disappear in a groove, and a receptacle full of coin ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... transformation of these Celtic chiefs into English Earls has been very minutely described by an eye-witness. One batch were made at Greenwich Palace, after High Mass on Sunday, the 1st of July, 1543. The Queen's closet "was richly hanged with cloth of arras and well strawed with rushes," for their robing room. The King received them under a canopy of state, surrounded by his Privy Council, the peers, spiritual and temporal, the Earl of Glencairn, ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... with it. Delia may be a good cook, but she left a mess of a closet up-stairs. Please give me one of those warm cookies. I'm so used up and hungry ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... rollicked under the chairs and all the dinner kettles and pans were piled on the table, unscraped and unwashed, and you saw ahead of you more things that you had planned to do than you could possibly get through before supper, and one girl was crying in the attic and another was crying in the china-closet, and your own heart was in your boots, you know how Elliott Cameron felt at this minute. Everything had gone wrong, since the time she got up half an hour late in the morning; but the most wrong thing of all ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... down thy stick I will even consider thee, uncle.' He threw the stick into the corner and immediately she went to fetch a mop from the cooking closet, where there lived a mumbling old housekeeper. The printer followed ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... But when the neighbors came in and whispered: "Why, that child of theirs is nothing but a frog!" they were ashamed and they decided that when people were about they had better keep their child hidden in a closet. ...
— The Laughing Prince - Jugoslav Folk and Fairy Tales • Parker Fillmore
... a little study, where he sat at a desk in the middle, and could pull down any book, almost, with no more than tilting his chair; and there was a little dining-room, and a closet with a window in it, where his bed stood. All these rooms were lined with books, most of them works of theology and religion, but plenty of others, too: poetry, and romances, and plays,—he was a great reader, and his books were all the friends he had, he used to say, till he found me. I should ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... Duchess, she was put into the apartment you occupied last night; which, at that time, was a kind of state apartment. Her followers were quartered in the chambers opening upon the neighboring corridor, and her favorite page slept in an adjoining closet. Up and down the corridor walked the great chasseur, who had announced her arrival, and who acted as a kind of sentinel or guard. He was a dark, stern, powerful-looking fellow, and as the light of a lamp in the corridor fell upon his deeply-marked face and sinewy form, he seemed capable of defending ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... slowly. While he telephoned, instructing a servant to tell the doctor to be dressed and ready in twenty minutes, he saw Paredes go to the closet and get his ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... stairways, plunged down passages, grim and shadow infested, until the Servitor's room was reached. The barrenness of the place seemed to be sufficient guarantee for the honesty of its usual occupant. A table without a drawer, no closet and some burned-out logs in the large fireplace afforded but scant hiding places. Sobieska carefully tapped each board separately to ascertain if a secret receptacle had been formed in such a fashion, ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... is seen only here and there, and now and then, and lies hidden from view, except in those points in which his conduct is connected with those actions. But biography follows him from his public exhibition into his private retreat, haunts him in his closet concealments, accompanies him through his house, where his desires, passions, irregularities, vices, virtues, foibles, and follies take their full swing—sits by his fireside—watches for his unsuspecting, unguarded moments,—catches ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... him!" said Eliza firmly. "I crept into the closet by mistress's door to-night, and I heard master tell missus that he had sold my Harry and you, Uncle Tom, both to a trader, and that the man ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... of charity. Calicoes, flannels, jackets, gowns, and pinafores were kept in piles to clothe the naked; drugs suited to domestic practice were stored in a closet, for healing the sick; an amateur soup-kitchen for feeding the hungry was established in a roomy out-building, and this long years before public soup-kitchens became the rage; whilst copies of Testaments were forthcoming on all occasions to teach erring feet the way to ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... to the closet to see If yet any meal in the barrel might be. The barrel had long time been empty as wind; Not a speck of the bright yellow ...
— Little Sarah • Unknown
... communication with the Swan fairy. Still, he would do nothing hastily, and, hiding his dismay, he told Riquette that his only wish was to make her happy, and that as she wished so much for the stone he would fetch it for her. Then he went into the closet where all his spells were worked, and in a short time he discovered that his enemy the Swan fairy was at that moment ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... was a small one; but it was neatly furnished, and provided with a closet. The bed, with its clean white spread, looked very tempting, and Frank enjoyed the prospect of the privacy he would have in a room devoted to his sole use. At the lodging-house, though his bed was comfortable, there were sixty to eighty boys who slept in the same room, and of course ...
— The Telegraph Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... at the same time it possessed one of the attributes of the imaginative type: and that was the mental antennae which felt things while they were still in the distance. As he lay there upon the hard bed in the closet-like room, he kept sensing something, but could get no ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... find in the Bible a more precious word still. It is, "God and not I." It is not, "God first, and I second;" God is all, and I am nothing. Paul said, "I labored more abundantly than they all; though I be nothing." Let us try to give God His place—begin in our closet, in our worship, in our prayer. The power of prayer depends almost entirely upon our apprehension of who it is with whom I speak. It is of the greatest consequence, if we have but half an hour in which to pray, ...
— The Master's Indwelling • Andrew Murray
... died too. One night I heared a strange sound like somebody movin' 'round in de house, and pretty soon a dim light comes a-movin' into my room real slow and atter goin' 'round de room it went out of sight in de closet. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... went she did not heed, and never stopped till she came to a dark pantry, which had been made without any windows, on purpose to keep out flies. The unhappy child threw herself, out of breath, upon the floor of this closet, her heart beating high with rage ...
— Dotty Dimple At Home • Sophie May
... of a bird of a size and velocity fit to be the bearer of the weight of a man?" demanded he who was mounted, with a vivacity that betrayed some jealousy on the subject of a monopoly of learning. I had thought there was never a book in the valley, out of mine own closet, that dealeth ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... laces, all in separate compartments She pointed to the high chiffonier, the top decorated with candlesticks and silver-framed pictures. Here the drawers revealed heaps of embroidered underclothing and silken garments. Then she walked to the closet and threw the ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... go up and shut the door. I stood there a few minutes with my hands in my pockets, whistling Yankee Doodle. Your mother used to say men were queer folks, Johnny; they always whistled up the gayest when they felt the wust. Then I went to the closet and got another pipe, and I didn't go up stairs till it was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... so. The moment Marya Morevna had gone he rushed to the closet, pulled open the door, and looked in—there hung Koshchei the Deathless, fettered by twelve chains. Then Koshchei entreated Prince ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... she returned. Luckily, I was dressed for dinner. She took me by the hand and, unable to speak, led me to the private closet ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... "Makan mahjub," which Lane renders by "a private closet," and Payne by a "privy place," suggesting that the Caliph slept in a numero cent. So, when starting for the "Trakki Campaign," Sir Charles Napier (of Sind), in his zeal for lightening officers' baggage, inadvertently chose a water-closet tent for his head-quarters—magno cum risu not of ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... stay for a week, and on bread and water," cried a voice through the keyhole; and Mell, opening her eyes, found herself in the dark and alone. She knew very well where she was,—in the closet under the attic stairs; a place she dreaded, because she had once seen a mouse there, and Mell was particularly afraid ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... details of private life, sensibility displays its magniloquence. A small temple to Friendship is erected in a park. A little altar to Benevolence is set up in a private closet. Dresses a la Jean-Jacques-Rousseau are worn "analogous to the principles of that author." Head-dresses are selected with "puffs au sentiment" in which one may place the portrait of one's daughter, mother, canary or dog, the whole "garnished ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... found it. There ain't a closet or a pair o' curtains or a shower bath or bookcase or a screen or bureau or table or bed that's had a chance to keep ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... nobody in Dinwiddie, not even Miss Willy Whitlow, who sewed out by the day, and knew the intimate structure of every skeleton in every closet of the town—nobody could tell the precise instant at which Cyrus had ceased to be an ordinary man and become a great one. A phrase, which had started as usual, "The Mr. Treadwell, you know, who married poor Belinda Bolingbroke—" swerved suddenly to "Cyrus Treadwell ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... These crimson shells, from Indian seas— These tiny portraits, set in rings— Once, doubtless, deemed such precious things; Keepsakes bestowed by Love on Faith, And worn till the receiver's death, Now stored with cameos, china, shells, In this old closet's dusty cells. ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
... tempting Satan and Mammon together to come and tempt you. Worship the God who made the heaven and the earth, and the sea and the mines of iron and gold, by doing His will in the heart of them. Don't worship the poor picture of Him you have got hanging up in your closet;—worship the living power beyond your ken. Be strong in Him whose is your strength, and all strength. Help Him in His work with His own. Give life to His gold. Rub the canker off it, by sending it from hand to hand. You must rise and bestir yourself. I will come and see you again ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... lights, which are controlled by a switchboard in this room. The electrician is on duty every day, giving his entire time to the management of this plant. The building is also supplied with gas. Directly behind the pulpit is a small closet containing a friction wheel, by means of which, should the electric light fail for any reason, every gas jet in The Temple can be lighted ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... they can pick up for themselves. "Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing with your best pains," is a saying which has injured our literature more than any other single thing. How many a lumber-closet since the world began has been filled by the results of this purblind and delusive theory! But this is not autobiographical,—save that to have written it shows how little prudence my ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... stage of the affair, Friend Hopper was summoned, and immediately went to the rescue, accompanied by one of his sons, about sixteen years old. He found the woman and her son stowed away in a closet, exceedingly terrified. He assured them they would be quite as safe on the mantel-piece, as they would be in that closet; that their being found concealed would be regarded as the best evidence that they were the persons sought for. ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... called till twelve years later. There was hardly an elegant private residence in the city. The bricks, of which the best houses were built, were rough and roughly laid. The houses had no conveniences, except here and there a closet. They were, however, substantially built, and were neatly finished within. They invariably had one thing which is fast passing away. There was the smoke-house in which every housekeeper cured his meat; ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... Fickle and frail in every part, And rotten to their inmost heart. There shall the simple tenant find Death in the falling window-blind, Death in the pipe, death in the faucet, Death in the deadly water-closet! A day is set for all to die: Caveat emptor! ...
— Moral Emblems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... he took a flask of brandy from a closet and filled glasses for his companion and himself. After they had drunk the liquor ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... around the centre-table and jags horrible hieroglyphics over the whole polished surface. The bookcase that we are trying to move tilts, and trembles, and goes over, and the old house through all her frame gives signs of woe. A crash detonate on the stairs brings me up from the depths of the closet where I am burrowing. I remember seeing Petronius disappear a moment ago with my lovely and beloved marble Hebe in his arms. I rush rampant to the upper landing in time to see him couchant on the lower. "I have broken my leg," roars Petronius, as if I cared for his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... of course, and fed her faithfully, still a cat that could growl at George's baby was not regarded with the same complacent kindness that had always blessed her before; and whenever the baby was asleep at milking-time, Pussy was locked into the closet,—a proceeding she resented. Biddy, on the contrary, seemed to admire the child,—she certainly did not object to her,—and necessarily obtained thereby a far higher place in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... been set aside for their use after much discussion as to whether one or two would be needed. A smaller one opened into this, and a large closet was at the side. ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... was I saying so much, Mrs. Schum? Can I help it he says she's an angel? Here, Harry, you can have it. Mamma's got a whole basket of apples in the closet and a dozen oranges. Honest, take ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... just as Sylvia was preparing to go to bed in her little closet of a room, she heard some shot rattling at her window. She opened the little casement, and saw Kester standing below. He recommenced where he left off, with ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... different apartments, and with the floor plan exactly square. Supposing we run a hall (A) through the middle. On one side of this let us plan for a dining room and a kitchen, a portion of the kitchen space to be given over to a closet ...
— Carpentry for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... castle, when a cry arose from without, 'Beware of the lion; he has broken from his den'; and in an instant the huge beast had sprung through the door. Don Bermudo sat still, waiting to see what the lion would do, but Don Diego, the elder count, took refuge in a closet, while Don Fernan, his brother, hid himself under the bed on which the Cid was stretched sleeping. The noise awoke Don Rodrigo, who sprang up, when the lion at once lay down on the ground and began to lick his feet. The Cid stooped and stroked its ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... that way waiting, and scolding the younger sister, till the princes were near the place. The day they were to come, the sisters put Trembling in a closet, and locked the door on her. When the company came to the house, the prince of Emania gave the shoe to the sisters. But though they tried and tried, it ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... the fire, but perhaps it shall go out before I have finish." She was pretty laughing young woman, and say, "Oh no, sir, if you pull the bell, the porter, who sit up all night, will come, unless you like to attend to it yourself, and then you will find the coal-box in the closet."—Well—I say nothing but "Yes—oh yes." But, when she is gone, I look direct into the closet, and see a box not no more like none of the other boxes what I see all ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 357 - Vol. XIII, No. 357., Saturday, February 21, 1829 • Various
... the theological professors must inwardly deride the diligence of a stranger, who cultivated their art and neglected his own. "What can ye fear," said a bold conspirator to his associates, "from your bigoted tyrant? Sleepless and unarmed, he sits whole nights in his closet, debating with reverend graybeards, and turning over the pages of ecclesiastical volumes." [82] The fruits of these lucubrations were displayed in many a conference, where Justinian might shine as the loudest and most subtile of the disputants; in many a sermon, which, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... she rose, glided noiselessly through the hall, entered a small closet built in the thickness of the wall, and, bending to the keyhole of a narrow door, listened with a half-smile on her lips at the trespass she was committing. A murmur of voices met her ear. Her husband spoke oftenest, and suddenly some word of his dashed the smile from ...
— The Mysterious Key And What It Opened • Louisa May Alcott
... Gonzales's toys and playthings ever since the hour that she first had realized her power over them. And yet she was far from being heartless in reality. She was most sensitive, and at times thoughtful and serious; but this was in her closet, and when alone. Those who thought that the sunshine of that face was never clouded, were mistaken. She hardly received the respect that was due to her better understanding and naturally strong points of character, because she hid them mainly behind an exterior of captivating mirthfulness and ...
— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray
... be difficult to convince the American people that slavery is not 'the skeleton in their closet.' Any one who has encountered for years the pro-slavery spirit; who has watched it through its unscrupulous deviations from rectitude, morally, socially, and politically, will have been dull of comprehension not to have appreciated its atrocious disposition. Its great instrumentality ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... was raining and blowing. Ferruccio and his grandmother, who was still up, were in the dining-room, between which and the garden there was a small, closet-like room, encumbered with old furniture. Ferruccio had only returned home at eleven o'clock, after an absence of many hours, and his grandmother had watched for him with eyes wide open, filled with anxiety, nailed to the large arm-chair, ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... Penrod wailed, in a whisper. "My goodness!" And going to an inner door, he threw it open, disclosing a clothes-closet hung with pretty garments of many kinds, while upon its floor were two rows of shoes and slippers of ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... she heard Brock and Eltak at the door again. She ran into the next room, and hid in a closet. Suddenly there was a commotion in the front room, and Solvey realized that men from the Star's security force had arrived and were arresting Brock and Eltak. They hauled both of them away, then floated the cubicles out and on a carrier and took them off too, ...
— Lion Loose • James H. Schmitz
... and rubbish, she ran upstairs into my apartment. The poor creature asked me, in the utmost agony, if I did not think the world was at an end; at the same time she complained of being choked, and begged me to procure her some water. Upon this I went to a closet where I kept a large jar of water, but found it broken to pieces. I told her she must not now think of quenching her thirst, but saving her life, as the house was just falling on our heads, and if a second shock came, would ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... of his deep contrition for that act, so inconsistent with his hereditary allegiance. But the unformed opinions of the young are far more easily swayed by events which are passing before their eyes than by the cool reasonings of the closet; and the inclinations of the Earl of Mar's childhood were likely soon to be effaced by the state of public affairs. The later occurrences of the reign of William the Third were calculated not only to repress ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... have done. The soul of the man-made horse-power is primarily the horse, and secondarily the small boy who stands by to "cut him up" occasionally. Maelzel created excellent chess-players, with the exception of intelligence, which he was obliged to borrow of the original Creator and conceal in a closet under the table. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... how many bonny bowls there'll be, one of these days, in the cook's closet of the grand house we're going to?" ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... "that door to the right." Eustace knocked, and entered into a bare little chamber about the size of a large housemaid's closet, furnished with a table, three chairs (one a basket easy), and a book-case, with a couple of dozen of law books, and some old volumes of reports, and a broad window-sill, in the exact centre of which lay the ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... explained that he had the room by the week and the loan of it to me for one night would cost him nothing. In fact, he acted courteously and with considerable evidence of breeding, merely requesting my permission to lock the big closet where he kept his personal belongings and to take the key away with him. Even if we had been in a mood to cavil it would have been difficult to find fault, for it was a spacious, clean and airy room—three characteristics ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... Emilie, "if Louise were to see you with me at such an hour as this, she would be capable of compromising me. Go into that closet and don't make the ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... his father, who was a councillor of the parliament of Burgundy. He studied at Dijon, and travelled abroad. Buffon was rich, but, greatly to his credit, devoted all his life to the care of the Royal Garden and to writing his works, being a most prolific author. He was not an observer, not even a closet naturalist. "I have passed," he is reported to have said, "fifty years at my desk." Appointed in 1739, when he was thirty-two years old, Intendant of the Royal Garden, he divided his time between his retreat at Montbard and Paris, spending four months in Paris and the ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... integrity itself. If she has given him an opportunity, she has as good as put her integrity into his hands. Ah, dear Marwood, what's integrity to an opportunity? Hark! I hear her. Dear friend, retire into my closet, that I may examine her with more freedom— you'll pardon me, dear friend, I can make bold with you—there are books over the chimney—Quarles and Pryn, and the SHORT VIEW OF THE STAGE, with Bunyan's works to entertain you.—Go, you thing, and send ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... was a man who accepted Truth as God gave it to him, not as he had theorized it ought to be; a man who had climbed from a mud cottage to the position of the greatest navigator in the world—had climbed on top of facts mastered, not {176} of schoolgirl moonshine, or study-closet theories. That man was Captain ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... protection from any poisonous exhalations that might rise up from the mixture, suddenly dropped off, and Sainte-Croix dropped to the ground as though felled by a lightning stroke. At supper-time, his wife finding that he did not come out from his closet where he was shut in, knocked at the door, and received no answer; knowing that her husband was wont to busy himself with dark and mysterious matters, she feared some disaster had occurred. She called her servants, who broke in the door. Then she found Sainte-Croix stretched out beside the furnace, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... held a couch, two big easy-chairs, a low table, some bookshelves, a squat refrigerator containing food and drink for his occasional snacks—his regular meals were brought in hot from the main kitchen—and a closet that contained his clothing—the insignialess uniforms of ...
— The Highest Treason • Randall Garrett
... her, while their eyes were swimming with tears. "I have long, long kept a bridal veil in my closet," she went on, "and knew not it was to be mine!" Opening a wardrobe, she took out a long black veil. It had belonged to her grandaunt, the nun, Madelaine de Repentigny, and was kept as ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... nothing; but, rising abruptly from the table, opened a closet with a trembling hand, and, taking from it a package of papers, threw them ...
— The Poor Gentleman • Hendrik Conscience
... delve among pedigrees, genealogies and family connections, may perhaps be a little disappointed to learn that, in spite of the odorous nature of the herbs, there are none whose history reveals a skeleton in the closet. They are all harmless. Now and then, to be sure, there occur records of a seemingly compromising nature, such as the effects attributed to the eating or even the handling of celery; but such accounts, harrowing as they may appear, are insufficient to warrant a bar sinister. Indeed, not only is ...
— Culinary Herbs: Their Cultivation Harvesting Curing and Uses • M. G. Kains
... 3229 Cuming Street, Prof. E. W. Hunt saw the house split asunder. When he recovered consciousness beneath the wreckage he discovered that a last summer straw hat was cocked on the back of his head. It had been hanging in a bedroom closet three stories above before the tornado ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall
... blessing; and when it has been consumed even its ashes are potent for good. Infused into a much-esteemed country-side medicine, the yule-log ashes add to its efficacy; sprinkled in the chicken-house and cow-stable, they ward off disease; and, being set in the linen-closet, they are an infallible protection against fire. Probably this last property has its genesis in the belief that live-coals from the yule-log may be placed on the linen cloth spread for the Great Supper without setting it on fire—a belief which ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... a half-burned candle, lighted it, and then opened a closet door. Next instant he started ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... saints and mystics of the centuries—Augustine, Nicholas of Cusa, Thomas a Kempis, von Huegel, Finney, Wesley and many more. The ten chapters are heart searching and the prayers at the close of each are for closet, not pulpit. I felt the nearness of God while ...
— The Pursuit of God • A. W. Tozer
... an extreme one; that is, it is the general case in a more intense degree. Raised almost to divine honors, never mentioned but with affected rapture, the classics of Greece and Rome are seldom read, most of them never; are they, indeed, the closet companions of any man? Surely it is time that these follies were at an end; that our practice were made to square a little better with our professions; and that our pleasures were sincerely drawn from those sources in which ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... modified. Upon invitation the members of the Corps meet in a beer-hall or in the rooms of one of the Corps. The president is seated with a house-key on the table before him as a symbol of unfettered authority. As members arrive, the president takes away their sticks and swords and deposits them in a closet. The guests sit down and are handed filled pipes and a lighted fidibus, or pipe-lighter. Bread and butter and cheese, followed by coffee, are offered. After this, the real work of the evening begins—the drinking. A large can of beer stands ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... and drawed off his boots, and wondered "why under the gracious heavens it was, that the bootjack never could be found where he had left it" (which was right in the middle of the settin'-room floor). But he found it hangin' up in its usual place in the closet, only a coat had got hung up over it so he couldn't see it for half ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... knowledge exert an acidulating influence upon female temper, or produce an ossifying effect on female hearts? Is ignorance an inevitable concomitant of refinement and delicacy? Does the knowledge of Greek and Latin cast a blight over the flower-garden, or a mildew in the pantry and linen closet; or do the classics possess the power of curdling all the milk of human-kindness, all the streams of tender sympathy in a woman's nature, as rennet coagulates a bowl of sweet milk? Can an acquaintance with literature, art, and science so paralyze a lady's ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... the window, and went in haste to the closet, in the excess of her eagerness stumbling recklessly forward ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... representing the Bay of Naples with Vesuvius in eruption. A passage running by the side of the Trattoria leads to the apartments overhead, and at the foot of the staircase there is a porter's lodge, a closet always lighted by a lamp, which burns down the dark passage day and night, like a ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... sighted," said the captain, "the signal-officer up stairs telegraphs to the other near stations, whose keepers at once send their lifeboats, cars and surfmen here. The ship is signaled—by flags in daytime, by rockets at night." He opened a closet in which were arranged the cases of lights, with books of instruction for their use. "The keepers ought to understand these as well as all other apparatus in the station, and under the new management they ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... scattered over his works is very justly observed by Pope, but it is often such knowledge as books did not supply. He that will understand Shakespeare, must not be content to study him in the closet, he must look for his meaning sometimes among the sports of the field, and sometimes among the ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... respectable seminaries of learning; but a work of this kind ought not and will not be confined to schools. It will be found in the library of the scholar—the cheerful and happy dwelling of the farmer—the workshop of the mechanic—the closet of the student—and the counting-room of the merchant, by all of whom it may be advantageously consulted as ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
... At that very moment the hunted and desperate murderer lay concealed not a dozen feet away. Near the rear, left-hand corner of the room is a closet or pantry, about three feet deep, and perhaps eight feet long. The door was open and Charles was crouching, Winchester in hand, in the dark ...
— Mob Rule in New Orleans • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... young lord would stop the night under my roof, I made him lie in the small closet together with me (for I could not know what might happen). He soon slept like a top, but no sleep came into my eyes for very joy, and I prayed the livelong blessed night, or thought over my sermon. Only near morning ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... been there ten minutes before he began to move from one place to another. He was of a bold, resolute temper, but not overburdened with principle; for if he could have opened every cupboard, closet, and drawer in the house, without being found out, he ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... private virtues they are beside the question. Remember you not," and Mr Milton smiled, but somewhat sternly, "what Dr Cauis saith in the Merry Wives of Shakspeare? 'What shall the honest man do in my closet? There is no honest man that shall come in my closet.' Even so say I. There is no good man who shall make us his slaves. If he break his word to his people, is it a sufficient defence that he keeps it to his companions? If he oppress and extort all day, shall he be held blameless because ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... made the fourth, had not yet arrived. I recognised Jacquard, who never having seen me, had not the same advantage, and besides my disguise would have bid defiance to any description of my person. Without being at all uneasy, I approached, and with a most natural tone I begged him to pass into a closet, the glass door of which looked on the banquetroom. "It is Vidocq whom you are looking for," said I; "if you will wait for ten minutes you will see him. There is his cover, he cannot be long. When he enters, I will make you ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XII, No. 347, Saturday, December 20, 1828. • Various
... argued and argued and finally he up and bet me there wasn't a drink of cherry rum in this house. Bet me five cents, he did, and I took him up. And then I went and got the bottle out of the soup tureen in the closet and fetched it and showed it to him. 'There!' says I. 'There's your drink, Zach Bloomer,' says I. 'Now hand over my five cents.' 'Hold on, Posy,' he says, 'hold on. I said a drink. There ain't a drink in that bottle.' 'Go 'long,' says I, 'the bottle's half full.' But he stuck ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... and dirt caused by the work of excavation, shut the back windows to keep out the dust and returned to the front room—his study, library and reception-room in one. With the addition of the bath off the bedroom in the rear, and a large hall-closet opening from the study, these two rooms comprised his home. The hall was public, giving access to two upper floors which, like that beneath him, were given up to bachelor apartments. The house was in reality an old-fashioned residence, remodelled ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... glad to get off with his life that he never thought of anything else. Yet she did not give more than four or five minutes to these speculations, and, like a sensible girl, thought of something else. Once again, however, in opening the closet, she found the brown holland gown she had worn on the day before; thought it very unbecoming, and regretted that she had not worn her best gown on her visit to Red Pete's cottage. On such an occasion she really might ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... worthy attorney, whose innermost imp burst out periodically, like a Dutch clocksentry, to trot on his own small grounds for thinking himself of the community of the man of the world. 'You lawyers dress in another closet,' he said. 'The Rev. Groseman has the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... those few steps safely, and the eggs were put away in the closet by Aunt Sarah, later to be made into puddings and cakes for the ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the County Fair • Laura Lee Hope
... holiday, the emperor's birthday. Yesterday Resi told me something horrid. Oswald can't go back to S. He has been up to something, I wish I knew what, perhaps something in the closet. He always stays there such a long time, I noticed that when I was in the country. Or perhaps it may have been something in his society. Inspee pretends she knows what it is but of course it isn't true, for she doesn't know any more than I do. Father is furious and Mother's ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl
... stepping into a closet, passed swiftly through the door from the Valkyrie into 192 Layte Street. His hidden pool-room, gambling den and exchange for soul and body was temporarily forgotten by "Mr. August Meyer," owner ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... all mind your own royal business for about five seconds!" Cherry said, rudely and impatiently. She was in her own room, rummaging on the upper shelf of the closet for a certain hat. She secured the hat now, and ran unceremoniously away from her admonitor, to join Alix, Peter, and Martin for the daily ceremony of walking into ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... biography, such at least as are considered worth using. Indeed, we question whether such a biography would be of any use whatever to the world; for the man who cannot, by studying his dramas in some tolerably accurate chronological order, and using as a running accompaniment and closet commentary those awe- inspiring sonnets of his, attain to some clear notion of what sort of life William Shakespeare must have led, would not see him much the clearer for many folios of anecdote. For after all, the best biography of every sincere man is sure to ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... was on the trail. He had caught sight of a small closet in the wall, next to the mantelpiece, and it had ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... acts up to the rules which she lays down for them. Be not deceived, I say, in this case also. Fancy not that they know nothing about you. There is nothing secret which shall not be made manifest; and what you do in the closet is surely proclaimed (and often with exaggeration enough and to spare) on the house-top. These poor folks at your gate know well enough, through servants and tradesmen, what you are, how you treat your servants, how you pay your bills, what sort of temper you ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... expecting to find Scott wailing loudly for his missing mother. Instead, she found him playing camp-out Indian, as he called it, with her best bed by way of wickiup, and the wickiup was provisioned lavishly and stickily from the resources of the closet where she ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... father, pointed to a closet. Hal tiptoed his way to it, and motioned for Katie to follow. The door was closed, and then Andy McCabe ...
— The Missing Tin Box - or, The Stolen Railroad Bonds • Arthur M. Winfield
... returned Nan sagely, from the closet where she was hanging up skirts. "Just remember that and you'll have a lot nicer time ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... please tell me the name of your mistress, also; the card which she left at the office was lost, and I have not learned it," Mona said as she arose to hang her wraps in the closet. ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... them said. "Who do you think it is?" But each knew what the other thought. They returned through the ante-chamber to the dressing-room. But when they opened the door, all was quiet—no one behind the curtain, no one in the room—they searched under the sofas, everywhere; there was no closet or hiding-place in which any one could be concealed. The window fastenings were unstirred. But the door into the gallery was unlocked, and the simple thing appeared—that Helen, in her confusion, had thought only of fastening the door into the ante-chamber, ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... Painting was nearly always allied to this art in ecclesiastical use. The sculptured forms were gilded and painted, and, in some cases, might almost be taken for figures in faience, so high was the polish. Small altars, with carved reredos and frontals, were very popular, both for church and closet. The style employed was pictorial, figures and scenes being treated with great naturalism. One of the famous makers of such altar pieces was Lucas Moeser, in the earlier part of the fifteenth century. A little later ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... boatswain, carpenter, sailmaker, and head steward; and the one on the port side with six, for the two cooks and the four under stewards, all of whom were men skilful and experienced in their several departments. Forward of these was the kitchen, from which opened the lamp room, a triangular closet in the bow of the ship. Mr. Lowington had taken the idea of locating the cooking apartment in the extreme forward part of the vessel from the Victoria and Albert, the steam yacht of the ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... I got in this morning, and I'm going to stay until after the Yates game. They telegraphed me to come and coach the tackles. Instead of going to your room let's go to mine. I've taken a suite of one room and a closet at Dixon's on the avenue. I haven't unpacked my toothbrush yet. Come over with me and take lunch, and we'll talk it ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... reached up on the high shelves of the closet for her pie plates, while Ike busied himself in tasting the various preparations. The dame thought that was the smallest quart of sweet cider ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... of Steptoe's training not to notice anything till his attention was called to it. So having said his "Good-morning, sir," he went to the closet, took down the hanger with the coat and waistcoat belonging to the suit of which he saw that Allerton had put on the trousers, and waited till the young man ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... the best plate, which we use for company; this belongs to my strong box, where I keep my money; and this to the casket in which are all my jewels. Here also is a master key to all the apartments in my house—but this small key belongs to the closet at the end of the long gallery on the ground floor. I give you leave," continued he, "to open or do what you like with all the rest excepting this closet: this, my dear, you must not enter, nor even put the key into the lock, for all the world. ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... priestesses, and renewed on the Roman New Year's day (March 1) by the primitive method of friction.[287] The Vestals beyond doubt represented the unmarried daughters of the primitive Latin family, and the penus Vestae, a kind of Holy of Holies of the Roman State, recalled the penus or store-closet of the agricultural home; this penus was cleansed on June 15 for the reception of the first fruits of the harvest, and then closed until June 7 of the following year.[288] These and other simple duties of the Vestals, all of them traceable to the old life on the ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... least of his motives in demanding her; there was ambition, but, strongest of all, a desire for revenge on the bishop and his class. He would make them accept him at last. They should pay dearly for their scorn. "I 'll not be elbowed out of the way and kept in the closet like a family skeleton any longer," he went on. "The limit of my endurance ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... as turned out to be the case, added to his natural propensities the consciousness of guilt, and rendered him doubly dangerous. The whole time my uncle and myself were crossing over and figuring in, in order to procure for each a room, though it were only a closet, his watchful, distrustful looks denoted how much he saw in our movements to awaken curiosity, if not downright suspicion. When all was over, he followed me to the little lawn in front of the house, whither I had gone to look at the familiar scene by the ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... might be some access, much more difficult to trace, to another lying below. At any rate she determined that if she did find the secret entrance to these little rooms, and found that they were empty she would not be disheartened, but would search further until she found either some secret closet where the will might be placed, or an entrance to some perhaps larger hiding-place below. Her subsequent search outside showed her that there existed several small iron gratings about six inches long and three deep, close down to the soil of the border. No doubt ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... nothing about her, nor did she even know that my friend had had a daughter. Helen had been given a bed and carriage for her dolls, which she had received and used like any other gift. On her return to the house after her visit to the cemetery, she ran to the closet where these toys were kept, and carried them to my friend, saying, "They are poor little Florence's." This was true, although we were at a loss to understand how she guessed it. A letter written to her mother in the course of the following week gave an account of her impression ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... wayte for me at Thurin, where my Lord the Duke is at this present. I my self will departe from hence to morow at night after supper, and will ride in post in the freshe of the night." And the better to deceiue this poore vnhappie woman, he went into his Closet, and took his caskette, wherin was the moste parte of his treasure, and deliuering the same vnto her, sayde: "That fearing leste hee shoulde tarie long in Fraunce, he would leaue the same with her to help her when she wanted." And ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter |
