"Flight of steps" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mother. He soon removed to the "Swan," because it was near Duncan Lodge, the home of his friends, the MacKenzies, where his sister Rose had found protection. The Swan was a long, two-storied structure with combed roof, tall chimneys at the ends, and a front piazza with a long flight of steps leading down to the street. It was famous away back in the beginning of the century, having been built about 1795. When it sheltered Poe it wore a look of having stood there from the beginning of time and been forgotten by ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... Talbot, you don't understand. But I don't blame you; how should you? All the same, we poor people have our little pride; the girl of whom I speak—well, I found her starving in her miserable little room, because she was too proud to descend a flight of steps to mine, to ask for the bread for which ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... as far as it went; then, going out on deck, climbed a flight of steps and found himself in the only part of the ship which was ever even comparatively private. The main herd of passengers preferred the promenade deck, ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... of a huge construction in opus incertum. This building had at least two stories of colonnade facing the south, and at the north side of the terrace a series of arches above which in the center rose a round temple which was approached by a semicircular flight of steps.[101] This building, belonging to the time of Sulla, presented a very imposing appearance from the forum below the town. It has no connection with the lower temple unless perhaps ...
— A Study Of The Topography And Municipal History Of Praeneste • Ralph Van Deman Magoffin
... with comfortable chairs, rugs, writing-tables, books, and flowers. At one end a dirzee squats with a sewing-machine, surrounded by white stuff in various stages of progress for the Mem Sahib and the children. From the middle of the verandah a broad flight of steps, flanked on either side by growing plants in pots, leads down to the road, and across the road lie the tennis-lawns and the flower-garden. I have read that one of the most pathetic things about this Land of Exile is the useless effort to make English flowers grow. In Rika they must ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... course, was crowded. People of many nations sat behind and on each side of Meyer Isaacson, walked up and down the broad flight of steps that connected the terrace with the pavement, stared, gesticulated, gossiped. There was a clatter of china. Girls in long veils munched cakes, and, more delicately, ate ices tinted pink, pale green, and almond colour. Elderly ladies sat low in basket chairs, almost dehumanized ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... flight of steps after shooting the third shaft, we came upon a scene which filled us with wonder. There, far down in the earth, lay a tiny tranquil lake of inky blackness, its borders outlined with blazing torches. At the extreme end were the entwined letters ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... for which we were bound was situated at no great distance from Kensington Park, and telling the cabman to wait, Harley and I walked up a narrow, paved path, mounted a flight of steps, and rang the bell beside a somewhat time-worn door, above which was an old-fashioned fanlight ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... of life at Madame Laguerre's. I discover that there is no boat on my side of the stream. But that is of no moment. On the other side, within a biscuit's toss, so narrow is it, there are two boats; and on the landing-wharf, which is only a few planks wide, supporting a tumble-down flight of steps leading to a vine-covered terrace above, ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... curving lobby, hung with pictures and furnished with velvet-covered benches where several unrecognised persons of both sexes looked at them without hostility, and arrived at an opening, on the right, from which, by a short flight of steps, there was a descent to one of the wings of the stage. Here Miriam paused, in silent excitement, like a young warrior arrested by a glimpse of the battle-field. Her vision was carried off through a lane of light to the point of vantage from which the actor ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... that impresses a stranger is the number, size and beauty of the public buildings. The Town Hall looks not unlike many American city structures—as it is classic, with Doric pillars and an imposing flight of steps; but nearly all the other buildings are of Indian architecture, with cupolas and domes, recessed windows and massive, pointed gateways. They are built of a dark stone, and the walls (three and four feet in thickness) ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... stump of his cigarette into a rose bush with a little gesture of resignation. Almost without knowing it, he had strolled into the rosery up a shallow flight of steps cut into the bank of green turf, which ran along the side of the house facing the library window to the corner of the house where it met the clipped box-hedge of ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... the island there was an opening with a brazen flight of steps leading down to a splendid cabin. Whilst he stood there thinking things over a bit, he saw two heavy dog-fish swimming close by—they were, at least, twelve to ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... marveling. But before he was halfway down the first flight of steps he had forgotten everything except those incredible words—"Samuel, I love you!" They rang in his head like a ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... happened, but seeing not hearing Professor Wiseman's reassuring laugh and noticing him plunge after M. Desplaines, the boys rightly concluded that the aperture was a subterranean entrance to the foot of the falls. And so it proved. A steep flight of steps was cut in a deep cleft of the cliff down to the water's edge. A few minutes after they had begun the descent, the little party stood on the brink of the whirling pool into which the mighty falls roared their ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... spite of its promise, showed no performance. The little party, lantern bearing, descended a flight of steps, hardly able to make each other hear, so great was the echoing splash going on around, and stopped at the bottom in a dank, dripping, stone chamber, close to the ...
— Will of the Mill • George Manville Fenn
... at the street corner, I don't see as many as four people at once going to church, though I see as many as four churches with their steeples clamouring for people. I choose my church, and go up the flight of steps to the great entrance in the tower. A mouldy tower within, and like a neglected washhouse. A rope comes through the beamed roof, and a man in the corner pulls it and clashes the bell—a whity-brown man, whose clothes were once black- -a man with ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... walking the whole length of the aisle, left it again at the porter's porch at the farther end. Here we passed through a low door on to the stone flight of steps, and at once began to ascend. "There are a party of your countrymen up before us," said Maria; "the porter says that they went through the lodge half an hour since." "I hope they will return before we are on the top," ...
— John Bull on the Guadalquivir from Tales from all Countries • Anthony Trollope
... as 'twas safer to leave him at the Cow and Horn;—especially one who has corners on his conscience. He must search for—the kitchen. This place was below stairs, and he stole this way and that to find a flight of steps. Treading softly, listening intently and looking ravenously for opportunity to plunder, for there was treasure somewhere about the monastery, this was certain, and he might as well have part of it as ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... when I wanted to rub him he said he was a kind of Aladdin's lamp, and wouldn't be responsible if I did. "Supposing a genie appeared and formed fours, or the slop-pail rotted aside, disclosing a flight of steps." Result, to-day in Bond Street he turned suddenly to look at a passing car, and had a seizure. He just gave a yell as if he'd been shot, and then stood stock still with his head all on one side. Of course I was horrified, but he said he was quite all right, and explained that it was muscular rheumatism. ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... springing back with a dry rattle; and at length I came out on the grassy top of the chemin de ronde. I walked along it to the gate-tower, looking down into the court, which was just below me. Not a human being was in sight; and neither were the dogs. I found a flight of steps in the thickness of the wall and went down them; and when I emerged again into the court, there stood the circle of dogs, the golden-brown one a little ahead of the others, the black greyhound shivering in ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... stated periods, opened his house to all that were willing to pay for being instructed in the events of futurity, or for having the secrets of the present or past revealed to them. On entering the house, and descending a flight of steps, we found, at the farther end of a dark room, lighted with a chandelier suspended from the ceiling, an elderly man, with a long gray beard, and a thin, pale countenance, deeply furrowed with thought rather than care. He received us politely, and then resumed ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... very little time to contemplate this scene; the big man seized my right arm, and his companion my left; between them, they rushed me up a flight of steps immediately inside ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... before his death; and is, perhaps, one of the finest in the world. It is five hundred and seventy-five feet square, and surrounded by a high wall, with a magnificent cloister all around within.[10] On the outside is a magnificent gateway, at the top of a noble flight of steps twenty-four feet high. The whole gateway is one hundred and twenty feet in height, and the same in breadth, and presents beyond the wall five sides of an octagon, of which the front face is eighty feet wide. The arch in the centre of this space is ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... to the right, and reaches the depression between the two summits of the Capitoline hill. Leaving the arx on the left, we reach by a long flight of steps the greatest of all Roman temples, placed on a long platform with solid substructures of Etruscan workmanship, part of which is still to be seen in the garden of the German Embassy. The temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... A flight of steps led slantwise to the bottom, and at the foot of the tower, stripped to the waist, they beheld two men busily filling great sacks with a ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... silver trumpets, and the trumpeters blew a mighty blast. Let me tell you, it was enough to send the shivers down your spine, that trumpet call was! It seemed as if I never had climbed a longer flight of steps. But at last I found myself bowing before the King and Queen. The King, who wore a brand new uniform, just like this one I have on, beckoned a herald to ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey
... climbed the flight of steps that led to that mysterious second story door, and Dan rapped. The door opened promptly and Peg Bowen stood before us, in what seemed exactly the same costume she had worn on the memorable day when we had come, bearing gifts, to propitiate her in the ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... under the old wrought-iron arch that once held an oil-lamp, and up a short but rather steep flight of steps, which led to a brick porch built out at the side. Then he let himself in, and stood spellbound with perplexed amazement,—for he was in ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... we will suppose that we have just landed, and, bags in hand, ascended the flight of steps that conduct passengers, as it were, from the briny ocean on to ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... but in the semi-darkness there was little to see. He was in a corridor, of which the walls were simply whitewashed, and the floor bare stone; but as they passed onward, down several passages, and up more than one flight of steps, the proportions of the place expanded. The ceilings grew loftier, and the corridors wider. Yet there was no attempt anywhere at decoration or furniture of any sort. The place was like an early-day prison—huge, ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Row, it should be said, stands to this day (1911); but the New River has been covered in. There is, however, no difficulty in reproducing the situation. One descends from the front door by a curved flight of steps, a little path from which, parallel with the New River, takes one out into Colebrooke Row (or rather Duncan Terrace, as this part of the Row is now called). Under the front door-steps is another door from which Dyer may possibly have emerged; if ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... guilty look in its evident desire to conceal itself; and the steep narrow streets, the curious passages where it is scarcely possible for two people to pass, and the little courts which look like culs-de-sac but have a hidden flight of steps leading down to another passage, seem to be purposely intricate and confusing. For I can imagine a revenue cutter chasing a boat into Robin Hood's Bay, and I can see the smugglers hastily landing on the beach and making for the town, followed by the Excise officers, who ...
— Yorkshire—Coast & Moorland Scenes • Gordon Home
... the situation in England in terms that roughly fit the facts in the United States also. He suggests that the different occupations may be thought of "as resembling a long flight of steps of unequal breadth, some of them being so broad as to act as landing stages." "Or even better still," he writes, "we may picture to ourselves two flights of stairs, one representing the 'hard-handed industries' and the other 'the soft-handed ...
— The Settlement of Wage Disputes • Herbert Feis
... asked George, following the assistant manager down the broad flight of steps leading to the office. Then, as I pressed up close to Mr. Slater's other side, "She was by herself, wasn't she, in the half ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... the most strenuous sightseeing, going to the cathedral first, which is quite near, its apse blocking the street on which the Cheval Blanc stands. From the west front of the cathedral, which is very narrow in proportion to its height, the ground suddenly descends to the river, a long, broad flight of steps taking the place of a street. There are, on the facade, some fine carvings of armed warriors; but the side walls are flat and plain, solid masonry replacing the flying buttresses which lighten most of the French churches. ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... when it came to a stop, for the vibrations ceased. Only a moment passed before he felt himself lifted by two pairs of hands and a moment later realized by the sound and the motion that he was being carried up a long flight of steps. He heard a door open and shut and he sniffed a strange odor; food cooking and smoke, it seemed to suggest, but strange food and strange smoke. Another flight of steps was mounted, another door was opened, and Teeny-bits felt himself deposited upon something ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... come early; others always arrive before me," said Jenkins to himself as he saw the file in which his brougham took its place; but, certain of not having to wait, with head carried high, and an air of tranquil authority, he ascended that official flight of steps which is mounted every day by so many trembling ambitions, so many ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... the fire, and from it passes out of the house by way of a chimney. Under Mr. Duncan's supervision the Indians have built a church in the village large enough to accommodate the whole population. It is clapboarded on the outside, and with its steeple, buttresses, and broad flight of steps ascending to the front entrance, presents an imposing appearance. The wood (of the interior at least) is cedar, the odour from which greets one's ...
— Metlakahtla and the North Pacific Mission • Eugene Stock
... is the seat of the Duke of Devonshire, built by the last Earl of Burlington, whose taste and skill as an architect have been frequently recorded. The ascent to the house is by a noble double flight of steps, on one side of which is a statue of Palladio, and on the other that of Inigo Jones. The portico is supported by six fluter Corinthian pillars, with a pediment; and a dome at the top enlightens a beautiful octagonal saloon. "This house," says ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 269, August 18, 1827 • Various
... their breasts. In front of me I had the facade of a building which, according to the little plan of my route Sebright drew for me, was the Palace of Justice. It had a peristyle of ugly columns at the top of a flight of steps. A cordon of infantry kept the roadway clear. The singing went on without interruption; and I saw tall saints of wood, gilt and painted red and blue, pass, borne shoulder-high, swaying and pitching above the heads of the crowd like the ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... wall of the studio is projected and carried on columns, beyond which the stairs rise. So that figures coming through the hall in the light, begin mounting the stairs in the shadow, and re-emerge into the light, as the stairs turn, with a very varied and striking effect. By the first short flight of steps, and between the two columns, is a seat made of a Persian chest or cassone, beautiful and unusual in shape, and richly inlaid. Lord Leighton bought it in Rhodes or Lindos, and was very proud of it. It could not be removed and sold with the rest of ...
— Frederic Lord Leighton - An Illustrated Record of His Life and Work • Ernest Rhys
... woman-like she went forward. Then the sweet, clinging scent of a rose bed drew her like a magnet. She descended a flight of steps and gained the second terrace. She thought of Trenholme and the picture, and the impulse to stroll as far as the lake seized her irresistibly. Why not! The grass was short, and the dew would not be heavy. Even if she wetted her feet, what did it matter, ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... grating and swinging himself up to it, but all means of following him were destroyed. Quickly recollecting himself, Heimbert lost no time in idly gazing, but hastened through the adjacent halls in search of another flight of steps which would lead him to ...
— The Two Captains • Friedrich de La Motte-Fouque
... able to find Alan Porter without trouble. The true difficulty of his quest soon dawned upon him. Wedged into the pushing, shoving, hurrying crowd, in three minutes he had completely lost himself. A dozen times he rearranged his bearings, taking a certain flight of steps leading up to the grand stand as the base of his peregrinations; a dozen times he returned to this point, having accomplished ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... flight of steps to the "Merveille," as the convent building is called, and well it deserves its name, from its elegance, its boldness, and its position, with a wall of above one hundred feet high, and of immense length, rising from the rock and supported ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... of our Lord and the apostles: this crossed the arch at the foot of the steps leading to the altar and seats of the clergy. (9) Beneath the altar platform, and entered by doorways on each side of the flight of steps, was the crypt or confessio, the traditional place of martyrdom of St Peter, and the resort of pilgrims to the tomb of the apostles. The hallowed place ...
— The Ground Plan of the English Parish Church • A. Hamilton Thompson
... three urchins were running down a long and very steep flight of steps, when the foremost stumbled and fell headlong twenty to thirty feet, and was only stopped near the bottom by doubling backward around the newel-post. It looked as though his back was broken, and that he was a dead small boy, but ...
— Good Stories from The Ladies Home Journal • Various
... Mallinson arrived. He saw Drake at the top of the flight of steps in the vestibule, and hesitated, perceiving ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... again, but when he reached the low flight of steps to the front door he was reeling drunkenly from side to side. He fumbled for the knob, and it ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... Christian friends there, we had much pleasant intercourse during the few days we remained. We of course saw the sights of the grand old imperial city—the Juma Musjid said to be the largest mosque in Asia, a most commanding building on a small rocky elevation, to which you ascend by a lofty flight of steps, and which has a most magnificent court paved with granite inlaid with marble; the palace, so far as it was open to visitors; the Chandnee Chauk, the great open street and market-place with a fine stream of water flowing through it; and, ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... splendid and glowing frescos; or where some monumental statuary or bas-relief, or mosaic picture filled up an arched niche). Its architecture was a dome, resting on four great arches; and in size it would alone have been a church. In the centre of the mosaic pavement there was a flight of steps, down which we went, and saw a group in marble, representing the nativity of Christ, which, judging by the unction with which our guide talked about it, must have been of peculiar sanctity. I hate to leave this chapel and ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... off their heavy shoes and leaving them in the doorway, they ascended a flight of steps which terminated in front of a door which entered the chapel underneath the bell cot, while another flight led upwards to the gallery, from which all the principal chambers on ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... L500. My name is Dalton!' He then said if he had only seen the bars of the station-house window, as he was entering, he would have sent a ball through his conductor. He further said that he had been in the Police Court that morning, and had recollected going up a flight of steps which he did not see that night, as he had been led in the back way, and had he but seen these steps, his guide would have been a dead man. He was then handcuffed and searched, and two large horse-pistols heavily loaded and capped, besides a small one, were ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... I guessed his purpose, had unbolted the hall-door, and stood on the flight of steps, in full view of ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... constant dampness, the slowly seeping water. The ice house stood back of the dwelling, by the side of the small barn and beyond a number of apple trees: it was a square structure of boards, with no opening save a low door under the peak of the roof with a small platform and exterior flight of steps. ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... stone parapet with a heavy balustrade, ornamented from space to space with huge grotesque figures of animals seated upon their haunches, among which the favourite bear was repeatedly introduced. Placed in the middle of the terrace between a sashed-door opening from the house and the central flight of steps, a huge animal of the same species supported on his head and fore-paws a sun-dial of large circumference, inscribed with more diagrams than Edward's ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... room with its hole in the roof, how did he fare? He had gone up a stone staircase, through a long passage and down a short flight of steps, into a room large, somewhat low in ceiling, and, with the exception of the hole, most comfortably appointed. It felt warm, rather too warm, and he did not replenish the fire, preferring to let it go out. The room and the way to it were both very familiar to him, and, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... still he might," said Mrs. Brown. But no Toby was to be seen. And, really, being a trick pony, he might have walked up the stairs, which were strong, and broad, and not very steep. I have seen a big horse, in a circus, go up a flight of steps, so why couldn't ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue and Their Shetland Pony • Laura Lee Hope
... broad flight of steps in order to obtain a good view of the grotto, an oval opening in the rocks made to look like a stalactite cave, with scores and hundreds of ex-votos in the shape of crutches. Judging from this display, there ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... curiosity as Carl led the way to the star chamber. As they passed the library door he had a glimpse of a pleasant family group; Mr. Hazeltine with his paper, Bess and Louise studying their geography lesson, and Helen playing with Mr. Smith. An airy vision awaited them at the top of the first flight of steps; Carie in her nightgown, holding out her arms and calling, "I want to tiss you dood-night," ...
— The Story of the Big Front Door • Mary Finley Leonard
... mill-stone. Groping her way, her hand touched the stone wall; but she drew it back hastily, so damp and cold the stones were. Darker and darker here; she must light the lantern before she ventured down the long flight of steps. The match spurted, and now the tiny yellow flame sprang up and shed a faint light on the immediate space around her. It only made the outer darkness seem more intense. But no matter, she could see two steps in front of her; and holding the lantern steadily before ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... Scotland Yard, Fairfield consumed ten cigarettes in sharp jerky puffs. Yet he was scarcely conscious of lighting one. Indeed, as he climbed the wide flight of steps at the main entrance, it seemed as though no palpable interval of time had elapsed since he had been practically turned out of her father's house ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... the street by an iron railing, wrought with fantastic figures. They saw a flight of red freestone steps ascending to a portal, above which was a balcony and balustrade. Misery and desolation give men the right of free passage everywhere. Let us suppose, then, that they mounted the flight of steps and passed into the Province House. Making their way into one of the apartments, they beheld a richly-clad gentleman, seated in a stately chair, with gilding upon the carved work of its back, and a gilded lion's head at the summit. ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Wellesley had just built. The house itself is embosomed in trees, the mango, the teak, and the graceful bamboo. Just below it, but outside of Serampore, are the deserted temple of Bullubpoor and the Ghat of the same name, a fine flight of steps up which thousands of pilgrims flock every June to the adjoining shrine and monstrous car of Jagganath. David Brown had not been long in Aldeen when he secured the deserted temple and converted it into a Christian oratory, ever ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... road to the city, never slackening her pace till the lights along the way grew thicker, and she came upon the pavements. Crossing the great thoroughfare, she turned into a narrow street, and from that descended a short flight of steps into a narrower one lit only by a great lamp in front of a door, with the word 'Tanzhaus' above it; she went in here unhesitatingly. A large room with a bar on one side, small tables in the middle, and a stage at the farther end; some tables had occupants, drinking and looking at ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... into a sort of cistern, invited Morgan to enter, closed it as carefully as he had the outer door, touched with his foot a stone which seemed to be accidentally lying there, disclosed a ring and raised a slab, which concealed a flight of steps leading down to a subterraneous passage. This passage had a rounded roof and was wide enough to admit two ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... little grass-plot at Clapham, but larger. It consists of a fine sheet of turf, with a gravel walk round it, and flower-beds scattered over it. It looks beautiful just now after the rains, and I hear that it keeps its verdure during a great part of the year. A flight of steps leads down from my library into the garden, and it is so well shaded that you may walk there till ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... was on the middle flight, the steps of which were composed of the seven precious substances. The king of Brahma-loka [4] also made a flight of silver steps appear on the right side, where he was seen attending with a white chowry in his hand. Sakra, Ruler of Devas, made a flight of steps of purple gold on the left side, where he was seen attending and holding an umbrella of the seven precious substances. An innumerable multitude of the devas followed Buddha in his descent. When he was ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... to walk away, dragging Hilda with her. The policeman, inspecting them from a distance, coughed and withdrew. They climbed a flight of steps on the far side of the pier, crossed the promenade, and went ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... gaudy barques fastened to the land by silken cords. The colonnade terminates towards the water by a very noble marble balustrade, the top of which is covered with groups of various kinds of fish in high relief. At each angle of the colonnade, the balustrade gives way to a flight of steps which are guarded by crocodiles of immense size, admirably sculptured and all in white marble. On the farther side, the colonnade opens into a great number of very brilliant banqueting-rooms, which you enter by withdrawing curtains of scarlet cloth, a colour ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 553, June 23, 1832 • Various
... enough, where the yellow blinds were nearly always drawn over the front windows, and the summer's dust collected in the corners of the high flight of steps, and was blown round and round in little eddies, along with bits of string and snippings of patterns or shreds of silk and cotton. The front door stood open every day from ten till five, to give buyers access to the warehouse, in which Anton Dormeur—old, ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... near the river, facing eastward, and standing four-square, with an immense veranda about its sides, and a flight of steps in front, spreading broadly downward, as we open our arms to a child. From the veranda nine miles of river were seen; and in their compass near at hand, the shady garden full of rare and beautiful flowers; farther away broad fields of cane ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... our way e'er we gained the Tabard. For upon old London Bridge, the first stone bridge, built in the end of the twelfth century, there stood in the very midst of it a chapel of marvellous beauty with a crypt, from which by a flight of steps one might reach the river, dedicated in honour of St Thomas Becket. This chapel was built in memory of St Thomas by one Peter, priest of St Mary Colechurch, where the martyr had been christened. It was this ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton
... of St. Thomas at Kuching was consecrated by Bishop Wilson, of Calcutta. On the afternoon of the 18th, I was returning from church, and mounting the flight of steps which led to the porch of the house, I saw a large steamer turn the corner of the Pedungen Reach and anchor above the fort. It was the Semiramis bringing the Bishop, Archdeacon Pratt and Mrs. Pratt, the ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... now summoned them. Presently the garrison was formed in the order we have described in our first volume; that is to say, presenting three equal sides of a square. The vacant space fronted the guard-house, near one extremity of which was to be seen a flight of steps communicating with the rampart, where the flag-staff was erected. Several men were employed at this staff, passing strong ropes through iron pulleys that were suspended from the extreme top, while in the basement of the staff itself, to a height of about twenty ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... Maggiore, and the Borghese Garden at Rome, are fair types. And as I recall the sunny vistas of this last, and the noontide loungings upon the marble seats, counting white flecks of statues amid the green of cypresses, and watching the shadow which some dense-topped pine flings upon a marble flight of steps or a marble balustrade, I cannot sneer at the Italian gardening, or wish it were other than it is. The art-life of Italy is the crowning and the overlapping life. The Campagna seems only a bit of foreground to carry the leaping arches of the aqueducts, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... A flight of steps rose steeply from the threshold. Hortense peered up. Above, it was faintly light These must be the attic stairs, Hortense thought, and the attic was not completely dark because the cupola lighted it faintly. ...
— The Cat in Grandfather's House • Carl Henry Grabo
... down the long steep flight of steps, and soon found herself in the street. The fog had grown thicker than ever. It was very dense indeed now. It was so full of sulphuric acid that it smarted the eyes and hurt the throats and lungs of the unfortunate people who were obliged ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... the cathedral of Ravello is formed like an ambo of the antique type. That is to say, it is a long parallelogram with flat sides, raised upon pillars, and approached by a flight of steps. These steps are enclosed within richly-ornamented walls, and stand distinct from the pulpit; a short bridge connects the two. The six pillars supporting the ambo itself are slender twisted columns with classic capitals. Three rest on lions, three on lionesses, admirably carved in different ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... morning, when Abe came down the street from the subway, a bareheaded girl sat on the short flight of steps leading to Potash & Perlmutter's store door. As Abe approached, the girl rose ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... emptying, and all the inhabitants of Chamont bowed before her with extreme respect. An old man even kissed her hand, and a woman wanted to fall on her knees. Truly this was a potent queen, full of years and honors. She mounted her flight of steps and vanished ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... soul had ever before advanced. Worst of all, he could not find the way by which he had entered, for high crags rose on every side and held him prisoner. Presently, to his amazement, he beheld a narrow flight of steps cut in the solid rock of the mountainside. Up these steps climbed Giles, and as he mounted higher, the stairs began to twist and turn amid the crags and pinnacles. At the end of an hour's ascent, he found himself at a turn from which the Thunder ...
— The Firelight Fairy Book • Henry Beston
... ladder-like flight of steps led to the upper chamber, and down these, at the very moment of Mistress Nutter's entrance, descended a stalwart personage, who eyed her fiercely as he leapt upon the floor. There was something in the man's truculent physiognomy, and strange and oblique vision, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Bristol Cathedral is a stone pulpit, ascended to by means of a circular flight of steps; the sides are panelled and ornamented with escutcheons surrounded by scroll-work, and it bears the ...
— The Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture, Elucidated by Question and Answer, 4th ed. • Matthew Holbeche Bloxam
... of my walk my feet suddenly went from under me, and I found myself falling I knew not where. In reality it was only a drop of about three feet down a short flight of steps. Such a noise as my fall made, however, was surely never heard, but still no sound came. Then Beckenham fumbled his way cautiously down the steps to my side, and whispered an inquiry as to what had happened. I told him in as few ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... which reigned everywhere was ominous. After passing across the outer courtyard, the rajah was about to enter the vestibule of the hall of audience, when, drawing aside a curtain which hung across it, he started back with an exclamation of horror and dismay. The whole passage, as well as the flight of steps leading to the upper storey, was strewn ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... use of the priests and attendants of the shrines, the main temple, with its huge red pillars supporting a heavy Chinese roof of grey tiles, is approached through a colossal open hall which leads into a stone courtyard. At one end of this courtyard is a broad flight of steps—the three or four lower ones of stone, and the upper ones of red wood. At these the visitor is warned by a notice to take off his boots, a request which Englishmen, with characteristic disregard ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... Archangel, holding in his hands a model of it. The Virgin is seen through the open door of a house, and in an open loggia above are peacocks and other birds. Amid all the rich detail, the significance of the group of figures at the top of a flight of steps must not be missed, amongst which a child and a poet are the only two who are represented as ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... regard the renovated Ramsey house with admiration. It stood close to the street, as is the case with so many old houses in rural New England. It had a tiny brick strip of yard in front, on which was set, on either side of the stoop, a great century-plant in a pot. Above them rose a curving flight of steps to a broad veranda, supported with Corinthian pillars, which were now upright and glistening with white paint, as ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... arm in a grip like a vice, and marched him down a long stone corridor and down a flight of steps. On the way he picked up two other men, also in khaki, who followed him; the four passed through a series of underground passages, and entered a stone cell with a solid steel door, which they clanged behind them—a sound that was like ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... building, from whose open windows an aromatic breath wandered out into the summer air. As they crossed the worn threshold, Athalia stopped and caught her breath in the overpowering scent of drying herbs; then they followed Brother Nathan up a shaky flight of steps to the loft. Here some elderly women, sitting on low benches, were sorting over great piles of herbs in silence—the silence, apparently, of peace and meditation. Two of them were dressed like world's ...
— The Way to Peace • Margaret Deland
... started once more on her way. Through the great doors, which were of weathered oak thickly studded with nails, over which hung the family coat of arms, a shield, azure, three quatrefoils, argent, the girl and the old man passed across the paved courtyard, up a flight of steps to the terrace which led to the porch and from thence to ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... I have hinted. Imagine this hall to end in an open archway beyond which is a still larger hall, and beyond this yet another and still larger one, and so on. At the end of the vista, dimly seen, a flight of steps, like the steps of Ara Coeli at Rome, ascend out of sight. Higher and higher these steps appear to go as one draws nearer their base. But at last I came under a huge archway and beheld the summit of these steps, and upon it the Grand Lunar ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... imposing chocolate-colored expanse, relieved by facings and window cornices of florid sculpture, and by a couple of dusty rose trees which clambered over the balconies and the portico. This last-mentioned feature was approached by a monumental flight of steps. ...
— An International Episode • Henry James
... verandah running along in front, it had red curtains that would draw over the lower halves of the windows and hints of chintz at the upper portions; the door was open and revealed a tall clock in the hall, a stand of flowers, and a cat asleep in a large round chair; at one side a flight of steps led down to the kitchen door at which a buxom maid in bare arms stood in a pink gown and a pinker face, and at the other side was the boarded square that held the pump—the village pump—around which were gathered five ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... of their captors, when he saw that the ambassador and Robard had made their way up the short flight of steps. ...
— The Boy Allies in Great Peril • Clair W. Hayes
... draped and curtained, and opened one foot at the top with monotonous regularity. No one was ever seen leaning out of them, or even pushing back the curtains to widen their view. There was a broad flight of steps, and a ponderous door which, when opened, disclosed a long hall, at the end of which was a gaily flowered conservatory. Instinct made people tread gently upon the thick Turkey rugs that were laid upon the polished floor; there was a stillness ...
— 'Me and Nobbles' • Amy Le Feuvre
... wilderness of spires, minarets, arches, and what not, more picturesque than any cathedral I have seen. It stands high on a sort of platform overlooking a military parade ground, and reached by a long flight of steps. ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... he related his experience. He said he had stooped down for the key of his door, which he had placed for safety under the mat; when in this position he felt himself violently dragged across the hall, and flung down a flight of steps. With this agrees somewhat the experience of a Captain Jarves, as related by him to Captain Marvell Hull. Attracted by a strange rattling noise in his bedroom, he endeavoured to open the door of ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... about twelve feet square; the walls were fairly smooth, but the roof was uneven—it was evidently an enlarged cave. From this cave-chamber there was a flight of steps to a passage above, and the Fakir was on the point of ascending them when he heard quick footsteps coming along the passage towards him, which caused him to hurry back into the passage he had left; then, turning off his light, ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... happens. Except for the miserly splitting, here and there in the older edifices, of an inadequate ground floor into a mezzanine and a shallow box (a device employed more frankly and usefully with an outer flight of steps on the East Side), there is nothing mean in the whole street from the Plaza to Washington Square. A lot of utterly mediocre architecture there is, of course—the same applies inevitably to every long street ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... an apparently endless flight of steps, and into the vestibule of a large old-fashioned house, once the stately residence of a famous man, but now given over to the undesirable class of persons into whose clutches I had fallen. An aged negress tugged at an immense paneled ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... Near the lake there is a stone quarry, and a cavern of some extent, artificially formed, probably, by taking out the stone. Above the shore of the lake, not a great way from Wordsworth's residence, there is a flight of steps hewn in a rock, and ascending to a seat, where a good view of the lake may be attained; and as Wordsworth has doubtless sat there hundreds of times, so did we ascend and sit down and look at the hills and at the flags ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... and the others for two churches, one of which, on the lower level, should serve as a court, with a fairly large portico round it, and the other for a church; planning that from the first one should climb to the second by a most convenient flight of steps, which should wind round the principal chapel, opening out into two parts in order to lead more easily into the second church, to which he gave the form of a [Symbol: T], making it five times as long as it is broad and dividing ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Volume 1, Cimabue to Agnolo Gaddi • Giorgio Vasari
... praise. The mention of this illustrious name, in such a manner, has excited in my mind a particular train of ideas. Let me, therefore, in imagination, conduct you both to yonder dark avenue of trees—and, descending a small flight of steps, near the bottom of which gushes out a salient stream—let us enter a spacious grotto, where every thing is cool and silent; and where small alabaster busts, of the greater number of those bibliographers I am about to mention, decorate the niches on each side of it. ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... said one of the men in German, and pushed Dick down a long flight of steps, leading to a large, electrically lighted dug-out at least twenty-five feet below the ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops - Dick Prescott at Grips with the Boche • H. Irving Hancock
... labours of Leonard and Blaize, who were rolling the casks into the house—having stowed away as many as he conveniently could in the upper part of the premises—he descended to the cellar, and, opening a door at the foot of a flight of steps leading from the yard, called to them to lower the remaining barrels with ropes below. In the hurry, Blaize rolled a cask towards the open door, and in another instant it would have fallen upon the grocer, and perhaps have crushed ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... after leaving Bombay one has continual occasion to remark the extraordinary resources of modern railway engineering. Perhaps the mechanical skill of our time has not achieved any more brilliant illustrations of itself than here occur. For many miles one is literally going up a flight of steps by rail. The word Ghat indeed means the steps leading up from pools or rivers, whose frequent occurrence in India attests the need of easy access to water, arising from the important part which it plays ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... one that was on the far side of the hall and had struck him at first as a movable panel to close up a fire-place; but upon the light cane frame being drawn out it revealed a perpendicular flight of steps, up which the sailor drew himself lightly and ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... centre of this side of the court is a doorway approached by a flight of steps, and, from the passage to which this leads, we enter the Hall. It was built in the first decade of the seventeenth century, and the screen over the entrance with the musicians' gallery behind belongs to ...
— Beautiful Britain—Cambridge • Gordon Home
... the coat-room and came down the short flight of steps that leads to the wide lounge of the restaurant. Ford slightly in advance, searching with his eyes for Mrs Ashton, found her seated alone in the lounge, evidently waiting for him. At the first glance ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... increased vehemence. Sometimes they would seem to recede till they died away in the distance, and then come rushing as if a whole legion of the enemy were close at hand. From the body of the church the crypt is approached by an open passage down a wide flight of steps immediately in front of the high altar, and the walled door, as well as the whole of the crypt, can be distinctly seen from the top of the steps. When the mysterious noises were first heard most of the congregation ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... hunting had been known to gallop down this hill: the extreme of headlong bravado; for if there was any frost it was sure to linger in that shady lane, and a slip of the iron-shod hoof could scarcely fail to result in a broken neck. It was like riding down a long steep flight of steps. ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... 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 on hinges concealed ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... by the Carlton, she turned into Pall Mall, continuing along that thoroughfare without once looking back. Opposite the United Service Club she crossed the road, and passing across the square in front of the Athenaeum, descended the long flight of steps which ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux
... marble court spread before them. A vast canopy roofed it in, and a soft dim light pervaded it. To those who came from the glitter of the ceremonies it brought a sense of coolness and of peace. From the arches a broad flight of steps led downwards to the floor, where water gleamed darkly in a marble basin. Lilies floated upon its surface, and marble paths crossed it to the steps at the far end; and here and there, in its depth, the reflection of a lamp burned steadily. At the far end steps rose ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... reached a sort of landing, when Alan, looking keenly at the rocks, suddenly perceived a narrow opening, almost entirely concealed behind a projecting spur of limestone. Calling to Marjorie, who was in advance of him, and already some way up the last flight of steps, he held his lamp high, and examined the gap ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various |
