"First floor" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which stands near the northern transept of the church of Saint-Ouen was the dormitory of the monks. It is now the town hall. The offices occupy the ground and first floor, the library and gallery of paintings the second. The great stair-case is remarkable for its elegance and lightness; it has been compared to that at Somerset house. On the first landing we find in a niche, ...
— Rouen, It's History and Monuments - A Guide to Strangers • Theodore Licquet
... swell fronts, looking in perspective like a succession of round towers, are reached by broad granite steps, and their doors are deeply sunken within the wagon-roofs of white-painted Roman arches. Over the door there is sometimes the bow of a fine transom, and the parlor windows on the first floor of the swell front have the same azure gleam as those of the beautiful old houses which front the Common on ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... on the first floor, is the queen's drawing-room, in which she is also obliged to dress and to ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... be reserved for the dressing-rooms, the second entirely devoted to the supper and refreshments, and the first floor given up to the dancers and promenaders. I declare I shan't know how to look if we can't ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... Exchange Alley, Cornhill, with an auction-room on the first floor, where wine and other things were sold (see No, 147). Thomas Garway was originally a tobacconist and coffee-man. Defoe ("Journey through England") says that this coffee-house was frequented by "the people of ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... pediment decorated with bas-reliefs, whilst a quadrangular dome, rises from behind, with figures of Time and Astronomy; there are besides in other parts of the edifice, rows of tuscan, doric, and ionic pillars, the buildings surround two spacious court-yards; on the first floor is the Salle de Conseil, embellished with pictures and military emblems. The chapel attached to the establishment is most splendid, the roof is supported by thirty fluted corinthian columns: the entrance to the Ecole Militaire is ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... Apartments up two pair of stairs; On the first floor lodge'd Doctor Crow;— The Landlord was a torturer of hairs, And made a grand display of wigs, below; From the beau's Brutus, to the parson's grizzle:— Over the door-way was ...
— Broad Grins • George Colman, the Younger
... miss. But you'll not deceive me, I'm that upset with it all. And my fear is, miss, 'e'll drive away my old lydy on the first floor, with 'is goings on." ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... small one in Bevis Marks, London, having upon its door a plate, "Brass, Solicitor," and a bill tied to the knocker, "First floor to let to a single gentleman," and served not only as habitation, but likewise as office for Sampson Brass,—of none too good legal repute,—and his sister; a gaunt, bony copy of her red-haired brother, who was his housekeeper, as well as his ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... two were lighted. They stood relatively back from the rest of the building, and directly opposite to the one where the young men were supping. These windows were on the first floor, but in the position the watchers occupied at the top of bales of hay, Morgan and Valensolle were not only on a level, but could even look down into them. These windows were those of the room of the ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... look puzzled? Well, it was a whim of mine to put my residence and my work-shop under the same roof, yet so distinct that they would never interfere with each other. You know the house above is let out to lodgers. I occupy the first floor with my mother and sister, and this is my parlor. I do my work in that severe room that fronts the street: here is where I play. A man must have something else in life than mere business. I find it less harmful and expensive ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte
... he had determined to hide it under his clothes, so that, if detected, he might be able at least to sell his life. Taking it in his hand, he followed the old woman downstairs. She listened at each door, and continued downward until she reached the first floor. ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... occurred in a chamber on the first floor, to which the professor had been conducted immediately upon his arrival; and now, half reclining in a large arm-chair, with his injured limb resting upon a stool, he gratefully accepted the kindly attentions of Joel and Hulda. A careful bathing of the wound with cold water was the ...
— Ticket No. "9672" • Jules Verne
... taking his part in it. Finally came the turn of Mary to "blind," and as she covered her face and began to count slowly, the others tiptoed into the different rooms to hide. The cabin was built on the bungalow style, with a number of rooms on the first floor, and there ...
— The Curlytops and Their Playmates - or Jolly Times Through the Holidays • Howard R. Garis
... On the first floor there was a large and magnificently furnished room in which the ladies of the harem were accustomed to assemble when they chose to quit the solitude of their own chambers for the enjoyment of each ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... Schulze let them bring him down to the first floor, Mrs. Hastings—"Mrs. Fred," to distinguish her from "Mrs. Val"—happened to call. Mrs. Ranger did not like her for two reasons—first, she had married her favorite cousin, Alfred Hastings, and had been the "ruination" of him; second, she ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... hangs ... you see ... one ... two ... three ... fourth window on the second floor. They all are there in one room, they are never alone lately. They used to be on the first floor. That—was a holiday for us boys. ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... whole house at my disposal: it is very old, and dates at least from the time of the Goths, as may be seen by the wooden joists crossed on the narrow front and by the mossy tiles. It has but one window on each floor. The one on the first floor is all the year round garnished with flowers, strings are attached, and all sorts of climbers run up them in springtime. My good old mother takes care ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... hall, which is called the Pavilion, because it is in the form of a Pavilion, being above the rooms on the first floor, and thus situated above any of the others. This apartment he decorated from the level of the floor to the roof with a great variety of beautiful ornaments in stucco, figures in the round distributed at equal intervals, and children, festoons, and various kinds of animals. In the compartments ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 05 ( of 10) Andrea da Fiesole to Lorenzo Lotto • Giorgio Vasari
... refreshment. It was served in the little back room of the first floor, which had very much the seeming of being Mrs. Nettley's cooking room too. The appointments were on no higher scale of pretension than Mrs. Forriner's, yet they gave a far higher impression of the people that used them; why, belongs to the ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... took his place at the back door, in readiness to remove the bars; another went up with Terence to the first floor; and the remainder stopped in the hall, with ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... they sat was one of those third rooms on the first floor, by which city house-builders, self-styled architects, have made the second room useless except at night, in their endeavor to reconcile a desire for a multitude of apartments with the fancied necessity ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... hard-working student who lived in an attic, and he had nothing in the world of his own. There was also a hard-working grocer who lived on the first floor, and he had the ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... called to her master, and warned him that strangers were intruding themselves into the house. On the first floor we were encountered by the Landlord, hurrying down, in a highly irritated state, to see ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... friendship warm, Confiding, generous, constant; and, though now He ranks among the great ones of the earth And hath achieved such glory as will last To future generations, he, I think, Would sup on oysters with as right good will In this poor home of mine as e'er he did On Petty Cury's classical first floor Some twenty years ago." ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... to examine the first floor, which doubtless was innocent enough, but turned quickly up a flight of steps. At the foot of the broad staircase Kennedy paused to examine some rich carvings, and I felt him nudge me. I turned. It was an enclosed staircase, with walls that looked to be of re-enforced concrete. Swung back ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... making this use of it upon her cards. But, for myself, bourgeois I was born and bourgeois I mean to die. My residence, like that of my father and grandfather, is at No. 29 in the Grande Rue, opposite the Cathedral, and not far from the Hospital of St. Jean. We inhabit the first floor, along with the rez-de-chaussee, which has been turned into domestic offices suitable for the needs of the family. My mother, holding a respected place in my household, lives with us in the most perfect family union. My wife (nee ...
— A Beleaguered City • Mrs. Oliphant
... laborer's cottage intended to be erected on the grounds connected with a fine estate on the western slope of the Palisades in New Jersey. It is to be built of rough stone, plainly finished. It is 16 by 24 feet outside, having a living-room with bed room on the first floor, (Fig. 3,) a large pantry, stairway, etc., and a fine cellar below. The second floor (Fig. 4,) has two bed-rooms, well lighted and ventilated, and large closets to each. This size will admit of several different arrangements; ...
— Woodward's Country Homes • George E. Woodward
... poet and critic, made the acquaintance of the Brownings, and the record of his visit gives a picture of Browning at the age of thirty-nine, so clearly and firmly drawn that it ought not to be omitted here: "In a small drawing-room on the first floor I met Browning, who received me with great cordiality. In his lively, cheerful manner, quick voice, and perfect self-possession, he made the impression of an American rather than an Englishman. He was then, I should judge, about thirty-seven ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... ground floor with cellars, which are let for private purposes, and a first floor with two rooms of moderate size. The old courtyard is now covered with business offices. Over the court-room door stands a copy of the Clerks' Arms, which are thus described: "The feyld azur, a flower de lice goulde on chieffe gules, a leopard's head betwen two ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... the scholars are boarded, lodged, and clothed, and are never permitted to be absent—except on Saturdays and Saints' days, from one till seven. They are simply taught reading, writing, and arithmetic. The school-room is on the first floor, and runs along the entire front of the building; the bed-rooms are the large airy rooms above. Behind the house is a paved yard for exercise. Chatterton remained here ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... came hither from the Hot Well, and took possession of the first floor of a lodging-house, on the South Parade; a situation which my uncle chose, for its being near the Bath, and remote from the noise of carriages. He was scarce warm in the lodgings when he called for his night-cap, his wide shoes, and flannel; and ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... was brilliantly lighted on the first floor. The street door opened on to a staircase, and as I mounted it the sound of a piano and a singing voice reached me. At the top of the stairs I caught sight of a waiter loaded with glasses. I called ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... grew fainter and stopped. Sister Ursula was at the level of the first floor windows when the two children caught sight of her, raising together a shrill shout. The devil that delights in torturing good nuns inspired them next to separate and run the one up and the other down the avenue, yelling, "O—oh! There's a nun ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... fear, I followed Lowney and Mrs. Reeves. We went downstairs first. We examined all the basement rooms and the small, city back yard. There was no sign of Vicky Van or of Julie, and next we came back to the first floor, hunted that, and then on upstairs. The music room was soon searched, and I fell back as the others went into ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... house, says Mr. Noble, was in 1858 purchased by the Stationers' Company, and fitted up as a cheap school (six shillings a quarter). In 1861 Mr. Foss, Master of the Company, initiated a fund, and since then a university scholarship has been founded—sicitur ad astra. The back room, first floor, in which the great man died, had been pulled down by Mr. Bensley, to make way for a staircase. Bensley was one of the first introducers of the German ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... came into the big drawing-room on the first floor he fancied that his friend was looking older, and even paler, than usual. As he took her hand he thought, "Can I be right? Is it possible that Craven can imagine himself in love ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... Martin to himself, and he followed the girl up the narrow, ill-lighted staircase covered with shabby carpet. Two or three inches of white stockings gleamed above the drab uppers of her high-heeled boots. Outside the open door of a room on the first floor there was a line of milk bottles, and Martin sighted a man in shirt sleeves, cooking sausages on a small gas jet in a cubby-hole. He looked up, and a cheery smile broke out on his clean-shaven face. There was brown grease ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... had heard that she was expected in London, and he knew now how strong had been the hope that he should meet her, and that she would do something for him. He was so tired and so ashamed of the life he led—now here, now there, now on the first floor, now on the fifth floor back, now plenty now penury and absolute want, according to Daisy's luck. For Daisy managed everything and bade him take things easy and trust to her; but he would so much rather have staid quietly at Stoneleigh with but one ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... this name I shall call her—occupied a house back from the street. The ladies ascended the steps leading to the first floor, and inquired if she lived there. "She is in the basement," was the answer. They descended into the area. It was neatly swept, and in perfect order. "It must be a genteel woman who lives here," remarked Mrs. Benton. They knocked. A voice bade them come in. They opened the door and entered. ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... to the full violence of the gale, for, as we have said, this first floor of the beacon was not protected by sides. There was sufficient light to enable him to see all round for a considerable distance. The sight was not calculated ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... occupied the first floor of the house. The drawing-room was a long, narrow room with cream woodwork and walls. The walls were broken into panels by the use of a narrow molding. In the large panel above the mantel-shelf I had inset a painting by Nattier. You will see the same painting used in the Fifty-fifth ...
— The House in Good Taste • Elsie de Wolfe
... wax candles was another important branch of business in the nunnery. It was carried on in a small room, on the first floor, thence called the Ciergerie, or wax-room; cierge being the French word for a wax candle. I was sometimes sent to read the daily lecture and catechism to the nuns employed there, but found it a very unpleasant task, as the smell rising from the melted wax ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... who, I knew, often stole to town to see his mother. One night, when all was quiet, we started. Fear gave speed to our steps, and we were not long in performing the journey. I arrived at my grandmother's. Her bed room was on the first floor, and the window was open, the weather being warm. I spoke to her and she awoke. She let me in and closed the window, lest some late passer-by should see me. A light was brought, and the whole household gathered round me, some smiling and some crying. I went to look ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... found competent for his post. It seemed such a rise from the streets to be employed in such an imposing building. But Dick did not long permit timidity to stand in his way. He entered the large apartment on the first floor, which he found chiefly used for storing large boxes and cases of goods. There was a counting-room and office, occupying one corner, partitioned off from the rest of the department. Dick could see a young man through the glass partition sitting ...
— Fame and Fortune - or, The Progress of Richard Hunter • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... the first floor, and we enter the apartments of Napoleon I., all furnished in the style of the First Empire. The cabinet de l'Abdication is the place where he resigned his power. His bedroom (containing the bed of Napoleon I., the cradle of the King of Rome, and ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... Soulas, addressing the Baroness, while waiting till his soup was cool enough to swallow, and affecting to give a romantic turn to his narrative, "one fine morning the mail coach dropped at the Hotel National a gentleman from Paris, who, after seeking apartments, made up his mind in favor of the first floor in Mademoiselle Galard's house, Rue du Perron. Then the stranger went straight to the Mairie, and had himself registered as a resident with all political qualifications. Finally, he had his name entered on the list of the ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac
... of the first floor was covered with instructive contributions of American agricultural colleges and experiment stations. They embraced the entire field of scientific research in all branches of husbandry; illustrating the most improved methods of cultivation, and explaining how ...
— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler
... rickety legs, for all daily uses; a despatcher for the preparation of lobsters and coffee, and an apparatus for the cooking of toast and mutton chops; such utensils and luxuries as these did not suffice for the well-being of Tom Towers. He indulged in four rooms on the first floor, each of which was furnished, if not with the splendour, with probably more than the comfort of Stafford House. Every addition that science and art have lately made to the luxuries of modern life was to be found there. The room in which ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... many occupants, where a hundred feet daily passed up and down the common staircase, the number of steps they had to tread increasing for the most part in direct proportion to their descent in the social grade which, with sufficiently imposing representatives on the first floor, reached its minimum, in point of wealth and station, in the fifth storey garret. On the same floor as Madelon and her father, but on the opposite side of the corridor, lived an American artist; and M. Linders had not been a week in the house before he recognized in him an ancient confrere ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... candles, all masked, some fantastically dressed and others only concealed by dominoes. The stairs went up on the outer wall of this inner court, past the windows of the basement occupied by the concierge and his wife and pretty daughter, and entered the building on the first floor above. By this arrangement the concierge could always see from ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... on the first floor of the post-trader's—this big one, which only officers and their women-folk might enter, and the other, the exchange of the enlisted men. The two were separated by a partition of logs and hung with shelves on which were displayed calicoes, tinned meats, and patent ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... smile when they ushered him into a bare room on the first floor. Two police officers were placed outside the door, ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... constable with me. At two o'clock this morning the young fellow came with two mounted men, who, I have no doubt, were highwaymen. We had locked up down below. Bastow took a ladder, and the three got in at a bedroom window on the first floor. Knapp and I were waiting for them there, and, taking them by surprise, succeeded in capturing them before the highwaymen could use their pistols. The constable and two men are looking after them, but as one has not ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... richer in its sculptures. The entire front is divided into compartments by slender and lengthened buttresses and pilasters. The intervening spaces are filled with basso relievos, evidently executed at one period, though by different masters. A banquet beneath a window in the first floor, is in a good cinque-cento style. Others of the basso-relievos represent the labors of the field and the vineyard; rich and fanciful in their costume, but rather wooden in their design: the salamander, the emblem of Francis I. appears several times amongst the ornaments, ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... sleeps with his harpoon —but why not? Because it's dangerous, says she. Ever since young Stiggs coming from that unfort'nt v'y'ge of his, when he was gone four years and a half, with only three barrels of ile, was found dead in my first floor back, with his harpoon in his side; ever since then I allow no boarders to take sich dangerous weepons in their rooms at night. So, Mr. Queequeg (for she had learned his name), I will just take this here iron, and keep it for ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... inhabitants of the chambers are not only painted on the walls, but also registered in Mr. Boyle's "Court Guide," it is quite unnecessary that they should be repeated here. Among them, on the entresol (between the splendid saloons of the Soap Company on the first floor, with their statue of Britannia presenting a packet of the soap to Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, and the West Diddlesex Western Branch on the basement)—lives a gentleman by the name of Mr. Howard Walker. The brass plate on the door of that gentleman's chambers ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... fetches up in front of the prunery it's after six o'clock. There's no mistakin' the sort of histrionic asylum it was, either. A hungry lookin' bunch of actorets was lined up on the front steps, everyone of 'em with an ear stretched out for the dinner bell. In the window of the first floor front was a beauty doctor's sign, a bull fiddle-artist was sawin' out his soul distress in the hall bedroom above, and up under the cornice the Chicini sisters was leanin' on the ledge and wishin' the folks back in ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... gutters when I was a boy . . . but I hav'nt done such a thing these thirty years." This was said in 1828. He resided in Goswell Street—now Goswell Road—with a widow lady, whose husband had been in the Excise. He cannot have paid more than a pound a week, if so much, for two rooms on the first floor. There was no servant, and the hardworking landlady, Mrs. Martha Bardell, performed all the duties of her household single-handed. As her Counsel later described it,—and see all she did for him!—"She waited on him, attended ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... had discovered, Jane Zeld occupied an apartment on the first floor of a small hotel, or rather, in one of those boarding-houses frequented by respectable people who come from the four quarters of the globe to enjoy the attractions of Paris. It was a most respectable establishment, ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... women occupied the second floor of the mission. Mr. H. had his room on the first floor, oftentimes shared with some visiting missionary or friend, and I was the best lodged of all. The big velvet couch in the sitting-room by the fire was allotted to me, and I slept luxuriously, as well as comfortably. The newest and ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... them to a hall crowded with huge packing boxes. In fact, the whole of the first floor was occupied by the large shipments of furniture recently delivered into the care ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower
... of pebbles about two inches in diameter, well coated with coal tar, and laid in place when hot. It was then packed together by being tamped and rolled, and a thin covering of the tarred sand placed upon the top, forming a smooth, hard surface. The first floor consisted of two inches of matched spruce, grooved on both sides, and fitted with hard pine splines, five-eighths by one and one-fourth inches. On the top of this a hard pine 11/4 inch floor was laid over a course of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 647, May 26, 1888 • Various
... about a hundred and fifty thousand francs, the savings of a lifetime. With its north aspect, the house looks gloomy enough seen from the street, but the back looks towards the south over the courtyard, with a rather pretty garden beyond it. As the President occupied the whole of the first floor, once the abode of a great financier of the time of Louis XIV., and the second was let to a wealthy old lady, the house wore a look of dignified repose befitting a magistrate's residence. President Camusot had invested all that ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... prevailed upon to decide thus: the count was to change his lodgings; and our house, in consideration of the burden borne day and night for several years uninterruptedly, was to be exempt for the future from billetting. But, to furnish a plausible pretext for this, we were to take in lodgers on the first floor, which the count had occupied, and thus render a new quartering, as it were, impossible. The count, who, after the separation from his dear pictures, felt no further peculiar interest in the house, and hoped, moreover, to ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... kitchen Average Jones burst into the hallway, doubled back up the stairs and made a tour of the big drawing-rooms and living-rooms of the first floor. Here, too, his glance swept room after room, from floor to ceiling. The chase then led upward to the second floor, and by direct ascent to the third. Breathing heavily, judge Ackroyd lumbered after the more active man. In his dogged rage, he never ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... to your Stimmung you will choose your room," said the friends who took me. "To-night we are rather cheerful. We will go to the big room on the first floor. That is all ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... are chiefly devoted to articles of luxury, and are among the most elegant in Paris. Many restaurants are on the first floor; here, were formerly the gambling-houses which rendered this place so notorious. The best time for visiting Palais Royal is in the evening, when the garden and arcades are brilliantly illuminated and full of people. The shops of the ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... terrace. The large gloomy garden had run to waste; it looked like some dull green cloud that had descended to earth. At night it seemed haunted. It was as if some sad spirit were wandering through the tangled thicket, or restlessly pacing the dusty floors of the old edifice. On the first floor there was an entire suite of empty rooms dismal with faded carpets and dingy curtains. Through the garden there was but one narrow path or alley, strewn with dead branches and crushed frogs. What modest, tranquil life there was appeared to be centred in one corner. There, close to the house, ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... this smaller library on the ground-floor that was now divested of its books, and converted into a bedroom for the earl. Hither he migrated, and here he lived, scarcely ever leaving it. Randolph, on his part, moved to a room on the first floor immediately above this. Some of the retainers of the family were dismissed, and on the remaining few fell a hush of expectancy, a sense of wonder, as to what these things boded. A great enforced quiet pervaded the ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... Close within the rails along the facade there were a few Mobiles and National Guards on duty. One of the two great doorways leading into the hotel was open. Every now and then some authority appeared to make a speech which no one could catch; and at most of the windows on the first floor there was an orator gesticulating. The people round me said that the mayors of Paris had been summoned by Arago, and were in one room inside deliberating, whilst in another was the Government. I managed to squeeze inside the rails, and stood ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... favour. It is true that in many ways I was unlike other children; for my cousin Maud would often say that I would not abide rule as beseems a maid, and Herdegen's lament that I was not born a boy still sounds in my ears when I call to mind our wild games. Any one who knows the window on the first floor, at the back of our house, from which I would jump into the courtyard to do as my brothers did, would be fairly frightened, and think it a wonder that I came out of it with whole bones; but yet I was not always minded to riot with the boys, and from ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... On the first floor is shown a great tortoise-shell, which was the cradle of Henry IV. Carved chests, dressing-tables, tapestries, clocks of that day, the bed and arm-chair of Jeanne d'Albret, a complete set of furniture ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... rolled up his shirt sleeves, and plunged into the confusion of crates and boxes that congested the rooms and hallways on the first floor of the house. The two sisters could hear him attacking his task with tremendous blows of the kitchen hammer. From time to time ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... a half a day by putting saucers of formalin and milk on the mess table and still have to use one hand with a fan all the time while eating with the other, to prevent getting them into their mouths. Here it is only a matter of half a dozen round one's plate—we feed on the first floor, which is a gain. In the men's bungalows I try to keep them down by insisting on every scrap of food being either swept away or covered up: and the presence or absence of flies is incidentally a good test as to whether the tables and ...
— Letters from Mesopotamia • Robert Palmer
... taught music sometimes gave a special lesson at night, and the Italian sculptor who worked on the top floor used a hammer at the most impossible hours. But on the whole she liked it better than the tiresome routine of boarding. She was not afraid at night. The stamp-and-coin man who occupied the first floor, lived with his wife and baby in the rear. The janitress had a room on the floor above hers. Two elderly women workers of ability in the mechanical arts occupied the rear of her floor, and a dear little fat woman of fifty who ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... roof supported by some twenty posts—occupies of itself about half the public square of Yonville. The town-hall, constructed "from the designs of a Paris architect," is a sort of Greek temple that forms the corner next to the chemist's shop. On the ground floor are three Ionic columns, and on the first floor is a semicircular gallery, while the dome that crowns it is occupied by a Gallic cock, resting one foot upon the "Charte" and holding in the other the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... and got into a quarrel with Lee. Margery will be sure to take his part; she's always so silly about Don. If she were well enough I'd be tempted to rush the wedding through before Christmas. But then, we couldn't have it in the new house, and I have practically built that first floor for the wedding. Everything depends on our ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... followed Ruth to Madeleine's own apartments, which were on the first floor. Victorine returned to the room where the sewing-women were at work. Gaston selected a book and seated himself in a ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... This landlady was a terrible and pitiful person, so grey and dusty she was, and her face deep lined with dust and trouble and labour. She wore a dirty cap that was all askew. She took Lewisham up into a threadbare room on the first floor, "There's the use of a piano," she said, and indicated an instrument with a front of torn green silk. Lewisham opened the keyboard and evoked a vibration of broken strings. He took one further survey of the dismal place, "Eighteen shillings," he said. "Thank ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... hundred years it is still carrying on the business for which it was intended. It was built as a shop, and it is a shop still. Modern preference for plate glass and easily opened doors has changed the original plan of the ground floor, but the first floor remains almost as its builder left it, and its heavy girders with their rounded ends jutting out over the pavement below are a happy testimony to the worth of wealden builders and wealden wood. Wealden paint, on the other hand, has not improved. The girders are still dark and stained as oak (or is ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... to do so she saw everything in the house, which was hardly more than an artistic camp, so far as the first floor was concerned. Navajo rugs were on the floor, Moqui plaques starred the walls, and Acoma ollas perched upon book-shelves of thick plank. The chairs were rude, rough, and bolted at the joints. The room made a pleasant impression ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... servants were downstairs in the basement. He slipped inside, slipped, in a flash, across the hall, and, treading like a cat, went up the stairs. He scarcely seemed to breathe until, with a little sigh of relief, he stood inside his den on the first floor, with the door ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... the door, but it was locked, as, indeed, he had expected it would be. Then he crept very cautiously, and peeped through the first floor window. He could see in quite plainly. There was a polar bear crouching on the floor, and the head looked at him so directly and vindictively that if he had not been a hero he would have fled. The unexpected is always terrible, and when one goes forth to kill a giant it is unkind of ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... fortune of the family. Mr Verloc gathered everything as it came to his broad, good-natured breast. The furniture was disposed to the best advantage all over the house, but Mrs Verloc's mother was confined to two back rooms on the first floor. The luckless Stevie slept in one of them. By this time a growth of thin fluffy hair had come to blur, like a golden mist, the sharp line of his small lower jaw. He helped his sister with blind love and docility in her household duties. Mr Verloc thought that some occupation would be good for him. ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... reply, Miss Toombs shoved the unresisting Mavis through the swing doors of the eating house; then, taking the lead, she piloted her to a secluded corner on the first floor, which was not nearly so crowded as the ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... courses of stone, weighing sixty-seven tons; then several courses of timber, with a floor of oak plank, three inches thick, over all, forming the floor of the first apartment, which was the store-room. This first floor was thirty-three feet above ...
— The Story of the Rock • R.M. Ballantyne
... bridge of Notre Dame was like a scene taken bodily from fairy land. A triumphal arch was erected at each end of the bridge; the roadway was covered with an awning smothered in flowers and evergreens, while between every window on the first floor of the houses were figures of nymphs bearing fruits and flowers, and ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... prison securely with a small force and keep every door and window in full view from without. As an additional measure of safety, prisoners were not allowed on the ground-floor, except that in the daytime they were permitted to use the first floor of the middle section for a cook-room. The interior embraced nine large warehouse-rooms 105 x 45, with eight feet from each floor to ceiling, except the upper floor, which gave more room, owing to the pitch of the gable roof. The abrupt slant ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... this arises from the fact of great additions to the original plan having been made. The two chambers—that of the Senate and the Representatives—are in the two new wings, on the middle or what we call the first floor. The entrance is made under a dome to a large circular hall, which is hung around with surely the worst pictures by which a nation ever sought to glorify its own deeds. There are yards of paintings at Versailles ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... darted up the stairway—Jimmy Grayson's rooms were on the first floor—and knocked at the door of the nominee. A light shone from the transom, and he heard a quick, strong step approaching. Then the door was thrown open by Mr. Grayson himself, and Mrs. Grayson, who stood in the centre of the room, looked ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... dangerous for us to be seen together," he said quickly, scarcely pausing as he walked. "Do not go near the Post Office, but go straight to 14 Rue Beyaert, first floor. I shall be there awaiting you. I have a message for you from a friend. You will find the street close to the Porte ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... From the first floor front, Come, dusty deacon, From the fourth floor back, You take her heels ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Marjorie Allen Seiffert
... which mark its ascent on the outer wall, each landing being indicated by a stink, one of the most odious peculiarities of Paris. The shop and entresol at that time were tenanted by a tinman; the landlord occupied the first floor; the four upper stories were rented by very decent working girls, who were treated by the portress and the proprietor with some consideration and an obligingness called forth by the difficulty of letting a house so oddly constructed and situated. The occupants of the quarter are accounted ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... some time, until he began to feel tired, when he turned his steps towards the Newsboys' Lodge. This institution occupied at that time the two upper stories of the building at the corner of Nassau and Fulton Streets. On the first floor was the office of the "Daily Sun." The entrance to the Lodge was on Fulton Street. Ben went up a steep and narrow staircase, and kept mounting up until he reached the sixth floor. Here to the left he saw a door partially opened, through which he could see a considerable number of boys, ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger
... walks were limited to the terrace of the Tuileries, by the side of the sheet of water that bounds the garden, a small doorway with an iron grating was thrown open into the first floor of the palace, to make easier her access to the spot. Around the grating the crowd used to gather to watch the Empress and respectfully to offer her their ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... and was ushered into a large apartment on the first floor. He had waited there but a few minutes, when the door of an adjoining chamber opened, and Count Villabuena, wrapped in a morning-gown, and seemingly just out of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... lived in a small lodging in the vicinity. She occupied in this convent—a large old building in the Rue de Sevres—a small appartement in the third story, with a brick floor, and uneven at that. She afterwards removed to a small appartement on the first floor, which looked upon ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... my hostess. The widow is a strong, black-haired young woman who took an active part in the rebellion of 1916, and whose husband was killed fighting under James Connolly. We slept in the first floor front. In with the widow lay her three children, and in the cot catty-corner from the bed I was bunked. Just when the night air was thinning to gray there was a shattering rap on the ground-level window. The half-dressed young factory daughter clambered over the others ...
— What's the Matter with Ireland? • Ruth Russell
... I arrived at B——, and remained there until the 2nd September. During this period I slept in the room on the first floor, which is at the end of a short corridor running from the top of the back stairs to my ...
— The Alleged Haunting of B—— House • Various
... body, and paid our visit to the Bishop of Csatsak, who lives in the finest house in the place; a large well-built villa, on a slight eminence within a grassy inclosure. The Bishop received us in an open kiosk, on the first floor, fitted all round with cushions, and commanding a fine view of the hills which inclose the plain of the Morava. The thick woods and the precipitous rocks, which impart rugged beauty to the valley of the Drina, are here unknown; the eye wanders over a rich yellow champaign, to hills ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... Billickin, 'pardon me, there is the stairs. Unless your mind is prepared for the stairs, it will lead to inevitable disappointment. You cannot, Miss,' said Mrs. Billickin, addressing Rosa reproachfully, 'place a first floor, and far less a second, on the level footing 'of a parlour. No, you cannot do it, Miss, it is beyond ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... chose at Brighton was in a terrace. He had been there before. It was kept by his old college gyp, a man of discreet silence, who was admirably partnered by an excellent cook. The rooms were on the first floor. The two bedrooms were at the back, and opened out of each other. "Saunders can have the smaller one, though it is the only one with a fireplace," he said. "I'll stick to the larger of the two, since it's got ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... Wills Coffee House. This famous coffee-house was No. 1 Bow Street, Covent Garden, on the west side corner of Russell Street. It derived its name from Will Unwin who kept it. The wits' room was upstairs on the first floor. Some of its reputation was due to the fact that it was a favourite resort ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... night nursery and a nursery-living room in this house, the latter overlooking the mews, through the curving iron rails of a tiny balcony. Below us my father occupied a small bedroom and a large sitting-room, the latter being the 'first floor front.' ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... school, which had now been removed to a fine modern building. The two rooms rented for this pioneer free kindergarten of the Pacific Coast were (Alas!) in the second story but were large and sunny. A broad flight of twenty wooden steps led from street to first floor and a long stairway connected that floor with the one above. If anyone had realized what those fifty or sixty stairs meant to the new enterprise, in labor and weariness, in wasted time and strength of teachers and children—but it was difficult ...
— The Girl and the Kingdom - Learning to Teach • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... a week. Could I pay her in advance? I did so, of course. I would have to carry up my water for washing from the first floor morning and night and care for my room. On the landing below I made arrangements with the tenant for board at ten cents a meal. Madame Courier was also a French Canadian, a ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... caves 100 yards apart, in Brown's Valley, 11 miles southwest from Guntersville. The larger has a descent of 21 feet from the front to the general level of the first floor. All this part is well lighted. The drainage from several acres of the mountain side above pours over the roof at the entrance and runs down the inner slope. It has worn a gully, and the first level it reaches is quite muddy. Leaves and trash 3 or 4 ...
— Archeological Investigations - Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 76 • Gerard Fowke
... agreeable lady, Signora Annetta, we were recommended by letters from the Venetian resident at Milan, to Abate Toaldo, professor of astronomy; who wished to do all in his power to oblige and entertain us. His observatory is a good one; but the learned amiable scholar, who resides in the first floor of it, complained to us that he was sickly, old, and poor; three bad qualifications, as he observed, for the amusement of travellers, who commonly arrive hungry for novelty, and thirsty for information. His quadrant was very fine, the planetarium or ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... first floor in the back drawing-room, whose furniture consisted of a deal table, Windsor chairs, a row of hat-pegs, a wooden box containing coal, half a poker, two unshaded lights; the walls, from which all the paper had been torn off, were ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... head a little, and found I could look, not only through the glass cover of my box, but also through the glass panes in the side of the covered vehicle. I saw houses, empty and silent, with neither light nor life about any of them excepting one. In that house a window was open on the first floor, and a figure all in white stood looking down into the street. It ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... surrounding the house; for by closing and barricading the garden doors on either side, all approach would be limited to the water-front, unless a very wide circuit was made outside the grounds. The drawing-room in which the family usually spent their evenings was on the first floor at this side, and here no doubt the enemy would direct ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... and park, which equalled my expectation. The house is one square mass. The offices are below. The rooms of elegance on the first floor, with two stories of bedchambers, very well disposed above it. The bedchambers have low windows, which abates the dignity of the house. The park has one artificial ruin[1241], and wants water; there is, however, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... new arrivals to-morrow," said the good woman, who was always ready for friendly gossip. "The apartment upon the first floor," and she nodded to me significantly, and with good-natured encouragement. "Perhaps you may get pupils," she added. "They are Americans, and speak only English, and there is a young ...
— Esmeralda • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... rupees—absolutely ready in my pocket and very much at his service. Oh! a loan; a loan of course—and if an introduction to a man (in Rangoon) who could put some work in his way . . . Why! with the greatest pleasure. I had pen, ink, and paper in my room on the first floor And even while I was speaking I was impatient to begin the letter—day, month, year, 2.30 A.M. . . . for the sake of our old friendship I ask you to put some work in the way of Mr. James So-and-so, in whom, &c., &c. ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... talked to us in chapel this morning on the subject of being honest about our domestic work. Of course some girls are used to working and can hurry, while others... don't even know how to tie their shoestrings or braid their hair properly when they first come.... My work is to dust the center on the first floor. It's easy, and if I didn't take lots of time to look at the pictures and palms and things while I am doing it I couldn't possibly make it last an hour. But I'm thorough, so my conscience didn't prick me a bit. But some of the girls got as red as beets ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... there the day before in a fiacre, passed through the courts on foot, ill clad, like a common sort of woman going to see some officer at Meudon, and, by a back staircase, was admitted to Monseigneur who passed some hours with her in a little apartment on the first floor. In time she came there with a lady's-maid, her parcel in her pocket, on the evenings of the ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... on the 850 acre plantation which Colonel Bridger had purchased from Captain Upton. There was on the place a brick house when the Bridger inventory was taken. There were four rooms on the first floor, including the children's chamber and the dining room, with two rooms in an upper story. Also a "new house" is listed in which there were the hall, the parlor and the lower chamber on the first floor, and on the upper floor three rooms and a "gallery" ...
— Domestic Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century - Jamestown 350th Anniversary Historical Booklet Number 17 • Annie Lash Jester
... the ocean on the right sort of summer day? Beyond the bar steamers could just be seen emitting their long, smoky ribbons over the water, that from the distance seemed so close to the sky as to be merely a first floor with that blue mottled ceiling. A few daring swimmers would work their way out in canoes, taking the rollers at constant risk of submersion, then come sailing in like a shot, never making a break in the dash until past the bathers, and out on the very beach each little bark would triumphantly ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... that first floor, above those French plate-glass shop-fronts; our biggest daily. Conservative, or, rather, I should say, Parliamentary. We have the Parliamentary party here of which the actual Chief of the State, Don Juste Lopez, is the head; a very sagacious man, I think. A first-rate intellect, sir. The Democratic ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... house in which I had taken up my abode. I occupied the front part of the first floor; my apartments consisted of an immense parlour, and a small chamber on one side in which I slept; the parlour, notwithstanding its size, contained very little furniture: a few chairs, a table, and a species of ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... into the bedroom, for the house is one built for the poor, with no communication between the different rooms, so that separate families, if need be, may inhabit each. Now, however, let us grant that some person has achieved the miracle of getting into the front room, first floor, 18 feet from the ground. At half-past six, or thereabouts, he cuts the throat of the sleeping occupant. How is he then to get out without attracting the attention of the now roused landlady? But let us concede him that miracle, too. How is he to go away ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... and never left off trying until they got to Austin Friars, where, in a very dark passage on the first floor, oddly situated at the back of a house, across some leads, they found a little blear-eyed glass door up in one corner, with Mr FIPS painted on it in characters which were meant to be transparent. There was also a wicked old sideboard hiding ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... each to the next street below the descent was forty or fifty feet. The fronts of the houses were level with the street they faced, but their rear first floors were propped on lofty stilts; a man could stand at a rear first floor window of a C street house and look down the chimneys of the row of houses below him facing D street. It was a laborious climb, in that thin atmosphere, to ascend from D to A street, and you were panting and out of breath when you got there; but you could turn ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... an entrance being forced. The postern gate here had, during the night, been strengthened with stones; and articles of heavy furniture piled against it. A few men were placed at the lower windows; the main body on the first floor, where the casements were large; and the rest distributed at the upper windows, to vex the enemy by their fire, ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... house. These doors are always panelled in elaborate geometrical designs, and the principal one, which is reached by a short flight of stone steps, is set in a lofty recess, the trefoil head of which is richly carved. This gives access to the reception-room on the first floor. One side is entirely open to the air, and through three archways connected by a low balustrade of perforated stonework overlooks the court. The floor is paved in tiles or marble of various colours, usually in some large design, in the centre of which is ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt • R. Talbot Kelly
... private rooms of the Duke and Duchess, and they are still approached by a great winding staircase in one of the torricini. Adorned in indestructible or irremovable materials, they retain some traces of their ancient splendour. On the first floor, opening on the vaulted loggia, we find a little chapel encrusted with lovely work in stucco and marble; friezes of bulls, sphinxes, sea-horses, and foliage; with a low relief of Madonna and Child in the manner of Mino da Fiesole. Close by is a small study with inscriptions ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... the first floor of the Central Building, on the wall of the south or 40th Street ...
— Handbook of The New York Public Library • New York Public Library
... the first floor above, consisting of the dining-room, library, and consulting-room, etcetera, were left, as usual, tenantless and dark at night. On the drawing-room floor Mrs McTougall lay in her comfortable bed, sound asleep and dreamless. ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne
... shining into the front windows of a room on the first floor of a high tenement down on the east side. A snow-white bed stood far enough from the wall to allow it to be made up with perfect ease. In front of it stood a screen covered with pretty chintz; white muslin curtains hung at the windows; everything was spotless from the kalsomined ceiling ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various |
